by Dani Collins
“Don’t you pin that on me. If you had backed me up when you had the chance, I might have made other choices, but you didn’t. I had every right to walk away. I had to,” Val bit out in a graveled, bitter tone. “You know I did.”
“How the hell was I supposed to—” Javiero’s enraged face blanked.
The air changed and Val’s emanation of fury seemed to flip on itself, turning into a shield of wariness. All his defenses had come down like a wall, one that slammed his expression blank. One that pushed both of them to some perimeter where they couldn’t touch him.
She looked to Javiero for a clue. He had gone ghostly gray beneath his naturally swarthy skin. The fading pink scratches on his face stood out as bright and angry as they’d been the day Kiara had seen him at the hospital.
“That was real?” Javiero asked in a rasp.
* * *
If Kiara hadn’t been tunneling her way around the door to his vault all these weeks, it wouldn’t have snapped open the way it had. Suddenly, there was Javiero, his worst enemy, staring in shock at Val’s deepest shame.
Somehow, when Val had believed that Javiero knew the truth all along, and had preferred to beat him with it, he had been able to bear it far more easily than seeing horror and something like compunction dawn on his half brother’s face.
The naked boy in him shrank but had nowhere to hide. And when Kiara touched him and said, “Val?” she might as well have branded him. Amputated his arm. Torn him asunder.
Anger at being disbelieved had always been his sword. Without that bitter resentment to deflect the world, he had to snatch up other excuses to lash out, otherwise shame would settle on him and smother him to death.
“You said he wouldn’t be here,” he said, rounding on Kiara. “If you’re not in the helicopter by the time I get there, you’re not coming.”
“Val!” She trotted after him as he strode away. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything. Do you understand that?”
She backed up a step, her fear of him so tangible he tasted its coppery flavor on his tongue.
He hated himself then. Hated the poison in him that festered to this day. Hated what he was and that he hadn’t been able to stop turning into this.
“You’ve made your choice, Kiara,” he said with a chuck of his chin toward the villa and Javiero and Niko’s haunting presence.
“That’s not true,” she said, hand coming up, but she stopped short of trying to touch him again. “I choose you, Val. Always. I love you.”
He couldn’t bear to look at her then. She couldn’t love him. Couldn’t. Not if she knew.
“Love is a lie, Kiara. It’s something people say to get what they want. My lawyers will be in touch about visitation.”
He walked away.
CHAPTER EIGHT
KIARA WAS GUTTED. Lawyers?
Her love wasn’t a lie. It was as vast as the horizon. As wide as the sky Val rose into the air seconds later, while she stood there paralyzed by agony, emotions filleted by the punishing blades of the helicopter.
Her love wasn’t something he wanted, though. She wasn’t, either.
A scuff behind her had her flinging around. Javiero was starting toward the terrace and Scarlett was disappearing into the house.
“Javiero,” Kiara said through a raw throat. “You have to tell me.”
He paused and cast her a glance of angry distraction. She saw the struggle in him as he wanted to follow Scarlett, but at the last second he relented. He ran his hand down his face.
“I don’t even know what to make of it.” He looked to where the helicopter had become a speck in the sky.
“Of what? I love him. He’s hurting. He’s been hurting for decades. What happened?”
He flinched and the weight of guilt seemed to slump his shoulders.
“There was a teacher. A woman. Yes,” he said as her eyes widened. “You have to remember how Val looked at thirteen. The image he projected. That’s not blame,” he hurried to add, lifting a hand to keep her from interrupting. “I’m just trying to explain how a woman three times his age might have seen a young man, not a boy. Not that it excuses her behavior.”
Kiara covered her mouth and shook her head, certain she didn’t want to hear the rest, but for Val’s sake she had to.
“I don’t know much, only rumors. I thought—” Remorse dug deeper lines into his disfigured face. “As a man, I can see how wrong it was. If the roles had been reversed, there would be no question that a man chasing a young girl was utterly disgusting. Deeply unequal. At the time, given our age, our history... I’m ashamed to say I thought that his getting with a teacher sounded like something he would do. He was always very confident, Kiara. I didn’t become this obdurate by being pitted against a pushover. Until a minute ago, it didn’t fit in my head that something like that would be anything but his choice.”
“Well, you were wrong,” she said with subdued outrage, heart aching for Val. “Is that what you told Niko? Is that why Val thinks you didn’t back him up when he needed you to?”
Javiero made a helpless gesture with his hand.
“Dad asked me whether anything was going on between them. I told him the truth, that I hadn’t seen anything, only heard other boys tease him because she flirted openly with him in class.”
“What did Niko do? Anything?” she asked desperately.
Javiero drew a deep, pained breath. “He said, ‘Well, I guess your brother is a man now. When will you become one?’”
She rocked on her feet. Why did that surprise her after all she’d heard about the old man?
“That’s disgusting,” she choked. “You’re saying he believed it happened, he just didn’t believe it was wrong? Did he try to put a stop to it?”
“She continued to teach after Val had been expelled so I don’t imagine he said a word to anyone about it.”
I had every right to walk away.
“I have to go home,” she said, mind skipping over the things she still needed to pack, but all she really needed was to collect their daughter and hurry to Val’s side.
No wonder he had struggled to forgive her for relying on his father. She could barely stand herself right now.
Her heart skidded into the dirt as she recalled why she was here, though.
“Javiero, we need to talk about Scarlett.”
He paused with one foot on the steps to the terrace and cast her another impatient look.
“She doesn’t want to get married, I know,” he said through his teeth. “But they’re coming home with me.”
“It’s not about that. She needs a doctor.”
* * *
Val had no one left to hate. No one left to punish.
Even his mother failed him in his time of need. She called while he was pretending to work in London, where he had told his PA not to disturb him so he could glower broodingly at the pouring rain beyond his skyscraper window.
Evelina, being Evelina, talked the young woman into risking her job and putting the call through.
He wouldn’t have picked up, he realized as he heard her voice, but he had expected a different one. Had wanted to hear a different one. He longed for Kiara’s lilting intonation, even if she was calling to tell him their marriage was over.
“Your wife is wondering where you are,” Evelina stated.
“Then give her this number.”
“She seems a soft touch where you’re concerned. I’m better versed in handling you when you’re in one of your moods.”
“Mmm, no one could accuse you of possessing an ounce of tenderness, could they?”
“Take your shots, Val. You always will, but are you really going to throw away a marriage that has every chance of long-term success?”
He snorted. “Hang on to Dad’s money is what you’re sa
ying. And don’t kick her out because she’ll kick you out.”
“I’m saying she’s a surprisingly laudable addition to our family. Who knew she possessed such talent?”
“I did. I knew,” he couldn’t help asserting.
“And she’s not forever seeking the front page with a fresh part in her hair the way what’s-her-name was given to doing.” Read: Kiara posed little threat to Evelina’s ability to garner attention.
“What do you want, Mother?” he asked wearily.
“I want you to go home to your wife, of course.”
He wanted that, too. It was an ache he couldn’t seem to quash, but he didn’t know how to face her.
“She’s not home. She’s on the island.”
“She’s at your villa,” she informed as if he ought to know that. “Has been for days, awaiting your return like a stalwart shepherd.”
“Do not refer to her like that again or I will cut you off completely.”
“I only meant she is blind to your faults and far more patient with your petty behavior than you deserve.”
His chest was tightening as he thought of her in their bed. Something that might have been homesickness washed over him.
“Val, it’s time we put the past behind us,” Evelina said firmly.
“Ha!” he barked out. “You really just said that? To me?”
“You know damned well why I had to fight so hard for everything I have,” she said sharply. “What I cannot understand is why you fight so hard to throw away all that you have.”
You know why, he wanted to shout. But they’d had that conversation once and he hadn’t liked her response. It had made him feel all the more powerless and sickened by life.
“Goodbye, Mother.”
“Go to her,” she insisted.
He hung up, the words I’ll do what I want unspoken.
Because what he wanted was to follow his mother’s directive. He swore at the ceiling, hating that his good, reliable, self-destructive tendencies were no longer as easy to fall back on. There had been a time when going in the opposite direction of wherever he was being sent had been the most satisfying of actions.
It was no longer that simple. No, if he really wanted to burn down his marriage, then he would have to go back to Kiara and do it properly. Show her his soul and let her kick it to the curb once and for all.
* * *
Kiara finally understood why she’d never been able to paint Val. She hadn’t known exactly how she felt about him.
She did now. She loved him. So much it engulfed her like a spell, compelling her to make him appear on her canvas. She took days to get her sketches right, working from the Venice ones and a handful of photos on her phone and her myriad store of memories, built over the two months they’d been married.
When she came to render him in oils, she considered the affectionate expression he wore when he gazed at their daughter and the killer seductive gaze he often leveled at her. That one that curled her toes every time and she adored it. She even played with the cynical curve of his mouth when his mood was light and the glower he wore when the world and the people around him failed him in some way.
Ultimately, she settled on a very familiar, austere three-quarter profile. This was the man she knew best. The one who kept his thoughts and feelings well hidden behind his mask of undeniable, classic male beauty.
She knew what that mask hid, though, and those deep hurts made her take great care with her brush strokes, as if she could somehow heal his aches and disappointments and betrayals with each caress of sable to his smooth skin.
“Papà!”
Kiara’s heart leaped out of her chest and she almost bobbled her brush into her canvas. She hurried to the door of her studio in time to see Val bend and scoop their daughter off her feet as she ran toward him.
The nanny hovered awkwardly, but Kiara held up a hand to signal she should stay. She wanted her to take their daughter so she and Val could talk. She would give them time for their reunion first, though.
“I mitt you!” Aurelia told him in a scold, pulling her arms from around his neck and taking his unshaven cheeks into her tiny starfished hands.
“I missed you, too,” he said, voice not quite steady as his gaze ate up her little face.
She tilted her head and lifted an imploring shoulder to ask sweetly, “Can we swim? Per favore?” She used Italian, the minx, because she had learned that nearly always got her what she wanted out of him.
“Later,” he promised with a rueful smile and pecked a kiss onto her button nose. “After your lunch and nap if you do both without a fuss.” He tucked his chin so his gaze was level with hers. “Deal?”
Aurelia copied his very serious chin tuck, stating firmly, “Deal.”
“Grazie. Now please go with Nanny. I need to speak with Mummy.”
She gave his neck another squeeze, then let him set her on her feet and skipped up to the villa.
When Kiara dragged her eyes off their daughter, she clashed into Val’s unreadable gaze. It knocked the breath out of her to see shades of that same greedy hunger he’d exhibited with Aurelia, as though he had been starving for the sight of her as well as his daughter.
“She’s been asking for you,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“I got those texts. I thought we agreed we wouldn’t use her as emotional blackmail against each other.”
She bit her lip, guilty as charged, but, “It was true.”
She realized she was still holding her brush and moved into her studio to drop it into the jar of solvent next to her easel. Her hand was shaking.
He followed her in, uninvited, as was his habit. And, much as she hated for anyone to see her work in process, she had come to trust that his circumspect study of her unfinished work would never be critical or hurtful.
Today was different, though. This portrait was different. They were different.
He swore as he saw his own image. Swore and ran his hand down his face and sounded both defeated and...moved? “You’ve been busy.”
He backed up to the sofa he’d had brought in there “so we have a comfortable place to make love.” She’d told him he was dreaming, then had blinds installed in her wall of windows.
“What am I supposed to think of that?” he asked in a graveled voice as he continued to stare at his portrait. He braced his elbows on his thighs, fingers clawed into his hair.
She looked at it, thinking it was some of her best work, even though it laid her heart so bare. She had essentially rolled it out onto the floor for him to walk across.
“I missed you and wanted to see you. I—”
“You love me. Yes, I can see that, Kiara.”
His harsh words went straight into her chest like an arrow.
“The things you feel are always right there, on every single canvas.” He pointed his flat hand at his image in a type of accusation. “I see it and hear it and feel it, but there’s no way you can love me. Not that much. Not—” He cut himself off, seeming utterly vanquished as he threw his head into his hands again, tortured by whatever was gripping him.
“I do, Val,” she swore gently as she moved to sit beside him. “I love you so much it feels like a bruise inside me, throbbing all the time. And it’s okay if you don’t feel the same.”
Her artist’s eye studied him as he looked again at himself and she smiled a little at how perfectly she’d captured that particular mask he wore as he tried to suppress all that was going on inside him.
“I mean, I hope you feel something,” she whispered. “But—”
“Kiara,” he chided, looking at her now with such agony in his gaze her swollen heart felt pinched in a vise.
She wanted to take his hands, but wasn’t sure if he would welcome it, not when they had to go into painful places inside him. Places he had spent a lifetime navigating alon
e.
She swallowed and spoke tentatively. “I can imagine why love feels like a lie to you when people who were supposed to love you let you down. More than once. I didn’t mean to.”
“Javiero told you.” He closed his eyes, shutting her out.
“Only what he knew, which wasn’t much.” She didn’t want to defend Javiero, but nor did she want to stoke Val’s animosity toward him. “He did tell Niko there were rumors, but that was all he knew, Val. I’m so sorry that happened to you. That Niko didn’t do anything to stop it. It was wrong and it wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it? I didn’t exactly fight her off.” He pushed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. His sigh was jagged and heavy. Tormented. “I was selling sex to the cameras. I knew I was. Everything around me told me I was supposed to want what she was offering. So I went along with it and felt sick.”
“You were too young and inexperienced to know how you were supposed to act or feel. That’s not your fault. She was the adult, Val. It was her responsibility to see that acting that way was wrong and not do it. Niko should have seen that. He should have had her fired. Arrested.”
Val made a choking noise and dropped his hands to let them dangle loosely between his knees. “Dad thought I was a damned hero for losing my virginity so young. He was proud.”
He wasn’t looking at her. His cheeks were stained with disgrace.
“Niko was wrong,” she said as firmly as her unsteady voice could manage. “I don’t blame you for hating him, Val. Parents are supposed to keep their children safe, not send them to predators.” She frowned, prying very gently. “Did your mother know?”
Despair filled his gaze and the noise he made was utterly defeated. “She said, ‘How do you think I got where I am? That’s how the game is played.’”
“Oh, my God.”
“Exactly.” He turned his head to look at her with concern. “Have you ever...?”
“I’ve had my share of difficult experiences. Nothing violent, just the wrong sort of attention. Catcalls.” Landlords and employers who said inappropriate things. Teachers who commented on her developing body. The usual, she wanted to call it, but sighed instead.