There was bleakness in her voice, but Eloise was deaf to it. All she could see was the woman looking at her, with that stricken look on her face that must be an echo of her own expression.
The woman sighed harshly, her face convulsing. ‘Look,’ she said, with a kind of twisted pity in her voice, ‘you need to know—Vito’s always got a blonde draped over him! You’re just one more. So don’t think you’re anyone special! He’d have finished with you anyway soon enough. It’s what all men do. All of them!’
The woman’s voice seemed to break a fraction, and her eyes flashed with pained bitterness.
‘So get out while you can—go back to England. Vito’s marrying me! You wouldn’t understand why—and you don’t need to! But there’s no way you’re staying on here. Just be glad you’re shot of him! I’m doing you a favour.’
Her words were cutting into Eloise, into her flesh. Her face looked bleached. This couldn’t be true—it just couldn’t.
Then suddenly into the nightmare footsteps sounded, rapid and hard, coming down the short corridor from where Vito was working.
As he erupted into the lounge, his expression furious, Eloise threw himself into his arms.
‘Vito! Oh, Vito! Tell me it isn’t true! This woman says she’s your fiancée! Tell me it isn’t true!’
She felt Vito’s arms tighten around her, muscles jerking, and she twisted her head to stare back at the woman standing there, who had dropped such a bombshell into her life. Above her head she heard Vito snarl something in Italian she could not understand. She could feel his muscles steeled, taut beneath her clutching hands.
Then the brunette was answering, still in English. ‘Well, I’m here now!’ she threw back, and again her face contorted with strong emotion. ‘And it looks like it’s just as well! Don’t even think of sloping off to Amalfi!’ She rounded on Eloise, her voice rising dangerously. ‘I won’t have it—do you understand me? I won’t!’
Now there was a note of impending hysterics in her voice.
Eloise felt Vito’s arm slash upwards, cutting across the mounting hysteria. ‘Basta! Carla—enough!’ There was fury in his voice—and a whole lot more.
Then Eloise was clutching at him. ‘Vito—please...please tell me it’s not true! Tell me you’re not marrying her!’
Her eyes were huge and pleading. Bewildered and distraught.
He could see Carla’s face contorting, that twisting flash in her eyes. ‘Tell her, Vito!’
‘Vito, please!’ Eloise’s voice was faint with dread.
His jaw clenched. Two opposing forces were pulling him apart. There was Eloise, desperate for his assurance—and every instinct in his body wanted to send Carla packing, her and her mother both. Tell them to go to hell—to do their worst! And then, overlying that, in his head like a death knell, there was his father’s desperate dying plea to him...
Get them back, Vito—my son, my only son! Get Guido’s shares back. Don’t let her sell them—I beg you. I beg you with my last breath...
He looked at Eloise’s strick
en face, heard her stricken voice. ‘Tell me it’s not true! Tell me you’re not marrying her!’
What could he say? How could he say it to either of them? It was impossible—just impossible!
Time—that was what he needed. If he could just get rid of Carla now—get rid of her so he could talk, explain, make everything right with Eloise! Get her to understand what was happening and why.
And there was only one way to get rid of Carla, hysterical as she was. Because if he didn’t...
If I deny the engagement—if I send Carla packing the way I want to do more than anything else in the universe right now—then she’ll be straight on to Marlene and Marlene will be on the phone to Falcone...
And Falcone would snap up the shares and divide Viscari Hotels in half at a stroke. Destroy what it had taken four generations of Viscaris over a century to build up.
I’ll have betrayed my father, my family—given up the legacy I was left to guard. My mother will be devastated.
He took a razored breath. He had to buy time—had to get Carla out of here believing she had accomplished the coup she’d so clearly come to achieve. Had to pack her off so that he could get back to Eloise and tell her everything she needed to know.
Words formed in his head. Words he had to say—words that would cost him more than he’d ever dreamt he’d have to pay.
He looked at Eloise, his face working.
‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice seemed to be someone else’s, not his—never his...not saying these words to Eloise. ‘It’s true.’