Chapter 9: The Ballroom Where They Tried to Break Me

The engagement gala was six weeks later, and half of that room came to watch me fail. I heard them. "That's her? The one from Jersey?" "Twenty-six years in a walk-up, darling." "Blood will out. You can dress it up but you can't—" "Finish that sentence," Vittoria Moretti said behind them, "and I'll have your husband's shipping license by Tuesday." They scattered like pigeons. I wore silver. Isabella had it made in Milan, and the seamstress cried when she fit me, and Luna spent the entire...