In fact she’d been surprised by just how well her father had seemed, compared to her last visit when he’d scarcely recognised her. It was a long time since he’d been able to sit up and talk to her properly. But he’d grown tired quickly, making her worried that he might overdo it. So, although she’d been reluctant to leave, once Marco had spoken to his doctors, they’d left him to rest.
‘He is better,’ Marco said. ‘The last few times you saw him, he was suffering from a secondary infection that was resisting the doctors’ best efforts to treat it. But now they’ve finally found the right balance of medication. Your father is responding well and the infection is on its way to being cleared up.’
‘I don’t understand.’ She paused and turned to look at Marco. ‘Francesca never mentioned anything about that.’
‘Claudia, somehow you have been given the wrong impression,’ Marco said. He stopped walking and turned to face her. ‘Your father’s condition is not terminal. It is serious and his recovery will take a while—but there is no reason to expect him not to get better.’
‘But…how?’ She stumbled for words, finding it hard to comprehend what Marco was telling her.
‘I don’t know how the misunderstanding came about,’ he said. ‘But your father is not dying.’
Claudia stared at Marco in utter shock. Her father was not dying. Her father was not dying!
A bubble of joy started rising up through her body but she pressed her teeth into her lower lip, almost afraid to smile. She drew in a long shaky breath. Was it really true?
‘Are you sure?’ she asked Marco tremulously. ‘Are they sure—the doctors, I mean?’
‘It’s true,’ Marco said. ‘The doctors are completely sure. There has never been any question that his condition was terminal.’
A massive smile broke across Claudia’s face and she felt a burst of happiness swelling inside her. It was as if a colossal weight that had been relentlessly dragging her down from inside her soul had been lifted off her—her father was not dying. Everything was going to be all right.
‘I can’t believe it!’ she gasped, throwing her arms instinctively around Marco. ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you so much for telling me!’
‘You’re welcome,’ Marco said, automatically returning her embrace. ‘I’m pleased that he is not so ill as you thought.’
His words sounded stiff and formal to his own ears, but they were soon engulfed in her happiness. The positive emotion that she was radiating was almost tangible—like a real physical thing that was emanating from her and wrapping around them both as she clung to him in her relief. She was glowing so warm and bright that for a moment he actually felt her happiness penetrating his heart too.
It was a disconcerting feeling. But then he suddenly felt a shudder run through her body.
He held her away from him, instinctively looking into her face, and saw that her eyes were sparkling with tears of happiness and relief.
‘You don’t have to worry about him any more,’ he said, brushing his thumb gently across her cheek.
‘I can hardly believe it,’ she whispered. ‘It feels so good.’
Marco smiled at her. It was a totally natural response to her joyous emotion—he felt happy on her behalf.
But why had Claudia believed her father was dying when it wasn’t true? Her tears in Wales had certainly seemed genuine.
When he’d told her what the doctors had said, he’d watched the expression on her face change slowly from confusion, through disbelief and finally to pure joy. It was clear from her reaction that she really had believed her father to be terminally ill.
It was inconceivable that she had been so wrong about something so important. The possibility that Francesca Hazelton had deliberately misled Claudia flashed through his mind. It would be an appalling thing to do—but then Francesca and Vasile had done far worse things over the years.
‘Will you take me out to my father’s home in the countryside?’ Claudia asked suddenly. ‘He asked me to fetch him some of his things and I said I’d bring them to him.’
Marco stared at her, a sudden jolt of shock running through him.
Was she insane?
Had the joy of discovering her father wasn’t terminally ill made her lose her mind? She must have momentarily forgotten who she was talking to—why else would she have asked him to take her out to the family estate?
The very same estate that had belonged to Marco’s family before Claudia’s family had taken it away from them.
‘I’m sorry,’ Claudia said, looking intently at his face. ‘I didn’t mean to impose—you’ve done enough already.’
Marco looked at her, deliberately eliminating all signs of emotion from his face. He had obviously been too quick to think that someone else was manipulating her. He would take her out to the estate that should rightfully belong to him—that would soon belong to him again.
Twelve years ago he had vowed that he would never set foot there again—not until his revenge was complete. But that glorious day was as good as here.
‘I apologise,’ Marco said. ‘I was distracted for a minute. Of course I’ll take you. If we leave now, we can be back in the city this evening.’
‘There’s no need—not if you’re too busy with that important business you mentioned at the café,’ Claudia said. ‘I can find my own way there.’
‘I said I’ll take you there.’ The decision had been made.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY left the city in the middle of the afternoon to drive out to Hector Hazelton’s home in the Piedmont countryside. Marco’s face was set in a grim expression.
He didn’t know how he felt about returning to the estate where he’d grown up. He’d been working towards reclaiming the property for twelve years, but this visit was unexpected. It was not how he’d imagined his return would take place.
A lot had happened during the intervening time. When he was eighteen years old he had already been making a start in the world of business—wanting to break away from the father he didn’t get along with and prove himself to his beloved grandfather. Now he was a billionaire—a significant player on a global scale that even his grandfather and father wouldn’t recognise.
As he drove Claudia along the Piedmont roads that he remembered so well, he felt strangely detached. The roads looked familiar, but it was as if he didn’t really know them. He couldn’t recall what it was like—how he’d felt—driving along those roads during his youth, before Vasile had destroyed his family.
All he could remember was how he’d felt the terrible day he’d driven home—except it was no longer home—to take responsibility for his eleven-year-old sister. The gut-wrenching anger that had consumed him that day had never gone.
Now, years later, Marco had everything he needed to bring down Primo Vasile and Francesca Hazelton, and to reclaim the property where he’d grown up. Francesca was the legal owner of the estate, although it was her husband, Hector, who had made his home there.
Marco had never found anything he could use against Hector. As far as he could tell, Claudia’s father was an honest businessman and, although he had moved his own family on to the estate after the De Lucas were gone, he had not been directly involved in the ruin of Marco’s family.
He’d taken over the management of the vineyard and Marco knew that Hector had been a good employer—the loyal staff who’d worked for the De Luca family had not suffered unnecessarily. Marco frowned, thinking that, like his own father, Hector Hazelton would have been better off without his wife. Francesca was a lying, deceiving witch, just like Marco’s mother. Just like Claudia.
Marco wished Hector no harm, but he had no qualms about taking back his home. Hector had his own assets in England and would still be a wealthy man. It was too bad he hadn’t chosen a better second wife. Then perhaps his daughter wouldn’t have turned out to be a corrupt schemer like her stepmother.
‘It’s just round the next bend, on the right,’ Claudia said, as if she was unaware that Marco did
not need directions.
He swung his sports car into the tree-lined avenue that led to the house and his heart started to thump heavily, like the slow, steady beat of a military drum within his cold chest. His grandfather had planted those trees as a wedding gift for his wife. Marco could barely remember his grandmother; she had died when he was a young boy. But he remembered his grandfather very well. The old man would probably still be alive if it hadn’t been for Vasile.
‘We’ve made good time,’ Claudia added, looking at her watch. ‘We should be halfway back to the city before it gets dark.’
Marco barely registered her words. He was thinking about his beloved grandfather—another innocent victim of Vasile’s corruption. He had died the night Marco’s father, drunk on a lethal combination of shame and alcohol, had driven his car off the road.
Marco had not been there to stop it.
That was his biggest regret.
‘I’m so glad my father was well enough to ask for some of his things.’ Claudia’s voice right beside him jolted him out of his thoughts.
‘Yes.’ The single word was all he could manage, with the memory of his grandfather’s needless death fresh in his mind.
Claudia jumped eagerly out of the car and hurried up to the front door as if she couldn’t wait to get inside. He stood still, looking up at the traditional Piedmont property that until twelve years ago had been in his family for generations. It was a fine day and the majestic mountains in the north were clearly visible. They provided a never-changing, solid point of reference but, as he looked, nothing about the house, or the garden that was visible from his viewpoint, appeared to have changed.
And, as he stood there staring, a battery of other memories hammered through to the front of his mind. He felt every muscle in his body tighten.
The door opened almost before Claudia had reached it and Marco realised that someone inside must have seen the car approaching. An older lady appeared, presumably the housekeeper, and laughter and greetings followed. Then suddenly the friendly chatter ceased. Everything had gone silent.
‘Signor De Luca?’ The woman who had welcomed Claudia was staring at him as if she had seen a ghost.
‘I’m sorry,’ Claudia said, looking almost as startled as the older lady. ‘Let me introduce you. Rosa, this is Marco De Luca. He was kind enough to drive me out here from the city today.’
Marco studied the kindly-looking woman who was staring at him with her eyes as wide as saucers, and suddenly he realised who she was. Or rather where they had encountered each other before. She was one of the many people who had been employed by his parents to run the house, back when the estate had belonged to them.
‘Rosa—’ Marco stepped forward and surprised her by taking her hand ‘—how good to see you looking so well. How are you? And your sons? They must be grown up by now.’
‘Very well,’ Rosa stammered. ‘Everyone is well. Paolo, my oldest, is engaged to be married next year.’
‘Congratulations,’ Marco said. ‘I am sure you are very proud.’
He glanced at Claudia and saw that she was following the exchange with a bewildered expression.
‘Rosa used to work for my parents,’ Marco explained, watching her carefully to see her reaction.
‘But…Rosa, I thought you’d worked in this house since you were a young girl?’ Claudia said. Her cheeks were flushed and there was a mixture of confusion and disbelief on her face.
‘Si, that’s right,’ Rosa said. ‘Before you came here, the estate was owned by the De Luca family.’
For a moment Claudia forgot to breathe.
She stared at Marco, hoping to see some indication that this…this coincidence had been as much of a surprise to him as it had been to her. But there was nothing. No surprise. No awkwardness.
He had always known about this link between them.
‘Oh, my God!’ she cried. ‘You knew all along!’ She clapped her hand over her mouth and fled into the house. She ran instinctively to her father’s study and opened the window, gasping for air.
‘Don’t be so dramatic.’ She heard Marco’s scornful voice behind her and spun round in time to see him closing the door of the study. ‘You knew as well as I did about our little connection.’
‘Little connection!’ Claudia exclaimed. ‘We grew up in the same house! And, although you clearly knew that, you never saw fit to mention it to me.’
‘Why tell you something you already knew?’ Marco asked. ‘You obviously wanted to pretend that you were unaware of us—of Bianca, of me—of all of the people who were torn apart by the unscrupulous dealings of your family. At the time it suited my purpose to go along with that.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ Claudia stared at him with wide eyes, struggling to comprehend what was happening. ‘What unscrupulous dealings? What do you mean by torn apart?’
She couldn’t understand the accusations he seemed to be making. And, as she stared at his hostile expression, it felt as if she hardly recognised him. Had he truly believed such appalling things about her all the time they’d known each other?
‘You can give up the lies now,’ Marco grated. ‘You have nothing to gain by continuing to keep up the pretence.’
‘I haven’t been lying to you,’ Claudia said.
She was shocked to discover that her family had moved into the house that had once been the home of the De Lucas. It was hard to believe, but it must be true—after all, Rosa had confirmed it.
In that case, Claudia could understand why there might be hard feelings. But Marco seemed to be accusing her of something much worse. He really seemed to think that Bianca, and the rest of his family, had been deliberately hurt by her family.
‘There is no point in clinging to your petty fiction,’ Marco said. The disdain that dripped from his voice matched the expression on his hard face. ‘It’s time to move on from that now—get it all out in the open at last.’
‘Everything I’ve ever told you is true.’ Claudia felt her eyes fill with tears but she blinked them away and faced him squarely. ‘I trusted you with so many things—things that really mattered to me. And you repaid that trust with deception.’
‘I didn’t lie to you,’ Marco said angrily. ‘I simply didn’t tell you the whole of my life story.’
‘What’s the difference?’ she asked. ‘It comes to the same thing if you deliberately mislead someone.’
‘I was simply playing you at your own game,’ Marco responded.
‘I wasn’t playing a game. My friendship with Bianca was genuine, and I believed that what you and I had together was genuine,’ she said. Then, suddenly, an awful thought occurred to her. ‘Did Bianca know too? Is that why she dropped me?’
‘I stopped her contacting you,’ Marco said. ‘I took her away to America, to get her as far from you as possible.’
‘I felt so bad when you disappeared,’ Claudia said. ‘I thought you didn’t care any more—that you had better things to do. Now I know that you wanted to hurt me! That you were laughing at me!’
‘I was never laughing at you. It was never that trivial.’ He looked at her coldly, through dangerously narrowed eyes.
‘If Rosa hadn’t recognised you, I still wouldn’t know about your family.’ Claudia stood tall and looked straight back at him, although a horrible threatening sensation scratched down her spine as their eyes met.
‘I was going to bring everything into the open today,’ Marco said.
‘Why today?’ she said. ‘Why should I believe you were finally going to reveal your awful secret today?’
‘My awful secret?’ Marco bit out, echoing her words. He clenched his fists by his sides, suddenly seeing red. How dared she stand there and continue to pretend ignorance? ‘You know the bare facts of the story as well as I do. What you don’t know is what it was really like for my family when it happened.’
Her face was as white as a sheet as she looked up at him. He could tell she was shaken by their confrontation, but he did
n’t care. He wanted her to feel the pain he had felt—the pain he still felt when he remembered what had happened.
‘Of course I don’t know what it was like—I don’t even know what happened,’ she said in her defence.
‘You don’t know how many nights I lay awake—tortured by thoughts that perhaps I could have saved my family from the worst of it,’ he said bitterly. ‘Or maybe even could have prevented it altogether.’
‘Prevented what?’ she asked, still acting as if she didn’t know what had taken place.
‘The destruction of my family,’ he said.
There was an ominous pause and his words seemed to echo around the room. Marco watched as a change came over her. Her body stiffened and suddenly she was standing very still.
‘Destruction,’ she said at last. ‘That’s a very strong word. How were your family destroyed?’
Her voice was so quiet and shaky that he could hardly hear her. But that didn’t matter. He was on a roll now. He was going to tell her something that had been weighing on him for twelve years.
He wanted her to share his pain at the memory. He wanted her to feel his guilt over not stopping what happened.
‘The last time I saw my father alive he was sitting at that very desk. He was drunk,’ he said, raking his fingers roughly through his hair. ‘He was bawling into his drink, saying that my mother was having an affair.’
He paused for a moment as an image of that scene flared horribly in his mind.
‘He told me the family business and estate were in danger,’ Marco continued. ‘I didn’t take him seriously. I was ashamed of him—disgusted that he was drinking and that he couldn’t hold on to his wife. I told him to pull himself together.’
‘You must have been very young.’ Claudia’s voice revealed her shock. ‘What did he expect you to do? What could you have done to make a difference?’
‘I was a man—eighteen years old. Old enough to take responsibility. I may not have known that my family was on the brink of destruction—or that a man called Primo Vasile had seduced my mother and persuaded her to betray my father. But I did know that my father was upset.’ Marco paused, his heart pumping fiercely under his ribs. ‘I didn’t know what I could do to help. So I stuck to what I already had planned and left the country.’
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