“I don’t know. Will it make me an accessory to whatever crimes you’ve committed? My brother bought the Gomez villa and its contents. If you took something more than the painting you purchased, you were stealing.”
“I didn’t steal anything. I retrieved something my mother left for me. I retrieved my mother.”
She snapped her head around to look at him. “Not the girl in the painting. She’s too young.”
“Her name is Angelica. It’s the only image I have of her. She was the daughter of the baron’s second wife from her first marriage and yes, she was far too young to be a mother. My mother.” Despite a lifetime of damming up the truth behind shame and anger, the toxic words spilled out of him in a torrent. “The accusation is that she took the jewelry from her mother’s bedroom,” he said, his voice low and gritty and brimming with three decades of helpless hatred. “I am quite certain it was all brought to her by my father, since it was kept in the safe in his office. He spent time with my mother when his wife, my grandmother, had gone out for the day.”
Pia covered her mouth, eyes wide with horror.
“I suppose I’m lucky I wasn’t thrown into a river or given away when she had me. At fifteen. I had six years with her in that moldy little cottage before they sent me to that prison they called a boarding school. I barely saw her after that. Don’t ask me why she stayed. To ensure my tuition was paid, I imagine. Maybe she felt too damned fragile to fight for a better life. All I know is that she killed herself shortly after my father died, well aware she would be turned onto the street otherwise. I was.”
* * *
Angelo’s acrid fury clouded the darkened back seat of the car.
Pia was speechless, utterly unable to form thoughts into words she was so anguished on his mother’s behalf. Pia was overwhelmed and frightened by her pregnancy and she was an adult with resources. She had a support system and her baby’s father was beside her in this journey, putting her down for naps when she was too overtired to see the sense in it.
“Did your grandmother know?” she managed to gasp.
“Of course she did. Everyone in the family knew. They also knew which side their bread was buttered on, so they let it go on.”
“That’s horrific.” She couldn’t grasp it. It was too awful.
“It is. And if my half brothers want the jewels back, they can damned well acknowledge how my mother came by them, not call my future wife and tell her I stole them. They can admit I’m as entitled as they are to a share in the family fortune.”
“But you could... I mean, wouldn’t a DNA test—”
“I could insist on a test,” he said, cutting her off with a biting tone. “This isn’t about proving our relationship any more than it is about the money. I hate that I carry any trace of their tainted blood. They can have the damned name and title. Protecting that is why her own mother allowed her to be abused. No, I’m quite content to remain an ugly family secret, but I won’t let them continue to enjoy the life they lead when it came at her expense. I’m taking it apart brick by brick.”
“Why can’t you...?” She balked even as she started to say it.
“Tell the world what happened? Put my mother on trial in the court of public opinion? My brothers will claim she instigated what happened to her. That’s what kind of people they are. My poor, upstanding, blameless father, a grown man, was helpless against a teenage seductress. Who are your parents going to believe, Pia? The bastard with a grudge? Or one of their own?”
They would distance themselves as much as possible, she suspected. Her entire body went cold.
“I wish you had told me sooner,” she said, projecting to the ramifications if this came out.
“When?” he demanded. “While we were two strangers having our tête-à-tête on the rooftop? When you were informing me that we’d conceived a child? Or do you mean before we publicly attached ourselves with the engagement photo? Frightened to be associated with me now, Pia?”
She looked guiltily to the window, heart clenching at his scathing tone.
“There’s still time to back out.” His gritty voice dared her to try. “I’ll make it very uncomfortable for you if you do.”
She glanced back to see him sitting with his clenched fists on his thighs, his profile cast in iron. How comfortable would he make it for her to continue forward and marry him, she wondered hysterically? Especially if the truth came out?
There might as well have been a wall of ice between them the rest of the drive. She didn’t know how to reach past it and wasn’t sure she wanted to. When he had asked her to trust him that first night, she hadn’t expected anything of this magnitude. She felt tricked, especially when he was speaking so ruthlessly about going through with their marriage. He was hardly motivated by any genuine feeling toward her, was he?
Her angst made her smile all the more strained when they arrived at Cesar’s mansion to find Rico and Poppy were already there along with her parents. The rest of the guests weren’t due for an hour, but Sorcha had wanted a chance to break the ice and get to know Angelo.
“Pia, would you be a love and pop up to say good-night to the boys?” Sorcha entreated while she was removing her coat. “Enrique found a shell the other day. He’s convinced you’re the only one who can identify it.” She took hold of Angelo’s arm. “You, however, look like a man who might be up for sampling my stock of Irish whiskey. Can I
tempt you?”
Pia was dying for a moment to collect her thoughts and the children always restored her. “I’ll join you shortly,” she promised Angelo, and veered up the stairs.
She had only been with her nephews for five short minutes, however, when Cesar came in.
“Tía is expected downstairs,” he told the boys in a gentle but firm voice, his affectionate stroke of his older son’s hair softening the blow.