The Italian Billionaire's Betrayal: What if you fell in love with the one person you couldn't have? A story of forbidden love and overpowering need.

by Clare Connelly

  He couldn’t sleep. Distance alone was not sufficient to break the hold she had over him.

  He felt a pain in his chest whenever he thought of her, and worse, a bone-melting regret when he remembered the words he’d said. The look of hurt, the pain in her eyes, the betrayal on her face. He had done that to her. No matter how certain he was that he had done the right thing, he hated knowing that she was out there, upset, because of him.

  He told himself over and over that she deserved it. That if he hadn’t hurt her first, she would have hurt him, when she cast him aside for someone else. She would have made him a laughing stock, like she probably had done to Pete for years.

  But none of that tallied with the sweet, generous, affectionate woman he’d come to know. His stomach contracted painfully when he thought of that woman, who’d unquestioningly assented to his insulting offer. She would say it was because she loved him. What other reason could there be? Not money, she was independently wealthy. Surely not a lack of male attention, she was truly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and smart to boot.

  To avenge herself on Pete? No. She seemed to still value their relationship.

  None of it made any sense.

  Matteo bashed his pillow restlessly and forced himself to shut his eyes. It would all appear clearer in the morning. Things had a way of resolving in the light of day.

  Still, he could not sleep, so he gave up and set to work in his office instead. At least he could use the quiet of the night to get some important tasks up to speed, things he’d been too distracted to handle all week, for thinking of his delectable lover.

  He must have fallen asleep at some time in the early hours, while he worked, for he awoke with a stiff neck, his head resting on his keyboard, Sofia hovering over him with a pretty smile on her face. “Good morning, Matteo,” She handed him a coffee cup. “I did not expect to see you until next week.”

  “No,” he cleared his throat, rubbed his bleary eyes. “Change of plan. I needed some time out of the city.”

  She frowned. That wasn’t like Teo, especially when there was such a huge business merger being undertaken. Usually, he liked to be on-site, micro-managing the heck out of his senior staff. She looked more carefully at his appearance. Bags under his eyes, a five o’clock shadow on his usually immaculate face, suit rumpled. There was more going on here than he was confiding in her.

  “Family time is just what you need,” She said with a nod. “Your parents and Pietro are here. I will let them know to expect you for breakfast.”

  Matteo nodded distractedly. He needed family time like a pauper needed a bank vault, but he was better to see them and get it over with. After all, it was his love and respect for them that had prevented him from indulging his desire to make Meghan his... his what? What did he want from her? To install her permanently as his mistress? That wouldn’t be fair to her. His girlfriend? His wife?

  The picture of her, married to him, possessed by him, and being possessed by her, for all eternity, made his battered heart glow but he groaned at the image. It was impossible. Utterly impossible. He could never truly love someone capable of what she had done.

  He walked out into the large kitchen a short time later, and tried his best to fake his way through the loving and concerned reunion with his parents. His mother insisted on serving him an enormous bowl of food but he pushed it all aside, opting for just a toasted rye bagel.

  “And what do you think about Sofia and Pietro?” Nina asked in hushed tones as one of the domestics cleared their breakfast plates.

  He raised his eyebrows, but in his chest, his heart was jackhammering painfully. “What of them?”

  “They’re reunited,” Nina said warily. “I am happy for them, though very sad for Meghan. She seemed to love Pete a good deal; I am sorry for her that she has been so quickly forgotten.”

  Matteo’s grimace was aimed at himself. After all, Meghan had hardly wasted time getting over Pete, had she?

  “How did it happen?”

  “The night of the funeral. Sofia went back to Rome. Apparently, hearing that he and Megs had ended it made her realise that she couldn’t lose him again.”

  Matteo didn’t respond, instead pretending fascination with a story in the newspaper. All the while, his brain was ticking over. If Pete had truly moved on already, then perhaps he would accept Matteo and Meghan as a couple afterwards.

  Maybe Meghan was right, and he had to just trust his heart. Did his heart know her best? His heart loved her. It was his brain that was having trouble accepting it. Trust your heart, she’d said. He stood, and paced across the kitchen, stopping and staring out of the windows.

  He couldn’t. He just couldn’t do it. He excused himself gruffly and returned to his office.

  He tried not to watch the clock, but as the hour for her flight came, and went, he just felt despairing. Not relief, as he had hoped. He was totally and profoundly devastated.

  He pushed open one of the windows, feeling like the stifling heat was making him even more nauseated, and a snatch of laughter caught his attention. He looked down at the pool area. Sofia and Pete, huddled together on one sun lounger, looking as madly in love as ever.

  “And to think, if you hadn’t got your friend to pretend to be your lover, we might never have rediscovered our love!” Sofia was saying happily.

  Matteo stumbled backwards, her words penetrating the fog of his brain. Pretend lover? Is that what Sofia had said? He didn’t wait to hear how Pete responded. He ran out of his office and down to the poolside, bursting in on them, his breath ragged.

  “What did you just say?” He asked Sofia.

  She coloured.

  “About Meghan pretending to be your girlfriend.” He clarified impatiently to Pietro.

  Pete shifted awkwardly on the lounger. “Oh, right. Yeah, I meant to talk to you about that sooner, but we’ve been a bit busy.” His goofy smile was almost Matteo’s undoing.

  Matteo’s eyes narrowed. “Talk to me now.” He ordered, his voice showing his barely concealed rage.

  Pete, feeling at a disadvantage, stood, though he was still several inches shorter than his older brother.

  “It’s true. I was nervous about coming back and I knew you’d all like Megs, so I begged her to come and pretend to be my girlfriend.” He spread his hands imploringly. “I know it was stupid, but I just wanted to make a good impression.”

  “I should say you’ve failed spectacularly,” Matteo condemned, his heart racing as he realised the implication of Pete’s confession. “Are you saying you’ve never been a couple?”

  “God, no. We’re chalk and cheese, you must see that.” Pete laughed, then, his expression seemed to sober. “She did ask me to talk to you. She seemed pretty smitten with you. You’d better treat her well, Matteo. She’s a wonderful person.”

  Matteo stood taller. “Let me see if I understand.” His voice was like thunder. “Your good friend undertook an enormous favour for you, no doubt against her character and own better judgement. Then, she asked you to do a favour for her and simply talk to me, and you didn’t bother? You hold her in such little regard that after she did all that for you, you couldn’t find five minutes to call and tell me the truth?”

  Pete looked back at Sofia, who was at least looking a little surprised.

  “I don’t know what to say, Matteo, all’s well that ends well, though, isn’t it? Aren’t you pleased that Sofia and I are back together?”

  Matteo did something then that he had never done before. He raised his fist and brought it crashing across his brother’s face. Not waiting to see him fall to the ground, he ran from the villa.

  He didn’t have time to wait for a driver. He took one of the vehicles from the garage and sped towards Rome, going as fast as the sporty black Lambourghini would carry him.

  She had left. He had arrived at his townhouse in record time, bolted up the steps, holding on to the faintest of hopes that perhaps she was so confident in his affections that she was prepared to wai
t for him. Stupid, stupid, baseless hope. Only, when he’d crashed into their door and scanned it frantically, he saw something on his bed that made his heart kerthunk hard. The green dress, that she’d worn the first night they’d met. The first time they’d made love, here in this bedroom. She’d left it there, on the bed, but she was most definitely gone.

  He walked from room to room, like a soulless wandered, before coming back to his own room and staring at the empty space forlornly. He could still smell her perfume in the air. But she was gone.

  Of course she was gone. After the dressing down he’d given her, he couldn’t blame her. He’d told her to get out, without so much as a goodbye kiss.

  He groaned and fell back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. He’d messed up. Matteo Maratelli, master of all he surveyed, had lost the only thing that mattered to him in life. And he didn’t know how to fix it.

  * * *

  Meghan looked at her five year old patient with a solemn expression. No matter how young the child, she always exercised care not to speak down to them. Children were incredibly perceptive, and nobody liked being treated like an imbecile.

  “What will you do next time you want to experiment with gymnastics in your back garden?” She asked directly.

  The five year old thought for a moment and then grinned. “Ask mummy.”

  “Absolutely. No unaccompanied tricks from now on, Lacey.” She crouched down in front of her. “Your cast is going to get itchy but that’s okay. Your mum and dad will pick up some knitting needles for you and you can use those to reach really deep inside your cast and get those itches.”

  Lacey nodded thoughtfully.

  “And you can come back and see me again in a couple of weeks’ time, just to check how it’s healing.” She turned her attention to the worried parents, and gave them her best reassuring-doctor-face. “Here’s my card. You can call me, anytime, day or night.” And then, because their faces were still overflowing with concern: “I mean it. She’s going to be fine. Back scaling walls before you know it, so enjoy the break.”

  She clipped their board in the rack for the nurses and then surveyed the board while she took a huge gulp of fortifying coffee.

  Meghan had come straight from the airport and she’d been here twelve hours. She was needing to be busy, wanting to feel useful. Most importantly, she had to be distracted.

  She rubbed a hand across her neck, blinking to clear the cobwebs in her eyes.

  “Go home,” her supervisor startled her, approaching from behind the desk.

  “I’m fine,” she shook her head, drank another sip of coffee.

  “You are not fine. You are exhausted. You shouldn’t have come in today.” She scolded, then softened it by squeezing Meghan’s forearm. “Though I’m glad you did. We were slammed.” She turned to survey the board. “We’ve got it under control now, thanks largely to you. Go, rest up, come back Monday.”

  The last place Meghan wanted to be was home, where everything reminded her of Pete, and by extension, Teo, but she could hardly wander the clinic halls aimlessly.

  “Are you sure you don’t need me?” She gave it one last shot, but her boss was not to be dissuaded.

  “Home. Immediately.”

  Meghan swallowed down a sob as she thought of her bed, empty, alone.

  She lugged her suitcase out of the clinic and waited on the kerb for a cab. One came along swiftly enough and she pulled herself into it, giving her address in a clipped tone, hoping to avoid conversation.

  What more could she have done? Before she met Matteo, she would have been scandalised by his offer that she bed-in as his lover for a week. On every level, it upset her. Well, not the sex. That had been unforgettably incredible. The implication that he could have sex with her without admitting to the love they shared defied belief. She felt in every fibre of her being, whether she was with him or apart.

  She had to forget him. Or at least learn to live without him, she amended more realistically. Who could forget Mateo Maratelli?

  The cab pulled up outside her Mayfair flat and she pushed open the security doors, lugging the case behind herself. At least the lift arrived promptly. The doors opened with a ping on the third floor and she stepped out, fumbling in her handbag for her key. Why was it you could always count on finding a stick of gum, a lipstick, a tissue, a tube pass and a pen before your keys, she thought uncharitably, finally wrapping her fingers around the cold metallic objects she was seeking.

  She looked up, and froze.

  Teo stood outside her door, his handsome face uncertain, holding a bunch of red roses.

  Her pulse started to race and she felt her tummy do its usual rollercoaster dip, but she approached him cautiously. He walked towards her and caught her case, lifting it easily over his shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” She asked at the same time that he said,

  “Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”

  She stared up at him, feeling the pain he had inflicted during their last conversation stoke itself to life. Fresh tears wet her eyes. She didn’t think she could bear hearing what he had to say, and yet nor could she turn him away.

  She looked down the hallway. “I’m tired.” She whispered.

  He reached out and tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear, saw the way she flinched away from his touch and felt like the biggest bastard in the world. What had he done to her? To his beautiful, innocent, trusting, loving Meghan?

  “Please,” his voice was low, unusually contrite.

  She stared up at him, lost for words. Finally, she nodded.

  Meghan pushed open the door and flicked on the lights. It was amazing how different the place felt to her now than it did one short week ago. It no longer felt like home. Home was Italy. The gorgeous sun-drenched villa with the infinity pool overlooking the grape vines and countryside beyond. Home was the Roman townhouse, and meals cooked by Bernadetta on the rooftop terrace.

  But that had all been a dream.

  She turned to face him.

  “What is it?” She asked stiffly.

  It did not escape his attention that she had not asked him to sit, nor offered him a drink. He supposed he deserved neither. He held the roses out towards her but she didn’t take them. She crossed her arms again and continued to look at him. Her face was pinched, guarded.

  “Where have you been?” He asked. He was nervous, he realised with surprise. An unusual emotion for him, but maybe he’d never played such a high-stakes game before. He was not prepared to lose Meghan and he felt like he probably already had.

  She furrowed her brow. “Where have I been?”

  “Today. I was on a flight not long after yours. I thought you would be here.” He finished lamely.

  She scowled. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I took my lax morals to whichever bed I could get invited into? You know, I met a really nice flight attendant on the way back. I’m thinking of seducing him tonight, so can you hurry this up?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t suit you,” he said, but her comment had brought a small smile to his face.

  “It’s not funny.” She muttered. “What do you want?”

  “You. I want you.”

  Her nerves felt like they were going to burst inside of her body, but she shook her head. “Tough. I’m not available any longer.”

  He swallowed and closed the gap between them. “Meghan,” he groaned. “I was a bastard. I know how wrong I was about you.”

  “Because Pete told you.”

  “More or less. Sofia actually let the cat out of the bag. They’re back together.” He imparted as an afterthought.

  “I couldn’t care less about your damned brother right now,” She fumed. “He should have told you at the funeral.” She turned away from him.

  “He should have.” He sighed heavily and took her shoulders in his hands so that he could gently turn her around to face him again. “He shouldn’t have needed to.”

  He ran his hands down her sides, and linked them behind her back. �
��My beautiful Meghan, you were right. I should have trusted my heart. I loved you from the first moment I saw you.” He looked over her head, lost in the memory. “When I woke up, that first morning, I had already admitted to myself that I thought you were that elusive One so many romantic comedies talk about.” He dropped his gaze to her, lovingly scanning her face. “Oh, I knew I’d never met anyone like you before, and that I wouldn’t ever again.” He traced a circle against her lower back with his fingertip as he recalled that day. “I looked everywhere for you. All of the hotels in the area. I went back to the bar. Unfortunately, we didn’t waste much time exchanging personal details,” he said with a grimace, “and so it was somewhat like searching for a needle in a haystack.

  “I was late for Tony’s birthday weekend because I had been looking for you. And you’d been there all along. At the villa. With my brother.” His face was mutinous. “I’ve never felt like I could hurt someone before, but I wanted to kill him for having met you first. I would have given anything I had to reverse that twist of fate.” He dropped his lips to her head and kissed her softly. “And you were so adoring.” He pointed out with a small smile, his tone gently chiding. “You went out of your way to make us all believe you thought Pete walked on water.”

  “That was kind of the point,” she said haltingly. Inside, her heart was threatening to burst out of her ribcage. His words were like magic to her soul. She looked up at him. “Keep talking.” She commanded, but her eyes already looked happier, less clouded with angst.

  He pulled her tight against himself and then lifted her, bringing her to sit on his lap on the sofa. “You don’t know how I hated myself, and you, a little bit, for how much I wanted you. It was like I was hyper aware to you at all times. Everything you said or did caught my attention. Seeing you with him was like being stabbed in the gut. When I came back here, and found you living together, I think I felt what the term living hell was coined to describe. For my brother to get to keep you seemed unbearably unfair. That you would apparently choose him over me, and what we shared, made me doubt everything I thought I knew.”