Chapter 4 - The Dinner Party Trap
For four days, a tense, fragile peace hung over the Moretti estate.
With Isabella absent, the mansion felt entirely different. The dark, imposing hallways seemed lighter, less claustrophobic. With the aid of my walking boot and crutches, I was able to supervise Sofia in the sunroom, helping her with her watercolor paintings while she chatted happily about butterflies and playground games.
Luca was gone during the day, consumed by meetings in Manhattan, but he returned earlier than usual every evening.
He didn't say much. He was a man of few words, built for boardrooms and decisive moves. But every night, without fail, he would step into the sunroom or my quarters for ten minutes. He would ask about Sofia’s day, check the swelling on my ankle with a brief, sharp glance, and ensure I wasn't being overworked.
There was a strange, simmering tension growing between us—an unspoken awareness that had no right to exist between an elite billionaire and his daughter's nanny. Whenever his eyes lingered on mine, my pulse would jump, erratic and wild. I tried to tell myself it was merely gratitude.
I knew better.
The peace shattered on Friday evening.
Isabella returned. And she didn't come alone.
At six o'clock, two black Mercedes limousines pulled up the grand circular driveway. Out stepped Isabella, dressed in a stunning emerald-green cocktail dress, accompanied by her father, Richard Vance—a silver-haired, heavyset titan of industry with calculating eyes—and two prominent socialite board members of the Moretti Holdings conglomerate.
Mrs. Gable rushed upstairs to find me in Sofia’s playroom.
“Isabella has arranged an impromptu dinner party,” Mrs. Gable whispered, her face pale. “She claims it’s to celebrate the closing of the European merger. Mr. Moretti is on his way home from the city now. She’s ordered Sofia to be brought down for dinner.”
I frowned, adjusting the velcro strap on my walking boot. “Sofia usually eats in her room on party nights. Big crowds overwhelm her.”
“Isabella insisted,” Mrs. Gable replied grimly. “She told the staff she wants to showcase the ‘happy family’ to the board members. And Emma... she specifically requested that you attend to assist Sofia at the table.”
My stomach dropped. *She wants me in the dining room.*
It was a setup. I could feel it in my bones. Isabella wasn't the type to tolerate my presence unless she intended to use me as a prop—or a target.
“Get Sofia dressed in her navy velvet dress,” Mrs. Gable sighed. “And keep your guard up.”
By seven-thirty, the grand formal dining room was alight with the glow of crystal chandeliers and the clink of sterling silver against bone china.
Richard Vance sat at the head of the table opposite Luca, who had arrived twenty minutes prior, still clad in his dark work suit. Luca looked exhausted, his expression tight with suppressed irritation at finding an uninvited dinner party occupying his home.
Isabella sat to Luca’s right, playing the radiant, doting hostess.
Sofia sat near the middle of the table, looking small and miserable in her stiff velvet dress, swinging her patent-leather shoes nervously. I stood two paces behind her chair, dressed in my clean nanny uniform, crutches leaning discreetly against the credenza behind me, bearing my weight on my good right leg.
“It’s truly a remarkable merger, Luca,” Richard Vance boomed, slicing into his dry-aged steak with theatrical vigor. “Our combined logistics will dominate the Atlantic corridor. And with the wedding set for spring, the markets will view the consolidation as unbreakable.”
Luca took a slow sip of red wine. “The business side is sound, Richard. The personal timeline remains under review.”
Isabella’s smile stiffened, a flicker of panic darting across her eyes before she smoothly covered it with a laugh.
“Oh, Luca is always so modest,” Isabella chimed in, addressing the two board members. “He’s simply focused on ensuring everything is perfect for Sofia. Speaking of which... Emma, darling?”
I stepped forward, keeping my voice neutral. “Yes, Miss Vance?”
Isabella turned in her seat, gesturing toward Sofia’s plate. “Sofia hasn't touched her roasted asparagus or her duck. As her nanny, surely you know how to encourage a child to eat proper cuisine instead of the chicken nuggets you usually feed her?”
The jab was deliberate, aimed at painting me as incompetent and unrefined in front of the board members.
“Sofia is a bit overwhelmed by the crowd, Miss Vance,” I replied politely. “She prefers simpler meals when she's tired.”
“Nonsense,” Isabella laughed dismissively, turning back to the guests. “Children need discipline, not indulgence. But I suppose we can’t expect high-class nursery standards from someone hired through a general domestic registry. Tell me, Emma... where did you work before this? Wasn't it a daycare in Queens that closed down due to financial mismanagement?”
The table went uncomfortably quiet. The two board members shifted in their seats, sensing the cruel edge beneath her words.
Heat rushed to my ears. “The facility closed due to property redevelopment, Miss Vance. My records are entirely clean.”
“Of course they are,” Isabella sighed pityingly. “Though I hear that when funds are tight, people often look for shortcuts. It’s so sad how economic desperation affects one’s morals.”
“Isabella,” Luca’s voice cut across the table like an axe striking timber.
The room froze.
Luca set his silverware down with deliberate care. The clatter of metal against porcelain sounded like a gunshot in the sudden silence. He leaned back in his leather chair, fixing his fiancée with a gaze so intensely frigid that the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
“If you have concerns about the background checks performed on my domestic staff,” Luca said, his voice dangerously smooth, “you are questioning my private security team. The same team that vetted your father’s logistics infrastructure before I agreed to invest four hundred million dollars.”
Richard Vance cleared his throat uncomfortably, glaring at his daughter. “Now, now, Isabella, let’s not bore our guests with nursery gossip.”
Isabella’s face burned scarlet. She had attempted to humiliate me, but Luca had turned the blade directly back onto her family’s financial standing.
Desperate to reassert control, Isabella reached across the table to grab Sofia’s water glass. “Well, at least let me help Sofia drink her water. She’s spilling it all over her dress.”
“No!” Sofia cried out, shrinking away from Isabella’s manicured hand.
In her haste to avoid Isabella, Sofia’s elbow knocked against the heavy crystal goblet.
The glass tipped, sending eight ounces of ice water cascading straight across Isabella’s emerald-green silk dress.
Isabella let out a shrill, furious shriek, jumping up from the table so violently that her dining chair toppled backward, crashing onto the hardwood.
“You clumsy little brat!” Isabella snapped, her composure entirely shattering into raw, venomous rage.
Sofia burst into terrified, gasping sobs, burying her face against the table.
Before anyone else could react, I ignored the throbbing pain in my ankle, lunged forward, and wrapped my arms around Sofia, pulling her trembling body away from the table and pressing her tightly against my chest.
“It was an accident,” I said fiercely, glaring straight into Isabella’s furious eyes. “Do not scream at her.”
“How dare you!” Isabella hissed, trembling with rage, the silk of her dress clinging wetly to her hip. “Get your hands off her! You’re fired! Do you hear me? You are fired! Get out of this house tonight!”
“She isn't going anywhere.”
The roar did not come from me.
It came from Luca.
He rose from his seat, towering over the table like an impending storm. The sheer, terrifying fury radiating from him made even Richard Vance sink back into his chair.
Luca didn't look at his guests. He didn't look at the spilled water.
His eyes were locked on Isabella, and in them burned a lethal, absolute finality.
“You do not scream at my daughter,” Luca said, his voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register that was infinitely more terrifying than a shout. “Not in this house. Not anywhere on this earth.”
Isabella stammered, realizing the catastrophic line she had just crossed. “Luca, she ruined my dress! She did it on purpose—”
“Leave the table,” Luca commanded.
“What?” Isabella gasped.
“Take your things, and leave my house,” Luca repeated, cold as the grave. “The dinner is over.”
Richard Vance stood up abruptly, his face flushed. “Luca, now wait just a damn minute! You cannot speak to my daughter like this in front of our associates!”
Luca slowly turned his head to look at the older titan.
“Richard,” Luca said softly, “if you say one more word, I will pull my capital from your European ports before the London exchange opens on Monday morning. Try me.”
Silence—total, suffocating, and absolute—swallowed the dining room.
Richard Vance’s mouth snapped shut. He looked at his daughter, then at Luca’s unyielding stance, and slowly lowered his eyes.
Isabella looked around the room, finding zero allies. Tears of pure, humiliated rage spilled over her lashes. With a choked sob, she gathered her damp clutch and fled the dining room, her heels clicking rapidly toward the front doors.
Luca turned toward me.
The terrifying rage in his face seemed to fracture, softening as his gaze fell upon Sofia, who was still trembling in my arms, clutching my nanny uniform like a lifeline.
“Take her upstairs, Emma,” Luca whispered gently.
May you like
I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. Bearing the pain of my sprained foot with every step, I carried his daughter out of the room, leaving the empire builder behind to clean up the ruins of his broken alliance.
***
