The official story was that Seraphina was resting.
Traveling, technically, for health reasons, a phrase Damian’s PR team had crafted with the precision of people paid to make absence sound like luxury. *Mrs. De Luca is taking time for her wellbeing. The demands of her medical career alongside the transition into the De Luca family have required a period of rest and recovery.* It was issued to exactly three journalists, all of whom were on retainer to frame De Luca stories favorably, and it moved through New York’s upper social circles the way all such announcements did, accepted on the surface, quietly disbelieved underneath, discussed at dinner tables with the particular relish people reserved for a powerful family’s private difficulties.
Nobody asked too many questions. Nobody with sen
