And the bitterest truth of all was that it had only taken setting eyes on her again this afternoon for him to know, with blazing clarity, that she, of all the women in the world, was the one who meant most to him. The time dividing them had vanished in an instant, and he’d known that everything he’d desired her for was still blazingly true. He wanted her—and she was still lost to him.
Unless her coming here tonight means...
No, he must not hope. He’d hoped before, and had had his hope smashed to pieces. Better—safer—to finish his martini and steel himself for seeing her again.
Maybe for the last time ever...
He lifted his glass, but it froze halfway to his lips.
She was there, in the entrance, and her eyes were fixed on him.
* * *
Eloise’s eyes went to Vito immediately. He was sitting at the bar. Slowly, she walked towards him. His expression had become masked as he’d seen her, and she felt emotion swirl within her, troubling and troubled. But she tried to set them aside. She was here for one purpose only. To say the words she must say. Unsay what she had thrown at him so angrily. So unfairly.
‘You traded me for a handful of shares!’
Only it had not been a handful, had it? It had been the severing of his legacy—an entire half of it handed to his rival.
‘Hello, Vito,’ she said.
Her voice sounded strange...far away. She looked at him, but could not quite meet his eyes. Or perhaps it was his eyes not meeting hers.
She swallowed. ‘Thank you for seeing me.’
His expression shifted minutely. ‘I was en route to JFK,’ he said. He moved his martini glass, gestured to the stool at the bar beside his. ‘What is it that you want to say?’
His expression was wary, cutting her off from him. She perched herself on the stool, setting her handbag on the bar, taking a breath.
‘I didn’t realise,’ she said, ‘just what those shares meant. Johnny’s father told me—he assumed I knew. He told me...told me you’d lost half of the Viscari Hotels.’ She took another breath. ‘I’m so sorry, Vito.’ Her voice was small. She made herself go on. ‘So sorry that I made it sound so...trivial. I didn’t know. Didn’t realise.’ She swallowed. ‘Didn’t understand.’
The barman had glided up to them, hovering attentively, knowing full who Vito was even if he no longer owned the hotel.
Vito went into courtesy mode. ‘What would you like to drink?’ he asked Eloise.
There was nothing more in his voice than there would have been if she were a minor acquaintance.
She hesitated. A thousand memories pierced like needles under her skin. Once she would have said, Oh, a Bellini would be lovely! But now she dared not. And not just because of the memories.
‘OJ, please—and water,’ she said, and the barman nodded, and glided away again.
Unwillingly, Eloise registered that his uniform was now emblazoned with the Falcone logo—so was the drinks menu, and the bar mats, and anything else that had writing on it. Vito’s rival had branded his new possessions as his own. Slamming home to her what had been taken from Vito...
There was an awkward silence, and Eloise knew she must speak again. Made herself do so. ‘If...if you’d married your step-cousin, would you have lost the hotels?’
He shook his head. Tersely he answered, ‘No. Marlene—my uncle’s widow—would have handed me the shares after the wedding. That was her plan. Her way of getting me to marry her daughter, Carla.’
Eloise frowned. ‘But why...?’ She paused while the barman set up her drinks, then moved away. ‘Why did she want you to marry her daughter? Why did Carla want to marry you? Was she in love with you?’
Was that why Carla had raged? Because of raging, furious jealousy?
But Vito was shaking her head. ‘No, she was in love with another man—who’d just dumped her to marry another woman.’
A hiss escaped Eloise and her eyes widened with disbelief. The irony of what Vito had just said...
He was speaking again. ‘I was to be her...her face-saver, I guess.’ His voice twisted. ‘Even if the only way she could make me do it was through her mother’s bribe.’
Eloise was silent a moment, absorbing what Vito had said—and the bitter irony of his step-cousin reaching for him to assuage her pride, thereby causing Eloise’s own galling humiliation at Vito’s deceit. Then she reached for her orange juice, drank it down.