Because once she’d wanted him?
Because all this time she’d loved him?
It was like an axe splitting his skull open—and he hated himself more as he remembered that night they’d first met. Hell, if he’d had a photo of her, if she’d been in a magazine…
Roxanne was poison—she twisted things, blurred the truth—and she wasn’t Caitlyn.
Just as he wasn’t Luca, so Roxanne wasn’t Caitlyn.
Sweet, trusting Caitlyn—which she was.
She was!
He trusted her. For the first time in the longest time he trusted someone—actually believed in someone—and it truly terrified him.
‘Sir?’ Glynn’s face blurred out of focus. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ He could see the worry on his manager’s face. ‘Malvolio was just looking for you—I said you were in your office. Maybe I could call him for you…?’
‘Malvolio!’
He was running now, pounding the button for the lift with his hand. Caitlyn had been telling the truth. All along she had been telling the truth—and that meant right now he’d left her alone with him.
Never had a lift taken so long. Every second as it sped him upwards felt like an hour. Vainly he parted the sliding doors with his hands in frustration in his haste to get to her, racing through the gap and into the hell he’d created—just in time to see her pushed to the floor.
Ripping him off her, slamming him across the room, he knew someone was looking after him—someone up there was looking after him. Because with every fibre of his being he wanted to slam into Malvolio, to hit him, to rip him a new face. But if he did, he knew he’d kill him.
He’d kill him.
His fingers were somehow pressing the security alert button, and that tiny pause was long enough to regroup, to see her sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, to acknowledge that he’d got there in time. And then he faced the bastard—only Lazzaro wasn’t the only one filled with hate. Malvolio had his share too.
Screaming like a demented woman, his eyes bulged in fury. ‘You think you’re so good. Your whole family thinks it’s better—you’re users—’
‘Shut it.’ Lazzaro was in his face, but Malvolio wasn’t to be contained.
‘You swan around like God on the day of reckoning—judging us, shaming us, humiliating us. No wonder Luca hated you!’
Security was there then, already alerted by Glynn. And Lazzaro’s office was a ball of chaos for a while—but only a little while. Lazzaro cleared them all out quickly, for which Caitlyn was grateful—because she didn’t want to see Malvolio ever again. She would make statements and all that later. Just not right now.
Sitting on the edge of the plump sofa, holding a tissue to her lip, Caitlyn watched as he closed the door, stared at him as he came over to comfort her—stopped him with her eyes as she delivered her words.
‘He’s right.’
‘Caitlyn—’
‘Everything Malvolio said is right.’
‘Don’t—’
‘All I ever did wrong was fall in love with you, and you took something nice, something pure, then turned around and shamed me with it.’
‘Don’t talk about that now.’ His usually strong voice was a croak. ‘I need to know that you’re okay. Did he hurt you anywhere else, apart from your lip?’
‘He didn’t hurt me!’ Caitlyn shouted. ‘At least nowhere near as much as you did. You made me feel cheaper and dirtier and more ashamed than Malvolio just did…’
‘I’m sorry…’ He tried to take her hand but she pulled it away. ‘I was coming back to say I was sorry.’
‘Well, you were already too late.’ On surprisingly steady legs she stood up. ‘I’ve forgiven you so many times, Lazzaro—and I swear I never will again. I swear that I’ll hate you for ever.’
Friends were golden.
Real friends. Because, even if he’d started as a colleague, Glynn was actually a friend. He came without question when she buzzed him, put his arm around her and led her out as Lazzaro stood there. He drove her home and poured her some wine and called in the troops—an army of friends who swarmed like butterflies, who held her hand every step of the horrible way and told her over and over, till she almost believed it, that none of this was her fault—that she was absolutely better off without him.