“I’ll keep the secret until my grave. If you promise never to see or speak to Vanni again.”
The refrigerator hummed on in the tense, horrible silence that followed.
“You must realize this thing with Vanni won’t last forever,” Vera reasoned. “How long do you have before this affair between the two of you is over? Weeks? Days? All I’m asking—”
“All you’re doing is blackmailing me,” Emma interrupted coldly. A fury started to build in the pit of her belly, melting her icy shock over the bizarre unfolding of events. “You know as well as anyone how much Vanni has suffered. You claim to care about him. Yet you would make him suffer in this way, out of spite toward me?”
“You claim to care about him as well,” Vera challenged, showing her teeth. “Would you make him suffer, just so that you can satisfy your lust for a few more nights? Don’t try to tell me Vanni has promised you more. I know him. He’s unfailingly honest when it comes to what he’ll give a woman. Well . . . has he promised you more? Has he professed any other emotion but lust for you?”
Emma refused to answer, but perhaps Vera saw the flash of doubt in her eyes. Vera smiled.
“I didn’t think so,” Vera said in a low, victorious tone. “You’ll have to tell him that you decided to end it now, since you know it’ll end some time soon, anyway. A girl like you, so sweet and fragile . . . it’d pain you too much to keep things going until they inevitably end.”
Emma snarled in a very unfragile manner and lunged toward the disgusting woman. Vera’s eyes widened in momentary alarm.
“How do I know you won’t tell him anyway, even if I agree to this? How do I know you won’t harm him in another way, you crazy bitch?” Emma demanded.
For a few seconds, Vera looked like she was ready to resort to violence, but Emma was ready. She waited. Vera inhaled, regaining her composure.
“He’s like a son to me,” Vera said. “I’ve never done anything to harm him. Has he ever mentioned that I have?”
“No,” Emma said. “He doesn’t think about you much at all, let alone talk about you.”
Her arm went up instinctively, blocking Vera’s striking hand. She gripped her wrist tight when Vera tried to jerk it away. Vera’s attempted blow at her face had brought her closer. Emma stared unblinkingly into Vera Shaw’s eyes while her heartbeat roared in her ears. A memory came back to her in that harrowing moment: Niki Dellis staring at her, sadness and concern in his dark eyes as he spoke of Vanni. Sometimes I think if something else horrible happened to him, it’d end him.
She couldn’t bear the idea of him learning that Cristina was his real mother. Just imagining his pain felt as if it took her breath away.
“Promise me you won’t tell him about Cristina,” Emma grated out. “Promise me you won’t do anything to harm him.”
“I promise it easily,” Vera hissed. “If you promise to walk away now.”
Emma shoved the other woman back with force. Vera stumbled back, looking outraged. She started to lunge toward Emma again, but suddenly came up short when their stares met.
“I know someone who will keep an eye on you,” Emma said fiercely, channeling all of her fury into her
gaze. “If I hear you’ve run to Vanni with this information, I’ll find out. I’ll tell Vanni what you did, just in case you convince him that you were only telling him for his own good.”
Vera laughed. “Are you referring to my stupid sister-in-law, Michelle? Or maybe my annoying brother, Dean? Yes. I hear you’ve become quite the darling with them as well. Fine. Check on Vanni’s well-being, if need be. But if you intrude too far into his life again, all bets are off. Do you understand me?”
“Unfortunately, all too well. You’re pitiful,” Emma said, casting a glance of cold disdain over the woman before she walked out of the kitchen.
* * *
Previously, Emma hadn’t allowed herself to imagine too greatly what it would be like when she eventually was forced to walk away from Vanni. Maybe it was best that she was doing it unexpectedly.
When she reached the garage—that place where she’d first spent time with Vanni, peered into the private world of a man who had suffered and lost and was ever so cautiously starting to live again, where she’d first felt her heart pound with boundless passion—what had just occurred in that kitchen suddenly struck her with force.
She stumbled slightly, gasping, and braced herself against the Bentley, her gaze landing on the backseat window. Pain swept through her. The thought of Vanni eventually arriving home and expecting to see her there felt unbearable. She choked on the air she’d just gulped as if her lungs didn’t know how to process it.
Don’t do it. You can’t abandon him!
But the truth was, Vanni wouldn’t feel abandoned. Not really. Her absence would confuse and annoy him. He’d definitely made it clear he didn’t like the idea of things ending on her terms. He wanted and needed her. For now. But abandoned?
No. That wasn’t realistic.
Was it?
It didn’t matter, in the end. The thought of him learning that Adrian had died while under the watch of his true mother, that Vanni carried the blood of Cristina in his veins, was an even worse agony for Emma to consider. He despised Cristina. He guarded the memory of Laurel Montand above all else. She was a pillar of goodness in his tainted, pain-strewn world.