That was why he’d pursued her, why he’d proposed to her.
It all made sense now. He’d never loved her. Never even wanted her. He’d only wanted revenge. She’d been nothing but his means to his lifelong retribution.
The blow of realization was so brutal it interrupted her very heartbeats.
“But now after you told me how—”
Antonio’s words were suddenly cut off as he tensed and turned to look in Lili’s direction.
There was no way he could see her in the darkness. And she hadn’t made a sound. She couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe.
“Liliana?”
He did feel her. Or it was her devastation he felt. Now she realized that everything between them had been a lie.
Suffocating, feeling she’d rather die than face him now, she scrambled up, stumbling as she ran back out of the room.
“Liliana!”
His shout punched her between the shoulder blades, intensifying her desperation.
She had to escape him, escape the agony. But she couldn’t pass through the others on her way out. She had to find another exit.
Spilling into the next barricaded room, which must open onto the same wraparound veranda leading to the garden, she rushed to open the closed French doors, growing frantic as his thundering footsteps drew closer, his shout begging her to stop another lash propelling her forward, making her more frantic.
Then everything happened at once. Sofia’s shrill warning, Antonio roaring, and she was falling.
Pain exploded, sharp and searing, tearing through her midriff. A simultaneous agony splintered through her thigh, almost fracturing her awareness.
Then she was on her back, staring up at the stars as they blurred, the night darkening around her.
The whoosh of blood in her ears receded, only to be replaced by Antonio’s frenzy as he begged her not to move.
Not that she could. Even drawing enough oxygen not to pass out was excruciating. She lay there, paralyzed with pain, watching his massive silhouette, an avenging angel jumping down a steep drop to crouch over her.
Vaguely, she realized the veranda she’d tried to escape through wasn’t there. She’d fallen through its skeleton, getting stabbed on the way down by protruding concrete-reinforcing steel bars. From the agony now emanating from her left side, she realized she must have damaged some internal organs. Probably her spleen, intestines, maybe a kidney. Her left femur was also fractured. Muscle damage was a given, maybe nerve damage, too.
She couldn’t see Antonio’s face, could only hear his strident breathing as he swept her in the bright beam of a flashlight.
Then she heard the tremor of dread in his voice as he pressed down on her side. He’d assessed her injuries and was applying pressure to slow the bleeding. “I’m here, mi amore, I’ve got you. Just don’t move.”
“Dio mio, dio mio, is she...?”
Without looking up, he hissed, “Leave now, Sofia. Tell no one.”
Sofia’s gasp at Antonio’s harshness carried to Lili’s wavering consciousness, but the woman complied, disappearing from Lili’s field of vision. Then Antonio started talking, barking sharp, concise orders. To Paolo, to fetch his medical kit from the limo. To his pilot, to get a helicopter. To the medical center, to prepare his OR.
Working at top efficiency, Antonio, the miracle worker who put people back together, had everything ready in minutes to reconstruct her. After he’d broken her, torn her apart.
He bent over her, raining frantic kisses all over her face. “You’re going to be okay, mi amore, I promise.”
She tried to cringe away. “You...shouldn’t...”
“Don’t talk. Just let me take care of you.”
“You shouldn’t...” Her teeth clattered, more with desolation than with blood loss or pain. “...have done...this to me...”
A groan escaped