Her response was to turn her back and walk out of the room.
Breathing heavily, Alessio bit back the almost overwhelming compulsion to run after her.
He’d achieved what he’d set out to do. He’d set her free.
That her freedom came at the expense of his own shattering heart was no one’s fault but his own.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BETH LOOKED AT her watch again and sighed. She’d been sat in the airport’s private lounge for three hours. There’d been an accident on one of Milan’s bypasses and the pilot was stuck in the resulting traffic.
Her phone vibrated.
It was a message from Miranda asking if she was okay.
Beth sighed again and rubbed her eyes. She felt so tired.
She’d been full of so much anger and pain when she’d gone into the nursery, intent on snatching Dom from his cot and leaving straight away, but then she’d seen his tiny sleeping form and had known it would take a heart as cold as the man she’d married to wake him.
So she’d lain by his cot, unwilling to get into the bed she’d first slept in those first nights in Milan that felt so far away now, and waited until he’d stirred. She’d dressed him first then rifled through one of the cases the staff had put for her in her old room and changed into jeans and a light jumper.
The sun had only just risen when she’d left the villa in a cab.
Other than Miranda, who had appeared like a ghost as she’d left the nursery—the look on her face showing she was in the know about the...what to call it? Split? Separation? Severing of her heart? She saw no one.
Dom, currently in a high chair, threw a bit of the croissant she’d broken into pieces for him onto the floor.
Hot tears stabbed the back of her eyes as she stared at his happy little face and wondered how Alessio could give up on him like this.
She knew the reason why. It was because he didn’t want her. She didn’t fit in.
She’d been right about that from the start.
And she’d been right not to hope that all those thoughtful things he’d done for her had been because he’d developed actual feelings for her as a woman and lover rather than just seeing her as a business spouse.
A sudden tightness in her chest doubled her over.
She put a hand to her heart, grabbed a hank of hair with the other and pulled hard but the tightness in her chest clenched even more and she gasped for breath.
How could he do this? How could he just turn around and let them go as if they meant nothing to him?
He didn’t want her. He wanted to marry someone else, a woman who would seamlessly fit into his life and be happy with whatever role she was given.
His words floated in her head. I want you to be happy, bella...
She inhaled deeply through her nose and thought hard to recall everything he’d said.
What had he meant about there being no viable role for her within Palvetti? Literally the only jobs that couldn’t be catered for within it were for musicians and actors. And maybe social media gurus. Other than that, a niche could be found for everyone.
So why not for her?
And why let Dom go?
That was the one thing that made no sense. Dom was the entire reason he’d married her. He’d wanted his nephew to take his place in the family, to be groomed to potentially one day run the business. Everything was about the business. It was how the Palvettis worked. It was their very reason for being.
For all Alessio knew, she could take Dom right now and go into hiding somewhere where Alessio would never find them.
Her heart suddenly starting to thrum, she leaned under the table to pick the plastic cup of water Dom had decided to throw onto the floor, probably aiming at the mess of croissant crumbs already there—thankfully the cup had a lid—and, as she gave it back to him, her phone rang.
Thinking it must be Miranda, whose text she still hadn’t responded to, she was taken aback to see Gina’s name flash on the screen.
Alessio had programmed all the directors’ numbers into her phone ages ago. Not one of them had ever called her on it.
She debated with herself for a moment then tentatively put it to her ear. ‘Hello?’
‘Beth? It’s Gina.’
‘Hi...’
‘I just want to congratulate you.’
‘For what?’
‘The party.’ Gina laughed. It even sounded genuine. ‘It was a masterstroke. You did an incredible job.’
Beth was so surprised at the compliments that it took her a moment to respond. ‘Thank you.’
The pitch of Gina’s voice lowered. ‘I owe you an apology.’
‘Oh?’
‘I haven’t behaved well towards you and for that I’m sorry. And while I’m here apologising I should say I’m sorry for doubting you about the party too. I should have trusted Alessio’s judgement. He shouldn’t have had to threaten to resign over it.’
Blood rushed to Beth’s head, dizzying her. Alessio had threatened to resign?
‘Beth? Are you there?’
‘Sorry,’ she murmured, her thoughts far away.
‘I thought I’d lost you. Va bene, I need to go. I’ll see you in the morning. Ciao.’
‘Ciao, Gina,’ she whispered.
She placed her phone on the table and stared at her little boy, trying desperately to make sense of the short conversation.
She sat there for ages, lost in thought, trying to fit the pieces of the jigsaw together, knowing she must fit them...just as she’d tried to fit herself into the Palvetti mould.
Alessio had told her she didn’t fit in the Palvetti mould.
If he felt that strongly about it—strongly enough to end their marriage and lose custody of Dom over it—then why had he stuck his neck out and threatened to walk away from the business over the party?
Her phone rang again.
It was the cabin crew. The pilot had arrived.
It was time to leave Milan and pick up the pieces of her old life.
It was time to reclaim her freedom.
* * *
Alessio sat on the sun-faded sofa that hadn’t been used in four years and bowed his head.
Music rang out through the speakers piped throughout the ground floor, connecting from his brother’s studio where Alessio had turned on the sound system. That had been unused for four years too.
He closed his eyes and let the raw music envelop him.
It did nothing to dull the wrenching pain in his heart.
Beth had been right. His brother did have talent.
Alessio had been too...what was the word she’d used that time? Superior? It fitted. He’d been too superior in his judgement of his brother to bother to listen to the music Domenico had created.
He wished he’d listened to it when he’d been alive.
He wished he hadn’t waited until their mother had died to track him down. If he’d overridden his pride there might have been a rapprochement. Unlikely, he knew. The scars of their childhood had run deep in Domenico.
He wished he hadn’t been so dismissive of his brother’s feelings.
He wished a lot of things that could never be.
He could never make things right with his brother but at least he was now, finally, doing right by his son.
Beth would care for Dom as she had always done, with that fierce protectiveness and a world full of love.
He covered his face with his hands and bowed his head.
They would be back in England now, ready to embrace a new chapter in their lives where they could live with freedom.
The wrenching pain in his heart twisted into a vice that hurt so much, he groaned with the agony of it.
Digging his fingers into his skull, he could hold the tears back no longer.
For the first time in his l
ife, Alessio wept.
He wept for the loss of the child he’d grown to love with all his heart.
And he wept for the loss of the woman who had taken possession of that same heart.
Alone in the cottage that had belonged to the brother he’d rejected, he cried until there were no tears left to cry.
* * *
Where was he?
No one had seen him.
If he’d left the grounds, he hadn’t taken one of the cars. He had to be here. Somewhere.
Leaving Dom with Miranda, who’d been packing her possessions together when Beth had made her scream with fright by walking into the nursery, she left the villa and went in search of him.
Her heart thumped and her lungs felt tight as she trawled the great garden, the greenhouses, the summer house, all empty of human life.
Where was he?
She suddenly caught a glimpse of the lakeside cottage in the distance.
She stared at it for the longest time before setting one foot in front of the other.
Why was she even here?
That was a question to which she still didn’t fully know the answer.
After she’d received the call to say she could board the plane, she’d put Dom into his buggy—he’d outgrown the pram in his months in Milan—and walked through the airport lounge door but, instead of taking the route to the plane, she’d taken the route to the car park and climbed into the first available cab.
Not until she reached the cottage door did she understand why she’d come back.
She turned the handle. There was no resistance. The door was unlocked.
She stepped inside.
Dust swirled in a haze before her but she hardly registered it for the figure slumped on the faded sofa.
Bloodshot eyes met hers, held for a moment then closed.
Then they snapped back open again.
Slowly he sat upright. ‘Beth?’
But her heart had thumped so hard to see him it had caught in her throat.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked thickly.
She swallowed hard and fought for a breath. ‘I have a question for you.’
He unfurled his body some more. ‘You came back...to ask me a question?’
‘One question.’
He rose to his feet.
She took in the crumpled, untucked shirt and the charcoal trousers. He’d worn those clothes to the party.
She took in the puffiness around the bloodshot eyes. The untamed black curls. The thick stubble.
The lump in her throat and the tightness in her lungs loosened a touch.
He jerked a nod. ‘One question.’
‘You have to answer it honestly.’
His eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Va bene.’
‘Do you have feelings for me?’
His jaw clenched and he looked away from her. ‘Ask something else.’
‘That’s my question.’
His face had become a mask.
‘That’s my question. I’m not leaving until you answer it.’
But he didn’t. He simply stared at the wall with that clenched yet expressionless look, hiding any feelings he might have away, out of sight.
She could bear it no longer. She walked up to him and stared right into his face until he was forced to look at her.
‘Will you answer my question?’ she beseeched. ‘Surely you owe me that much? After everything you’ve done to me, the least you can do is tell me if you have any kind of feelings for me.’
He went from still to motion without warning. Suddenly he had her shoulders in his grip and his face just inches from her. ‘Yes,’ he snarled, emerald eyes boring into hers, ‘I have feelings for you. Is that what you want to hear? And, now you’ve heard it, you can leave.’
Alessio released his hold as suddenly as he’d taken it.
Why had she come back?
He could howl at the despair rising in him at her failure to grasp the freedom he’d given her.
He should never have taken it in the first place.
‘What kind of feelings?’ she whispered. ‘Tell me.’
‘What does it matter?’
‘It matters to me.’
‘Beth...’ He gritted his teeth and prayed for strength. ‘I have lied. I have deceived. I have blackmailed. I have done so many terrible things to you that I know when I meet my maker it will be Satan waiting for me. What I feel for you is not important. You’re what’s important. You don’t deserve this life that I forced on you. You deserve happiness...every happiness. I wish that could be with me but I know it can’t. I’ve taken everything from you. My brother was right to want to keep his child from me. I’m selfish. I think only of what’s best for the business and not the person before me. For once in my life, I am trying to do the right thing for another person—for you. And your son. Dom is your son. I should never have threatened to take him from you.’
His legs couldn’t hold him up any longer. He sank onto the sofa and rubbed his head in his hands.
‘Then why did you say you...?’ there was a catch in her voice ‘...you...wanted to marry another woman?’
Desolation filled him. ‘All lies. You wouldn’t leave. You wouldn’t listen. You’re still not listening. Please, for the love of God, go.’
He jolted when warm fingers wrapped around his hands and moved them from his face.
Lifting his head, he found her crouched before him, her beautiful face staring intently at him.
The chocolate eyes were soft on his. ‘Do you love me?’
Despair rose back up in him. ‘You need to ask?’
‘No. But I need to hear it.’
‘Why?’
She shifted her stance so her knees rested between his feet, moved her hands lightly up his arms and placed the palms on his chest. The tiniest smile curved on her full lips. ‘I can feel your heart beat.’
He smothered a groan. His heart was beating so hard he could feel the beats echoing in his pounding head.
Keeping one hand on his chest, she moved the other to rest at the base of his throat.
‘When my parents died, I didn’t just lose them. I lost the only home I’d known, my school, all my friends...’
He breathed deeply, listening intently, even through the sick prickles of awareness growing at her touch.
‘I was moved to a foster home fifty miles away. The couple who fostered me had two children of their own. They were a nice family and they looked after me very well but I never felt a part of them. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
He shook his head. How could he understand anything of what she’d lived through?
‘When we went out, they held their own children’s hands. They rarely held mine. I would get a peck on the top of my head as a goodnight kiss where they would literally smother their children with kisses. I felt excluded from their affection. Their home never felt like mine. It couldn’t. There was always a time limit to it. I felt wanted by them, but I never felt their love, not in the way they showed it to their children or the way my parents had showed it to me.
‘When Caroline moved in with us she’d just lost her mother. I’d just reached the point where I accepted my parents were really gone, so I did what felt natural and took care of her through her grief, and that’s how our relationship stayed—I was only three months older but I became the big sister.’
The hand on his chest drifted up to palm his cheek.
‘You are the first person to have put my happiness first since my parents died.’
His heart lurched violently.
‘Yes, you lied at the beginning and blackmailed me, but since then you have gone out of your way to make things good for me. My happiness matters to you. My fulfilment matters to you. I matter to you. You’ve proved that in so many different ways.’
He couldn’t breathe.
She brought her face closer to his. Her warm breath breezed against his cheek. ‘I know you threatened to resign from the company over the party.’
‘Beth...’
Her lips brushed softly against his, silencing him.
‘I have spent the past fifteen years aching for love but being terrified of finding it. Life is fragile. Those I’ve loved have either died or been unable to return it in the way I needed.’
She pulled her head back enough so that she could stare deep into his eyes. ‘I came to your home feeling like a fish out of water. I saw the riches you surround yourself with, I saw the sophistication of your life and I thought it would be impossible for me to fit in. I saw your family as a bunch of icebergs. Do you know what I see now?’
He shook his head slowly.
‘I see a family who show love differently to what I thought was normal. I accused you once of judging everyone by your own standards—well, I was just as guilty. And do you know what I feel when I walk into your villa now?’
He swallowed and shook his head again.
‘I feel home. Home.’ Tears filled her eyes and her voice dropped so low he had to strain to hear the words. ‘I have not felt like I’ve had a home since I was nine years old. You did that for me, Alessio. You brought me into your world and you made sure I felt a part of it.
‘Last night you gave me my freedom back. I can take Dom anywhere I want and live my life any way I choose.’ Her lips caressed his again then brushed across his cheek, a teardrop falling onto it to rest against his ear. ‘I choose you.’
Those three words sent his head and his senses reeling.
She chose him. Beth chose him.
With her own free will, Beth chose him.
Finally, he allowed himself to touch her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him until he had her pinned to his lap and it was his hands cradling her cheeks.
He gazed at the face he would love until his dying breath and a surge of wonder ripped through him. ‘I love you,’ he said quietly. ‘I love you more than I thought it was possible to love someone. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you and nothing I wouldn’t do for Dom. I don’t want him to have the childhood I had. I want him to have the childhood my brother wished for him. I promise I will do everything in my power to be the husband and father you both deserve. I will cut down on the hours I work. No more weekends. You’ve made me see that, as important as the business is, our family—you, me and Dom—is more important than anything. You come first. I would give up everything for you.’
A Cinderella To Secure His Heir (Cinderella Seductions Book 1) Page 16
