A Debt Paid in the Marriage Bed (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Jennifer Hayward

  CHAPTER SIX

  ANGIE WOKE THE next morning heavy-headed and bleary-eyed. Apprehensive about what lay ahead, confused about what had happened between her and Lorenzo last night, she dressed in jeans and a tunic, threw her hair into a ponytail and headed downstairs to the breakfast room, hoping it would be empty so she could spend a few minutes composing herself over coffee.

  Her wish was not to be granted. Her husband sat by himself in the sun-filled room that overlooked the bay, the morning’s newspapers spread out in front of him. He looked gorgeous in jeans and a navy T-shirt, his thick, dark hair still wet and slicked back from his shower. It was utterly disconcerting the way her heart quickened at the sight of him, as if it had a mind of its own.

  He looked up, gaze sliding over her face. “You slept in. That’s good. You needed it.”

  She took a seat beside him at the head of the table, even though her brain was screaming for distance. It would have looked churlish to do otherwise.

  “Constanza made your favorite,” he said, waving an elegant, long-fingered hand at the freshly baked banana bread on a plate. “And the coffee’s hot.”

  “Thank you.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Where are my parents?”

  “Your father went for a run. Your mother’s still in bed.”

  And would be for a while, she figured, taking a sip of the hot, delicious coffee. His brow furrowed. “Your father, he is always this...distant when it comes to dealing with your mother?”

  “Always. He thinks she is weak. That she should be able to conquer this addiction. When she slips it infuriates him.”

  “That’s no way to get to the heart of the problem. Your mother needs support above all things.”

  She eyed him. “You were the king of distancing yourself when I displeased you.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, dark gaze flickering. “And we’ve talked about how I’m going to work on that.”

  Right. And she was just supposed to take that at surface value? Forget the big stretches of complete alienation that had passed between them when he’d retreated into that utterly unknowable version of himself? How every time they’d made up in bed she’d thought it would be better just like she’d thought it would be better every time her mother promised to stop drinking, only to discover nothing had really changed.

  She twisted her cup in its saucer. “It’s always been that way in my family. We are the exact opposite of the Riccis—instead of expressing our emotions we bury them. Instead of talking about things we pretend they don’t exist.”

  He frowned. “Ignoring an addiction, continuing to perpetuate an illusion that everything is fine when it isn’t, is inherently damaging to all involved.”

  “I told you my family is dysfunctional.”

  The furrow in his brow deepened. “You said your mother started drinking when you were fifteen. What do you think precipitated it?”

  She lifted a shoulder. “She always had the tendency to drink to cope with all the socializing. But I think it was my father’s affairs that did it. Ask her to represent the family three or four times a week—fine. Ask her to do that when everyone is talking about who my father is screwing that week...to suffer that humiliation? It was too much.”

  “Why didn’t she leave him?”

  “She’s a Carmichael. Image is everything. A Carmichael never concedes defeat. Ever. If we don’t get her help, she will drink herself into the ground proving she can make this marriage work.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  She arched a brow. “Didn’t you say there’s never been a Ricci divorce? It’s what our families do.”

  He sat back in his chair, a contemplative look on his face. “That’s why you don’t like this world. Why you hate parties like the one we had last night. You hate what they represent.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you decided to leave me so you would never end up like your mother. You crave independence because you need to have an escape route in case our marriage falls apart like your parents’ did.”

  Her mouth twisted. “That’s far too simplistic an analysis.”

  “Perhaps, but I think your experiences drove your thinking with us. My withdrawal from you evoked shades of your father. Leaving you alone to cope while I went off to manage an empire. Except my vice wasn’t other women, it was my work.”

  Her lashes lowered. “There may be some truth in that. But saying you’re going to be more present and doing it are two different things.”

  “True,” he conceded. “We can start with your mother, then.”

  “That’s my issue to handle.”

  “No,” he disagreed. “It’s our issue. Like I said last night, we are going to handle this together. As a team. The way we should have the first time. You are not alone in this.”

  She shook her head. “It gets messy with my mother. It will be awkward for you.”

  “Exactly why I should be there.” His jaw was a stubborn, unyielding line. “I saw you last night, Angie, crumpled on the floor. You were a wreck. This isn’t going to be easy for you.”

  She pushed a hand through her hair. “You want to solve this like you want to solve everything, Lorenzo. Snap your fingers and poof, it’s fixed. But it’s far more complex than that.”

  “I know that. That’s why the power of two will be better than one.”

  She exhaled a breath and stared out at the water, sparkling in the sun like the most electric of blue jewels. “We need to convince her to go back to the treatment facility in California. She’s refusing to go.”

  “I may have an option. I called a friend of mine this morning. He had a brother in a facility in upstate New York that’s supposed to be a leading edge program. If your mother was closer, perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult for her. You could visit her more often.”

  Her throat locked. The visits to see her mother in rehab had been the worst. Angry, bitter Della Carmichael had not gone easy despite recognizing the help she was getting. To put herself through even more of that with regular visits? The coward in her shrank from the idea, but she was starting to realize running from her problems hadn’t gotten her anywhere—not with her mother and not with her marriage.

  “We could go see it,” her husband offered. “Then you can decide.”

  She eyed him. Her husband wanted to solve her problem because it was just one more obstacle between him and what he wanted—a wife able to devote her full attention to him. And yet, when he had comforted her last night she could have sworn he truly cared. That she meant something to him.

  Perhaps she needed to exhibit a show of faith in them if this was going to work—a tiny, baby step forward, with her head firmly on her shoulders, of course. Last night had proven the need for that.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s go see it.”

  * * *

  Angie and Lorenzo flew to upstate New York the next morning and met with the staff of the treatment center. Nestled in the foothills of the Adirondacks, the setting was lovely. By the time they’d finished touring the facility and meeting with the staff and doctors, Angie had an immediate comfort level with it.

  They flew her mother up there to see it later in the week. If Della approved of the choice, the center could take her immediately. Surprisingly, her mother liked it. Angie’s emotions were torn to shreds by the time her mother cycled through the anger and sadness that was her pattern before agreeing to stay. But, somehow, with Lorenzo at her side, it wasn’t as much of a nightmare as she’d expected. Her husband was endlessly patient with her mother, commanding when he needed to be, caring when Della required a softer touch. Where had this man been, she wondered, during their marriage?

  By the time they’d boarded the jet, headed for home, she felt numb.

  “You okay?” Lorenzo looked at her from the seat beside her, his laptop co
nspicuously absent on the console.

  She nodded. “I hate leaving her there. Please let this be the last time we have to do this.”

  He closed his fingers over hers. “Hopefully it is. If it’s not, we’ll keep doing it until she’s better. You’re strong, Angie. You can do this.”

  She looked down at his hand curved around hers. Warm and protective, as he’d been all day. Her confusion heightened until it was that thick gray cloud, blanketing her brain. “Thank you,” she murmured huskily, “for being there for me this week. I swore I’d never do this again because it hurts too much. But I’m learning running doesn’t solve anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he agreed, eyes darkening. “But sometimes we need to do things in our own time. Allow ourselves the space to heal.”

  Lucia. He was talking about Lucia again. A tight knot formed in her stomach. She couldn’t ignore it any longer—this ghost that had always lain between them. She knew it was at the heart of figuring them out.

  She pulled her hand out from under his. “What you said the night before the party—that you had worked through some things. Was one of them Lucia?”

  A guarded expression moved across his face. “Yes. When I met you, I thought I had moved on, gotten through the worst of the grieving process. But after you left, I realized I hadn’t left that process behind as fully as I’d imagined. That perhaps I had carried some of that baggage into our marriage—baggage which did make me emotionally unavailable at times.”

  She frowned. “You told me it was my issue with Lucia that was the problem.”

  His mouth twisted. “Because you made me furious. Pointing fingers at the ghost of Lucia was your favorite card to play when you were angry with me, cara.”

  Her eyelids lowered. She couldn’t deny that. She’d lashed out in whatever way she could to get a response out of him. Something, anything to show he’d cared. She’d known it was wrong to use Lucia as a weapon against him, but their fights hadn’t exactly been rational ones.

  “Tell me about her,” she said quietly. “Tell me about what happened. I need to understand, Lorenzo. Maybe if I had, things would have been different.”

  He sat back. Rubbed a palm against his temple. “Where to start? Lucia and I were childhood sweethearts. We spent the summers together in Lake Como. Eventually our childhood crush developed into an adult romance. Our families were all for it, it seemed...predestined, in a way.”

  Her stomach clenched. She had felt that way about him when they’d met, their connection had been so strong, so immediate. But Lorenzo’s heart had belonged to someone else.

  “We didn’t marry right away,” he continued. “I needed to sow my wild oats. I wasn’t sure I could marry the first girl I fell in love with. But after a few years, I knew it was her. We married when I was twenty-six. I was in New York by then, she joined me here.” His dark lashes arced over his cheeks. “She was like a fish out of water, missing her family, missing Italy. I did the best I could to make her happy. She kept saying once she had a baby, once we started a family, everything would change. We were trying for that when she...”

  Died. Her chest seized tight. She curled her fingers over his. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  “No—you’re right. You need to know what happened. It’s...a part of me.” He palmed his jaw, dragging his fingers over dark stubble. “The incident at the town house happened when I was in Shanghai on business. We had an excellent security system there. Impenetrable—like the one we have now. But the men who broke in were professionals—violent professionals. They knew how to talk their way into someone’s home, knew the stories to tell. Lucia was so innocent—she never stood a chance.”

  Her stomach curled in on itself. “She let them in.”

  He nodded. “They put her in my den. Told her to stay there while they went and cleaned out the place. They left her alone for a few moments and she called for help on her cell. One of them came back, saw what she was doing and hit her with the blunt end of the gun.” His fingers flexed on his thigh, his knuckles gleaming white. “The blow to the head caused a severe bleed on her brain. She never regained consciousness.”

  Angie pressed her fingers to her mouth in horror. “How do you know all of this?” she whispered.

  “Surveillance video.”

  Her stomach dropped, a sick feeling twisting her gut. “Please tell me you didn’t watch it.”

  “I had to. I had to know what happened.”

  The raspy note in his voice, the raw emotion in his dark eyes, tore a piece of her heart loose. What would it do to a person to go through that? To lose someone you love like that? It would change you forever.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, a sinking feeling settling through her for all the wrongs they’d done each other. “For being so insensitive. I knew what happened to Lucia was horrible. I knew I should make allowances for it. But every time you retreated, every time you turned off, I hurt so badly, I just wanted you to hurt like I was hurting. It became instinctual, reflexive. But it didn’t make it right.”

  He shook his head. “We were both experts at slinging arrows. It became easier than dealing with what was in front of us.”

  She caught her lip between her teeth. Stared out the window at a sea of blue, her ragged emotions begging her to stop. But to do that would stall them where they stood, suspended in a state of perpetual animation. It would not fix them.

  “I know Lucia will always be in your heart,” she said quietly when she turned back to him. “I wouldn’t expect any less. The issue between us was the emotional distance it caused, the emotional distance you put between us. I need to know you are over her, Lorenzo.”

  His cheeks hollowed. “I have let her go. I have moved on. That’s what this is all about, Angelina—moving forward. I’m asking you to do that with me.”

  Her chest went tight. She knew they needed to let go of the past if they were going to make this work. But could she do it? Could she trust her instincts where Lorenzo was concerned? Could she trust that he had changed? Or was she setting herself up for an even greater fall than she’d taken the first time?

  “Maybe what we need,” he said quietly, a contemplative look on his face, “is a fresh start. A blank slate. No ghosts, no animosity, just us.”

  Her heart contracted on a low, painful pull. It was so tempting to believe they could recapture the good they’d had. That she could claim that piece of his heart she’d always craved. Because when it had been good between them, it had been good in a way nothing else could touch. And when it had been bad, he had eviscerated her.

  Blood pumped through her veins, her breath caught in her throat. Suddenly her baby steps seemed like a heart-pumpingly, scary big leap.

  “All of you,” Lorenzo said evenly, eyes on hers. “That’s what I’m asking for. A real shot at this. Can you give me that?”

  She swallowed past a paper-dry throat. Took the leap. “I can try.”

  * * *

  Lorenzo put his emotionally exhausted wife to bed after a light dinner, then headed to his study to work. The logistics with Angelina’s mother had taken a big bite out of his week. He was behind and his inability to connect with Marc Bavaro, who had disappeared on a multiweek trip to South America, meant the acquisition was still in limbo.

  Resisting the temptation to drown his frustration in a potent shot of something strong because it would also dull his brain with hours of work ahead of him, he fixed himself a cappuccino in Constanza’s steel marvel of a kitchen, returned to his study and picked up a report he had to review before his morning meeting, but the numbers blurred before his eyes.

  His thoughts were consumed, instead, by his wife’s haunted face as he’d put her to bed. With the fact that he had clearly never known her. Far from being the spoiled young woman he’d thought he’d married who was incapable of compromi
se, she was instead a vulnerable, emotional woman he’d never looked deep enough to see. A woman who had gone through hell under the purview of parents who had, in reality, been nothing of the sort.

  That his wife had been strong enough at fifteen to police her mother at parties, to keep up a facade for as long as she and Abigail had, to take her mother to rehab not once but twice, by the time she was twenty, little more than a girl herself, boggled his mind. It was courage on a scale he couldn’t imagine. Made him feel as if he’d just taken a hard shot to the solar plexus.

  He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, guilt twisting his insides. Twice now he’d failed to react when the most important women in his life had cried out for help. Failed to recognize what they’d been trying to tell him. Failed to protect them.

  It shamed him on the most visceral of levels, raked across the dark presence that seemed to lurk just beneath the surface of his skin, searching for a way to the top.

  Angie had always believed Lucia had his heart, that he wasn’t over her and that was what had caused him to hold back with her. Instead the truth was something far worse. If he’d listened to Lucia, if he’d been present for her as Angelina liked to cite as his greatest fault, then she would still be alive.

  Agitation drove him to his feet and to the window, where he stood looking out at a floodlit view of Central Park. The darkness pressed against his edges—relentless, hungry. He would never forgive himself for what had happened to Lucia because he didn’t deserve it. But he could do things differently with Angelina this time.

  He pressed a palm against his temple. If there was guilt for not being able to give his wife the love she so clearly craved, deserved, the love she’d never been shown, he would have to appease himself with the promise he would give her everything else. He would be there for her this time.

  Because to allow his marriage to descend into the emotionally addictive union it had once been? To allow himself to feel the things for Angelina he once had? To experience more loss? Not happening.