Celeste had barely shut her front door before the weight of Landon’s words ca crashing down on her.
Her fingers trembled as they worked the lock, double-checking it out of instinct. The silence of her apartnt felt too still, too loud, like it was holding its breath with her.
She hasn’t been here for weeks now. Dominic arranged the whole place back to its original condition but they haven’t spoken about it for so long now.
Theresa says hi.
She stood in her living room for a full minute, unmoving. Her eyes were wide and fixed on nothing. It wasn’t just the casual venom of Landon’s parting shot.
It was the way he’d said it. He sounded so calm, cold, certain. The way he’d known about the break-in, too, was like he’d been standing in the shadows the entire ti.
But Theresa?
Who was Theresa? And why did she break into her apartnt? Or apparently, send soone else to do it?
Celeste paced the floor like a caged thing. Then she grabbed her laptop.
She started with the basics.
She started with his na.
Dominic Cross. The man she thought she knew, the man who kissed her forehead when she couldn’t sleep and sat silently beside her when words failed. The man who showed her softness in a world that had hardened her. The man who, apparently, had shadows she’d never noticed.
Her search yielded everything it was supposed to. Headlines about his firm. Photographs from galas. Business awards. The occasional quote. She scanned them all, searching for sothing... Anything that connected him to a Theresa.
Nothing.
She narrowed her eyes and typed: "Dominic Cross entanglent."
A few entries down, her heart jolted.
CEO of the multibillion Cross Empire, Dominic Cross, Once engaged to an European Heiress.
Her breath hitched. She clicked the link.
The article was old. It dated seven years ago. It was a short snippet from a gossip blog, the kind that thrived on champagne whispers and blurry photos.
Dominic Cross and Theresa De Luca, daughter of Italian shipping tycoon Carlo De Luca, were reportedly engaged during a private sumr in Positano. The article didn’t have much. The article was just a single photo of them walking side by side on a cobblestone path.
Dominic was in his usual all black attire, his hand ghosting near Theresa’s lower back. And Theresa? Celeste zood in.
She was stunning. Red hair, stormy eyes, and a kind of elegance Celeste could never mimic. European royalty mixed with old money did magic on her. Even in a candid shot, Theresa looked like she belonged on the front of Vogue.
Celeste stared at the photo until her vision blurred.
She clicked away from the gossip site and searched Theresa De Luca next.
Another wave of articles flooded the screen.
Heiress Missing in Amalfi: Italian Authorities Investigating Disappearance of Theresa De Luca.
Celeste’s pulse roared in her ears. The article was six years old. It reported that Theresa had vanished one morning during a family holiday.
The investigation showed no forced entry. No note. Her belongings untouched. No leads. The case, still unsolved, was rumored to have led to major cracks in the De Luca empire. Carlo De Luca had since withdrawn from public life.
No one had seen, or heard from her since then. Not evenN.bers of the family.
No ntion of Dominic in the piece. But Celeste wasn’t an idiot.
Engaged one sumr. Missing the next.
She dug deeper, combing forums, comnt sections, anywhere the mainstream news wouldn’t dare tread. And that’s where she found it.
A comnt buried deep in a Reddit thread titled: Rich People Mysteries That Still Haunt .
"Dominic Cross used to date Theresa De Luca. Rumor has it she vanished after calling off their engagent. Creepy thing is... soone said they saw her with him the night before she disappeared." Celeste read out loud to herself.
The comnt had no replies, nor confirmation. Celeste pushed away from her laptop, and her lungs felt too tight in her chest.
She reached for her phone, thumb hovering over Dominic’s na.
Don’t. Not yet.
She needed more. If this was going where she feared, she couldn’t confront him with half-baked internet gossip.
She texted Amara instead.
Celeste: Do you rember hearing about a woman nad Theresa De Luca?
Amara: That na sounds familiar?? Hold up
A mont passed, and three dots popped up. After that, a ssage ca through from Amara.
Amara: Wasn’t she the one who disappeared? The rich girl?
Celeste: Yeah. That one.
Amara: Why are you asking?
Celeste: Just tell if you ever heard anything about her and Dominic.
Amara: ....You know what, yeah. I did. Once. Ages ago, but I was a teenager then. I was just a simple fan who loved her. I didn’t connect the dots. Soone at that dinner party we went to ntioned it in passing. They said Dominic used to be engaged but "she left him in the worst way."
Celeste: Left him?
Amara: That’s what they said. Honestly, they made it sound like she ghosted him. Weird way to talk about soone who vanished tho.
Amara: I didn’t tell you cause I didn’t think much into it then. Honestly, I’ve also forgotten Theresa ever dated Dominic. I wouldn’t have rembered if you never said it.
Celeste locked her phone. Her palms turned sweaty as she pushed it away from her, with the screen facing down.
She needed air.
She stood by her window, her fingers pressed to the cool glass. Dominic had been engaged. His fiancée had disappeared. And he had never told her. Not once.
She knew he didn’t owe her or anyone stories from his past. But she was sure he knew the gravity of this. Why didn’t he tell her?
Was that why Landon had said what he said? Was he warning her?
Or threatening?
She pulled the photo from the article up again. Dominic and Theresa. Her mind flipped through her own mories, searching for any shadow of that woman around husband house.
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