“Admit what you did to me,” she whispered. “I want to hear it from your lips.”
He closed his eyes.
Then he looked into her face and told her the truth.
“I heard the car go off the cliff. I heard the crunch of metal as it hit. I rushed toward the car, and heard a baby crying. I pulled you out of the car before it exploded.”
Her eyes widened imperceptibly. “So you’re saying…you saved me?”
He wished he could be so noble. He shook his head. “When I took you from the car, I knew it was my chance for revenge at last. There was an American woman staying at my aunt’s pensione. She’d said she was desperate for a child. So I…gave her one.”
“That’s how you knew I was in Illinois,” she said. Unshed tears shone from her eyes. “All these years, you’ve known I was alive. But you let me be neglected in foster care, forgotten until you found another selfish use for me.”
“No, Lucy, no!” He shook his head vehemently. “I realized my mistake long ago. I wouldn’t wish my greatest enemy to be raised by a man like Ferrazzi—” he gave the man a hard look “—but I tried to find you. But your mother just disappeared. Changed her profession. Even changed her name. I couldn’t find you. Until I looked into Wentworth’s past for something to use against him…and found you. It was fate, cara,” he whispered, reaching out to stroke her dark hair. “Il destino.”
“Fate.” Her beautiful red lips curled. “I asked you for the truth. Begged you. And you lied to me. Your kisses, comforts, sweet words—all lies.”
“No—not a lie. I just didn’t tell you everything.” He moved toward her in the candlelight, desperate to touch her, to caress her cheek, to make her understand. “At first there didn’t seem any point, and later, I was afraid—”
“You. Lied.” She backed away, hurt and anger and confusion mixing in her expression. “Alexander only took a year from me. You took my whole childhood. And you made me love you,” she whispered. “I’ll never forgive you for that.”
She started to turn away.
“Marry me.”
She stopped, whirling to face him. “What?”
The ache in his throat was so great that he could barely summon his old bravado, his old charm. But he tried like hell.
“Let me make it up to you.” He held up the priceless eight-carat diamond ring set in platinum. “I will never keep another secret from you. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy. Not because of what you own, but because of who you are. I love you, cara. Stay with me. Be my wife forever.”
Furrowing her brow in hurt and confusion, she gasped, “My God, is there anything you won’t lie about in order to win?”
“I’m not lying!” In front of the whole roomful of people, Prince Maximo d’Aquilla allowed himself to reveal his vulnerability. Every muscle in his body was tense as he held the ring out to her, hardly daring to breathe. “I’m asking you to love me. I’m asking you to be mine.”
Slowly she took the ring from him. She looked at the endlessly sparkling facets, the cold shine of the perfect diamond.
Va bene, he thought suddenly. She’s going to forgive. I will spend the rest of my life loving her…
“You really love me?” she said softly.
“Yes!” he nearly shouted.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, they were as cold as the old man’s.
“Good,” she said. “Then this will hurt.”
She threw the enormous diamond ring at his face, drawing blood on his cheek where the prongs scraped against his skin.
The crowd gasped.
Touching the drops of blood, Maximo watched as she turned on her heel. Snatching up her sleeping child in her arms, Lucy fled the chapel in a swirl of frothy silk and tulle. He heard a single sob as she disappeared, echoing like a swan’s plaintive cry across the lake.
“Now,” he heard Giuseppe Ferrazzi say wit
h satisfaction behind him, “I can die a happy man.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN