“That isn’t our greatest obstacle, is it?”
He shook his head. “No. We want—expect—different things in a relationship.”
He couldn’t even bring himself to say marriage. It wasn’t in his immediate future, and love— Well, love was never part of their equation, at least not mutually.
She wanted his heart. He wanted her body.
On the heels of their brief affair, his largesse came off as a perk for services rendered for work above and beyond the contract. All she’d ever expected was her due, but to argue the point now, before the wedding, just wasn’t done.
With strength that was fast slipping, she reminded herself she was the professional here. Making a scene would ruin everything and voicing her opinion would cause a scene.
“Yes, you’re right,” she said, and managed a smile.
He scowled, his nod coming in an abrupt jerk, his steps toward the door stiff. “I must go to the church now. I’ll arrange for a driver to be at your disposal for the rest of your stay.”
“Thank you,” she managed, waiting for a surge of relief to flow over her.
He stopped on the threshold, fingers splayed on the door frame. “It is I who should thank you.” He cut her a look then was gone.
She clutched her hands together, feeling empty. Deserted.
The thud of his footsteps across the terrace was a dirge in her head, signaling the end of their time together. Her shoulders bowed. The raw pain lancing across her heart was simply too much to take after days of so much laughter and passion.
She stared down at the papers that would change her life forever, that gave her the chance to do exactly what she had always wanted. Why wasn’t she dancing with joy? Why was she so damned miserable?
The powerful engine on the Bugatti broke the silence, its purr cracking the ice that had held her immobile. She blinked, but her eyes still filled with blinding silent tears.
Somehow she stumbled to the chair by the window, her composure deserting her the second she dropped onto the cushion. Scalding tears poured from her eyes and she let them fall.
If he had insulted her she could have clung to her pride and annoyance and gotten through this. But how could she cope with his polite indifference?
She couldn’t and she wasn’t about to keep trying.
For the first time in years, she let herself cry over the fact that she and Marco simply couldn’t make it work. That they were dynamite in bed. That he could give her anything in this world except the one thing she desperately wanted—his love.
So she cried it all out now, well aware her day wasn’t over with him. That she still had hours to get through.
When the emotional storm ended, she hurried to her room and changed clothes, slipping into a simple blue sheath a shade darker than a spring sky.
It fitted her well but was modest. Businesslike. The type of thing she always wore while working. So unlike the lovely dresses and gowns crowding the closet, clothes that Marco had ordered. Clothes she’d refused to try on, let alone wear.
She slipped her feet into taupe pumps and gave herself one last critical look in the mirror. A pale woman with sorrowful eyes stared back at her.
Not the look she wanted to present at the wedding, but how could one erase those lines of heartache? And even if she could, who would really care?
Still, a repair of her makeup, including eye drops, hid the redness in her eyes and minimized the puffiness. A dash of peach blush restored color to her too-pale cheeks.
It was good enough. For the most part, she would be dealing with the workers, not the guests. Surely not Marco. She would do all she could to avoid him, and if their paths crossed and she didn’t look her best, so be it.
Their business was concluded. Her wisest course was to do her job and get out of Italy as she’d planned.
Without hesitating, she placed the call to the airline securing a one-way ticket to Heathrow tonight. Then she left her room and focused her thoughts on one thing—ensuring that this wedding went off as perfectly as she’d planned it.
“Marco, why do you look so sad on the happiest day of my life?” Bella asked.
Delanie was the easy answer, and the one that would only prompt a multitude of questions.
“Sorry, my mind was on business,” he said, forcing a smile which came easier as his gaze lit on his sister. He wasn’t in a mood to answer questions, not on the day that he’d just received word from his CEO at Tate Unlimited who’d found David Tate’s hidden personal documents from ten years ago.
The news chilled him. Sickened him. To think he’d believed Tate’s lies instead of Delanie. Ass. He’d been a total ass for far too long. No more!
Bella looked like a princess in her ivory silk gown that shimmered with threads of ice-green and gold. With a hint of makeup and her hair caught up in some sophisticated style, she was absolutely breathtaking.
“Business,” she scoffed, and added an indignant lift of her chin.
He could not help but chuckle. “Tending to business is what has given you a livelihood as well as a dream wedding befitting such a beauty.”
She beamed. “I am beautiful, yes?”
For a girl born in poverty, she’d learned quickly the nuances of perfecting a haughty demeanor. Of being rich.
“Yes,” he said. “You will stop hearts.”
Bella clapped both hands together. “There is only one heart I wish to stop and then make race. Giamo’s.”
The groom, the man she’d fallen in love with and into bed with, was a vineyard worker she’d met right after she’d turned twenty.
Marco had moved out of the estate and into his own home in Montiforte, believing his sister was capable of living by herself. An error on his part, perhaps. But Giamo was a good hardworking man and one Marco believed would one day run the family winery.
Now Bella laughed and twirled before him like a child, looking carefree and far from the expectant mother or bride. Her young-heiress persona was belied on the fact that she still giggled, still could be found in the gardener’s shed playing with kittens, still looked too damned young to be a wife or a mother.
“Delanie is wonderful,” Bella said, clasping her hands to her bosom, totally unaware how mention of Delanie made his own heart stop and stutter. “You paid her well?”
“A fortune.” Which wasn’t a lie. He owed her that and more and not just for her work in planning this wedding.
Bella planted her hands at her waist, her expression suddenly fierce. “Don’t let her go, Marco. She is perfect for you. She would make you a wonderful—”
“Don’t say it,” he warned, cutting her words off.
“But—”
He slashed the air with a hand, hushing her, the playful mood shuttered. “There is no but. Miss Tate has done a fabulous job planning your wedding just as you requested. Now she wants to return to her job and her life in England.”
His sister scowled. “You’re making a horrible mistake letting her go.”
“No, I’m giving her what she always dreamed of having,” he said and believed it. He’d hurt her enough.
Bella tossed both hands in the air, sending her veil fluttering around her bare shoulders, before fixing him with a pitying look. “You should give yourself what you’ve dreamed of having, Marco. Then you and Delanie would both be happy.”
Bella flounced out the door without waiting for his reply, not that he had one acceptable to voice. In fact, his little sister had rendered him speechless with that observation. How could one so young be so wise?
He pressed the heels of his hands against his burning eyes and muttered an oath, sick inside over his lack of emotion.
There had been a time when he had believed money could buy anything. Had believed that once he was rich, he could make Delanie happy. And then, of late, had believed that he would only find peace solo.
Now he knew that was a lie.
Delanie didn’t want his wealth. She wanted his love and that was the one thing he didn’t
know if he could give her.
He’d shut off that emotion years ago, swearing he would never suffer a marriage such as his parents had had, that emotional hell that bound them together and made them—and him—miserable.
“Never be so foolish as to love a woman,” his father had told Marco after a particularly violent fight between his parents. “Find a woman who satisfies you in bed, for that is all that a man can expect to have from a woman or a wife. Amore poisons. It slowly kills.”
That same night, his father had stormed out of the house to find his wife. Only, neither of them had come back.
He shook his head, the pain of that memory faded, replaced by the impending loss of Delanie again. She’d been on his mind since he’d left her this morning.
At the church, his gaze honed in on her the moment she arrived, dressed in an elegant dress befitting a CEO. His chest tightened, his pulse raced, his blood running thick and hot.
He wanted her. Would always want her. But would he cross to her? No!
One of the ushers motioned to him. “It’s time.”
Marco nodded and followed the man to Bella, who stubbornly refused to look at him.
“I would make her life miserable,” he whispered to Bella.
She looked at him with eyes that were suddenly sad. “Oh, Marco. What will it take to make you see that she loves you and that you love her?”
The first strains of “The Wedding March” prevented him from answering that question. He presented his arm to his sister.
“Smile, Bella,” he said. “This is your moment.”
She held his gaze for a moment then smiled. But the full force of her beauty didn’t shine until they started down the aisle and Giamo turned to face them.
He felt the tremble go through Bella and saw the adoration shining in her eyes and in the groom’s. It was a look much like the one Delanie had given him not so very long ago. A look he’d dismissed because the power of it terrified him.
Now the thought of losing that forever scared him more. While everyone’s attention was on the bride, his searched out and found Delanie.
Dammit, he wanted her as he’d wanted no other woman. She was his equal in bed and out of it.
But love?
He wished he knew what that emotion was. What it felt like to be caught in its grip. Wanted to know if he was even capable of such feeling.
No great change coursed through him. No miraculous sense that love had suddenly bloomed in the desert that was his heart. No epiphany revealed itself to soothe his soul.
He tore his gaze from hers. For the first time in years, Marco Vincienta felt like a failure.
The sun had set hours ago yet the massive chandeliers hanging from the beamed ceiling cast a mellow glow over tables draped in white linen. Celebrants ate and drank and laughed freely while the wedding singer warbled love songs.
Delanie hovered on the fringe of the massive ballroom, pleased that it had been a perfectly beautiful wedding for Bella and Giamo. The reception at the castle was lovely, with the paparazzi kept outside while Carlo Domanti moved through the crowd, capturing this special day for the happy couple.
A select number of pictures would find their way into the media. Delanie had been promised that a few others would be available to her for advertising purposes.
Everything she’d wanted, needed, to relaunch her business with flare was now hers. Like the bride, she should be celebrating today as the happiest day of her life.
She should have been.
It was sheer torture to know she was excluded from Marco’s life now. Her choice. Her hell.
Would it always be this way? Would she always be the fool around this arousing Italian?
If only her gaze didn’t constantly swing to him. If only her heart didn’t seize and her breath catch at the sight of him laughing and mingling with the guests.
Though for the last hour, he’d been absent. She worried her hands and scanned the crowd. How long did it take for a broken heart to mend?
“This could last all night,” came a deep rich voice just behind her.
“Marco,” she said, whirling, hand over her thundering heart.
She stared at him, suddenly tongue-tied. Unbelievably at a loss for words.
With effort, she rallied her wits and managed a smile, hoping only she knew that her lips trembled. “You startled me.”
“My apologies.” He cradled a wineglass in each hand and handed her one.
She took the glass, her fingers barely brushing his. A jolt shot into her veins to set her blood on fire.
He raised his glass to her and smiled and her heart did a tumble again. “Brava!”
“To the happy couple.” She tore her gaze from his intense scrutiny and focused on the wine, on taking a cordial sip without choking up.
A sudden quietness wrapped around her like a ribbon and had her taking a step closer to Marco before she realized it. His gaze darkened, his lips curving just a smidgeon.
“Cara,” he breathed, head bending toward hers.
“Evviva gli sposi!” a guest shouted.
Delanie jumped back from Marco as others joined in with applause and shouts. She raised her glass in the traditional toast, but her heart was still thundering.
If the guest hadn’t chosen that moment to salute the bride and groom, Marco’s lips would have captured hers. Despite her intentions she would have let them. Welcomed them.
She would have melted in his arms.
The music started up with people hurrying onto the dance floor to form a huge circle.
“Marco, please join us,” Bella shouted.
He waved to his sister and extended a hand to Delanie. “You will come too.”
Delanie shook her head and retreated another step. “No! I have two left feet and would truly prefer watching. Please, go and enjoy this with your family.”
For a moment she was certain he would protest. That he would insist on her participation. But she watched thankfully as he shrugged and strode toward his sister, walking away from her as he must.
Delanie sucked in a breath, painfully aware the time had come for her to leave. That the longer she stayed, the more she risked being seduced by Marco again.
Her job here was over.
Nobody would notice if she left. Nobody would miss her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AFTER the Tarantella, which seemed endless no matter how enjoyable, had ended, Marco went in search of Delanie. He wasted fifteen minutes before he realized she’d left the castle soon after the dancing began.
No doubt she was exhausted after a day spent overseeing a wedding and reception. The tension he’d added fuel to was a burden she hadn’t needed either.
But then that type of behavior should be expected from an ass, and he’d done all in his power the last two days presenting that very image to her. No longer.
He wasn’t done with her by a long shot and this time she would hear him out.
The second he fulfilled his duty and saw his sister and brother-in-law off in the wee hours of the morning, Marco sped back to his villa. A gentleman would have waited until morning to confront her, but Marco had proven time and again he was not fully of that league.
Without hesitating, he went straight to Delanie’s room. He gave one sharp knock on the door then pushed inside, too impatient to wait for her to rouse from sleep and welcome him in.
Or tell him to go to hell, which was what he deserved!
The dim light from the hall stretched into the room and across the bed—the neatly made bed.
“Delanie,” he called out, flicking on the light.
A quick scan of the bedroom confirmed what he already knew in his heart. Delanie was gone.
The only trace of the woman who had occupied his thoughts was the new clothes he’d bought for her, still hanging in the closet untouched.
He stood in the middle of the room, fists bunched at his sides, chest heaving. She’d been so anxious to leave Italy and him that she’d done so tonight
.
Not that he blamed her for running off. He was the one responsible for that. He’d driven her away.
He sucked in air, hands fisted, chest heaving as he fought the demon inside him. Letting her go was easy. It was what he’d always done.
Going after her took something he didn’t know whether he possessed, something that terrified him. But to lose her forever …
In moments he was behind the wheel again, speeding toward the autostrada. He wanted her back, but convincing her that she belonged with him wouldn’t be easy. Impossible perhaps.
Giving up wasn’t an option. Not now. It was all or nothing.
He had to succeed. Had to make her believe him. The fear that had held his emotions prisoner was nothing compared to the fear of losing her forever.
Delanie paced the waiting area, wondering how much longer it would take for the airline to ready the plane for boarding. Flight times here at night were obviously an estimate and a rough one at that, but there was no other recourse available.
So she paced and she fretted and she tried to think of anything but the tall Italian who’d broken her heart again. It would take time to get over the hurt. Forever to forget him.
“Attenzione. Boarding will commence in ten minutes,” the clerk said in Italian, and then in English.
Finally, she thought, reaching for the bag at her feet.
“Delanie!” rasped that deep Italian voice that sent chills up her spine. That awakened every nerve in her body to the powerful throb of his presence.
She whirled around and stared at Marco bearing down on her, his hair tousled and face ravaged. His stark white shirt was open at the neck, the bow tie long gone. And then she saw the worry in his eyes and her blood ran cold.
“What are you doing here?” she asked. “Has something gone wrong?”
Not the greeting he’d hoped for. “No. But we need to talk.”
“About what?” she asked again.
“Us.”
She stiffened, her eyes narrowing. “I can’t imagine why.”
He dashed fingers through his hair. “You need to know this. My CEO at Tate Unlimited found a hidden stash of your father’s papers. In it were documents about your mother’s peculiar accidents and Tate’s dictate to ensure they stayed hidden. The mark of an abuser, as you’d said. As your mother denied.”
Innocent of His Claim Page 17
