“My father… It was stipulated. In his will. Gabriel would get it all if I didn’t get legally betrothed by my twenty-sixth birthday.”
“What else was there, that you’re not telling me?”
“And be legally married and with an heir within ten years to that date.”
Alyssa looked at Matteo like he was from another world.
“That makes no sense at all.”
“It was his will. I had to honor it.”
“So you're still engaged to Martina.”
“It’s not like that. I’m not saying that there was never anything between her and me but we realized quickly we weren’t suited. Officially, we’re still betrothed, but I’m sure I can work around that. There’s nothing in the language that specifies that I must marry my betrothed. It’s a strange loophole, I know, but I thought about it. It’s good enough. It’ll be enough. I will have fulfilled the conditions to the letter if I was betrothed to one woman, and marry and make an heir with another. I can marry you, and we can have a child, and everything will be fine.”
Alyssa could hardly believe her years. Could any man possibly be that obtuse? Surely nobody could be like that. Surely nobody could think that any of that would be acceptable.
“Did you talk about that loophole with Martina?”
“I… It’s not necessary.”
“So she still believes that she will, at some point in the next few years, marry you.”
“I’m sure Martina knows better.”
“You’re sure she knows better? You have a legal betrothal contract, like something from the Regency era or something of the sort! And you think she doesn’t think it matters? Why wouldn’t it matter to her? It’s far more binding than just a ring on her finger, isn’t it?”
“Alyssa, listen to me. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Don’t you see that? This is for us. You and I, we belong together. We can make the rest of it work. Marry me. Marry me, come back to Italy with me, and we’ll make a life together. We can have it all. We can have everything.”
Alyssa stood there, stunned, for a long moment before slowly shaking her head.
“You’re crazy. I think you are crazy. We’ve known each other for about two weeks. We’ve had maybe four conversations. Just because we had sex, it doesn’t mean that we’re fated, or that it makes the slightest bit of sense to talk about getting married. Especially because you're engaged to another woman. No, don’t tell me stories about why it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters whichever way you’re engaged to her. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe any of this is happening.”
She half expected thunder and lightning, but there was none. There was just the steady patter of rain that had started up again. It was depressing. It suited the mood just fine.
The skies cried with her, thought Alyssa, and she recognized that she was becoming melodramatic. She'd bought into some strange narrative about fate and magic, and now she was paying the price because her heart was broken. She could have guarded it, but she hadn’t. She’d let her guard down, she'd let him in, and now he'd let her down.
So she would have to pick up the pieces somehow, and she would have to go on.
“Alyssa, it’s not… Look, I can explain it all. I swear, I can explain.”
“You’ve tried to explain and it hasn’t really sounded very good so far.”
“It’s not a big deal. Alyssa, listen to me. It’s not a big deal.”
She turned away, closed her eyes, and wondered how he could say that.
“Alyssa, please. Listen to me.”
She shook her head.
“There’s nothing to listen to. There’s nothing you can say, Matteo. There’s nothing. You’re engaged. There’s no getting around that.”
“Alyssa.”
“You can stay the night. It’s raining, I don’t want to ask you to leave now. But in the morning, I want you to leave, and I want you to know that it’s final.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can do that. Of course I can. This is my life, too, Matteo. You’ve planned everything, haven’t you? You’ve planned how my life will be from now on! You’ve planned what I'll do with my shop, where I'll live, what I'll do—how could you think that that would be okay? It’s my life!”
“What are you angry about right now? A technicality that means nothing? Or are you angry at me because I've recognized and accepted what there is between us?”
“What are you even talking about!”
Alyssa threw her hands up in the air, nearly throwing her phone at him.
“You’re just angry because I have seen what we have. I have recognized it. You’re angry because you can’t accept it.”
Alyssa took a step forward, finally fed up.
“I don’t care what you think we have. I don’t care what you think we’re supposed to have. Listen to me, Matteo. This is my life. This is betrayal. This photo, it shouldn’t have been a shock to me when somebody sent it to me. You should have been able to tell me that it’s from a long time ago, and it’s in the past—without qualifiers. Without telling me that technically maybe you are actually engaged to be married! To somebody else! Even if we were fated to have the kind of love story that’s written in the stars, it wouldn’t have made a difference. Because I still get to choose. I will never choose to be with a man who let me find out another way that he’s engaged to be married. I will not choose to be with a man who wants to take away my choice. Who thinks that expecting me to uproot my life for him is a reasonable thing. I don’t care if you understand where I’m coming from. If you don’t understand, then you don’t understand. That’s all there is to it. But this is done. We’re over, Matteo. Whatever we think we’ve got, we don’t have it. Without honesty, without respect, there is nothing. Nothing, do you understand? Nothing.”
“You can’t mean this. I came all this way for you. I rearranged my life because I love you!”
Alyssa shook her head furiously.
“You did it for yourself. So what if we had a few dreams? Our lives aren't spent in dream. They’re lived in the real world. In the real world, you have no respect for me. You came here because you believed that I belong to you. Well, I’ve got news for you, mister. I don’t belong to anybody but myself. You can take that to the bank.”
Matteo glared at her, his eyes cold, his face set.
“You refuse to listen.”
“Fine. I refuse to listen. I admit it. Now will you leave me alone?”
He went still.
“You want me to leave you alone.”
“Yes. I want you and your brother to get out of my life. He’s latched onto my sister, do you know that? She’s in a bad place and now he’s got his hooks into her. She’s not seeing straight right now. He will ruin her life, won’t he? It’s what you do, the both of you. This whole thing, it’s got something to do with your father’s will, doesn’t it? Your brother came here because of it. You were surprised to see him. Don’t tell me you weren’t. It was obvious that you were.”
“Things are complicated between us.”
“Sure. Sure, when it’s something to do with your actual life, you brush it off by saying it’s complicated as if that’s not the biggest cliché in the world. But you have no problem planning my entire life out to your convenience. We don’t even know each other!”
“We know each other! We could know each other for a thousand years and we wouldn’t know each other better.”
She shook her head in denial, and with great effort, she stepped back, and she stepped away.
“This is over. Whatever it is, it’s over. I don’t know what kind of madness this was, but none of it was anything like me. None of this is like anything I would do. I don’t care. This is over. I want you to leave tomorrow, and we’ll go back to our sane lives.”
This time, he didn’t try to explain. He didn’t try to convince her that she was wrong. He just looked at her grimly and nodded.
“If that’
s how you feel, Alyssa. You won’t be bothered by me again.”
“I… You can stay till morning. It’s raining.”
“I won’t melt in the rain. Goodbye.”
“Your clothes are in the wash.”
“Donate them.”
He walked out of the kitchen, leaving her alone, and he walked out of her life. Alyssa told herself that she'd done the right thing. Of course she'd done the right thing.
She heard her front door open and close, and she waited for the relief.
She waited for the madness to pass.
She waited for her life to start making sense.
But it didn’t. Nothing made sense, still.
Everything hurt.
The rain fell, and fell, all night. She sat at her kitchen table and waited for the numbness to go away. But that didn’t go away, either.
She waited for the pain, then. Anything.
But she felt nothing. It was as if he'd taken her heart with him, and she had nothing left to feel with.
She just needed time, she told herself. She just needed time to sort out everything that had happened. Sure, it had only been a couple of weeks, but it had been wild. Things that simply didn’t happen in real life had happened to her. She would soon come to her senses and realize that she wasn’t in love with Matteo. She would soon understand that. Her heart would catch up with her head and she would stop feeling so melodramatic about everything.
She sat there and waited, feeling more and more alone, and she finally began to feel something as the sun rose. It wasn’t any of the things she'd hoped to feel, though. All she felt was emptiness where she had felt happy and fulfilled when he’d been close by. All she felt was an immense sense of loss that she couldn’t even begin to explain to herself.
It didn’t matter how many times she told herself that she'd done the right thing. She felt as if she'd said no to the best part of what life had offered her, and now her life had no color in it. It had no joy in it.
Time, she told herself, as she finally managed to get to her feet and walk to the window. The rain had cleared, and the sun was rising. She watched as light came into the world again, a little miracle that happened every single day. One that she appreciated every day because she appreciated all the little things in life.
But she felt no joy in it. She felt no joy at all.
When she finally felt again, all she felt was pain—and regret. It was so fierce that it made her double over, hugging herself, trying to breathe.
“No. God, no, not like this. Not like this,” she whimpered as she held on to herself and told herself that it wasn’t real. None of it had been real. She hadn’t lost anything real. It had just been a fantasy. It had all been a fantasy.
But the pain was real, and she knew that what she’d lost had been real, too. She knew that she would never find it again.
She loved him.
It didn’t matter if she couldn’t explain it. She’d fallen in love with him, at first sight. She still loved him.
So she would survive without him. She would live without him.
Because what choice did she have? She turned away and tried to reconcile herself to it—the knowledge that she would live the rest of her life without Matteo.
***
Matteo had never been so angry in his life.
She'd accused him of lying to her.
When had they had the time to tell each other the truth? He couldn’t have at the vineyard, because she'd run away from him there. He couldn’t have after that, over dinner, because she'd refused to have dinner with him. He couldn’t have now because she'd made up her mind about all the terrible things he'd done and asked him to leave.
No, demanded that he leave. There had been no room for conversation because Alyssa had made up her mind.
His brother.
His brother was behind it. He knew it, of course. He didn’t need to find proof to know it. Besides, what could he do with proof? There was no court of justice that could give him Alyssa’s love and her trust. He was no longer so certain he wanted it, either.
It had been madness. It was good to get a reminder of who he was and the life he was meant to lead. He'd had a pipe dream and now it was over. There wasn’t much more to it than that.
But his brother had crossed a line. He'd crossed many times, and he was going to pay for it. He'd indulged Gabriel and his games for far too long. This time, he had gone too far. This time, he had interfered too much.
Matteo got to the hotel, checked in, and made the calls he needed to make. His dear brother was going to be in for a bit of a surprise. He was going to find out that his responsibilities were catching up with him.
The anger carried him through most of the night, until he finally made the arrangements he needed to make. He would be going home.
He would be going home to Sicily. He would forget about Alyssa and he would move on with his plans.
But he would not forget about Gabriel and what he had done.
Matteo was good at transferring rage to productive ends. He made the transition from being a happy man planning a life with the woman he'd accepted was meant for him, to one who was intent on making his brother pay for what he'd done. He didn’t consider how it might affect Alyssa. He didn’t even think of Brianna. He'd found his focus, and he'd made his choice, because Alyssa had made her own.
Matteo got to work.
It meant getting every executive he needed out of bed and on call, and he didn’t care about the inconvenience it caused. He didn’t care about anybody’s inconvenience, not that night.
Did Gabriel think that he could do this and get away with it? Did he really think that the affection that Matteo had always had for his little brother would tolerate this? Had he learned nothing?
Perhaps not. Perhaps he'd indulged him far too much.
It was about to stop.
Mid-call, Claudia paused.
“Mr. Colombo, are you sure you want to do this?”
“Are you doubting my judgment, Claudia?”
“Of course not. Of course not, I just want to confirm that this really is what you wish to do.”
“Yes.”
That was all Claudia asked.
“Then I will get the paperwork ready. When will Mr. Gabriel be here to sign his part of it?”
“Soon. Within a day or two. I need to go through all of it. Contact his lawyers, as well, as soon as I’ve checked it. His lawyers can see it before he does. They can approve it and then he can sign it.”
“Mr. Colombo, have you considered that he might not sign?”
“He will sign, Claudia. He will sign because I will be fulfilling my end of the contract.”
“The contract? Your father’s will?”
“Yes.”
“I… Do you require me to get the paperwork for that ready, as well?”
“I will let you know when that’s necessary. But I'm currently fulfilling all those conditions, as I was informed a few minutes ago. I will go on fulfilling them. Get this done, Claudia.”
He hung up, and sat back to consider the move he'd just made.
Yes, part of it was to punish Gabriel. Matteo had no problem admitting that. He was not a nice person. Nice people didn’t usually become rich and powerful. Nice didn’t get things done, not on the scale he did things.
No, he was ruthless, and he did things his way, to get what he wanted.
Alyssa had been right about that. He made the decisions, because he could. He had chosen, every step of the way, to make sure that he was in control. So he would stay in control, and he would walk the path he'd chosen.
He would walk it without Alyssa by his side.
This had been the wakeup call he’d needed. He knew now that romantic fantasies of happy endings were not for him. His happy ending would be the one he made.
So Matteo got to work, making it. His own version of a happy ending.
Chapter 10
“Bree? What’s wrong?”
Alyssa looked up,
startled, to see her sister running into the shop.
Brianna was a mess.
That was a shock in itself. Brianna was always perfectly put together. Alyssa was the one who might be a mess now and then, not Brianna.
“He’s… He’s gone.”
Brianna braced herself against the counter and tears ran down her face. Alyssa glanced at Diane, who got the hint and made herself scarce. There was nobody else in the shop, thankfully. She’d just finished ringing up a sale for a family dinner, and she’d been planning a family dinner of her own. She’d just come to the conclusion that she'd been neglecting her family and that they would help her forget about the strange three weeks in her life.
The first week, when she'd met the man who had stolen her heart. The second week, when he'd come back into her life and made her feel more alive than she'd ever felt until then, before breaking her heart and walking out of it again. The third week, when all the color and happiness had leached out of her world, and she'd begun to wonder if she was alive, after all.
Family could help her fix some of it. At least, Alyssa hoped it could, desperately. She needed it.
But seeing Brianna’s distress, Alyssa set her own heartbreak aside.
“Who’s left? Adam?”
“No. Not Adam. Adam left before. Gabriel, he’s left.”
“What do you mean, Bree?”
“He called me this morning and said he’s going back to Italy. He said he won’t be coming back. He said he won’t be seeing me again.”
“Oh, Bree. I’m so sorry.”
Damn those Colombo brothers, thought Alyssa, but she didn’t say it out loud. Brianna didn’t need to hear that.
“I don’t know what I did wrong. What did I do wrong, Bree? Why do people keep leaving me? What’s wrong with me? Why am I not enough?”
Ah, the Benjamin sisters, thought Alyssa, as she flipped the sign to closed and tried not to think of that time when everything in her life had changed after doing just that.
“Come on. Come on, sit down. There we go. Now cry it out. Rant if you want to. Scream. Let it out.”
“I don’t know why this is happening. He was so kind, Aly. He was so kind and so attentive. I thought it was leading somewhere special. Do you think he left because I wouldn’t sleep with him?”
The Italian Billionaire’s Nubian Queen (BWWM Romance Book 1) Page 10
