[COMPLETED] I Served His Engagement Dinner While Hiding What His Fiancée Had Done

For one second, I thought I had misunderstood Daniel.

Then Luca’s face changed.

Not dramatically. He did not shout or slam the phone against the desk. The man who frightened half of Chicago did something far worse: he became completely still.

“Which clinic?”

Daniel gave him the name and an address across the state line.

Luca was already moving before the call ended. He reached for his coat, then stopped when he saw me trying to stand.

“You’re not coming.”

“I know what Bruno looks like when he’s frightened.”

“So do I.”

“And I know what medication he took this morning, because I gave it to him after breakfast.”

His jaw tightened.

My shoulder was wrapped in gauze, and Dr. Harris had told me not to lift anything heavier than a kettle.

But Bruno had been pulled from his bed while I watched.

I could not sit in the mansion and wait to learn whether we had reached him in time.

Luca looked at me for two seconds, made a decision, and handed me his coat.

“Wear this. Daniel is driving.”

We left through the side entrance so the dinner guests would not see us. The mansion glowed behind us, every chandelier still lit, every window reflecting the kind of evening Vanessa had spent months designing. Somewhere inside, twenty-six people were probably wondering where the engaged couple had gone.

Vanessa was not with them.

I realized that when Daniel opened the rear door of the black sedan and Luca asked, “Where is she?”

Daniel hesitated. “Her room. Mrs. Carter says Miss Bellini told the guests you had a family emergency.”

Luca’s expression did not change. “Keep her at the house.”

Daniel glanced at him in the mirror. “Do you want security on the doors?”

“No. I want her to think she still has choices.”

We pulled away.

Luca called the clinic first. A receptionist answered after three rings.

“My name is Luca Moretti. A golden retriever named Bruno was transferred to you tonight under my authorization.”

The woman became cautious immediately. “Sir, I can’t discuss a patient without verifying—”

“You should verify me. Then you should tell the veterinarian not to touch that dog until I arrive.”

There was a pause.

“I’m going to place you on hold.”

Luca closed his eyes.

I could hear the faint instrumental music from the phone between us. My fingers tightened around the blue blanket in my lap. I had brought it without thinking.

A minute passed.

Then another.

Finally, a different voice came on the line.

“This is Dr. Klein. Mr. Moretti?”

“Yes.”

“I’m looking at the intake now. We were told the dog had become aggressive with household staff and that the owner wanted an urgent euthanasia because of a bite incident.”

“He didn’t bite anyone.”

Dr. Klein was silent.

Luca looked at me.

I shook my head again, though he had not asked.

“What time is the procedure?” he said.

“It was moved to tonight, but we have not begun.”

My lungs emptied all at once.

Luca’s hand closed around the edge of the seat.

“You have him?”

“Yes.”

“Alive?”

“Yes, sir.”

That one word changed the air inside the car.

Luca looked out the window and pressed two fingers against his mouth.

Dr. Klein continued, “He was given a mild sedative because he was distressed during transfer, but nothing irreversible has been administered.”

“We’re twenty-eight minutes away.”

“I’ll make sure nothing happens before you arrive.”

When the call ended, I started crying.

The tears came so quickly I had to turn toward the window.

“He’s alive,” Luca said.

I nodded.

“You heard her.”

“I know.”

He looked down at Bruno’s blanket. “Then why are you crying?”

“Because for the last six hours I thought I’d failed him.”

Luca’s expression softened in a way I had never seen at the estate.

“You didn’t.”

I laughed once through my tears. “I opened a gate too late and got thrown into a latch.”

“You stood between an old dog and two people who had more authority in my house than you did.”

“That didn’t stop them.”

“No.” His voice went quiet. “But it gave me something they couldn’t control.”

I looked at him.

“A witness.”

The word should have made me feel safer.

Instead, I remembered Vanessa’s face when she had warned me about my mother.

“What happens when we go back?”

Luca understood what I meant.

“Vanessa will not fire you.”

“She can make things difficult without firing me.”

“She already did.”

“My mother lives alone.”

He turned toward me fully.

“Did Vanessa threaten her?”

The car seemed suddenly too small.

“She said if I talked, I’d be looking for another job. She knows my mother was in the hospital.”

“How?”

“Staff paperwork, I guess. Mrs. Carter knew why I asked for extra shifts.”

Luca looked at Daniel.

Daniel’s eyes met his in the mirror.

“No one touches Emma or her mother,” Luca said.

I stiffened. “Please don’t send men to my mother’s house.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“I mean it. She’ll think I’ve joined a criminal organization.”

Daniel coughed into his fist.

To my surprise, Luca almost smiled.

“Fair point.”

He took out his phone and called Mrs. Carter instead.

“Make sure Emma’s home address is removed from any staff file Vanessa can access. Tonight. And do not contact her mother unless Emma asks.”

He ended the call and looked at me.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

It was.

That mattered.

At the clinic, Dr. Klein met us in a quiet hallway that smelled of disinfectant and warm fur. She was in her fifties, with silver glasses and the practical expression of someone who had learned not to panic just because everyone around her was panicking.

“Mr. Moretti?”

Luca stepped forward.

“Where is he?”

She led us to a treatment room.

Bruno lay on a thick blanket beneath a heat lamp, his golden fur dull with age. An IV line ran into one front leg. His eyes were half closed.

For one horrible second, I thought we were too late.

Then his tail moved.

Once.

Twice.

Luca stopped beside the table.

“Bruno.”

The old dog’s ears shifted.

Luca put a hand against the side of his face. Bruno leaned into it with the weak certainty of someone recognizing home.

I looked away.

Some moments did not belong to witnesses.

Dr. Klein checked the chart. “He’s dehydrated and stressed, but stable. The sedative should wear off in a few hours. I’d like to keep him under observation until morning.”

Luca nodded without taking his hand from Bruno.

“Whatever he needs.”

“There’s another issue.”

He looked at her.

Dr. Klein held up a folder.

“The shelter sent copies of the surrender authorization and the emergency request. Both identify you as the owner. Both have signatures that appear to be yours.”

“They aren’t.”

“I expected you to say that.”

She turned one page toward him.

“At 8:47 p.m., someone called from a number listed as belonging to your household. The caller confirmed the request and asked us to expedite it.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed.

“Which number?”

She pointed.

He stared at it.

I watched recognition move across his face.

“That’s the private line in my study.”

Daniel swore softly.

Luca looked at him.

“No one was in my study tonight except staff?”

“And guests passed the hallway,” Daniel said. “But the office door was locked.”

I thought of Vanessa returning to the mansion after the kennels.

Then I remembered something.

“Mr. Moretti.”

He turned.

“When I brought the bread trays through the west hall before dinner, Vanessa came out of your study.”

Daniel looked at me.

“What time?”

“Maybe eight-thirty. A little later.”

“Did she see you?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

I tried to remember.

“She asked why I was still working after I’d ‘hurt myself on the dog.’”

Dr. Klein’s expression sharpened.

“On the dog?”

I nodded.

Luca looked at the bandage near my collar.

Something shifted in his face.

Until that moment, I think part of him had still been treating the night as a terrible act aimed at Bruno.

Now he understood that my injury had been included in the story before anyone asked how it happened.

Vanessa had not only wanted Bruno gone.

She had prepared an explanation for why.

Daniel’s phone rang.

He stepped into the hallway, answered, and returned less than a minute later.

“Boss, the driver gave us the copy of the transport order. Miss Bellini paid him in cash.”

“Good.”

“There’s more. He says she told him to make sure the shelter recorded the pickup as an emergency removal after an attack.”

Luca looked at me.

I felt the scrape across my back again, as clearly as when I hit the latch.

Dr. Klein closed the folder.

“If you want my medical opinion, Mr. Moretti, this dog shows no behavioral signs that justify the history we were given. He is frightened, old, arthritic, and exhausted. That is not the same thing as dangerous.”

“Can you put that in writing?”

“Yes.”

“Please do.”

Bruno lifted his head an inch.

I moved closer without thinking.

He saw the blue blanket in my hands and gave a faint whine.

I spread it beside him.

His nose pressed against the faded fabric.

Luca watched.

“My mother made that,” he said.

“I know.”

“She hated sewing.”