After Rebirth, I Became My Ex's Aunt-in-Law

Il Cigno was arguably the most exclusive, pretentiously authentic Italian restaurant in Manhattan. The lighting was impossibly dim, the pasta was handmade by a chef flown in from Tuscany, and securing a reservation required either a Michelin star of your own or a net worth that ended in a ’B’.

Diana Sinclair was currently radiating smug satisfaction.

She sat at the best table in the house, a secluded corner booth overlooking the main dining floor. The maître d’ had bowed so low his forehead almost touched his knees before he helped navigate her wheelchair to the table.

She was draped in a fresh cashmere shawl, sipping a glass of Barolo, absolutely loving the envious, awe-struck glances being cast her way by the other elite patrons.

She was being escorted by the Damien Sinclair after all.

”It has been so long since we sat down together like this,” Diana sighed happily, swirling her wine. ”Just the two of us.”

Damien didn’t say a word.

He offered a low, noncommittal hum that barely sounded in his throat.

He was sitting directly across from her, his untouched plate of expensive carbonara steaming between them. One of his hands was resting casually on his silver fork. His other hand was beneath the edge of the table, holding his phone.

His eyes were entirely, obsessively glued to the screen.

He had the ’Find My’ app open, tracking a single, tiny pink heart emoji as it inched its way down the digital map of the Manhattan grid.

He had assigned Richard and an armed convoy to transport Aria, but he fundamentally did not trust anyone but himself with his wife’s safety. His chest was tight, his jaw clenched, and he refused to breathe properly until the little pink heart stopped moving.

Finally, the pink heart locked into place directly over the coordinates of the hotel he had arranged.

A second later, a text from Richard popped down from the top of the screen: Mrs. Sinclair arrived safely.

Damien let out a slow exhale. He leaned back against the plush leather booth, his thumb swiping over to his iMessage thread with Aria.

Diana’s smile began to curdle.

She frowned, setting her wine glass down with a sharp clink. ”Damien, you’ve been staring at that screen since we sat down. Can you look at me for one second? At least while I’m talking to you?”

Damien didn’t even lift his head.

”I use my ears to hear, Diana,” Damien stated, his voice flat. ”Not my eyes.”

Diana opened her mouth, highly offended, but she was interrupted by a soft ding from Damien’s phone.

Aria had just sent a message.

Damien tapped the notification. It was a photo.

Aria had taken a mirror selfie from inside the hotel suite. She was still wearing her disguise. Her head and lower face were tightly wrapped in thick white medical gauze, leaving only her nose and the oversized Celine sunglasses visible beneath the ridiculous, floppy straw hat.

The caption read: Just unwrapped myself from the tomb. Send snacks.

A sudden, sharp huff of amusement escaped Damien’s lips.

A small, warm smile curved the corners of his mouth. He looked at her ridiculous outfit, his heart squeezing with an overwhelming amount of affection.

Diana stared at her brother’s face.

”What are you smiling at?” she demanded, her voice sharp with suspicion.

The smile vanished.

Damien slowly looked up, his golden eyes icing over instantly as they locked onto his sister.

”I am twenty-nine years old, Diana,” Damien said. ”I will be thirty soon. Despite what you seem to believe, I am old enough to have privacy.”

The tension at the table thickened tenfold.

Diana swallowed hard, shrinking back slightly. She looked around the restaurant. People were still staring, but now, the awe had morphed into judgment. She could feel the pitying stares.

She knew exactly who he was texting.

It was that mistress.

The woman from his bed.

A very specific sub-clause in the contract she had signed dictated that she was absolutely forbidden from mentioning the ”mistress” in public. She had to bite her tongue.

But she knew exactly how to get his attention. She knew the one name that would shake his composure and remind him of the caliber of woman he should be obsessing over.

Diana cleared her throat, picking up her room-temperature water and taking a slow, calculated sip.

”I heard Vittoria Rossi is in New York,” Diana announced, her eyes locked onto his face, waiting for the impact.

Damien was currently typing: ’I’ll bring whatever you want. Lock the door. Don’t leave the suite.’

”Oh,” Damien muttered absently.

Diana stared at him. ”Oh?”

”Hmm,” Damien hummed, a small smile returning to his lips as Aria immediately texted back a string of emojis. He completely abandoned his cooling pasta, shifting his weight to get more comfortable as he flirted with his wife over text.

Diana’s hand tightened around her fork until her knuckles turned stark white.

She was expecting a reaction. A flinch. A spark of old longing. ’Oh’ was not the response you gave when someone mentioned an ex.

Diana took a few rapid, aggressive bites of her food, the silence driving her insane.

”I only thought of her because we’re in an Italian restaurant,” Diana lied, desperate to force the conversation. ”She was the first woman you ever introduced to me, Damien. I really liked her. She was... sophisticated. She had breeding.”

Damien didn’t stop typing.

”I just can’t understand your type at all,” Diana continued, her voice rising in pitch as her frustration boiled over. She threw her fork down. ”How do you go from an Italian goddess who was perfect for you in every way to... to a young, up-and-coming actress who dated your nephew?”

Damien’s thumb hovered over his screen.

She hated to admit it, even to herself, but Aria sort of had a pretty face and maybe the body of Britney Spears in her prime. But she was too young! There was a ten-year age gap! She was entirely inappropriate for the head of the Sinclair family.

Not that Aria mattered anymore anyway. The girl was basically dead. It was the mistress that was now in Diana’s way. She just needed to track the mystery woman down and get rid of her.

There was one thing Diana had been dying to ask Damien for years, but had always been too afraid to pry into. Tonight, the wine and the disrespect had stripped away her filter.

”Why did you and Vittoria break up?” Diana demanded.

Damien finally looked up from his phone.

”Why are you concerning yourself with something that happened many years ago?” Damien asked, his voice laced with slight irritation and boredom.

”I’m only curious!” Diana responded defensively. ”She was brilliant. Why did you let her go?”

”She wasn’t my type,” Damien stated flatly.

There was much more to the story than that, but he wasn’t about to waste his breath explaining himself to a woman who refused to understand him.

Diana stared at him. The casual rejection of the woman she had idolized as the perfect match for her brother finally snapped her remaining sanity.

She lost her mind.

”Not your type?!” Diana shrieked, no longer caring about the volume of her voice or the people staring from the adjacent tables. ”Vittoria Rossi wasn’t your type?! But a twenty-year-old actress with a D-list background is?!”

Damien’s jaw locked.

”A gold-digging little slut who bounced straight from my son’s bed into yours?” Diana spat, her face contorting with ugly, classist rage, dropping every ounce of her refined, high-society elegance to hurl the worst, most degrading slurs she could think of across the table.

”A cheap, desperate little whore who opened her legs for the Sinclair name? Is that your type?!”