“Of course not,” he snapped. “Her father’s behavior had nothing to do with her.”
“Will you please remember that if anyone talks to you about Angelo?”
“What are you saying? Forewarned is forearmed. Tell me everything.”
“It’s not mine to tell,” she said as the door swung inward, silent on its hinges.
Angelo stood there, one shoulder negligently braced against the jamb.
She knew immediately he’d been there long enough to hear her comparison of his circumstance to Sorcha’s, maybe more.
Keeping his gaze locked with Pia’s, he said to Cesar, “Your wife does not have a promising career on the magician’s circuit. Her attempt at misdirection was blatant and obvious.” He held out his hand to Pia. “She is, however, an extremely charming hostess. I don’t wish to be rude. Shall we rejoin our party, querida?”
She knew her acquiescence would be agreement to more than a party. The engagement would proceed. The wedding would happen. Chips would fall as they may.
Cesar was wrong. She didn’t have the power here. Her baby did. And she genuinely believed Angelo would love their child. Maybe some hidden part of her even saw that as potential he might one day love her.
She moved to set her hand in his and they went back downstairs.
CHAPTER NINE
THEIR ENGAGEMENT EVENING went quite well, all things considered. Angelo hadn’t meant to tell Pia the truth so baldly, driving it between them like a wedge. Maybe he’d had to do it with anger in order to get it out and brace himself for what he expected would be a rejection.
Her family’s maneuverings, allowing her to slip away for an intervention from big brother, hadn’t surprised him one bit. He had accepted a whiskey and told himself he would be better off if she broke their engagement. He had no desire to become part of this stuck-up family and suffer their judgment for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to stare into her eyes across the breakfast table every morning and see—
With a choke, he’d set aside his drink and went looking for her, leaving a surprised pause behind him.
He had arrived at the cracked door in time to hear her brother’s script spoken exactly on cue. Pia quite easily could have spilled everything Angelo had revealed to protect her own family from future scandal, but she hadn’t. She had shielded his mother in the onl
y way she could, by maintaining her privacy.
That kindness nearly broke him. He had kept her hand in his the rest of the night, doing everything he could to ease her tension as they made the rounds with guests. When they made love that night, it had been with something new between them—the first strands of trust.
But it was immediately put to the test.
Now that Tomas and Darius knew Angelo had the jewels, their campaign to discredit him began in earnest. Rumormongering online suggested everything from accusations of child labor to tax evasion. Paparazzi began tailing them and a woman he’d never met claimed to be pregnant with his child.
Angelo took sensible steps. He had Pia’s housekeeper change the phone number and instructed her staff to screen all communications. His security team upgraded the alarm system on her house, a pair of guards began to shadow them when they went out, and another pair remotely monitored for suspicious activity.
None of that could protect them from the whispers and snide asides that followed them into cocktail parties and benefits. Much of the animosity was pure snobbery couched as concern for Pia.
“He’s American, isn’t he?” he overheard a woman ask Pia in an outraged whisper, because that was a crime.
“Spanish,” Pia said evenly. “America is where his head office is located. He has a home in California.”
“Are you moving there? Because if he isn’t part of this life, how will he fit in? I mean, have an affair. Look at him. But I can’t see you marrying him.”
“Is that a regret for the wedding? I’ll let Mother know.”
The woman’s face had dropped and Angelo had seized the opportunity to draw Pia onto the dance floor, taking dark satisfaction in giving the woman no time to rephrase after Pia’s cutthroat response.
Pia’s mother was concerned that RSVPs weren’t coming in thick and fast, though. It was another indicator that people were dragging their feet as they debated taking sides. So far, Angelo wasn’t winning.
Pia wasn’t winning, either. He’d thrust her smack in the middle of his war. Perhaps that should have prompted an apology from him, but he was so disgusted by her crowd’s desire to turn on what they perceived to be an outsider, he could only bite out, “Hypocrites.”
They had just arrived at a hotel ballroom to be informed by a greeter they weren’t on the list.
Angelo’s brothers were keeping a low profile, probably not even here, but that was what made this worse. They were getting the word out that Angelo was persona non grata and it was working.