Chapter 2 - Shadows in the SketchbookThree hours earlier, standing in our penthouse master bedroom, I had nearly stayed home.
Our six-year-old son, Eli, had been sitting up in his bed under his dinosaur-printed comforter, blinking sleepily while I stood in the doorway wearing the stunning midnight-blue evening gown Dominic’s personal assistant had dropped off that afternoon.
“Is Dad coming home to get you?” Eli had asked, his big, innocent eyes looking up from his picture book.
I had checked my phone for the hundredth time.
Two unanswered calls to Dominic’s private line.
One short message from me sent an hour prior: Are we still going together?
Dominic had answered forty minutes later with a cold, corporate command: Meet me there.
There was no apology for running late. No happy anniversary greeting. Just an instruction, treating his wife like an employee reporting to a board meeting.
I had stood in front of the walk-in closet for ten full minutes, my hand hovering over the zipper of the gown, seriously considering changing back into my softest cotton pajamas and spending the night reading stories to Eli.
Then I remembered the official program for the gala downstairs.
The event wasn't only celebrating our milestone anniversary as the founding face of the Caruso brand; it was launching the highly anticipated winter bridal collection for Caruso Design Group.
And three specific dresses previewed in the digital lookbook that morning had made my stomach violently churn.
One dress in particular had nearly stopped my breathing when I scrolled past it on my tablet.
A narrow-backed, high-collared wedding gown.
Asymmetrical folded shoulder construction.
A signature ivory seam running continuously from the right collarbone down to the trailing hemline.
I knew every millimeter of that design. I had drawn it four years earlier, late at night while sitting at the small wooden desk in our old apartment, long before Eli started school, and long before Dominic began telling me that going back to professional design could happen “soon.”
I had never shown that sketch to anyone outside our household.
Only one person on earth had ever seen it.
My husband.
I remembered the rainy Tuesday evening years ago when Dominic had walked into our study, kissed my forehead, and held up the sketchbook page.
“This is breathtaking, Nora,” he had whispered, his eyes gleaming with professional appreciation.
I had smiled up at him, full of trust and naive hope. “Do you think there’s a real place for me at Caruso Design one day?”
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“Of course, my love,” he had promised, wrapping his arms around me. “Everything we build is ours.”
And standing in that glittering ballroom five years later, with the metallic taste of blood still warm against my bruised cheek, I suddenly needed to know the terrifying truth. I needed to know what answer Dominic had given me back then—and more importantly, whose name was currently stitched into the label of my stolen dress.
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