Yet it was Renzo Sonia found herself staring at. Renzo pulling the woman close, looking down at her with that sexy, intimate smile Sonia had thought he saved just for her.
Her thoughts crashed to a jarring stop as her gaze drifted again to the woman and she took in the significance of the plum-coloured lipstick. Sonia recalled the smear on Renzo’s cheek last night.
Her heart battered against her ribs. Was thisthe woman at his duty dinner?
It didn’t looklike duty.
‘When was this taken?’ Her voice was hoarse, scoured from a throat as dry as an outback drought.
‘Let me see.’ Marietta swiped back up through the article, past another photo, this time of Renzo bending down to kiss the beautiful stranger. Sonia felt a ball of searing emotion build in her chest, a roiling tangle of hurt and dismay that almost overwhelmed her.
‘Last night,’ Marietta said. ‘Here in Rome. Why?’ She looked at Sonia and frowned. ‘Are you okay? You look—’
‘What does it say? The text?’
Marietta’s stare didn’t waver but Sonia was beyond caring what her colleague read in her face. She needed to know. She was busy telling herself photos could be misinterpreted. She was overreacting. Renzo had already explained, and yet...
Finally Marietta turned back to the article and read out loud. What she read proved just how wrong Sonia was.
She thought she’d known Renzo and that if nothing else, they were honest with each other. She didn’t expect him to want permanency, but she’d believed him when he said there was no other woman. That he didn’t want another.
He’d lied.
Wedding bells at last.
That was the headline, and things went downhill from there. For it seemed she hadn’t known Lorenzo Veracini as well as she thought.
He wasn’t merely well off because he was a successful architect. He came from a completely different world to Sonia’s. It turned out his family was incredibly wealthy and had been for generations. Not only that but they were aristocracy. His grandfather was a count and Renzo would inherit the title, as well as the family palazzo in Tuscany and various commercial enterprises.
Aristocrats stuck together, which was how they preserved their wealth. So of course he was marrying another aristocrat. The gorgeous brunette in the photos had known Renzo all their lives and now they were planning to marry. No date had been set but the bride-to-be had coyly spoken of a winter wedding and sources close to the couple said both families were delighted.
Family business.
That’s what Renzo said took him out of town.
Family business as in finalising the complex financial arrangements that must go with this marriage? For it transpired the bride was heiress to a business conglomerate almost as significant as the Veracinis’.
There was another woman after all.
Then the full truth hit and Sonia swayed, reaching out for the door-jamb to steady herself.
No, the woman in the photos was Renzo’s fiancée. The other woman, the cheap bit on the side, was Sonia.
Again.
Renzo had done that to her, just as Eric had. Both men had cast her into a role she despised, turning her passion and, yes, her love, into a tainted, bitter thing. Something tawdry.
‘Sonia.’ Marietta’s strong fingers clasped her upper arms. ‘What is it? Are you sick?’
Dazed, Sonia let Marietta lead her into the workroom and a hard chair in the corner. She sank down, glad for the solid wood beneath her as she started to shake so violently her teeth chattered.
Yes, she was sick. Sick of men who deceived. Who treated her as expendable.
She hadn’t expected love from Renzo but she’d expected honesty.
Sonia shook her head. Ten minutes ago she’d worried about how to conceal her feelings from her lover. Now she realised it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t care.
She’d fallen for a mirage, a man who didn’t really exist. Which wasn’t fair, since the damage he’d done to her heart was all too real.