by Lucy Monroe
“Did you sleep with Zia?” she demanded in a voice raw from pain.
“No!”
“No, I don’t suppose you did. I’m sure there was very little sleeping involved.”
“Stop this. You are upsetting yourself for nothing.”
He called adultery nothing? “Were your dinners with her in New York nothing too, Luciano?”
Silence greeted that.
“Maybe you didn’t think I would find out?”
“How did you find out about them?”
“My grandfather.”
“Damned interfering old man.”
“Don’t blame him for showing me what a lying swine you are.” How dared he try to foist the culpability for this awful situation onto someone else? “If you hadn’t broken your promise to me, there would have been nothing for him to interfere over.”
“I have not lied to you. I have broken no promises either.” He didn’t deny being a swine.
She’d like to know how he justified that statement to himself. “You were in the shower when I called, Luciano.”
“This is proof of nothing.”
“It proves you’re in a hotel room with another woman.” Let him try to deny it.
“I am not.”
Getting ready to blast him, she remembered his preference for not staying at hotels and she choked on a bitter laugh. “You brought her to the company apartment? How brazen, di Valerio, but then I suppose she’s been there before.”
“No, Hope. It is not like that.” He sounded like she felt, miserable. She couldn’t trust what she heard in his voice though, not when his actions had already spoken so loudly.
“It is exactly like that. Zia said as much.”
“What Zia said, it was a mistake.”
“Our marriage was the real mistake.”
“No! Amore mia. That was not an error. Our marriage was meant to be. You must listen.”
“Why? So you can tell me more lies?” She was choking on her pain. “Your girlfriend was honest at least.”
He said something to Zia and then the other woman came on the line. “Hope, I am sorry I implied I slept with your husband. I did not,” she said sounding distressed, “you must believe me about this.”
“That’s why you’re there when he’s taking a shower.” Hope wasn’t that gullible.
“I am truly sorry I made this sound like an intimacy. It was not. Luciano was still asleep when I arrived this morning to discuss some business.”
“Oh, please…” He never slept late.
Zia made an impatient sound. “He was recovering from a hangover, I think. He looked terrible.” She paused. “He does not look any better now.”
Luciano drinking to excess? Not likely. “You expect me to believe he got drunk, passed out and didn’t wake up until you got there this morning?”
“Si. Believe, for it is the truth. Your husband cares for you. I am sorry for the part I have played, but it was only a part. Luciano wants no woman but you.”
Hope didn’t understand Zia’s remarks about playing a part, but she no longer believed the fairy tale that Luciano wanted only her. “What kind of business do you have with my husband?”
Why was she bothering to ask? The answer was devastating to her self-awareness. Because she wanted to believe. Idiot, she castigated herself.
“He is investing money for me. A model’s career is not a long one. It is nothing more. I promise you.”
“You were with him in New York.”
“No. I had a show. Our meeting was happenstance, nothing more.”
“That nothing resulted in two dinner dates.”
“Dinner between old friends. That is all. Not dates. Have you never had an evening with a man that consisted of innocent conversation only?”
All Hope’s dates ended innocently, except those with Luciano. “I don’t have your sophistication.” Her voice should have frozen the phone lines, it was so arctic.
Zia sighed, proving it had not. “Nothing happened between Luciano and I. He does not even kiss my cheek in greeting now.”
Hope wanted so desperately to believe the model’s words, but would that be opening herself up for further heartache?
“Hope?” It was Luciano.
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Are you there, cara?”
Beloved. She wasn’t loved by him, but she was his wife. Presumably that fact had finally sunk in with some meaning. “I’m here.”
“I will be home as soon as I can get a takeoff time at the airport for my jet.”
“And?”
“We need to talk. Wait for me at the villa.”
Was she willing to give him this chance?
“Please, cara.”
The humble plea got to her.
“I’ll be here.”
Barefoot and wearing a pair of cotton crop pants and T-shirt, Hope flipped through the baby magazine she had picked up in the doctor’s office the day before. Her clothes and lack of makeup were in defiance to her husband’s ego and her own emotions. As promised, she was waiting for Luciano, but she refused to gild the lily for this confrontation.
She tucked her feet up on the small sofa in the outer room of her and Luciano’s suite. At least they would have privacy here for their discussion. Living with his family necessitated eating most meals with company however, having the private sala meant there was a certain measure of independence within the confines of the household.
Hope needed that. Although she loved both Claudia and Martina, she had spent too much of her life alone to easily adjust to the continuous company of others.
“Hope…”
The magazine slid from her fingers and she barely caught it before it fell to the floor. So much for a cool reception at his arrival. Picking the periodical up, she laid it neatly on the small table in front her. She fiddled with it, attempting to get it perfectly perpendicular to the edge. She didn’t want to look at her gorgeous husband. It would hurt.
To see him and experience the deepest sort of love imaginable and know it was not returned was beyond her emotional capabilities at the moment.
One brown hand covered hers where it fiddled with the corner of the magazine. “Cara.”
He was on his knees beside her, the warmth of his hand a seductive lure when she felt chilled to her soul.
Having no choice if she did not want to come off the coward, she lifted her head and took in the superficial details of his appearance. He had removed his suit jacket and tie and the top few buttons of his shirt were undone. His hair looked like he’d run his fingers through it…several times. And there was an intensity in the brown depths of his eyes she dared not trust.
“Your mother and Martina have gone shopping in Palermo. They invited me to go along, but I told you I would wait here.” It was inane chatter, but safer than the questions screaming through her mind.
His jaw tightened. “I’m glad you stayed.”
She nodded. “You said we needed to talk.”
“Si.” He stood up and swung away from her. “I want our marriage to last.”
“Why?” After all this, she needed concrete answers.
“I am Sicilian. I do not believe in divorce.” He still hadn’t turned around and she was glad.
His words were a death knell to the hopes she had tried so hard not to nurse.
“Why did you marry me if you don’t love me?” She just could not believe he was so determined not to have an affair with a virgin that he had chosen to marry a woman he had so little feeling for.
He spun back to face her, his expression almost scary. “You know why. I have been unkind, I admit this, but you must also admit that you carry some of the blame for that.”
“Because I was a virgin?”
“Do not play games.” His hands clenched at his sides. “I heard you tell your grandfather thank-you for his manipulations on your behalf.”
She stared at him, as at sea about this whole thing as she had been when he
’d gone off the rails the first time. “I just don’t understand why you’re so upset about a little matchmaking. You didn’t have to succumb.”
“Is that what you call it, matchmaking? How innocent that sounds, but I call it blackmail.”
There are things you don’t know. Her grandfather’s words echoed in her mind. “Are you saying my grandfather blackmailed you into marrying me?”
Impossible. That sort of thing just didn’t happen in the twenty-first century. It was positively Machiavellian and that kind of business had gone out with the Middle Ages, at least when it came to marriage bargains and the like.
But Luciano’s expression denied her naive certainty. “Are you attempting to convince me you did not know?”
She glared at him, anger and resentment boiling in a cauldron inside her that was ready to explode all over him. She jumped up and faced him, fury making her body rigid. “I don’t have to convince you of anything.” He was the one who’d been caught taking a shower while his former girlfriend lounged around answering his cell phone. “If you won’t tell me, I’ll call my grandfather and ask him.”
She turned to do just that, but his words stopped her.
“Do not go. I will tell you.” Luciano’s olive complexion had gone gray. “You thought your grandfather tried to get us together, but you did not realize the methods he used?”
The methods had been pretty obvious, or at least she had thought so at the time. “He sent you to check on me in Athens.”
“He sent me, Si, but not to check on you. I was under duress to convince you of marriage.”
That explained so much.
Luciano looked sick and she could imagine why. A proud man like him would have been severely bothered by the fact that he was being manipulated by someone else. Her grandfather’s weapon of blackmail must have been a good one.
“What did he use as leverage?” she asked.
“Di Valerio Shipping.”
“Your great-grandfather’s company?” Luciano had told her about the modest shipping company during one of their discussions at a business dinner.
She had thought he was sweetly sentimental for holding on to it when it was such a small concern compared to his other holdings. “I don’t understand how my grandfather could threaten it. It’s a family held company.”
“It was, but my uncle gambles. He lost a lot of money and rather than swallow his pride and ask me for it, he sold his shares in the family company to your grandfather.”
“So?” She still didn’t get how that could impact her husband. He was the head of the company. Her grandfather could play pesky-fly-in-the-ointment, but that wouldn’t be enough to force Luciano into doing something he didn’t want to.
“Joshua also was able to secure enough shares and proxies from family members no longer close to the company to take control. He threatened to approve a merger with our chief competitor, a merger that would result in the disappearance of the di Valerio name.”
And his Sicilian pride had found that untenable.
“What were the terms?” she asked, a little awed by her grandfather’s ruthlessness.
As Luciano outlined the terms for their marriage arrangement, she went cold to the depths of her being.
“So you planned to make me pregnant and then ditch me.”
It made sense. Once she had his baby, he had control of his company back and he didn’t need her. Even if she divorced him, he retained control of the company through the child. It also explained his chilly reaction to her announcement of the pregnancy. He needed the baby, but Luciano couldn’t work up any enthusiasm for having a child with her, the granddaughter of the man who had blackmailed him and so severely offended his Sicilian pride.
“That’s why you made that crack about me not using anything and getting pregnant so fast.” She couldn’t breathe, but she had to force the words out anyway. “You had no intention of returning to my bed after I conceived.”
“It was not like that.”
“It was just like that! You said so.” She sank back onto the small couch, feeling drained.
Luciano came toward her, but something in her look must have gotten to him because he stopped before reaching her. “At first, I believed you did not know. I intended our marriage to be real and forever. You were innocent.” He swung his hand out in an arc to punctuate the words. “To include you in a vendetta against your grandfather would have been wrong. This is what I told myself.”
His eyes appealed to her, but her heart was bleeding and she couldn’t offer the understanding he sought. “I believed you would make a good wife, an admirable mother,” he said, his tone driven.
Two weeks ago those statements would have been compliments, but now they were testament to how lukewarm his feelings were for her. “You decided to make the best of a bad situation.”
The muscles in his face clenched. “Si.”
“But then you overheard my grandfather and me talking and drew your own conclusions.” She felt sick remembering what had been said and how it could have been interpreted.
Her grandfather had a lot to answer for and she intended to hold him accountable, just as soon as she wasn’t doing her utmost to control her roiling stomach.
“Si.” Luciano did not look too good himself. “Can you not understand how I felt? Your grandfather used my uncle’s weakness against me, against the di Valerio family. I could not let that go unchallenged.”
“So, you decided to get your revenge by dumping me once I got pregnant.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS such a cold thing to do, definitely not something he would have contemplated if he loved her.
He shook his head, if anything looking more grim than he had a moment ago. “That was not my plan.”
“What was your plan?” she asked, dreading the answer. Could anything be worse, though?
“I wanted you to believe I had taken a mistress. Zia agreed to help me with this. I intended to shame you into asking for a divorce. The baby did not come into it.”
“But how would that have gotten you control back of the company?” Hadn’t he said if she divorced him, he only got fifty percent of the shares in the settlement?
“I have purchased all outstanding stock, including that for which your grandfather held proxies. Getting back half of the shares would have fulfilled my pride more than my need. It was part of my vendetta.”
“You never intended me to get pregnant.” Her hand went in automatic protective gesture over her womb.
He looked haunted. “I did not think of it.”
At her look of disbelief, he turned away again and spoke with his back to her. “I went pazzesco. Crazy. Santo cielo! I was only thinking of how you had played me for a fool. How stupid I had been to trust you.”
And his pride, which had already been smarting from her grandfather’s behavior would have been decimated by this turn of events.
“Your carrying my bambino did not enter my mind.” His broad shoulders were tense with strain. “I wanted to hurt you. I admit this. I wanted to make Joshua pay.”
“You succeeded. You should be proud of a job well done.” Too well done. So much for bleeding, she felt like her heart was hemorrhaging from the pain.
He turned back, his face set in bleak lines. “I am not proud. I am ashamed and I am sorry.”
Every straining line of his body spoke of sincerity, his brown eyes eloquent with his regret.
“I believe you.” She sighed, trying to ease the tightness in her chest. She believed that he was sorry, but his apology could not undo the hurt. Repentant, or not, he had married her not because he wanted her, but because he’d been forced to do it. The rejection she felt was shattering.
“I thought you cared about me. I knew it wasn’t love, but this thing between you and my grandfather—it’s so demeaning. The knowledge that our marriage was the result of an arrangement between you and my grandfather so you could get your company back…” Words failed her for several seconds as she struggled
to keep the tears at bay.
Finally, she swallowed. “I never would have suspected anything like that, but it explains so much.”
He stepped toward her, his hand extended, “Hope, please, we can make this marriage of ours work.”
She reared back, almost falling off the sofa. “Don’t come near me. I don’t want you touching me.” When she remembered how he had blackmailed her into marriage, using his body as the bait, she shuddered.
His expression was that of a jaguar thwarted of its prey.
“I want some time to think. Alone.”
He shook his head in sharp negative. “We have both spent enough time alone.”
“Whose fault is that?” She slapped the hand away that came within touching distance. “I missed you so much, but you treated me like little more than a whore on tap.”
“No!”
“Yes! Since you got back from your trip, you’ve refused to talk to me, but you’ve been more than willing to use my body. I have to assume that was part of the revenge plan. Make me feel like a tramp and I would hurt even more, right?”
He looked horror-stricken by her words. “That is not the way it was.”
“From where I’m standing, it is. I don’t know if I can stay married to you,” she whispered painfully.
“I will not allow you to divorce me.”
“Contrary to the way both you and my grandfather have been behaving, we are no longer in the Dark Ages. You can’t dictate my life’s terms to me.”
He ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. “I made a mistake, I admit it, but I will rectify it. I promise you this.”
“And you are so good at keeping your promises.” She couldn’t help the dig, but she felt no satisfaction when he winced.
“I did not have sex with Zia.”
“The jury is still out on that one.”
His revenge plot made sense, even down to only pretending to have an affair. Breaking his word would not sit well with Luciano, but she wasn’t ready to let him off the hook on that one. He’d set himself up, he could squirm.
All that aside, how could he keep his latest promise without love? How could he make it better when his lack of love was what hurt the most?