He swung the computer screen around so she could see it. ‘That’s what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘You planned it from the start, didn’t you? It was the perfect revenge. I can’t believe how well you set me up.’
Bella looked at the computer screen where he had pulled up a selection of online newspapers. The headlines made her heart screech to a stop:
Self-Made Tycoon’s Tragic Past Revealed
Former Bad Boy Victim of Child Abuse
Affair with Heiress Heals Wounded Heartthrob
There was a photograph of Edoardo kissing her in front of Haverton Manor. It had been taken only a couple of days ago—obviously through a telephoto lens, as Bella couldn’t recall seeing anyone about. But then she remembered the journalists she had run into in the village. Had they been spying on them? Had they dug a little deeper in to his past? She looked up at him in bewilderment. ‘You think I set this up?’ she asked.
‘Don’t give me that doe-eyed, innocent look,’ he said through tight lips. ‘Get the hell out of here before I throw you out.’
‘I didn’t do this,’ Bella said. ‘How can you think I would do something like this? Don’t you know me at all?’
His eyes flashed pure hatred at her. ‘You were the only person who could have done it,’ he said. ‘I’ve told no one about my past. Not a damn soul. Now the whole bloody world knows about it, thanks to you. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. You’ve always been a little two-faced cow. You wanted to get me back for not agreeing to your engagement. Well, you can marry whomever you like. I don’t give a damn.’
Bella was reeling with shock, hurt and disbelief. ‘I can’t believe you think I would do this to you on purpose,’ she said. ‘There were journalists in the village when I went down for milk yesterday. I didn’t tell you because—’
‘Because you lured them down here with a tell-all exclusive, didn’t you?’ he said with a snarl. ‘What did you think that last headline was going to do—force me to get down on bended knee and ask you to marry me?’
Bella glanced at the Affair with Heiress Heals Wounded Heartthrob headline. She swallowed tightly and looked at him again. ‘I didn’t say anything to them about...’ She flushed and dropped her gaze. ‘I might have mentioned something to my mother...’
He let out an expletive. ‘So the two of you cooked this up, did you?’ he said. ‘I should’ve guessed. That’s why she came down a couple of days ahead of you, to scope out the scene.’
‘No,’ Bella said, her heart sinking in despair. ‘That’s not what happened at all. I didn’t do it on purpose. I just mentioned you’d had a terrible childhood. She was saying mean things about you and I thought—’
‘You thought you’d have a cosy little gossip and destroy everything I’ve worked so hard for,’ he said bitterly.
‘Why does people knowing about your past destroy anything?’ Bella asked. ‘You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. People will admire you for being so resilient. I know they will.’
His eyes glittered with contempt. ‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ he bit out. ‘You love all the attention. You’re never out of the damn papers. You couldn’t have picked a better way to get back at me. I value my privacy about everything. You knew that.’ He curled his lip. ‘All that talk of love and wanting the fairy tale—what a load of rubbish. You don’t love anyone but yourself. You never have.’
Bella was struggling not to break down. Only her pride kept her from having an emotional meltdown. She was so hurt, so devastated that he believed her to be capable of such loathsome behaviour. But it wasn’t just his lack of trust that hurt her the most. He was pushing her away, locking her out, rejecting her. It was so crushing to be dismissed as if she had meant nothing to him other than a temporary diversion—a pretty toy that hadn’t turned out to be all it had promised to be. If he cared even an iota for her, wouldn’t he be doing everything to try to understand how this had come about? Wouldn’t he understand that her openness was not wrong, just different from his need for privacy? ‘I guess that’s it, then,’ she said, straightening her shoulders. ‘I’ll get on my way.’
‘I never want to see you again,’ he said as he glowered at her broodingly. ‘Do you understand? Never.’
‘Don’t worry,’ she said with a toss of her head as she swung away to the door. ‘You won’t.’