Unwrapping the Castelli Secret

by Caitlin Crews

  She tried to extricate herself from his grip, then scowled at him when he didn’t give her an inch as he pulled her along with him down the stairs, through the swirling snow and toward the dock.

  “So near-public sex is fine, but heaven forbid anyone overhear an argument?” Lily demanded. She balked when they approached the boat, digging her heels into the slippery dock surface, but he kept moving and therefore, so did she. It was that or let him drag her, and he wasn’t surprised she chose the former. “I’m not going anywhere with you. You must be insane!”

  “I am a long way past insane, Lily,” Rafael said, and he saw her eyes go wide at his tone, soft and lethal. He leaned in close, holding her gaze with his, and made no attempt at all to hide his dark, seething fury. “I mourned you. I missed you. My life was little more than mausoleum erected to your memory, and it was all a lie. A lie you told by your purposeful absence for years and then, when I found you completely by accident, you told deliberately, to my face.”

  He could feel her shake beneath his hand, and he didn’t think it was that same heat that had worked in her before, that shimmering need he knew as well as his own. He could see that complicated storm in her blue eyes, in the way her lovely mouth trembled and hinted at her reasons, and he didn’t want this. Any of this. He’d spent five years dreaming of her return to him, safe and unharmed and his again, but he’d never spent much time worrying about how that might happen. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  Maybe there were some doors better left closed.

  “Rafael—” she began, with a catch in her voice that would be his undoing, if he let it. He refused to let it. And this wasn’t the place, no matter what.

  He didn’t quite bare his teeth as he cut her off.

  “If I were you, I’d get in the goddamned boat.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE BOAT RIDE back across the canal was tense and silent. The snow fell around them like the kind of holiday blessing neither one of them deserved, muffling out the sounds of the old city and transforming it, making it that much more serene. But far worse than that, Lily thought darkly as she wrapped her warm cape tightly around her bare shoulders and glared out at the world become a literal snow globe, the ride across the water was entirely too brief.

  She’d revealed herself at last. Lily had no idea what that meant, only that it was done and there was no taking it back.

  Much too soon, Rafael led her from the boat and into the waiting loggia level of his family’s palazzo, his temper a living thing that walked beside them, between them, thicker than the Venice night all around them and stronger than the hand wrapped around her arm. It didn’t occur to her to defy him. She didn’t imagine it would do her any good.

  And if she was honest with herself, Lily knew that as much as she’d tried to avoid this moment of unfortunate truth, a far deeper part of her was glad. Not that she’d succumbed to that destructive passion again, the way she always did like the addict she was—but that there would be no more lies.

  She told herself that was a good thing, as she handed off her cape to the waiting servant and shivered—though not because she was cold. It was time for honesty, however ugly. It was past time.

  Rafael strode through the collection of rooms on the second level, more commonly rented out for things like art exhibits these days than for giving parties like the one they’d just left, then up the stairs she’d come down what seemed like a lifetime ago to the private family living suites above. He kept that seemingly polite hand anchored in the small of her back, guiding her where he wanted her to go, and somehow she didn’t quite dare disobey him. Not when she sensed he was holding on the pretense of civility by the skin of his teeth, if that. When a glance at his set, hard face made her think of wild and untamed things, uncontrollable passions, and challenges she hoped she was too wise these days to take.

  She hoped.

  He ushered her into the vast common room in the center of the bedroom suites that rambled over the upper floor, commanding views of lovely, snowy Venice in all directions. Then he left her standing there in the center of all that opulent art and ancient craft, from the frescoes that adorned the walls to the stunning sweep of paintings to the elegance of the furnishings themselves. An excessive example of the Castelli wealth—and its power—in a single overwarm room, with the brooding fury of Rafael at its center. She watched him stride over to the carved wood cabinet that served as a bar in the corner and pour himself something rich and dark into a heavy-looking tumbler. He tossed it back, then poured himself another, and only then did he turn to face her.

  Only then did Lily fully comprehend that she’d simply stood there where he’d left her, like a windup doll waiting to be played with again. Or as if she was awaiting his judgment. As if she deserved his condemnation—but she shied away from that thought almost as soon as it formed.

  Rafael was not the victim here. Neither was she. Or they both were, perhaps, and of the same wild passion.

  And she told herself that the fact she was still standing there had nothing to do with that glimpse of something like hurt she thought she’d seen on his face when he’d come after her on the steps of the palazzo across the canal. So dark and tormented, and she knew she’d put that there. She knew she’d done that to him, no matter who was the victim here.

  Lily had left him, and in the worst way imaginable. That was undeniable. Why should she care if knowing what she’d done hurt him? Hadn’t she already hurt him—and everyone else she knew? What could one more hurt matter, set against all the rest?

  But she found she was pressing the heel of her hand against her chest, as if that might make it—her—feel less hollow.

  “Take off that mask,” he rasped at her, and the great room they stood in felt closer. Tighter all around her, as if he could control the walls themselves with that terrible voice. “It’s time to face each other, after all this time. Don’t you think?”

  And the truth was, Lily had forgotten she wore the mask at all. Just as she’d forgotten how cold it had been outside until now, when the heat wrapped around her and made her chilled skin seem obvious. Almost painful. She thought there was some shade of meaning in that, as if even the weather was conspiring with Rafael, forcing her to feel all the things she’d vowed she’d never feel again.

  But it was time for the truth. For honesty, however brutal.

  She pulled the mask from her face and cast it down on the nearest settee that sat with its high back facing her, and she told herself there was no reason whatsoever she should feel vulnerable, suddenly, without it. How had it protected her? The truth was, it hadn’t. She could still feel his possession like a pulsing brand between her legs, hot and wild.

  He hadn’t touched her mask. He’d taken her instead.

  And she’d let him. She’d more than let him—she’d encouraged him.

  Neither one of them had caused this mad thing between them, she knew that. They were both its victim. They were both equally lost in it. They always had been.

  “Now,” Rafael said, when she looked at him again, still in that voice far darker than the snowy December night at the windows. “Explain.”

  “You already know what happened.”

  “No.” He looked something more than simply angry. Something more, too, than hurt, and she felt that like a fluttering unease deep in her belly. “I know that you died, supposedly. And I know that I then saw you years later on a street in a funny little corner of America. I have drawn conclusions about what must have happened between those two events while you were busy playing identity games, but no. I do not know what happened.” She saw his hand tighten around his glass. She felt it as if it had tightened around her, instead. “I certainly don’t know why.”

  Lily had spent five years trying to answer these questions to her own satisfaction—but it was something else to answer to him. To Rafael, who was
the reason behind all of the terrible decisions she’d made in her life, one way or another. She swallowed, found her throat dry and tucked her arms beneath her chest as if that could bolster her against him. Or against this story she’d never wanted to tell.

  She still didn’t.

  “Maybe it’s better to let these things lie,” she suggested, shocked that her voice sounded so small. She cleared her throat, tried to stand taller. “Please remember that I didn’t want to be found.”

  “Believe me, I remember.” His voice was a lash. He swirled the liquid in his glass, his dark eyes on her, and she had the distinct impression he could see all the fine hairs on the back of her neck and along her arms stand up. “And you are stalling.”

  “What does it matter why?” She fought to sound calm, no matter what she might feel inside. “What can knowing why do except make things worse?”

  “You let me think you were dead,” he hurled at her, and she realized as he did how much he’d been holding back before, out there on the canal. He wasn’t restraining himself now, and it took everything she had to keep from flinching away from all that rough emotion. “You let the whole world think you were dead. What kind of person would visit her own death on the people who loved her?”

  “You didn’t love me,” she threw back at him before she had time to temper that. He stiffened, but it was said. There was no taking it back. And besides, it was true. This was about truth. “You were obsessed. You were addicted, maybe. To the secrecy. To the twistedness. To the sheer delight in all the sneaking around and the excitement of all that passion. I know. I was there. But love? No.”

  “You’ve done enough, I think, without lecturing me on how I felt.”

  “I know what you felt,” she retorted. “I felt what you felt.”

  “Evidently not,” he gritted out. “Or you would not have sent a car over the side of a cliff and walked away from the wreckage, leaving me to imagine your horrible, painful death forever. You did not feel what I felt, Lily. I rather doubt you feel anything at all.”

  That stung, but she stood tall and took it. She waited until her heart felt less painful in her chest as it beat. Until she could speak without that betraying thickness clogging up her throat.

  “I felt too much,” she told him. “Too much of everything. Too much to bear.”

  His lips pressed flat, and his gaze was a dark condemnation far worse than anything he could have said. “You’ll forgive me if I am unconvinced. Your actions speak their own truth, Lily.”

  “And what of yours?”

  “I loved you.” He didn’t shout that, either, not quite, and yet Lily thought it rattled the walls, made the whole palazzo shake on its uncertain foundation. “I have never been whole since.”

  “I think you’ve fallen in love with a ghost,” she told him, her voice shaking slightly. “In retrospect.” He made a rough noise, but she ignored it and kept going. “You had five years to make your lost Lily up in your head. Was she virtuous and pure? Did you love her so desperately no living woman can compare? Was her loss a blow from which you’ve never quite recovered?” She shrugged when he scowled at her. “She sounds like a paragon. But that’s not me, Rafael. And that was certainly not you.”

  “I loved you,” he gritted out again, and though he was quieter this time, she still felt it slam through her. “You can’t make that go away because it isn’t convenient for you.”

  “I remember exactly how you loved me, Rafael,” she told him in the same sort of voice, holding herself tightly in check, as if that might keep her safe from all these truths filling the room. “I remember all the women you slept with while you claimed we had to remain a secret. You said you had to maintain your cover. You laughed when it upset me. Tell me, did you love me this much while you were inside them?”

  And for a moment Lily didn’t know which was worse—the possibility that he wouldn’t answer her...or that he would.

  “If this is your version of an explanation, it’s terrible,” he snarled at her after a long beat, and then he tossed back the contents of his glass in a single smooth motion. He slapped the tumbler down on the cabinet behind him with a loud crack that made Lily jump. “I’m not the liar in this room.”

  “On the contrary,” she replied, hoping there was none of that jumpiness in her voice. “There are two liars in this room. You’re not the story you’ve been telling yourself, Rafael.”

  “Is this the real Lily talking now or this ghost I made up in my head?” he asked, his dark gaze glittering with fury. “I’m finding it difficult to keep track.”

  She shook her head at him. “Liars are all we’ve ever been, starting that first night when you took my virginity on a pile of coats in the guest room of your father’s château and then strolled back into the party to kiss your girlfriend at midnight as if it had never happened.” Lily laughed softly at his expression, not sure where the will to do so came from, when he looked so fierce. “I’m sorry, had you prettied that up in your imagination? Made it all wine and roses and no cheating or sneaking around? Well, that wasn’t us. And I’m as bad as you are, make no mistake, because I knew perfectly well you had a girlfriend and I didn’t try to stop it.”

  He stared at her, all outraged male and dark ruthlessness besides, and she watched as that sank in. As it moved through him. And she’d imagined this moment so many times. She’d envisioned bludgeoning him with the truth and that changing everything, somehow.

  But instead she felt worse. Incalculably worse.

  “We were terrible people,” she said then, with an urgency that made her voice shake slightly.

  “We must have been,” he said as he moved toward her, a kind of bleakness in his voice she’d never heard before. “Look at where we are.”

  “Maybe,” she told him, her voice low, “you should have let us both forget.”

  He shook his head, an expression she’d never seen before moving over his dark face.

  “But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Neither one of us has forgotten a thing.”

  That felt like a dig. Lily stiffened. “That doesn’t mean we have to wallow in the past.”

  “Is that what you think this is?” Rafael asked. He shrugged, an edgy movement that did nothing to mask that thunderous, broken thing in his gaze. “Maybe so. But I’m not going to apologize for how I mourned you, Lily. How I coped with your loss. You walked away. You knew what you were doing. I didn’t have that choice.”

  “Your choices came before that,” she retorted, stung and hurt and furious at the both of them, that all of this could still hurt like this after so much time had passed. After so much had changed. “And you chose secrets. Lies. Other women.”

  “I won’t deny that I was a selfish man, Lily,” he bit out, his gaze like fire, and she didn’t know when he’d ventured so close to her. “I can’t. I regret it every day. But we had no commitment. I may not have treated you as well as I should have, but I didn’t betray you.”

  She pulled in a breath, amazed at the burst of white-hot pain that caused when there was nothing fresh or new in this. Nothing but an old wound, a dull blade.

  And the same familiar hand to wield it.

  “Of course you didn’t.” She wished she could hate him. She truly did. Surely that would be better. Simpler. “Oh, and along those lines, I never concealed Arlo from you. Technically. Had I seen you, I would have told you.”

  That shimmered in the air between them, like anguish.

  If she could die from this, Lily thought, she would have already. Years ago. God knew, she’d come close.

  Rafael said something harsh in Italian, vicious and low. He hauled her to him with a wholly inelegant hand around her neck, sending her sprawling into his hard chest. Then he stopped talking and took her mouth with his.

  And this time, there was no party nearby. No parents who might be horrif
ied at what their stepprogeny were about. No one to walk in on them. No one to hear.

  This time, Rafael took his time.

  He kissed her like this really was love. Like she’d been wrong all along. His mouth was condemnation and caress at once, taking her over and drawing her near, and Lily lost herself the way she always did.

  Heedless. Hungry. Needy and desperate and entirely his.

  Just as it had always been.

  Rafael shrugged his way out of his coat, letting it drop to the thick carpet beneath them, and still he kissed her. He sank his hands deep into her hair, scattering the combs that held it in place until the heavy mass of it tumbled down around them and the sparkling accessories rained out across the floor, and still he stroked her tongue with his, deeper and more intense, as if nothing in the world could ever matter as much as the delirious friction of his mouth against hers.

  Lily traced the planes of his chest, unable to control herself and not certain she wanted to try. She dug her fingers into the gaps between his buttons and pulled, gratified when the buttons burst free and exposed the smooth, hard planes of his sculpted chest. And then she succumbed to that same old need and ran her palms against his hot, smooth skin like red-hot steel with its dusting of dark hair. She was aware of his scent, soap and Rafael, his devil’s mouth teasing hers to endless wickedness, and the truth of her own mounting desire for this man she shouldn’t want like a near-painful ache low in her belly.

  She wrenched her mouth from his and they both panted as they stared at each other, all the twisted wrongness of their connection, all the lies they’d told and the things they’d done, like a thick mist between them, blurring the edges of things.

  He said something despairing in Italian that hurt to hear, and she didn’t even understand the words. Lily didn’t know what to do. It was easier to hurl old, embittered words at him. It was easier to try to hate him.