Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynne Graham

  “You think love is a weakness to be exploited… You will never be released from this poison. You will never open yourself to love. It’s too late. The poison has already festered inside you for far too long.

  “And while that might have been okay for me, it’s not okay for this child. It’s not okay for Charlie.”

  “So you’re giving up on us again?”

  “No, I’m refusing to accept anything less than what I deserve. I deserve to be with a man who will at least acknowledge that love is important. This child and Charlie deserve to grow up with a father who has the capacity to love them.”

  He reared back, stung. “I will love our child.”

  “Will you? Will you tell him or her about what you did to your brothers? Will you speak about the cousins it has? What is the legacy you’re creating for this child, V? One of love or one of hatred and revenge?”

  “Don’t do this, Alessandra,” he said, and a part of Alex melted at the desperation she heard in his voice.

  She was the one breaking apart and he looked equally ravaged. “So you’re ready to destroy everything you wanted? You’re giving up on Charlie too?”

  “No, I’m not. I will never give up on Charlie. And I will gain custody of him because you will help me do that, V. This relationship is over between us but not in the eyes of the world. Not until I have Charlie, safe with me. You owe me this. I’m hoping you have enough honor left in your body to see that promise through at least.

  “As for raising him alone, I do have a family. Leo and Massimo will support me if I need help. Charlie already has a family that will love him, through me.”

  “And this child? Our child?”

  “I will love our child too. Fiercely. You made me see that.

  “I will take on anyone and anything in the world to protect our baby. Including you. But then, you’re not the kind of man that would separate a mother from her child, are you? I won’t lose sleep over that worry, at least.”

  “You’re walking out on me and yet you still have such faith in me, bella?”

  “I do. Because you’re only punishing yourself, V. I see you watch Leo and Massimo with such an ache in your eyes. You can’t understand the depth of Greta’s love for me. Your support network for close to two decades has been people who were invested in seeing you destroy the Brunettis.

  “You have made an island of yourself.

  “But I can’t bear to see you in pain. I can’t bear to see the loneliness in your eyes, the need for connection. I refuse to stand here and watch it eat away at you, month after month, year after year. I refuse to let the corrosive shadow of your grief and guilt consume me and two more innocent lives.

  “You wanted this empire, V. Well, you got it. But you haven’t got me.”

  Anger raged in his eyes, and a stillness came over him. “At least don’t lie to me that you love me, bella.”

  “I do love you. With all my heart. I truly understand what it means to love someone so much that all you want is their happiness. Their well-being. But it’s not a weakness, V. Despite all the pain in my heart, I can’t call it that.”

  And with that, she walked away from him, head held high. Out of his life.

  Leaving him standing empty-handed on the grounds of the very empire he’d built.

  * * *

  Alessandra’s words haunted Vincenzo as he walked around the hallowed halls of his ancestors, with a bottle of Leonardo’s fine Scotch hanging from his fingers.

  For the first time in his life he was filthy drunk, his self-control shot to hell. Apparently, there were a lot of those happening currently—these first times in his life.

  He walked from room to room—he couldn’t bear to be in the bedroom he had shared with her for more than a few minutes. He walked from the vast kitchen that had rung with laughter only last week when Natalie’s younger brother had visited and Neha had screamed that the babies were playing soccer in her belly to the conservatory, where every piece of silk reminded him of his wife’s skin; to the lounge that housed the ancient piano; to the arched hallway with portraits of his ancestors hanging there, looking down upon him with, it seemed, approval.

  All my life, our father constantly told me that I wasn’t good enough to belong with them. That I would never be good enough. But then it took Natalie to make me see that it was okay to not belong with those monsters.

  Massimo had told him that during one of their midnight chats weeks ago, those long nights where more than once he’d found himself wandering the villa and run into his younger brother doing the same thing.

  Just thinking of the brilliant tech genius as his younger brother, as the man who had Natalie’s hard-won loyalty and love, sat like a boulder in Vincenzo’s throat, jammed in there to force him to acknowledge the connection, the affection he had developed for the irreverent genius, despite himself.

  What did it say that when Vincenzo looked at those same faces of Brunetti ancestors, he saw their approval? Was he truly Silvio Brunetti’s legacy then—a legacy of cruelty and hatred and destruction?

  He had hated this family for so long. He had used that hatred to propel himself to incredible heights. He’d thought there would be victory once he had achieved his ambition, his revenge.

  Suddenly, the consuming force of his life was gone and he felt as empty as this damned house.

  He even walked to the state-of-the-art tech lab that had belonged to Massimo. The underground lab that had once been a wine cellar, Alessandra had told him with a twinkle in her eyes.

  She’d been happy here and he had taken it away.

  He punched in the entry password and walked around the now-empty lab. Then he made the trek to the greenhouse that Leonardo had renovated for himself.

  The greenhouse, he’d learned, had once belonged to Leonardo’s mother. Silvio Brunetti’s first wife—a woman who had run away in the dark of the night, leaving her five-year-old son with the monster, the very monster she had run from.

  The damp air inside the greenhouse was a warm blast against his chilled skin as he walked around, touching the parts here and there, imagining Leonardo and his very pregnant wife, Neha, in here, making plans for their children.

  And now because of him, this was empty too.

  Leonardo had given up ownership of this house, a real estate asset, two centuries of legacy that should have gone to his children, to Vincenzo far too easily.

  He slammed the door of the greenhouse behind him and walked up the pathway back to the house. He had no idea how many times he’d made that trip recently—a sort of pilgrimage from the villa to the laboratory to the greenhouse to the conservatory, and then back around again.

  Everywhere he looked he saw Alessandra laughing, crying, kissing him, teasing Massimo, hugging Leonardo.

  He felt like a forlorn ghost, a cursed specter, haunting these halls, the very hallowed halls he had once wanted to belong to. He had everything he had ever wanted.

  And yet he had lost the one thing he desperately needed. The one thing he couldn’t live without—Alessandra’s love, her laughter, her smiles, her kisses, her tears, her joyful presence.

  He hated admitting it, but there it was.

  All his life he had been alone, so he shouldn’t have minded this so much. But this loneliness was different. This was deeper, harder, felt in a place he hadn’t known existed within him. Felt by a different man. A man who should’ve stopped long ago, but hadn’t because then he’d have had to face what he’d become. How empty he was inside.

  And he stood in that place of emptiness now anyway.

  The sound of footsteps had him prowling into the lounge, his heart thudding so hard in his chest that its beat roared in his ears. Hope oozed out of his every pore, coating him with a layer of desperation so thick and rabid that he couldn’t shake it off. It was unlike anything he’d ever felt, almost felling him to his knees.<
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  The moon outside painted two dark silhouettes through the open archway. He blinked as the crystal chandelier overhead burst into life, throwing dazzlingly painful light over the room. The black-and-white-checkered marble swam in front of his eyes, and he instinctively reached for the grand piano to steady himself.

  He looked up then and cursed out loud.

  Massimo burst out laughing. Leonardo remained serious, but there was a twitch to his mouth that Vincenzo wanted to rip off with his bare hands.

  “What the hell do you two want?” he demanded, straightening.

  “We came to check on you,” Massimo said. He took in Vincenzo’s disheveled state with a distinctly obvious grin. “I have to admit, Leo. I’d hoped to find him like this. This almost makes up for everything he did to us. Almost.”

  Vincenzo let out another curse. “Get out! Get out of my house!”

  Leonardo reached him, a sneer curling his mouth into a twist. And finally, Vincenzo could no longer deny the resemblance between himself and this man… This man who he had no doubt now would have made a spectacular older brother. A role model. A protector. “My wife is about to give birth any moment! To twins, you ungrateful bastard! And here I am in the middle of the night, checking up on you because she asked us to.”

  Massimo laughed again, and both he and Leo cursed him soundly. “Our older brother, as you can tell, is quite nervous. Everything is out of his control with Neha and the babies and it’s driving him crazy. And he’s driving her crazy.” Leo growled. “Which is why she begged me to take him on this midnight run,” Massimo finished. “I left Natalie behind because if she’s here, she won’t let Leo beat some sense into you.”

  Vincenzo rubbed his head, trying to figure out the puzzle of what they meant, who they were talking about. Even the threat of Leo’s fists couldn’t distract him from trying to figure it out. “Wait, who asked you to check up on me? You’re not talking about Neha, are you?”

  “Your bloody wife, who else?” Leo roared. “The woman whose heart you so thoroughly broke. The woman you don’t deserve.”

  “She walked out on me,” Vincenzo offered in a lame, pathetic voice. “And you’re right. I don’t deserve her. Still she gave me a chance to redeem myself. And I destroyed that chance. I…drove her away. I…killed whatever she felt for me with my own hands.”

  Whatever he’d been about to say died on Massimo’s shocked lips.

  His knees finally gave out, and Vincenzo slid to the floor. He buried his head in his hands. Cristo, what had he done? What was this cursed villa, the blasted company, even this world, to him, without her? He looked up, fear unlike anything he’d ever known clamping his belly tight. “I…I won everything and lost everything all in one fell swoop.”

  Both men knelt on either side of him. And he felt shame and vulnerability and something else lodge in his throat, cutting off his breath. “Why are you here after I drove you out of your own home?”

  “We can’t imagine what you’ve endured for so long. What it feels like to see your mother and not have her see you in return. But actions can be rectified, V,” Massimo said kindly, using the abbreviation only she used for him. “You can still prove that Alex’s faith in you was not misplaced.”

  “And because we’ve each been here,” Leo added. “In this place of destruction. Standing on a pile of ashes that we created with our own actions. Not our father’s actions, Vincenzo.” It was the first time Leo had said his name. “Not Greta’s. Ours. You’re the one who’s letting the woman who loves you go.”

  Vincenzo pushed himself off the floor.

  “Go to her, but only if you think you can do right by her. Only if…” Leo’s tone edged into that warning zone again.

  “Alex deserves the best a man can give,” Vincenzo added, and both men nodded.

  “We have to want to be saved. The only hope is that someone we love, who loves us, will stand by us while we do it.”

  She’d been right. So right. Vincenzo hoped with every cell in him that she would still stand by him. That he was worthy of that.

  “Now, I would suggest a grand gesture of some sort,” Massimo added, clapping him on the back.

  Vincenzo rubbed his eyes and stared at the two men whose forgiveness he still needed to beg. But not yet. Not now. “Cristo, if this is the kind of psychobabble that Alessandra thinks I miss out on by not being one of you, then I shall gladly tell her how wrong she is. I…don’t need a couple of Brunetti bastards to tell me I messed up. Royally.”

  “Ha! We came to tell you that you chose a woman who will forgive you almost anything. If you grovel hard enough, V.”

  Leo stood up. “Massimo has enough experience with that if you want some guidance.”

  Vincenzo looked at them. “This is not easy for me. I’ve never asked anyone for anything in my entire life. I have never—” He stopped and swallowed. “Whatever I have to say, she deserves to hear it first.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT WAS PANIC.

  It was sheer, unadulterated panic that sat like a boulder in his chest, that crawled up his throat like nausea at regular intervals, which had made him lose his head. Which had made him chase her halfway around the world—the wrong way.

  Of course, she hadn’t been in New York. Nor in Milan. Nor in Beijing sourcing fabric.

  She was at the place where it had all started. Where, by some stroke of fate, he’d tangled with the woman who would end up becoming his saving grace.

  The lush greenery surrounding the small village of Ubud hit Vincenzo with an onslaught of memories as he walked through the villa they had stayed in the last time to the private beach area behind it.

  He found her sitting on the massive deck, a glass of water on the table next to her and a paperback on her stomach.

  She was sleeping. But not peacefully. Even from the length of the deck, he could see her eyelids fluttering. Her body tensing up.

  Guilt raked its fingers through him.

  He made his way to her softly, loath to disturb her rest. He was about to sit down when she startled awake.

  Her golden-brown eyes found him, only half-awake.

  “Hello, Princess.”

  “V…?”

  She rubbed her eyes, an innocent action that made his chest ache. When she realized he wasn’t a figment of her imagination, she sat up. And her mouth took on the stiff slant he hated.

  “You ran away again, bella,” he said, finding that his voice was scratchy. As if he hadn’t used it in months.

  “But I told you I was leaving this time,” she said in a low voice. Her chin lifted. “What are you doing here, V? I already told you the hearing for Charlie’s custody is in New York in two weeks.”

  “I thought I would accompany you there.”

  “I appreciate the consideration but I don’t need it.” The silence bore down upon them. He saw her swallow, as if she was bracing herself. “This polite courtesy needn’t be extended when it’s just the two of us. Hopefully, it will all be over soon. I’ll get custody of Charlie and we don’t need to see each other again.”

  “Cristo, Alex! Don’t talk to me as if I’m a stranger.”

  “I’m not. I just… I need to be strong. I can’t keep seeing you and stay sane.”

  He nodded, that strange fear swallowing away the one thing he needed to say. Instead he said, “How are you feeling?”

  “Good. I…I have morning sickness, except it’s all the time. Like morning, noon and night. I…but apparently, it’s normal. For some people.”

  “Alessandra—”

  “But I’m lonely, you know.” She rubbed her chest as if she could dislodge that ache. “I miss Greta and Leo and Massimo. And Natalie. And Neha and the babies. Did you know she had the babies?”

  “Si,” he said, smiling despite the pain in his throat. “They are…healthy and thriving. They are naming them
Maya and Matteo. The girl child is especially beautiful, just like her mother—”

  “Wait, you went to see them?”

  “Si. I…I asked Leo if I could and he said yes.”

  Her eyes widened. “Oh.” She looked away, but not before he saw the flash of hope. But when she looked back at him, her eyes were full of a wariness that was like a knife to his chest. “Why?”

  He considered answers and discarded them, incredibly nervous for the first time in his life. “I went because I…I knew you would appreciate hearing firsthand how they’re doing. But I also went—” he swallowed “—because that bastard Massimo told me he was going to be the fun uncle they adored and I couldn’t have that.” The words kept coming like a torrent, unchecked. Unabashed. “But then I also thought of what you said. How they’re my niece and nephew and how they’d be our child’s cousins and I realized that I wanted all that for our child.

  “I don’t want our child to grow up all alone. Like I did.

  “I want him or her to be part of a big family. A clan. A dynasty.”

  Tears poured out of his beautiful wife’s eyes. A sound, like the combination of a sob and a moan, came hurtling out of her mouth. Vincenzo went to his knees in front of her. And buried his face in her belly. “Ti amo, Alessandra. With all my heart. Without you, there’s nothing in my world, cara.”

  “V, if this is a game again—”

  “It is not, bella. I don’t think it ever was a game to me. You felled me from the first moment I met you, Princess. I just didn’t realize exactly what that meant to me all this time.”

  He raised his head, his breath suspended at the love he saw blazing in her eyes. It was almost unbearable, the strength and depth of emotion she clearly felt for him. It shook him to his core that there might come a day when she wouldn’t look at him like that. That she might leave again, another day.

  But he couldn’t think like that. He couldn’t doubt her love or his. He couldn’t keep looking at his past actions and ruin his future.