by Tara Pammi
“What if you learned that I had done all this—” his arms swept out to encompass the villa “—to them, for no other reason than that I was a cutthroat businessman who wanted to rule the finance center of Milan and BFI is automatically the first target?”
Afternoon sunlight gilded his face, caressing it with loving hands.
Her breath hitched in her lungs as she suddenly saw the resemblances she’d never seen before. The set of his eyes—so much like Massimo’s, especially when he was smiling. The curling disdain Vincenzo’s mouth so artfully expressed—exactly like Leo’s when he was displeased.
So many small things hit her, causing her heart to stutter. Ramming her conscience again and again with the fact that he belonged here, in this place she’d called home. Weakening her anger. Confusing her hurt with too many emotions he far too easily evoked.
“That you can even think it could ever be that simple...shows how completely differently we’re wired.”
“Fine. How about we forget the whole cursed lot of them for a few minutes?” A little frustration slipped into his voice.
“You’re the one who entangled me in this.”
“Our marriage can stand outside of all this Brunetti drama, Alessandra.”
“That’s where you lose me, V. Maybe that’s what comes of playing with people’s lives like you’re conducting a chess game. Maybe you’re incapable of seeing that to demand my loyalty while at the same time you’re destroying them...is impossible. I can’t see how we can possibly go forward from here... Because you lied to me.”
“Not a single time did I lie.”
“Fine. If you want to split hairs, then you hid a great big truth from me.
“I’m trying to understand what you might have felt as that little boy, why you chose this path of revenge years ago. How much Greta’s momentary thoughtlessness might have hurt—”
“I wouldn’t refer to calling my mother a whore and a gold digger as a momentary thoughtlessness,” he said, baring his teeth in a growl. “I grew up destitute, thanks to her. My mother had a mental breakdown she never recovered from. She lost her livelihood, and we were turned out onto the streets. It turned into early onset dementia.”
Her heart thumped in her chest, the anguish in his eyes dissolving her righteous fury. Still, she had to try. “That is not Greta’s fault.”
“No? That my mother went untreated for so long, that she had a mental breakdown and that she didn’t even have access to the minimum level of medical care is their fault. That she now lives needing round-the-clock nursing care is their fault.” He reminded her of a wild animal, hurt and pouncing to attack. “That her disease spread so far and so fast that she doesn’t even recognize me is totally their fault.”
“She doesn’t recognize you?” Alex whispered, her heart breaking for him. For herself too.
Because how was she to cross this divide caused by him holding on to his pain and fury for so long? How could she hope to turn him from this path of destruction when he was utterly determined to see Leo and Massimo as enemies, when his hatred had such strong foundations in his terrible childhood.
And if she stayed with him, knowing his plans for people she loved so deeply, what did that make her?
He shook his head, his jaw tight. “She thinks I’m still a ten-year-old boy. She’s...frozen in that year.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Because I don’t want the pity I see in your eyes.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
As she watched, half fascinated, half furious, he reined all that emotion back in. As easily as if he’d packed it away and locked it up. No, instead he channeled all that pain into hatred, into fury, into revenge. “The vows you made to me. The future we promised each other. That’s what I want.”
“I still can’t believe Greta could’ve done something so—”
“Because you’re buried under the weight of your obligations to them. You don’t know their true colors—you’re not tainted by the privilege and power that resides in their blood.”
“And you think that means I can’t love them just as much? When I found out Carlos was my biological father and came to live with him, Greta was already married to him and didn’t even know I existed. But she welcomed me with open arms, she made a home for me here, she was the rock in my life when he died. Leo and Massimo, they accepted me and treated me like a real member of their family. You can’t imagine what they mean to me, Vincenzo.”
“And yet you presume to understand my animosity toward them?”
The leap of anger in his eyes—so unusual, especially directed at her—gave Alex pause. She wanted to try and see this from his point of view, but he’d put her smack-dab in the middle of it.
She took a deep breath and chose her words carefully. “You’re right. It’s nothing but lip service of me to say that I...understand what you went through. But you...you don’t know what life was like for Leo and Massimo with your father, Silvio. They’re innocent of any wrongdoing. They don’t deserve to have their lives ripped apart like this.
“Your true culprit is Silvio Brunetti. Not them. But he’s dead now.”
He shrugged and the casual cruelty with which he did it with no pause to even consider her entreaty felt like a slap. “They bear the name I’ve hated all my life. Anyway, there are always casualties in war, cara. It’s unavoidable.”
Her heart sank. “Is that what this is, V? War?”
“Si. One I have waged for a long time. One I’ve invested everything into. I looked for weaknesses, sore spots, for years. I hit them with everything I had. And I don’t intend—”
“Wait...” interrupted Alex, a cold finger raking its way down her spine. Pieces falling into place emerging in a picture that made her want to run away again.
Alessandra Giovanni: Supermodel. Style Icon. Businesswoman. Philanthropist. Adopted Daughter of the Powerful Brunettis of Milan.
She remembered the headline now.
That feature had been released in a magazine no more than a few days before she’d flown to Bali for yet another photoshoot.
Where the mysterious, gorgeous, gray-eyed Italian businessman had showed up.
Their accidental meeting when she’d visited the ruins of an old temple...
Their shared love of ancient architecture...
The three hours he’d waited the next day while she finished her shoot, as if there was no other place on earth he’d rather be, those gorgeous eyes eating her alive.
The promise to show her sights she’d never see on a formal touristy visit...
Their first kiss under the most magnificent waterfall...
The questions about her charity, about the business she planned to launch, about all the things near and dear to her... The way he’d left her wanting more after that first night of intimacy on the balcony of her villa... The fairy-tale proposal and the marriage vows he’d recited in that deep voice...
Had any of it been real?
Nausea threatened to flood her mouth. “Did you come to Bali specifically looking for me? To see if you could use me in this war of yours?”
He didn’t precisely flinch but she knew him. Knew every small shift and jerk of his beautiful face.
“Answer me, Vincenzo,” she screamed, the question bursting out of her on a wave of fury and unspeakable hurt.
“Si. I did come looking for you. Alessandra—”
“Because that article quoted Greta as saying, ‘Alessandra is the one I love the most in the world,’ right?”
Again that dreadful, soul-crushing silence.
Despite her best efforts, tears broke out onto her cheeks, making her vision fuzzy. Distorting those clear-cut features. Twisting that sensuous mouth.
“I looked for weaknesses, sore spots. I hit them with everything I had.”
It
hadn’t been enough that he’d come after BFI and BCS. Or that he’d somehow achieved ownership of Silvio Brunetti’s shares in BFI. He’d had to hit them where it would hurt them personally too, hadn’t he, especially Greta?
Everything had been premeditated. Planned. Perfectly executed.
And she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks.
She turned and faced him, wiping her cheeks roughly. Hurt gave way to anger, to a fury unlike any she’d ever known. “So how do you see this whole thing playing out exactly? What is it that you expect of me while you wreak havoc through these people’s lives? People I love, let me clarify.”
“I expect you to do what you’d have done if you hadn’t found out. To give our marriage a real chance. To spend the rest of your life with me. To keep the vows you made to me.”
“Our marriage is nothing but a...farce.”
“No! I married you, Alessandra. I promised to spend the rest of my life with you. It is not something I undertook lightly.”
Alex searched his face, hoping to see a flicker of something that she could hang on to. That implacable gaze didn’t soften. Slowly, his words sank in, bringing yet more questions.
“Why? Why did you marry me? Why not just seduce me and walk away? I made it so easy for you anyway. I begged you to take me to bed. I chased you for the entire week after you showed up in Bali. I...you could have just walked away after we slept together. You could have dumped me—told me I had been nothing but a toy to play with.”
“I do not treat women like toys. That’s a Brunetti specialty.”
“Then why?”
“You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re a treasure any man would love to possess. For a man who grew up with nothing, who would always remain a bastard, who built his empire by trampling all the people in his way, you’re the real prize, Alessandra.
“I married you because for the first time in my life, I saw something I wanted outside of revenge and everything it stood for. Outside of a campaign that has consumed me for the last twenty-odd years.
“I married you because taking you for myself was the final icing on the cake. Because taking you from that old woman makes it all complete.”
Alessandra nodded, her stomach falling. “I don’t know what to say to a man who thinks he can take me from the woman who gave me a home, who thinks I’ll support the total destruction of my family. Who thinks possessing me somehow...improves his standing in the world. I will not...”
God, she wasn’t going to be used again in a battle between people she cared for.
She’d done that and had the scars to show for it.
She wasn’t going to be anyone’s weakness. Or anyone’s weapon. “I’m not a prize. To be won. To be possessed. To be snatched from someone’s hands. To be used as a weapon against someone else.” Alex forced herself to meet his gaze. “I want you to leave. Leave this house. I can’t deal with this now... Please, leave, V.”
He stood there, unmoving, unaffected, like a bloody big boulder that not even a gale of wind could budge.
After what felt like an eternity, he nodded. And left.
Alex stood there at the window, her throat dry. Her chest empty.
Of course, he hadn’t married her for herself.
She wasn’t a princess and this wasn’t a fairy tale where she could magically wave a wand or press a kiss to Vincenzo’s mouth and her frog would transform into a prince.
* * *
“She’s gone.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Vincenzo barked the question at the carelessly lounging figure of Massimo Brunetti.
He tucked his hands into his pockets and stared down at the two men relaxing in their chairs on the balcony on this unseasonably cold early June afternoon.
The drive up to the villa had been just as spectacular as it had been the first time around. He looked at it with the objective eye of a man who meant to cut it all up to pieces and scatter it into the wind.
But as much as he relished the idea of destroying the very symbol and stronghold of the Brunettis’ centuries-long power and privilege, other concerns rode him harder right then.
Alessandra hadn’t returned his calls in five days, forcing him to visit the ancestral home again.
His patience, always on thin ice these days, was spiraling into a monster of a temper after this latest stunt from his sweet wife.
Cristo, it had been the worst week of his professional and personal life.
Beginning with a huge crisis in the finance department of his company, followed by Alessandra jumping on a flight out of Bali to Milan without informing him. Then his own long flight to catch up to her, their ill-timed confrontation that had quickly spiraled out of control thanks to the Brunettis bringing her up-to-date with all his supposedly Machiavellian motivations, followed by an urgent call from the twenty-four nurses that looked after his mother demanding his immediate presence at his estate in Tuscany.
Which meant he’d been forced to leave Alessandra alone for too long, letting the doubts he’d seen in her eyes fester and harden. He had loathed giving her that time apart from him, especially when it was spent around the Brunettis, who were more than happy to fill her ears with poison against him.
But he’d had no choice but to go to his mother. Usually, he didn’t mind dropping everything in his empire to look after her.
“You shouldn’t have left her like that...” Leonardo offered in an almost polite voice, his expression thoughtful. “Not so soon after she found out your true colors. The least you could have done was let her rage at you, maybe even let her throw one of her powerful punches at you. Anything would have been better than to leave her alone to stew in your betrayal.”
“I didn’t betray her—” Vincenzo bit out and then calmed himself with a discipline that was hanging by its last thread.
He had not betrayed Alessandra. He had simply left out a chunk of truth that he’d hoped to explain in full later on. He’d hoped to appeal to her strong sense of justice and fair play. He’d totally miscalculated the depth of her attachment to this group of privileged, spoiled Brunettis. “I had obligations I had to meet. Now, how about you tell me where the hell she is?”
“We don’t know where Alex is,” Massimo said. “After you left, she locked herself in her room, and when Natalie went to check on her the next morning, she was gone.”
“You expect me to believe Alessandra didn’t ask you for help to hide from me? That you didn’t happily join in this childish game to thwart me?”
“You’re right,” Leo added. Still no rancor in his voice. Only a mild curiosity. “We’d have happily joined in. You went after the one person who had nothing to do with all this. But you’re forgetting that Alex has connections in high places, all over the world.
“There’s no shortage of people that will happily help her out, to save her from an untenable situation.
“She’s the most loyal person I know, even if the person getting it is questionable.
“Knowing how much you despise even our name, she’ll twist herself around to not give you any more ammunition against us. She knew you’d demand to know where she is. Keeping it a secret is her way of protecting us.”
“She fought with me like a lioness because she thinks she needs to protect you from me. And you didn’t come to her aid?”
“You’re not listening, Cavalli. Alex’s long gone. No one here knows when she’ll return or even if she will.”
For the first time in a week, Vincenzo felt the sure ground under his feet shift. There was no gratification in Massimo’s voice or Leonardo’s gaze crowing over the fact that Alex had trumped him. Only worry for her. “She can’t escape from her life. She has obligations, a global career,” he protested.
“A career she’s been slowly decoupling herself from. If you knew her at all, you’d have known she’s been finishing up all her contracte
d work and not signing up to anything new,” Massimo said. “Cristo, you really did a number on her at an already rough time, when she’s been questioning everything about herself, her career, her life.”
“What are you talking about?” Leo asked his brother the question that Vincenzo wanted to.
“She broke it off with that photographer boyfriend of hers—Javier Diaz—a few months ago. She plans to quit modeling altogether. I’ve been wondering why she’d marry a practical stranger after—”
“Alessandra and I have known each other for a few weeks,” Vincenzo put in. But he was slowly losing ground. Losing his belief in her.
Had her vows to him meant nothing at all? Damn it, why hadn’t she fought with him? Demanded an explanation? Given him the chance to convince her his motives were sound?
“It still makes you a stranger. But now I think I see it.” Massimo’s gaze bored into him. “You were a rebound from Javier. An escape. A temporary madness.”
Vincenzo was more than tempted to knock the smirk off the tech genius’s face but it went against everything he believed in. “Watch your words, Massimo.”
“Walk away, Cavalli.” The younger man stood up. “It hasn’t dawned on you yet, has it? Alex has gone. It’s what she does when the pain gets too much for her.”
Vincenzo had no retort. No words, even.
This wasn’t the Alessandra he knew. The sophisticated and yet vulnerable minx that had demolished his self-control with one genuine smile. This was not the woman who’d seduced him by giving away pieces of herself. The woman that had distracted him from twenty years’ worth of strategizing in a mere few weeks.
But then how much did he truly know Alessandra beyond the report a PI had provided him with, beyond the picture the media painted of her?
“I’m supposed to believe that this complicated woman...is the woman I married?”
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe us or not. We’ve known Alex for a long time,” Massimo pointed out, satisfaction pouring out of every word. “You betrayed her trust. Learning about how Greta treated you was a double betrayal for her to have to deal with. And if I know your convoluted, labyrinthine mind—and I’m beginning to—you had every intention of using her against us,” he said with a shrewd gleam in his eyes that for Vincenzo was far too much like looking in the mirror. “And I’m guessing she knew that. But then Alessandra has always known her own weaknesses,” he finished cryptically.
