by Day Leclaire
“This better be important,” he growled.
“Where’s Caitlyn?” Nicolò asked in abrupt Italian.
Marco glanced over his shoulder. The bedroom remained shrouded in silence. “The same place I should be.” He answered in Italian, as well. “In our bed. Asleep.”
“Listen, you need to come down to Dantes. We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s it got to do with Caitlyn?”
“How do you know—”
“You asked where she was. You’d only have done that if whatever’s going on somehow involves her.” At his brother’s continued silence, Marco snapped, “Does it?”
“We’ll explain when you get here.”
Jet lag ate at the frayed edges of his temper. “You’ll explain now.”
“I can’t do that. Won’t,” he corrected. “There’s something you need to see. To read.”
“And whatever this something is has to do with Caitlyn?”
“Yes.” Nicolò paused. “And Marco? We’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention this meeting to your wife.”
Marco didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he suspected he wasn’t going to like whatever his brothers had to say to him. In fact, he knew he wouldn’t. After quietly dressing he scribbled a quick note to Caitlyn, in case she woke before he returned, informing her he’d be back in an hour or so. Then he drove to Dantes.
His three brothers were all waiting for him when he arrived, grouped around the smoked-glass conference table off Lazz’s office. He examined them one by one. Sev appeared troubled, and sat silent and tense. Lazz looked equally concerned, and that worried Marco since he suspected that his twin still had feelings for Caitlyn, even if they now leaned toward a more brotherly regard. If Lazz had aligned himself with Sev and Nicolò, that didn’t bode well for Caitlyn. Worst of all, Nicolò, the family troubleshooter, quietly steamed, his eyes black with anger.
Nicolò took the lead, spinning a well-thumbed copy of The Snitch across the length of the table toward Marco. “That edition came out yesterday, before you and Lazz returned home. Read it.”
Taking his time, Marco gave the article his full attention. Fury boiled through him with each successive word. “What the hell is this?” he demanded. “How could they know what happened that day in Lazz’s office? There were only three—”
“Exactly,” Nicolò pronounced.
Marco’s head jerked up. “You can’t think…” They did think. Every last one of them. “No way. No damn way did Caitlyn hand this information over to The Snitch. She wouldn’t do it.”
Next Nicolò shot several typed pages stapled together in a thin packet down the table toward Marco. “Now read this. I don’t think you were meant to find it until Monday. But I came into work today to leave some papers in your office and found it sitting on your desk.”
Reluctantly Marco picked up the papers. Dantes’ Inferno, screamed the title. Marco’s bride tells all. He read every last word. The innuendos. The endless quotes. The underlying mockery that clung like slime to every sentence. Through it all he looked for key phrases. Phrases like “fantasy” or “superstition” or “fairy tale.” But they weren’t there. He sucked in a slow, calming breath before lifting his gaze to his brothers’.
“So?” he said with a shrug. “She didn’t do this, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Nicolò shoved back his chair. “How can you say that?” he challenged in disgust. “Because she’s your Inferno bride? Because once she’s been struck by the family curse, she wouldn’t dream of betraying us?”
“Blessing,” Marco and Sev said in unison.
Nicolò swore. “This is serious. There were only three of you in Lazz’s office the day you had that argument. Lazz says that most of what The Snitch has quoted is accurate.”
“It is,” Marco reluctantly confirmed.
“Now we have advance copy on the next article and once again Caitlyn is quoted.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“I called the paper, Marco! I asked them about it and they’ve admitted this is the exact same article their reporter turned in to them, although they refused to identify her. Her,” he repeated. “They’re planning to run this story in their next edition. Now, are you still going to tell me Caitlyn’s innocent in all this?”
“Ah, guys—” Lazz began.
Marco waved him silent and shot to his feet. “You want me to explain how I know she isn’t involved?”
“Oh, please.” Nicolò folded his arms across his chest.
“This I’ve got to hear.”
“Fine. I’ll tell you.” Marco planted his hands on the table and leaned in, speaking with absolute conviction. “I know Caitlyn didn’t do this because I know my wife. Not because of The Inferno. But because I’ve lived with her. Worked with her. Spent time with her. And she’s as honest and decent and honorable as the day is long. Nothing you can say will convince me that she betrayed us.”
“Marco—”
“Stay out of this Lazz.” He locked gazes with Nicolò.
“Now are we through here?”
Nicolò’s smile was harder than Marco had ever seen it before. “I’m not sure. Why don’t we ask your wife.”
Marco froze. Caitlyn was here? Why hadn’t he felt her? Why hadn’t he sensed her presence? The Inferno had always worked as a warning system before this. He spun around and found her standing there. Just standing there, looking more devastated than he’d thought possible.
He shook his head in confusion. “Cara? What are you doing here?”
“Marco,” she whispered.
And then he knew.
He’d believed her.
It was everything Caitlyn could do to keep from crying. During all the weeks of their marriage, she’d longed for proof that what he felt for her emanated from more than The Inferno. And now, at long last, he’d done just that. How bitterly ironic that he’d been wrong.
“I can explain,” she said. “Britt Jones is the snitch.”
“And you told Britt about The Inferno.”
“Yes. She’d gotten into some files I had. Personal documents of your father’s.” She spared Lazz a swift glance and saw horrified comprehension dawn on his face. “I…I traded her the information.”
“You gave her The Inferno?” Nicolò interrupted, furiously. “Why the hell would you do that? What could possibly have been in those files that made it more advantageous to tell her about private Dante business?”
“It was some rather damning information about the Romanos and your father.” Lazz began to explain, but Caitlyn overrode him. The details of the contract weren’t what mattered. She needed Marco to understand the impossible situation she’d been in, and how and why she’d made her decision. “When I read the latest copy of The Snitch, I realized Britt was responsible for the leaks. It couldn’t have been anyone else. I swear I didn’t know it was her before then. When I confronted her, she admitted it.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell one of us?” Marco asked.
“I tried. None of you were there. Not even Nicolò. Britt had information about the Romanos. About the current state of their finances. Marco…” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Marco, they’re broke.”
“We already knew that,” he replied. She’d never heard him speak in such a stony, remote fashion. “What we’re after is their goodwill. We want their endorsement, their contacts. Their lineage.”
Sev held up his hands. “Marco, you have to fly out and talk to Vittorio. Now. Fill him in about The Inferno before he reads about it.”
“I’ll leave immediately.”
“Marco—”
He simply shook his head. Without a word, he left the conference room. Caitlyn followed him, desperate to try again. “Marco, please. Tell Mr. Romano that this will be the final story. I got Britt to sign a confidentiality agreement.”
He turned to confront her. “Why didn’t you tell me about all this before? Last night, for instance?”
&nbs
p; “I was going to tell you.” She spared a swift glance over her shoulder to confirm that they were alone.
“We…we got distracted.”
“I don’t have time for this. We’ll settle it when I return.”
She couldn’t let him walk away. Not now. Not like this. If he did, she might never have another chance to fix things. Because if he walked away this time, she didn’t think the rift between them would ever be bridged. “Listen to me. I have an idea for how we can spin this. How we can use it as a marketing tool.”
He stiffened, his eyes darkening to hard amber nuggets. “The Inferno isn’t something you spin, Caitlyn. It isn’t some marketing ploy to sell Dantes jewelry. I’d have thought by now you’d realize that.”
For the first time she sensed how flat-out furious he was. “I…I know that.”
He stalked closer, practically scorching the air with his wrath. “No, clearly you don’t. And that’s the whole problem. You seem to think this is an amusing little story we recount over cocktails. It isn’t. The Inferno goes to the very heart of who and what we are. It’s part of our heritage.”
He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and dragged her hand to his chest. Each beat of his heart sank into her palm, the very palm where The Inferno had first blazed. She tried to hold back her tears and failed. “Marco, I’m so sorry. I had to make a fast decision. I realize now it was the wrong one.”
He simply shook his head. “Right from the start you’ve treated The Inferno as though it were a foolish fairy tale. No matter what I’ve said to you, no matter how many times I’ve explained it, you refuse to understand its true meaning.”
“I understand that it’s important to you. I do.”
“You still don’t get it, Caitlyn.” Not cara, she noticed. Maybe never again if she couldn’t find a way to fix this.
“The Inferno is part of me. You can’t pluck it free, like a weed that displeases you. When you deny that part of me, you deny me.”
“No, I—”
He spoke across her protest. “The time for discussion is over. You have refused to accept The Inferno from the very start. I thought given time you’d finally understand. That you’d see it was as much a part of you as it is me.” Weariness cut across his expression. “But it isn’t, is it? You don’t believe. You indulge me as though I were a foolish child. Well, no more.” He released her, cutting off her incipient response with a slicing motion of his hand. “No more.”
She watched as he spun on his heel and walked away. Watched as he left her without a backward glance. And all the while she kneaded the palm of her right hand with the thumb of her left.
Eleven
The next three days were sheer hell for Caitlyn, filled with endless hours in which she combed over every decision, every word of every conversation, as well as those final heartbreaking minutes with Marco. She considered all the alternative choices she could have made and all the possible scenarios that would have resulted from those changes. But no matter which path she chose, she couldn’t think of a single one that would have improved the end result.
Except if she’d told Marco she loved him.
She closed her eyes in distress. Maybe that would have made a difference. Maybe that would have made him less furious. Maybe then The Inferno wouldn’t have been like an unscalable mountain between them. But she hadn’t and he’d left, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since. Only time would tell if they’d be able to find a way over that mountain. But with each passing day, the doubts piled up as hope faded.
“Caitlyn?” Nicolò paused in the doorway of her office and leaned a shoulder against the jamb. “Lazz says I need to come and talk to you. That it’s urgent.”
Caitlyn didn’t bother to conceal her relief, though it didn’t escape her notice that her brother-in-law didn’t actually step foot into her office. “No one’s been willing to listen, and there’s not a lot of time.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, gazing at her with eyes so dark a brown they appeared black. She’d never realized before just how disconcerting they were until he trained them on her. “Some of us aren’t too happy with your efforts to save us from the Jones woman.”
“Really?” Maybe if she hadn’t been so tired or worried or downright ticked off, she wouldn’t have let her temper get out of control. But it had been a rough few days and the expression on Nicolò’s face set her off. Big-time. She stalked across the room toward him.
“Isn’t it interesting that none of you managed to uncover the mole and deal with her. None of you were forced to come up with a plan to derail Britt on the spur of the moment the way I was. Yet, you’re all too happy to point out every last one of my mistakes. After the fact, of course.” She planted her hands on her hips. “Well, I don’t think I made a mistake. What do you think of that? Now, do you want to come in and find out what I have in mind to salvage this mess? Or are you going to let The Snitch win?”
A slight smile eased the sternness of Nicolò’s tough-hewn features. “Okay, little sister.” He walked into the room and sprawled in the seat in front of her desk. “I’m always interested in hearing creative solutions to impossible problems. Tell me your idea.”
Instead of returning to her desk, Caitlyn took the chair next to him and leaned forward. “It’s quite simple. The day The Snitch is released, the very day, we release a press statement.”
“We.”
She waved that aside. “Dantes, of course. We agree with everything The Snitch says. Yes, there really is an Inferno. Yes, when it strikes, Dantes mate for life. Yes, it’s a connection between soul mates.”
“I’m curious.” He tilted his head to one side and fixed those unnerving eyes on her. “Have you lost your mind?”
Enough was enough. “Just wait for it, Nicolò,” she snapped. To her surprise, he did just that. “And then we say that The Inferno’s part of what makes Dantes’ jewelry so spectacular and so special. We tell all those women out there, all those women who would give their eyeteeth to experience The Inferno, that not only is it real, but everything the Dantes touch is imbued with the passion from The Inferno—from the bracelet and necklace that grace a woman’s arms and throat, right down to the fire diamond wedding rings that a man places on his bride’s finger.”
Nicolò straightened in his chair, his gaze sharpening. “Damn.”
“Exactly.”
“No, seriously. Damn. That just might work.” He thought it through, before nodding. “You came up with all that during your negotiation with the Jones woman? On the fly?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You know what I think?”
“Not a clue.”
His smile grew. “I think your talents are totally wasted in the Finance Department.”
Marco arrived back in San Francisco so tired he couldn’t see straight. In the week he’d been gone, his anger had cooled, if not the pain caused by Caitlyn’s decision to tell Britt about The Inferno. He’d endured countless phone calls from each of his brothers, as well as Francesca, Primo and Nonna. Every last one of them had been clear that Britt had acted on her own until that final story, when Caitlyn had taken desperate measures to protect Dantes. And every last one of them supported his wife’s decision.
And so did he, he finally admitted to himself. When all was said and done, he loved Caitlyn and he was determined to find a way to make their marriage work. To his relief, Lazz met him outside baggage claim, though his relief turned to annoyance when his brother started in on him about Caitlyn the instant they climbed in the car.
“What you don’t seem to understand, Marco, is that she had a plan to turn whatever Britt printed about The Inferno to our advantage.” Lazz pulled a face. “Well, that’s Caitlyn. She always has a plan.”
“And how many times do I have to tell you,” Marco responded coldly, “that The Inferno isn’t a marketing ploy?”
“You haven’t even heard her idea, yet.”
Marco scrubbed his hand across his face, striving to push aside
his jet lag and focus. “No, you’re right. I haven’t. So, tell me. What did she come up with?” Lazz gave him the details, and Marco leaned back against his seat, his eyes narrowed against the midday sunshine as he absorbed the details. “That’s not half-bad,” he conceded at last.
“Not half-bad? Are you kidding me? It’ll send women flocking to the stores.” Enthusiasm riddled Lazz’s voice. “They’ll all want their small piece of The Inferno. The Snitch is going to be furious at how we’ve turned this around.”
“Even so…” Marco shook his head. “You know how I feel about profiting from The Inferno. And I guarantee Primo feels the same way.”
Lazz studied his brother for a long, silent moment. “I’ve thought about this. Seriously, I have. Caitlyn’s idea isn’t some loud, brash ploy. It’s softer than you’re making out. Gentler. It’s almost…”
“Almost what?”
“It’s almost like she believes in The Inferno.”
“We are talking about Caitlyn here, right?”
“That’s what makes it so amazing,” Lazz said. “This isn’t a hard-sell campaign. It’s sweet and romantic. And honest.”
Marco cocked his head to one side, intrigued. “Honest, how?”
“Well, for one thing, if you truly believe in The Inferno—”
“I do.”
“Then, you must believe that our jewelry is imbued with a hint of The Inferno’s passion. I mean, think about it, Marco. Didn’t Francesca create her most spectacular designs after she fell in love with Sev? Doesn’t Primo credit Nonna with the inspiration for his greatest achievements? Don’t you think The Inferno influenced them, brought some of that passion to their work?”
Marco couldn’t deny it. “You really think that’s what inspired her to come up with the marketing campaign?”
Lazz shrugged. “Do you have a better explanation?”
“No.”
A sudden idea struck Marco, one so out there that it could only have been a jet-lag-induced flight of whimsy. But the more he considered the possibility, the more viable it became. It offered him the best of all worlds, an avenue for fixing their problem as well as a way to convince his wife that not only did he love her with all his heart and soul, but that she loved him, too. He just needed a few minutes to wrap his poor, tired brain around all the various details and organize them into a semblance of a plan. Unfortunately, details and organization were his wife’s specialty, not his.
