"His Fiancée Announced She Was Pregnant—Then the Maid's 3-Year-Old Exposed the Lie That Destroyed Everything" ⭐

By noon, the story had detonated across every major news network.

THE KING’S NEW QUEEN? MORETTI DITCHES COLE HEIRESS FOR MYSTERY WOMAN.

I sat in the center of the master suite while a team of stylists, NDAs already signed, swarmed around me. They scrubbed the smell of industrial bleach from my hands, painted my nails a demure, expensive neutral, and tamed my messy bun into a sleek, polished blowout.

Alessandro had ordered my entire wardrobe replaced. The cheap cotton and polyester were gone, replaced by Tom Ford silk blouses, Chanel tailored skirts, and Louboutin heels. I looked in the floor-to-ceiling mirror and didn't recognize the woman staring back. She didn't look like a maid from Queens. She looked like a weapon.

"You look..."

I turned. Alessandro was standing in the doorway, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that made him look like a reigning monarch. His eyes swept over me, lingering on the curve of my waist and the exposed line of my neck. A flicker of something primal and unscripted crossed his face before he locked it down.

"...ready," he finished, his voice slightly hoarse.

"I feel like a fraud," I admitted, gripping the edge of the vanity. "I don't know how to act in your world, Alessandro. What if I say the wrong thing? What if someone asks about my past?"

He closed the distance between us, his presence overwhelming the large room.

"You don't apologize. You don't explain," he instructed, his eyes burning into mine. "In my world, power isn't about pedigree. It's about presence. If they look down on you, you look right through them. You are carrying my grandmother's ring. That makes you royalty. Act like it."

He offered me his arm. "Tonight is the annual Vanguard Charity Gala. Richard Cole is on the board. He’ll be there to do damage control. We are going to walk in, smile for the cameras, and let him know that he missed."

"And Emma?"