His flinch was small, fleeting, but she saw it.
‘Is that the going price for an olive oil company these days?’ she taunted.
A flush of colour crept over his cheeks, but his eyes were cold. When he spoke his voice was colder still. ‘For the last time, I didn’t know you were a virgin.’
‘Don’t try and pretend you have a conscience, Vicenzu.’ Her simmering pain gave way to an even hotter anger. ‘You wanted to marry me and you will. Only it will be on my terms. Not yours. And if you refuse then I will find your mother and tell her exactly how you and your brother have behaved,’ she said, her voice shaking slightly. ‘I will tell her what kind of men the boys she raised have become.’
Her threat was empty. She wouldn’t do it. She didn’t want to marry him, and nor would she do anything to hurt Audenzia.
But she wanted to hurt him like he’d hurt her, and this was the only way she could think to do it.
His face hardened and the look in his eyes made her want to weep.
‘I thought your father was a monster, but you...you are something else.’
And she had thought Vicenzu was the kind of man who crossed any number of boundaries, but not ruthlessly or with wanton cruelty.
Jabbing his phone into his chest, she met his gaze head-on. ‘Yes, I am. I’m your nemesis, Vicenzu.’
Her face was aching with the effort of blanking out the beauty of his high cheekbones and full mouth... the mouth that had so recently kissed her into a state of feverish rapture.
His eyes narrowed. ‘You really are Daddy’s little girl, aren’t you? Except that he uses threats and then violence to get what he wants.’
Smiling bitterly, she shook her head. ‘What happened to “what they can’t find out, they make up”?’
He stared at her incredulously. ‘I wasn’t talking about your father.’
‘Well, you couldn’t have been talking about yourself. Nobody in their right mind could make this up.’ Her voice rose. ‘How could you do this to me? How could you be so cruel?’
‘You think I’m cruel?’ He took a rough breath, his face hardening. ‘Me? No, I’m just an amateur, cara.’ He typed something into his phone, scrolled down the screen. ‘This is the real deal. Here—’ Letting his contempt show, he pressed the phone into her hand. ‘You like reading my messages? Read these and then tell me who the bad guy is.’
She stared at him. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire. ‘I don’t need to. You are the bad guy, Vicenzu.’
And, sidestepping past him, she walked quickly away—going nowhere, just wanting, needing, to get as far away as possible from his cold-eyed distaste and the wreckage of her romantic dreams.
She half expected him to come after her, as he had last night. But of course last night he’d been playing her. Last night he’d only come after her because he’d been playing his part, doing whatever it took to get the family business back.
Whatever it took.
Like having sex with her.
The thought that having sex with her had been one step en route to the bigger prize, a means to trap and manipulate her, made her feel sick.
She had wanted her first time to be perfect. To be her choice and not just an expected consequence of her marriage vows. Had wanted it to be with Vicè, because in her naivety—idiot that she’d been—she had liked and trusted him.
And when he’d walked towards her at the wedding, his dancing eyes and teasing laughter trailing promises of happiness, she’d fallen in love with him.
As she reached the terrace tears began to fill her eyes and she brushed them away angrily.
She had been stubborn and vain. Ignoring and defying her father’s words of warning and letting herself be flattered by Vicè’s lies. Her pain was deserved. But Claudia’s...
Her eyes filled with tears again, and this time she let them roll down her cheeks. She had let her sister down. Worse, she had broken her word.
She had been eight years old when she made that promise—too young to understand that her mother was dying, but old enough to understand the promise she was making. A promise to take care of her younger sister, to protect her and keep her safe in the kind of cruel, unjust world that would leave two young children motherless.
She had always kept her word. Protecting Claudia at school, and at home too. Shielding her from the full force of Cesare’s outbursts and trying to boost her confidence by encouraging her love of cooking and gardening.
Only now she had broken that promise.