The Italian's Final Redemption (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Jackie Ashenden

  But she loves you. She won’t betray you.

  A spear of ice caught him in the chest, the pain so sharp he could hardly breathe, along with a raw, desperate feeling that made him want to run from his office and find her. Hold on to her. Cup her white face between his palms and kiss away the tears on her cheeks and the pain in her eyes. Give her those moments she wanted, give her the happiness she deserved.

  But he’d told her he didn’t care that she loved him, and he’d told himself. And he believed it. He had to believe it.

  So he stayed where he was, his hands clenched in fists on his desk.

  In the gardens outside, he could hear the sound of the helicopter’s rotors. His security staff would be leading her to the helicopter that would take her to Naples. From there, she’d take the jet to New York. Everything had been organised for her. He wasn’t going to leave her in the middle of a foreign city with nothing.

  There was a heavy, aching sensation in the centre of his chest. It hurt. He’d never been shot in all the years he’d spent destroying organised crime, but perhaps it felt something a little like this, a bright, pure agony reaching every part of him.

  He ignored it. Because she was wrong. Justice would cure this pain. He just had to be more focused, concentrate solely on his mission. He had to work harder.

  There could not be any more distractions.

  He could hear the rotors spinning faster now, faster and faster, and his whole body tightened with the urge to go to the windows and watch the helicopter take off, watch her fly away from him. But he didn’t move. Because he didn’t care. He wanted her, yes. Needed her, maybe. Love her? No.

  She’d told him she loved him as if love was a truth, but she was wrong.

  Love was the greatest lie of all.

  Love had controlled and manipulated him. Love had blinded him. Duped him. Love had betrayed him.

  He would never allow love to have that kind of dominion over him again.

  The noise of the helicopter became deafening now as he heard it lift off from the garden, heading into the sky.

  Vincenzo closed his eyes as the sound became more and more distant, listening until, at last, it faded away. And there was nothing but silence in his house.

  Silence in his heart.

  She was gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  HE ENDED UP waiting a month. Just until the people he had keeping an eye on Lucy told him she was settled. Her father, naturally, thought she was still with him and had contacted him a number of times, offering all kinds of things for her return.

  Vincenzo had ignored all of them.

  Once he had confirmation she was safe, he contacted Scotland Yard and gave them everything they needed to bring in Armstrong. And put him away for life.

  The news of Armstrong’s arrest came swiftly after that, and afterwards Vincenzo sat on the terrace, staring out over the sea, a glass of wine in his hand and the peace of the evening closing in.

  It should have been satisfying, but it wasn’t.

  All he could think about was how empty his villa was. How quiet.

  How he wanted to look across this table and meet a direct hazel gaze, large and dark behind the lenses of her glasses. How he wanted a pair of warm arms to welcome him, and a curvy, silky little body to press itself against him.

  How he wanted her smile. Her honesty. Her understanding. Her bluntness and her direct manner.

  He wanted her and she wasn’t here.

  ‘All the justice in the world won’t change the feeling inside you...’

  His fingers tightened on his wine glass, the memory of her voice playing in his head.

  Over the past month he’d thrown himself into his work, spending hours holed up in his office, sifting through information, looking for his next target.

  It should have made him feel better. It should have cleaned the memory of her right out of his head. But it didn’t matter how hard he worked, the ache inside him wouldn’t go away.

  If only that ache was guilt, because that was easier to deal with. But it wasn’t. It was her and her absence, the silence around him not one of peace, but of loss.

  You made her happy and you sent her away.

  Pain deepened in his chest. Happiness. What was that anyway? He didn’t need it himself. He didn’t want it. He had a vocation, a calling, and that fulfilled him. It brought him all the satisfaction he required.

  ‘You can let yourself be happy...’

  No, he couldn’t. Happiness and peace weren’t for men like him and she was a fool if she thought they were.

  He raised his glass and took a sip, wanting to savour it, but it tasted of nothing. Even the food he ate these days had lost its flavour, just as the world had lost its colour. The sun its warmth...

  She’d taken even those small pleasures left to him.

  Anger began to burn in his gut, unexpected and fierce, an anger that he’d thought he’d put behind him. And the more he tried to force it away, the more it grew.

  She’d done this to him. She’d taken all the little things that had made his life bearable. She’d shown him what peace felt like, what it was to be free of guilt, what it meant to be able to smile at something amusing. She’d shown him how to take a moment and enjoy every second of it.

  You made her happy, but she also showed you happiness and now you can never forget it.

  The anger burned hotter, flaming high and wild, incinerating everything in its path.

  She’d been right, hadn’t she? She’d been right all along. Justice would never be enough for him, not now she’d shown him what else he could have, and because he could never have it she’d doomed him.

  Vincenzo shoved his chair back so hard it fell over. He rose to his feet, the rage inside him a column of fire, burning him alive. The wine glass was still in his hand, and before he’d even realised what he was doing he’d flung it to the stone floor, crystal exploding in glittering shards.

  It was her fault. She’d made him feel like this. And now he’d be Tantalus for ever, desperately thirsty and unable to drink. Starving and unable to eat.

  Or you could just accept that what she said was true, that you can let yourself be happy.

  Rage coursed through him. How could he accept that? How could he be happy? When he’d hurt people? When he was as guilty as his mother? She was in jail at least, but he wasn’t.

  You thought Lucy had served her sentence and deserved freedom. Haven’t you served yours?

  He was shaking, staring unseeing at the remains of the wine glass, glittering in the last rays of twilight. Years he’d spent pursuing his crusade. Years. And still he felt the crushing burden of guilt. That hadn’t eased one bit, no matter how many people he had put away. She hadn’t lied about that, had she?

  No, there had only been one thing that eased him and that was her. Being deep inside her, looking into her eyes. Feeling her arms around him, holding him. Making him feel as if he was more than his mother’s broken tool. More than a ruthless, merciless crusader, fighting to fill the gaping void inside him.

  The void his mother had left when she walked away from him without a backward glance. The void left by betrayal. Left by love.

  He sucked in a breath and then another as the knowledge filtered slowly through him, another truth that Lucy had given him that he’d thought was a lie.

  ‘You’re afraid...’

  Was he? He hadn’t thought he was, but... What if that was true? What if he just hadn’t wanted to believe it? And if that was true, then just what the hell was he afraid of?

  You know...

  Vincenzo closed his eyes. If he didn’t have justice, if he didn’t have guilt, if he didn’t have atonement, then what did he have? Who was he?

  Just his mother’s tool, her weapon. The puppet she pulled the strings with. An empty void. Unworthy of even her tainted, cond
itional love.

  Fear curled through him, so sharp and bright he shuddered. He didn’t want to face it. He wanted to turn and go to his office, lose himself in doing something, anything so this fear didn’t choke him. The fear that he was nothing and no one. That he was unworthy, undeserving.

  She loves you. She believes you deserve happiness.

  What if...she was right? What if his civetta had told him the truth? Ah, but then, of course it was the truth. She’d always given him that. So maybe the question wasn’t what if she was right? Maybe the question was more what if he believed her?

  Something shifted inside him, the urge to run back to his office and bury himself in his crusade. But he knew, with a sudden flash of insight, that if he did that, he’d be doing exactly what he’d been doing for years. Escaping.

  Escaping pain. Escaping betrayal. Protecting himself...

  Ah, Dio, that was what he’d been doing all this time, wasn’t it? Running from his fear, running like a coward for decades. Using his justice as his shield and righteousness as his sword.

  But he wasn’t just or righteous. He was a man cowering in fear. Afraid of his own emotions. Afraid of pain and betrayal. Afraid of the most powerful emotion of all: love.

  ‘I think you love me as much as I love you.’

  Vincenzo took a ragged breath, his heart raw, chewed up and spat out, scarred and full of holes, beating hard in his chest as the greatest truth of all settled down inside him. His skin was sensitised, as if the slightest breath of air would cut him to shreds.

  Yes, he loved her. He’d loved her for days, for weeks. The entirety of his life had been spent waiting for her and the rest of it would be spent aching for her. She was his fate and his destiny. She was his truth.

  And he’d been afraid of her. Afraid of her honesty. Afraid of her strength. Afraid of her courage, because she had more courage and strength in her little finger than he had in his entire body.

  And when he’d sent her away he’d been afraid of her love. Afraid of the power of it, of the acceptance and understanding in it. The absolution he could sense it would give him and the happiness and peace it promised him.

  He didn’t deserve any of those things, but she thought he did. She thought he deserved happiness. She thought he deserved peace. And really, in the end it was a simple choice. He either trusted in her belief, or he didn’t.

  Ah, but was that even a decision to make? He knew the answer. It lay in his heart, in his soul.

  Of course he trusted her. He loved her.

  This time, Vincenzo didn’t run. He faced his fear. And he accepted her love. Felt it flow through him like a purpose, like a vocation, a calling. Yet so much stronger, so much deeper. So much more complex.

  And it wasn’t a flame, burning through dry paper, only to crumble to ash when there was nothing to feed it. It was a glow, steady and bright and unending, self-sustaining. True strength in its purest form.

  It would never flicker and it would never die. It would be with him always.

  Peace came over him, easing the anger, dissipating the last remains of the blaze, cool and soft like Lucy’s touch on his skin, a balm to his wounded soul. Bringing with it an absolute certainty.

  He would find her. He would lay his heart at her feet. He would give her everything she ever wanted and if what she wanted was to never see him again, he would leave and count it a privilege to have even known her.

  It would hurt and he might not survive it, but then, he wouldn’t survive without her anyway.

  She was more important than justice and she was certainly more important than fear. She was the most important thing in his life and he couldn’t let another day pass with her thinking that she wasn’t.

  Vincenzo reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone, punching in a number, his hands now steady, the path before him clear and true.

  ‘Get the helicopter now. I’m going to New York.’

  Lucy had eventually found herself a little house by the sea in Cape Cod. It wasn’t Capri, of course, or the Mediterranean, but the wild Atlantic wasn’t far from her door, and there was a beach. And she could walk along that beach, have sand under her toes.

  It was a lovely place and she had a job with a small finance firm that enabled her to work from home. It wasn’t the most challenging of positions, but she was able to earn a living, which was all she required. She was starting to think longer term, now she had a future ahead of her, and had been toying with the idea of a financial crime consultancy business, but that was still to be decided.

  She might even have been happy if it wasn’t for the fact that she was missing one thing.

  Vincenzo.

  She had everything she’d promised her mother she would have. A life away from her father, a life of safety, of freedom.

  But she didn’t have him. And because she didn’t have him, she could never be truly happy. Her heart remained broken and always would.

  It was late in the day, the sun going down, and Lucy walked along the beach as she did most late afternoons, her feet sinking into the sand.

  She shouldn’t give in to these long, solitary walks, because they gave her too much time to think. Too much time to remember how she’d let him turn his back and walk away a month earlier. How she’d collected her things and followed his security staff out to the helicopter, not even watching as it lifted off and flew away because she’d been blinded by tears.

  She couldn’t force him to see what he didn’t want to, and, though love had given her strength, it didn’t shield her from the pain of her heart breaking.

  Pain for him and what he couldn’t allow himself to have.

  She remembered the flight to the States and the tears she’d cried for him, weeping herself into sleep at last. Then arriving in New York with an aching throat and gritty eyes.

  A kind woman had met her after she’d got off the jet, giving her all the information she needed and showing her to some accommodation in the Village where she could spend a couple of days acclimatising.

  She didn’t remember that either.

  All she remembered was the hollow feeling inside her. Which made sense in a lot of ways, since she’d left her heart in Capri, in Vincenzo de Santi’s strong and capable hands.

  You just let him have it. You gave it to him and then you walked away.

  Lucy bent and picked up a shell, brushing the sand off it.

  Of course she had. He’d wanted her to leave and even telling him that she loved him hadn’t changed his mind. And not because he didn’t want her, but for all those lies he was telling himself. About keeping her safe. About being distracted. About justice.

  It was fear and she knew all about fear, how it could get inside you, trap you. And she’d confronted him with his own. But he’d refused to see it. And if he refused to see it, what more could she do? There was nothing.

  She stared at the shell, her chest aching. Her throat tight with grief for the lonely path he’d chosen and the life he’d trapped himself in. He was a prisoner just as much as she’d once been, but his cell was one of his own choosing.

  It made her ache.

  She lifted her wet face to the sky, letting the tears dry on her cheeks in the wind. And then her gaze narrowed as she saw the tall figure of a man coming down the beach towards her.

  It looked like... But no. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be Vincenzo.

  She should walk on. The sun would be going down soon and she needed to get home. Yet she didn’t move, watching the man walk towards her instead.

  Her heart began to speed up, beating wildly in her chest, because it knew who he was, even as her mind balked. And her body tightened, because it knew too. The easy, powerful way he walked. The darkness of his hair. The hard, carved angles of his face...

  Lucy stilled. Afraid to move in case he disappeared. Because surely he couldn’t be real. Surely
he couldn’t be here on a beach in Cape Cod. With her.

  But he came closer and closer and soon it was apparent that it was him, and he was here, and her heart raged behind her breastbone and she couldn’t breathe.

  All she could do was stand there as he came to her and, without saying a single word, swept her into his arms.

  She stiffened, pushing hard against his solid chest. This couldn’t be real. She was dreaming. She’d offered him her heart and he’d refused it.

  ‘Vincenzo? What are you doing here?’ And then anger in a cleansing fire hit her and she struggled. ‘Let me go.’

  He shuddered, as if in pain, and then abruptly his arms opened and she was free. His face was taut with some vast, passionate emotion burning just beneath the surface of his skin, his black eyes blazing with it.

  ‘I need to say something, Lucy,’ he said, his voice raw and rough. ‘Will you let me?’

  She was trembling now, half of her desperate to throw herself back into his arms while the other half was desperate to send him away.

  ‘Say what?’ she demanded, shaken and unable to hide it. ‘Didn’t you say everything you needed to back on Capri?’

  ‘No.’ The word was hoarse. ‘I didn’t. What I said to you then were lies.’

  Shock washed through her, the trembling getting worse. ‘What lies?’

  Vincenzo’s gaze was full of something hot and vital, burning steady as the fire at the centre of the earth. ‘That you were a distraction. That I didn’t care. That I wanted you to leave... You were right, civetta. Right about so many things. And it took me a while to see them, to accept what you were trying to tell me, but I know now.’ His hands were in fists at his sides, his whole body radiating a familiar tension. ‘You told me I was afraid, and you were right. I was. And if you want to know why, it’s because of this.’ He paused, his great, powerful chest heaving as he sucked in a breath. ‘My mother betrayed me. She manipulated me. She took my trust in her, my love for her, and she broke it. She broke me. I was the tool she used to make herself powerful. Not her heir and not her son. Nothing. No one.’