Chapter 30: Bleeding Hearts

“This? My best friend bought it for my birthday.” Gianna gripped the pendant.

Ezra shook his head. “Impossible. There’s only one in the world. My mother had it made for me years before she died.”

“Excuse me?” Gianna just met his Mother yesterday.

“Esther?”

Ezra wondered how she knew his step-mother’s name but he was a famous man and she could have read it in the papers.

“No, she’s my Father’s second wife. Before my Father became the powerful man he is today he had my Mother who always stood by him.” Esther was too young to be his Mother anyway.

“Why do you have it Gianna?” he demanded again.

“No, this is a mistake. Sienna gave this to me for my birthday.”

Gianna quickly got dressed composing herself as best as she could.

“It’s even fake.” She unclipped the necklace and gave it to him.

Ezra could recognize this pendant in the dark. He kept it his whole life and it was undeniably the one his mother gave him. He fisted it and shoved it in his pocket.

“How long have you had it?”

“Since February the eighth on my birthday.”

That was the day after he woke up next to Natalie. How had she gotten it would she be so dumb to wear it in front of him if she stole it?

“Where did your friend get it from? This is important Gianna this necklace was stolen from me.”

Her heart slammed forward. “Sienna wouldn’t steal. Neither would I!”

“I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Well you can’t possibly think I took it.” Gianna remembered finding it in her bag. Sienna told her she had a surprise for her and there’s no way Sienna would steal from Ezra. It was impossible. If Sienna didn’t leave it for her then someone must have planted it on her but why?

Natalie’s fouls words about Gianna came crushing back. She accused her of being a social climber and Hanah accused her of stealing. Was this revelation a surprise after all he heard? His head hurt as he thought about being fooled by the woman who invaded his heart.

“What do you want Gianna?”

“Excuse me?” she asked softly.

“What do you want from me?” He demanded. “You want my money? I have plenty of it you should have asked if you needed some.”

“I’m not a beggar. I’ve worked long and hard for what little I have! I don’t wait for people to spoon feed me.”

“You were fired for stealing!”

“Lies.” Tears stung her eyes. “I’ve never taken anything that didn’t belong to me.”

“I have the evidence. What I don’t know is how you stole it from me. Have you pretended to be Natalie before?”

Her throat clogged up and her eyes filled with tears. She could come clean and he could hate her but she would also lose treatment for her Mother and Hanah could have her Mom hurt if she crossed her. She couldn’t defend herself anymore all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and cry. How could she pretend to be Natalie again after this humiliation.

Her foolish heart bled because it was broken. How short her love lasted she felt like a fool.

Gianna picked up her bag. “This was a mistake.”

“The biggest mistake I would ever make. I would have lost everything I’ve spent my life working for because of you. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

Gianna’s lip trembled. She had a lot sitting on her chest and she feared they were words he would never get the chance to say. She opened the office door and walked out. She couldn’t stop the rainstorm of tears and sobs that followed.

“Damn it! What have I done?” Ezra scowled. “Breaking my engagement would raise Dad’s anger. He’s give part of the company to someone else. I’m an idiot.”

He noticed something black and silver and small on the ground. He picked it up. It was a cracked phone with the screen peeling on the sides. He turned it on to reveal a picture of Gianna smiling brightly as the wallpaper. He saw shadows of his fiancée on her face but he knew they were two different people.

Every time he saw Natalie since their engagement he was glimpses of another woman. His mind had been playing tricks on him because his heart was demanding another woman to be in Natalie’s place. Now he realized what a fool he was.

He left the university discreetly. He kept Gianna’s phone and drove to his main office in the heart of town. He had over a hundred employees in his office building and they stirred clear when he arrived in the building.

He summoned Claire to his office when he arrived.

“Where’s the report on Gianna?”

Claire held a thin file to her chest. “They did everything they could but it’s very slim. It’s as if this woman didn’t exist.”

“Thank you Claire,” he dismissed her.

Ezra red Gianna’s birth certificate and realized her Father didn’t sign the document. It only had a mother listed. Strange because Gianna mentioned her parents both worked at the Bentley house and her Dad died not long ago. He wasn’t listed at all in the folder but her Mother’s medical bills were included. The bills had come up to almost two hundred thousand dollars. How could a maid afford that? It was all to suspicious.

She never got a parking ticket, never been arrested she didn’t have social media accounts there was nothing to go on. She was born three months before Natalie something Ezra found curious. Gianna’s file paled in comparison to Natalie’s folder. Natalie had multiple police stops, kicked out of night clubs several times and had several relationships. The Bentley family did their best to hide information but money talked and Ezra’s cash spoke the loudest.

His fiancée’s family had a lot to hide not much his fiancée but his soon to be Father in law was a man of many secrets.