Chapter 66: Mrs. Moretti

Scarlett did not change her name immediately.

The internet considered this a crisis.

Some claimed she insulted Alexander. Others said she was rejecting the Moretti empire. A few praised her independence as if marriage had turned her into a political statement instead of a woman deciding what to write on legal documents.

At breakfast, Scarlett read comments aloud until Alexander took her phone.

'Enough.'

'One person says you look heartbroken.'

He sipped coffee. 'I am devastated.'

'You do hide it bravely.'

'Years of training.'

They settled into married life with surprising ease. Not because their lives were simple, but because they had already survived the hardest truths before making vows.

Some mornings, Scarlett worked from Whitmore Industries while Alexander handled Moretti affairs across the city. Some nights, they returned separately to Moretti House and found each other in the kitchen at midnight, both exhausted, both hungry, both unwilling to let assistants prepare food.

Alexander cooked badly.

Scarlett found this deeply comforting.

One evening, she watched him burn toast and said, 'The feared Godfather of New York cannot operate a toaster.'

'The toaster has no respect for hierarchy.'

Marriage did not soften Alexander to the world. It softened the rooms he shared with her.

He still moved like danger in public. He still silenced boardrooms with a look. But with Scarlett, he learned the language of ordinary tenderness: bringing tea without being asked, placing her cane within reach, listening when she needed anger more than solutions.

Scarlett learned too.

She learned that independence did not require refusing help. She learned that love could be strong enough to hear no. She learned that her chair, her cane, and her steps were all part of her life, not symbols for the world to interpret.

Three months after the wedding, she signed her name on the Isabella Whitmore Center's expansion papers.

Scarlett Whitmore-Moretti.

Alexander noticed immediately.

His eyes lifted from the document to her face.

'Are you sure?'

Scarlett smiled. 'I am not giving up Whitmore. I am adding Moretti.'

His expression changed, struck quiet by joy.

'You honor me,' he said.

'Do not get dramatic.'

He leaned down and kissed her.

'Too late, Mrs. Whitmore-Moretti.'