* * *
Vito opened the throttle, letting the powerful engine roar. Wanting the noise to drown out everything that was knifing through him. The bitter, bitter taste of total defeat.
I should never have sought her out! Never!
Because to have seen her again, to have his gaze rest on her in the flesh, not just in his memories, had opened the floodgates within him!
He had spent all those precious weeks in Europe with her, wondering if he dared believe she could be the one woman in the world he could fall in love with. He had spent these last brutally grim weeks missing her with an intensity that was like a knife in his guts.
Finally finding her, seeing her, had been like a brand on his flesh. Making everything crystal-clear to him.
Emotion had surged within him. He had been desperate to get her to understand why he had done what he had. Desperate to win her back.
But it had been a disaster—a catastrophe. Smashing his hopes to pieces.
Did I really expect more?
He railed at himself, his grip tightening on the wheel of the car.
Did I really expect her just to fall straight back into my arms as if the past nightmare months had never happened?
He should have known better. Should have realised how impossible that was.
In his head her scathing accusation rang again.
‘You traded me for a handful of shares!’
His hands clenched again around the wheel.
Dio, I messed up from beginning to end! And I’ve lost everything I wanted to keep—everything!
Bleakness seared across his mind as he faced what he’d done, what he’d lost. He’d wanted to keep Eloise in his life—discover exactly what she meant to him—and now he’d lost her for ever. She’d made that clear enough! He’d wanted to keep his promise to his dying father—and he’d broken it. He’d wanted to keep the Viscari legacy intact—and he’d had it smashed it to pieces.
It’s all been for nothing—less than nothing... I betrayed Eloise’s trust in me and I’ve betrayed my father’s trust in me.
He drove on, filled with bleakness and despair. He would leave New York tonight...fly down to Ste Cecile. That hotel, at least, was still his, for Nic Falcone already had a strong existing presence in the Caribbean, and wasn’t interested in the Viscari project there—though he’d helped himself to the pick of the rest of the Viscari North American portfolio. Including the uber-prestigious Viscari Manhattan.
Out of loyalty to his former manager there, Vito was staying in his usual suite—though every sign of the Falcone rebranding was like a whiplash across his shoulders.
But I can’t give in—and I will not go under!
His jaw steeled, eyes hardening. If Falcone was mopping up existing Viscari Hotels—well, there would be new Viscari Hotels opened. It would take time, but time was something he would have a great deal of now. So much gaping time to fill...
Time to rebuild his legacy. Restore what he had lost.
Pain sliced through him again, severing his flesh. What else could he do now? What else was left for him?
Her name cried through his head like a fleeing ghost.
Eloise! What use was it to find you and lose you all over again...?
Fool! Fool that he had been! To hope for her forgiveness—her understanding.
To hope for reunion...
* * *
‘Mum, I need your help.’ Eloise’s voice was urgent as she spoke on the phone from her room at the Carldons’. ‘Can I stay at your apartment tonight? I have to go and see Vito this evening.’