Alessandro's marriage was dying in the same penthouse where his relationship with Sienna had ended.
Different penthouse, same outcome. Funny how that worked.
He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Tribeca apartment he shared with Vanessa, watching the sunrise paint the Hudson River in shades of amber and rose, and tried to remember the last time he'd felt anything other than numb.
Three weeks since the gallery opening. Three weeks of Vanessa's cold silence punctuated by cutting remarks. Three weeks of sleeping in separate bedrooms and eating separate meals and living separate lives under the same expensive roof.
Marriage, Castellano style.
His phone sat on the marble counter behind him, screen dark. No messages from Sienna. She hadn't responded to any of his texts since the gallery. Not the apology. Not the "I just want to talk." Not even the drunk message he'd sent at midnight last Thursday that simply said: I miss you.
Read. Not answered.
At least she was still reading them. That meant something, right?
"You look pathetic."
Alessandro turned to find Vanessa standing in the doorway of the kitchen, already dressed for the day in a cream silk blouse and tailored pants. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, makeup flawless, expression glacial. It was eight in the morning, and she looked like she was ready to chair a board meeting or destroy someone's reputation. Possibly both.
"Good morning to you too," Alessandro said.
"Is it?" She poured herself coffee from the pot he'd made—one of the few domestic tasks he still performed, mostly because Vanessa's coffee tasted like expensive disappointment. "I wouldn't know. You've been standing at that window for an hour staring into the middle distance like a character in a bad romance novel."
"I'm thinking."
"About her." Not a question.
Alessandro didn't answer. What was the point? Vanessa knew. She'd always known.
"I met with Sienna Morales yesterday," Vanessa said casually, like she was mentioning the weather. "Lovely girl. Much prettier in person than in the photos I've seen."
Alessandro's blood turned to ice. "You what?"
"Had coffee with your ex-mistress. We had a delightful chat about marketing strategy and career ambitions and what it's like to be the woman a Castellano man keeps hidden." Vanessa sipped her coffee, eyes never leaving his face. "She's quite accomplished now, you know. Senior strategist at Sterling & Cross. Impressive, considering she was serving champagne at charity galas three years ago."
"Why would you—" Alessandro's hands clenched into fists. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I was thinking I deserved to meet the woman my husband has been pining over for six months. The woman who's apparently so special she's made you completely useless as a spouse." Vanessa set down her coffee cup with deliberate care. "Did you know we're the subject of gossip, Alessandro? The Castellano marriage that's already falling apart. People are taking bets on how long we'll last."
"Who cares what people think?"
"I do. Unlike you, I actually value my reputation." She crossed her arms. "Your mother called yesterday. Again. Asking why we haven't been to Sunday dinner in weeks. Asking if everything's alright. Asking, in that passive-aggressive way of hers, if maybe forcing you to marry me was a mistake."
"My mother didn't force—"
"Please." Vanessa laughed, sharp and bitter. "We both know exactly how this marriage happened. Your father wanted the Whitmore connections. My father wanted the Castellano prestige. We were matched like expensive show dogs, and we both agreed because it made sense for business."
She wasn't wrong. Alessandro had proposed to Vanessa in a restaurant, ring already picked out by his mother, speech rehearsed. Vanessa had said yes while checking her phone, barely looking at the diamond. They'd both known what they were getting into.
Or so he'd thought.
"I didn't think it would be like this," Alessandro said quietly.
"Like what? Miserable? Hollow? Two strangers sharing an apartment and nothing else?" Vanessa's voice cracked slightly. "Welcome to arranged marriage, Alessandro. This is what it looks like when you choose duty over actual feeling."
"You didn't want feelings either. You said love was for people who couldn't afford better."
"I know what I said." She turned away, stared out the window at the same view he'd been watching. "But I'm starting to think I was wrong. Or at least, I was wrong about being okay with this."
Something in her tone made Alessandro actually look at her—really look, not just see the ice-princess wife he'd stopped noticing months ago. Her shoulders were tense. Her jaw was tight. And unless he was mistaken, her eyes were a little too bright.
"Vanessa—"
"I saw someone yesterday," she said abruptly. "At the coffee shop with Sienna. An old friend from college. Claire Henderson."
Alessandro vaguely remembered the name. Someone from Vanessa's Vassar days, maybe?
"We talked after Sienna left," Vanessa continued. "Really talked, for the first time in years. And do you know what I realized?" She finally turned to face him. "I'm thirty-one years old. I've spent my entire life doing what was expected of me. The right schools. The right friends. The right marriage. And I've never once asked myself what I actually want."
"What do you want?"
"I don't know." Her laugh was hollow. "Isn't that pathetic? I don't even know. But I know it's not this. Not a husband who's in love with someone else. Not a marriage that's just a business arrangement. Not..." She trailed off, seemed to catch herself.
"Not what?"
"Nothing. It doesn't matter." She straightened, the vulnerability disappearing behind her usual mask of cool competence. "The point is, Alessandro, we need to make a decision. Either we actually try to make this marriage work—and I mean really try, not just coexist in expensive real estate—or we end it."
"Your father would never agree to a divorce."
"I don't care what my father agrees to anymore." Her voice was steel. "I care about not wasting my life in a marriage that makes us both miserable. So you need to decide. Do you want to be married to me, or do you want to chase after Sienna Morales?"
"It's not that simple."
"It's exactly that simple. You're just too much of a coward to choose."
The words hit like a slap. Because she was right. He'd spent his entire life avoiding real choices—keeping Sienna as a mistress so he wouldn't have to disappoint his family, marrying Vanessa so he wouldn't have to disappoint his father, existing in this gray area where he could have everything without committing to anything.
And it had cost him the one person who'd actually mattered.
"I loved her," Alessandro said. The past tense felt wrong in his mouth. "I still do."
"I know."
"But I married you."
"Yes, you did." Vanessa's expression was unreadable. "And now you need to decide if that was the biggest mistake of your life or if you're going to make it mean something."
She left the kitchen before he could respond, her footsteps silent on the hardwood floors. A minute later, he heard the front door close. Going to work, probably. Or to the gym. Or anywhere that wasn't here with him.
Alessandro pulled out his phone, looked at his message thread with Sienna. Still nothing. Just his increasingly desperate texts and her stubborn silence.
He should let her go. Should focus on his marriage, on trying to build something real with Vanessa. Should stop obsessing over a woman who'd made it very clear she wanted nothing to do with him.
Instead, he opened his contacts, found Richard's number. His lawyer, the one he'd hired to dig into Dante Moretti.
"Richard. What've you got for me?"
"Alessandro, I really think you should reconsider this—"
"What. Do. You. Have."
A sigh. Then: "Moretti Industries is in preliminary talks with a Chinese investment firm. Big money. If the deal goes through, they'll have the capital to outbid you on every major development project in the city for the next five years."
Alessandro's grip tightened on his phone. "How preliminary?"
"Very. Initial conversations. But Moretti's making the right moves. He's cleaned up his image, got positive press coverage, community support. He's positioned himself as the 'good guy' developer while you're seen as the corporate raider."
"I'm not a corporate raider."
"You sabotaged his deal with the Chen Group five years ago. You've blocked his permits. You've undercut his bids." Richard's voice was flat. "From the outside looking in, Alessandro, you kind of are the bad guy in this story."
"He's dating my ex-girlfriend."
"Ex-mistress, technically. And given that you're married, I'm not sure you have moral high ground here."
Alessandro hung up, resisted the urge to throw his phone across the room. Vanessa was right—he was pathetic. Standing in his expensive penthouse, married to a woman he didn't love, obsessing over a woman who'd moved on with his business rival.
This was his life. This was what happened when you tried to have everything and ended up with nothing that mattered.
His phone buzzed. For one hopeful second, he thought it might be Sienna.
It was his mother.
"Alessandro, we need to talk. Come to the house tonight. Your father's not well. Bring Vanessa."
Perfect. His father wasn't well, which probably meant another lecture about legacy and duty and living up to the Castellano name. And he was supposed to bring Vanessa, who'd just told him their marriage was a sham and demanded he make a choice.
He texted back: "What time?"
"Seven. Don't be late. And Alessandro? Whatever's going on with you and Vanessa, fix it. Your father's already stressed enough."
Alessandro laughed bitterly at his phone. Fix it. Sure. He'd just fix his entire life in the next nine hours. No problem.
He showered, dressed, went to his office. Tried to work. Spent most of the day staring at architectural plans without seeing them, his mind churning through the conversation with Vanessa.
Either we actually try to make this marriage work, or we end it.
The rational choice was obvious. Make it work. Honor his commitments. Be the man his father raised him to be.
But every time he tried to imagine a future with Vanessa—Sunday dinners and charity galas and a lifetime of polite distance—all he could see was Sienna. In that red dress at the gallery. Laughing with Dante Moretti. Looking happier than she'd ever looked with him.
At six-thirty, he left the office. Vanessa was already in the car when he got downstairs, staring at her phone with the intensity of someone trying to avoid conversation.
"We don't have to do this," Alessandro said as his driver pulled into traffic. "I can tell them you're sick."
"And give your mother more ammunition about our failing marriage? No thank you." Vanessa didn't look up from her phone. "We'll go, we'll smile, we'll pretend we're happy. We're both very good at pretending."
The drive to Greenwich took an hour in traffic. They didn't speak the entire time. When they finally pulled up to the Castellano estate, Vanessa took a deep breath, arranged her face into a pleasant smile, and stepped out of the car like she was walking into a board meeting.
Alessandro followed, feeling like he was walking toward his own execution.
His mother met them at the door, all nervous energy and forced cheerfulness. "Alessandro, Vanessa, thank you for coming. Your father's in the study. He's having one of his episodes."
"Episodes?" Alessandro's stomach dropped. "What kind of episodes?"
"Chest pain. The doctor says it's angina, nothing serious, but I'm worried." His mother twisted her hands together. "He's been so stressed lately. The business, the market, and..." She looked at Alessandro meaningfully. "Other things."
Great. So his father's health problems were somehow his fault too.
They found Carlo Castellano in his study, sitting in his leather chair with a glass of scotch and an expression that would've made lesser men flee. Even at sixty-eight with a heart condition, Carlo was formidable—all white hair and sharp eyes and the kind of presence that filled a room.
"Alessandro. Vanessa." He gestured to the chairs across from his desk. "Sit."
They sat.
Carlo studied them for a long moment, gaze moving between Alessandro's tense shoulders and Vanessa's perfect posture. "You look miserable."
"Father—"
"Both of you. You look absolutely miserable." Carlo leaned back in his chair. "I've been married to your mother for forty years, Alessandro. I know what a real marriage looks like. This?" He gestured between them. "This is not it."
"We're working through some adjustments," Vanessa said smoothly. "All new marriages have growing pains."
"You've been married four months and you're already sleeping in separate bedrooms."
Alessandro's head snapped up. "How did you—"
"Your mother talks to the staff. The staff talks to our staff. Nothing stays secret for long." Carlo's expression was grim. "So here's what's going to happen. You're going to tell me what's really going on, or I'm going to assume the worst and act accordingly."
Silence.
Then Vanessa, surprising them both: "He's in love with someone else. Has been for years. I knew when I married him. I thought I could live with it. I can't."
Carlo's eyes went to Alessandro. "Is this true?"
Alessandro could lie. Could make excuses. Could blame Vanessa or timing or anything except himself.
Instead, he said: "Yes."
"Who?"
"Does it matter?"
"It matters to me." Carlo's voice was dangerous. "I arranged this marriage to secure our family's future. If you've been unfaithful—"
"He hasn't," Vanessa cut in. "Not technically. He ended things with her before the wedding. He's just been..." She glanced at Alessandro. "Mourning. Publicly."
"Christ, Alessandro." Carlo rubbed his face, suddenly looking all of his sixty-eight years. "Do you have any idea what you've done? The Whitmore alliance is crucial to our expansion plans. If this marriage falls apart—"
"Then it falls apart." The words came out before Alessandro could stop them. "I'm sorry, Father. But I can't do this anymore. I can't pretend to be happy in a marriage that makes both of us miserable just to preserve some business alliance."
"You don't have a choice."
"I do. And I'm making it." Alessandro stood. "I'm filing for divorce. I should've done it months ago. I should've never married Vanessa in the first place."
Vanessa stood as well, surprisingly calm. "He's right. We should end this before we destroy each other completely."
Carlo stared at them like they'd both lost their minds. "You realize what this will do to our reputation? To the business? To everything I've built?"
"I don't care anymore." And Alessandro realized, saying it, that it was true. "I've spent my entire life doing what you wanted. Marrying who you wanted. Building what you wanted. And I've been miserable every single day. So no. I don't care about the reputation or the business or the legacy. I care about not wasting the rest of my life in a marriage that was doomed from the start."
"This is about her, isn't it?" Carlo's voice was sharp. "The mistress. The one you kept hidden for three years. You want to throw away everything for some girl who probably doesn't even want you anymore."
"Her name is Sienna. And you're right—she probably doesn't want me. But that doesn't change the fact that I can't stay married to Vanessa while I'm in love with someone else. It's not fair to anyone."
"Life isn't fair. You made a commitment. You honor it."
"Like you honored yours?" The question came from behind them.
They all turned to find Maria Castellano standing in the doorway, looking at her husband with an expression Alessandro had never seen before. Something between anger and sadness and a bitter kind of triumph.
"Maria—" Carlo started.
"No. You don't get to lecture our son about honoring commitments." Maria walked into the study, stopped beside Alessandro. "Not when you've been dishonoring yours for thirty years."
The room went silent.
"What are you talking about?" Alessandro asked.
Maria looked at her husband. "Tell him. Tell him about Elena. About your son."
Carlo's face went white.
And Alessandro's entire world shifted.