by Abby Green
His hands tightened on hers. ‘Tell me, Cara. I deserve to know what happened to my sister.’
How could she deny him this? Cara looked at him through a veil of tears. She began to slowly and haltingly explain how Cormac and Allegra had been in the apartment that night. She had cooked dinner for them, and then heard Cormac on the phone, making arrangements to go into town to the club. It had been Cara’s night off, and for once Cormac wasn’t making her drive them in because he had a new car—a new toy that he wanted to impress Allegra with.
Cara had heard his speech, how slurred he was. She’d known since earlier that day that Cormac was planning on takingAllegra to LasVegas in a few weeks’time, on a supposed surprise trip, where he would propose that they get married on a romantic whim. It was all part of his plan to do it without the interference of her family and any constraints like a prenuptial agreement. Up until that moment Cara had been truly unaware of Cormac’s intentions where Allegra was concerned.
She looked at Vicenzo now. She could see that he’d been drawing into himself more and more as she’d been talking, and she pulled her hands free of his. She couldn’t touch him and talk and stay sane. ‘I liked Allegra. She was sweet to me—which was something that none of Cormac’s other girlfriends really were. She didn’t deserve to meet my brother… Cormac knew that I liked her, and that she liked me, and that was one of the reasons he made sure to not let me see much of her.’ She smiled sadly for a moment. ‘Contrary to what you believe, my brother was far too paranoid to use me like the pawn you thought I was.’
She bit her lip. ‘I wanted to help her. But I didn’t know what to do. Should I try and talk to her? Or should I go to her family…? Allegra had mentioned you once or twice, but I’d only found out about Cormac’s plan that day…I thought there was time.’ She trailed off ineffectually, the weight of hindsight and the way fate had intervened heavy in the room. ‘I couldn’t let Cormac drive her into town when he was so out of it…and she wasn’t much better.’ Cara steeled herself against the bleak look that crossed Vicenzo’s face. ‘I somehow persuaded him to let me drive them in. I thought I’d be doing them a favour. Protecting your sister. I felt so bad about what he was planning to do to her, and I wanted to find a way to stop him…’
He took her hand again. ‘Cara, just tell me what happened.’
‘At the last minute Cormac insisted on driving, saying I wouldn’t be able to handle the car… I got in anyway, thinking I could at least try to make sure he drove safely.’ Cara looked at Vicenzo and felt haunted. ‘They both refused to wear their belts—so stupid. And then…the rain started. One minute it was dry and the next it was a torrential downpour. Suddenly there were lights heading right for us. Cormac had taken a wrong sliproad on the motorway and was driving straight into oncoming traffic… That’s all I remember, until someone was helping me out from the wreckage. I walked away, Vicenzo. I got to the hospital and they let me walk straight out again…’
Vicenzo had to acknowledge now that as Cara hadn’t presented with a head injury or any other apparent injuries why wouldn’t they have let her walk away? Especially as it had been a city hospital, no doubt with emergencies backing up outside the door. But the truth was they should never have let someone in her shocked and distraught state just walk away. And then mere days later he had met her…
To Cara’s surprise Vicenzo stood then, and pulled her up with him. She stumbled slightly, feeling weariness snake through her body. She could read nothing from Vicenzo’s expression about the impact of what she’d just told him.
‘You’re exhausted’ was all he said.
Cara nodded. She didn’t say a word when he took her by the hand and led her to the kitchen. Wordlessly he prepared her a simple omelette and some bread, making her eat it. Then, feeling very bemused, Cara let Vicenzo lead her to her bedroom.
With a chaste kiss on her forehead, he pushed her gently in through the door. ‘Get some rest, Cara. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
The next morning Cara woke feeling disorientated and groggy. She had slept for almost fourteen hours. She scrambled off the bed and took a quick shower, changing into a plain black sundress. As she put it on a part of her revolted at the colour, feeling instinctively that the time had come to move on and let go of her grief. And the fact that it was undoubtedly Vicenzo who had precipitated that change made her feel shaky.
She investigated the dining room but didn’t see Vicenzo or Silvio. She figured Silvio might still be in bed—some mornings he slept in. She came to a halt outside Vicenzo’s study door. Just then the door opened and Cara jumped back guiltily, her cheeks flushing.
‘Morning. I was just looking for everyone.’
Vicenzo looked remotely austere and every inch the successful businessman in a pristine shirt and tie, dark trousers. ‘I was just about to come and find you…we need to talk.’
Foreboding slid down Cara’s spine as she preceded him into the study. He looked so serious that it scared her.
He gestured for her to sit down in the chair opposite his big mahogany desk and took a seat himself. Cara felt absurdly as if she was coming for an interview. She looked around and saw that all of the papers were gone.
‘What have you done with the papers? I would have tidied them away.’
‘They’re shredded.’
Cara gasped. ‘But I hadn’t given you the report yet.’
‘I know what Cormac did, Cara, and as he’s no longer a threat, I didn’t see the harm in shredding the evidence now.’
‘But…’ Cara frowned. ‘You could have done that weeks ago.’ A dart of something struck her, and she saw Vicenzo wince slightly.
‘Yes. But while you were here, and while I still saw you as a threat, I had to make sure I knew what he’d done.’
Something contrary made Cara say, ‘And how do you know I’m not still a threat?’
Vicenzo froze, his face darkening before he finally said, ‘You are still a threat, Cara. That’s the problem.’
Cara felt hurt and anger start to burn down low, but before she could say anything Vicenzo held up a hand.
‘I don’t mean that sort of threat, Cara. The threat I’m talking about is entirely different.’ He looked at her steadily, making her heart flutter. Then he got up and went to stand at the window with his back to her. After a long moment he turned around. ‘You call me Enzo when we make love.’
Cara flushed hotly, immediately forgetting whatever threat he was talking about. The need to protect herself was huge as she blustered, ‘I’m sorry—it doesn’t mean—’
He shook his head and smiled ruefully for a moment. ‘No, don’t apologise. I like it. I haven’t been called Enzo for a long time.’
Cara frowned. ‘But in London that night…’
The smile disappeared and something flashed across his face. ‘I introduced myself as Enzo, yes. Because when I met you, Cara, I had no intention of taking you to bed. My sole desire that evening was to seek you out and make you acknowledge what I thought you’d done.’
He was grim. ‘I jumped to the first, easiest conclusion, based on purely circumstantial evidence, and I damned you along with your brother to a place I had no wish to investigate. In my guilt at not being able to protect Allegra, I lashed out. I’d over-protected her for a long time.’ His mouth was a thin line. ‘We had a fight just a few weeks before she died. She told me to back off, leave her alone…’
‘It’s not your fault she met Cormac,’ Cara said quietly.
Vicenzo raked a hand through his hair. ‘I know…but still… When I went into that club and you were sitting there in that dress, you turned and looked up at me… I’ve been lost since that moment, Cara, and all because of what you did to me when you just looked at me. Before I met you I would have felt sick at the thought of being attracted to Cormac Brosnan’s sister. But then, as we both know, as soon as we met the reality was the exact opposite. I found myself acting on pure instinct, telling you that I was Enzo… It was as if I had to become someon
e else to justify the attraction I felt. Somewhere in my mind, which had been melted in a haze of lust, I told myself that I was concealing my identity to see how mercenary and manipulative you really were.’
Self-derision marked his features, shocking Cara.
‘And when I asked you to come to my hotel you said no… By then all I could think of was how angry I felt to be rejected by you, how much I wanted you and my injured pride.’ He laughed harshly. ‘I was about to let you walk away without even confronting you. I was in serious danger of forgetting why I’d sought you out in the first place.’
‘But then I went back…’ Cara said faintly, struggling to take all this in, wondering where he was going with this.
He came closer and looked down at her. ‘But then you came back.’
Cara winced as she saw how her innocent actions would have played straight into his misconception of her character.
Taking her by surprise, he came down on one knee in front of her. Her heart tripped at the look in his eyes. ‘Why did you come back, Cara? It couldn’t have been easy if you hadn’t done it before.’
His nearness and his questions made Cara want to curl into herself. She couldn’t reveal how the depth of her emotions had moved her that night. She couldn’t reveal how badly he’d hurt her.
She shrugged with a lightness she certainly didn’t feel. ‘It was the same for me too…’ She hurried to qualify. ‘The attraction. I’d never met anyone who made me feel like that before…and that week…it had been such an awful week. You came along out of nowhere, and suddenly it was as if nothing else existed in the world except you. I just…I wanted to lose myself in that. To get away from the pain…the grief.’
A spasm of something flashed across Vicenzo’s face, but he stood and went to face the window again, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. He finally turned around again, his face once more a mask of bland neutrality.
‘I owe you an apology, Cara. More than an apology. For everything and especially for that night—the following morning. I was angry with myself for losing control and I took it out on you. When you appeared in Dublin to tell me of your pregnancy I added insult to injury, assuming that you were like every other woman I’ve ever known.’
‘Your father told me about your mother,’ Cara said quietly.
His body tensed, and he said eventually, with a tight smile, ‘Yes. My mother certainly did a number on all of us. She left us a broken family. My father never really recovered…and he and I went out of our way to cosset Allegra. We both overprotected her—as if that could make up for her mother’s abandonment.’
Cara’s voice was low, her eyes steady on his. ‘Was that why you believed I’d walk away from my baby if you paid me enough money?’
He winced and nodded slowly. Cara ached inside that he would believe that. Her spine straightened and she willed him to believe her now, when she said, ‘I would never have done thatVicenzo. Nothing on this earth would ever have persuaded me to walk away from my baby, my child. Nothing. I would have stayed. That’s why it was easy to sign the prenuptial agreement. I don’t care about the money. I would have stayed to be with my child.’ And you, she had to admit to herself. Even then a part of her had been aware of her weakness.
As Cara’s eyes blazed into his, willing him to trust what she was saying, she saw something move in his expression, something in his eyes, and it made her heart beat fast.
‘I know,’ he said gruffly. ‘I do believe you. And you can’t know how hard it’s been for me to come to terms with that. To trust again. My mother broke all our hearts, and since the day she left I’ve denied my own instinctive need to create a family, fall in love.’
‘But why did you insist on marrying me if you’d come from that experience?’ Cara held her breath.
‘I told myself that it was because you were carrying my heir. I told myself it was to stop any potential scandal or a slanging match in the tabloids. I told myself it was so that I could control you and punish you by showing you that even by marrying a billionaire you’d effectively get nothing… But in reality my reasons for marrying you were much more ambiguous than that.’
He took an audible breath. ‘They were ambiguous because from the moment we met I started to change. You’ve changed me.’
Cara didn’t register his words for a minute. His eyes were burning into hers. Something in his stance made her want to stand and run, but she stayed sitting and watched as he pulled a chair up and sat down opposite her. He took her hands, and she could feel his shaking.
Vicenzo looked down for a second before bringing his head back up, his eyes intense. ‘Yesterday, when I got home and you were gone…and when I found out where you were…that you’d driven. When I saw you at the side of the road I think I aged a few decades in the space of half an hour. All I could imagine was you lying somewhere at the bottom of a ravine.’ He’d gone pale again.
‘But I’m fine,’ Cara pointed out.
‘I know. But the truth is it made me finally face up to something. From the start I put you in a place where I thought I had you all figured out as someone evil and manipulative. A gold-digger. But it was ridiculous. You had no idea who I was that night in London, and yet I told myself you’d gone to bed with me because I was obviously rich…’
He shook his head. ‘All the concepts I had about you slowly but surely started to crumble. And far earlier than I was prepared to admit. It was the way you signed the prenuptial agreement without turning a hair.’ He smiled faintly. ‘The way you bonded with my father; your determination to wear black. And the night of your birthday, which was a total disaster.’
She made a protesting noise but his hands gripped hers tighter. ‘It was. And then there was—’ He broke off for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice sounded rough, his accent more pronounced. ‘The miscarriage… We lost a baby because of my sheer bloody-mindedness.’
Cara was starting to feel slightly breathless and panicky. ‘Vicenzo, you can’t say that—don’t think that. It wasn’t your fault.’
A look of unmistakable pain crossed his face. ‘I have to let you go, Cara. I can’t keep you here and I should never have brought you here. I’m so sorry that I brought even more heartache into your life…the baby.’
Cara couldn’t breathe. She pulled her hands from Vicenzo’s and stood up. She knew rationally she should be rejoicing, but she felt as if she was dying. She backed away behind the chair. And in her pathetic weakness she latched onto something.
‘But the debt. I still owe Cormac’s debt.’
Vicenzo stood too, arms by his sides. ‘The debt is gone. Paid.’
She shook her head, twisting her hands. ‘No. I won’t allow you to cover for him.’
Vicenzo was shaking his head too. ‘It’s gone, Cara. It doesn’t exist any more—nowhere, not even on paper. You were as much a victim of your brother as my sister was. I’m doing this for you, and in her memory. She wouldn’t want that for you and neither do I.’
‘But…’ She struggled to take in the enormity of the fact that he wanted her to go, and the fact that she couldn’t feel happy at the prospect of her freedom.
Then, as if reading her mind, Vicenzo said, ‘You have your freedom now, Cara. You can go home, look for work. I’ve already made arrangements to buy you an apartment in Dublin to help you get started. I can secure you a job too.’
Bile rose in Cara’s throat. ‘No. You don’t have to do that.’ The thought of him setting her up was too much. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back furiously.
He nodded. ‘Yes I do.’
A curious stillness came into the room around them. It made Cara hold her tongue.
And then Vicenzo said quietly, holding her gaze, ‘It’s the least I can do for the woman I love, who I’ve hurt so much.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CARA’S heart stopped. Time stood still. ‘What did you say?’
Vicenzo was as still as a statue. ‘I said that it’s the least I can do for the w
oman I love.’
‘You don’t…’ Cara was shaking her head, feeling as if the whole world was starting to crumble around her.
‘I do. I’ve fallen in love with you. I nearly fell apart yesterday. Within two months of looking into your eyes for the first time all my precious defences were shot to pieces. I had a ring on your finger and you locked away as my pregnant bride.’
‘But that was just because of the baby, the press…’ Cara breathed. She couldn’t believe it. She simply couldn’t believe it. She had to reiterate what she knew to be true. Wasn’t it?
Vicenzo smiled tightly and read her mind. ‘Was it? From the moment I walked away from you that morning I couldn’t get you out of my head. I would have found some excuse to go back to you.’ His smile faded. ‘I have no right to keep you here when all you’ve ever wanted and deserved is your freedom. I will not be a tyrant and keep you trapped like your brother did to you in London, by denying you your economic freedom. You have the power in your hands to exact the worst vengeance on me, Cara…if you walk away.’
His mouth twisted. ‘I just thought it only fair to tell you—so that it can give you some measure of satisfaction. But if you could find it in your heart to stay and give this marriage a chance then…you would make me the happiest man alive. I don’t delude myself for a second to think that you could possibly love me after everything I’ve put you through.’
Everything they’d been through seemed to flash through Cara’s mind, like her life flashing before her eyes. She searched his face for some sign…but he was holding himself so rigidly. If he was to stride over to her and take her into his arms then she might believe…but it was too much.
She didn’t doubt that he felt guilty about the baby, was blaming himself for doubting her. But how could she survive going into his arms now, only to have him tire of her after a few weeks or months and seek to get the marriage dissolved when the novelty wore off? He’d been a playboy until he met her. They’d simply gone through an extraordinarily dramatic set of circumstances and suffered mutual loss and grief.
