The voice was speaking again. ‘Vito, is that why you agreed to Marlene’s blackmail?’ She would not call it a bribe any longer—it had not been a bribe. ‘Because of that deathbed promise?’
His face convulsed. ‘Why else?’ His voice was as tight as wire pulled to breaking point. ‘And now I’ve betrayed it—betrayed my father. Lost the hotels—broken my promise to him!’
The hand on his sleeve pressed, and he felt a warmth coming through the pressure.
‘Vito—listen to me—listen.’ There was an urgency in Eloise’s voice now, as she spoke, but then she paused. She could not bear to see Vito like this—so...so stricken, so self-accusing.
I have to make this right—I got it wrong, yet again! And now I have to make it right. For Vito’s sake—
And for more than his sake? No—no time for that now. No time for speculation or thinking about herself. Or thinking about—
She cut her thoughts off, focusing on this moment alone.
‘Listen to me,’ she said again.
She saw him about to lift the martini glass and stayed him with her other hand, letting it close over his. Letting the touch of his fingers under hers surge like an electric current through her. He turned his head to look at her, and his stricken eyes made her throat tighten.
‘You should not have had to make that promise,’ she said. She took a breath, ragged in her lungs. ‘Because...’ she took another breath, her eyes fastening on his ‘...this situation is not of your making. Or your father’s! Aren’t you forgetting one tiny little detail? It was your uncle who chose to leave his shares to his widow! Whatever his reasons for doing so, he has to take the responsibility for what has happened now! This hotel—’ she gestured around her ‘—and half of the rest of them now belong to your rival—well, that’s his doing, not yours.’ She took a steadying breath. ‘Don’t you see that, Vito?’
He was staring at her, frowningly. As if what she had said made no sense. She had to make him see it. So she plunged on, emotion streaming through her.
‘Vito, tell me—tell me right now: if your father hadn’t extracted that terrible deathbed promise out of you would you have entertained for one moment Marlene’s blackmail?’
He shook his head, his mouth tightening to a grim line. ‘No,’ he said.
It was as if a garrotte around her throat had loosened, and she felt the blood flow through her veins again, rich and warming. Releasing so much from her. She gave a long, slow exhalation, her eyes never leaving his.
Her expression changed, thoughts crowding into her head. Maybe Vito’s father had been dying, but he’d placed a burden on his son that had almost destroyed him. Crippled him with unnecessary guilt.
Her eyes hardened. Hadn’t her own father done the same? Making her think all through her childhood that if only she’d been a boy he would not have abandoned her?
Vito’s voice cut across her familiar darkening thoughts.
‘Do you...do you really mean what you said about it being my uncle’s responsibility, not mine?’ He spoke as if he could not bring himself to believe what she had said. Did not dare to believe it.
‘Yes!’ she replied immediately, without the slightest hesitation, and with vehemence in her tone.
He felt her hand squeeze tightly over his, reinforcing the vehemence of her voice.
‘Didn’t he think his widow might use her ownership of his share of the hotels malignly?’
Vito was silent a moment. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that he hoped it might make us...my parents, myself...accept Marlene more. Maybe,’ he said, and the words were being dragged from him now, ‘if we’d been more...welcoming to her, she wouldn’t have felt she had to... I don’t know...prove she was part of the family in her obsession with me marrying her daughter.’
‘Vito—don’t think about it any more. It’s over—it’s gone. Don’t let it haunt you any more—please!’
She took a breath, then paused, her face working. Part of
her, somewhere inside her head, was thinking how strange it was that she should be here, comforting Vito. Yet it felt right too. So right.
There was something else she needed to say. Something she had to acknowledge.
‘Vito—’ She took a breath, knowing she needed to say what she had to say now. ‘Now...now that I understand what was actually going on—not just what you did about Carla, but why—and what the whole grim, ghastly situation was, and the horrendous pressure you were under to sort out a mess which was nothing to do with you, I know...’ She swallowed. ‘I know I have been...unfair on you. I judged you too harshly. And...and I’m sorry, Vito! I’m truly sorry—’
She broke off, her voice twisting, not able to say more. A heaviness was crushing her. Emotions were roiling. Emotions she did not want to think about—not now. They were too much...
Gently, she felt him squeeze her fingers.
‘And I,’ said Vito, his voice low, intent, ‘am truly sorry too.’ His voice changed. ‘If I could take back time—do it differently—I would have told you sooner. Explained the situation. ‘