Isabella.
She didn’t know how she knew that, she just did. The small, fragile woman curled against Luca was the woman he had been destined to marry, and of course the reason there was so much sobbing going on would be Isabella’s distress that she was not going to be the name announced as the lucky fiancée.
She would not be the one flashing the enormous diamond on her finger and accepting congratulations.
What Cordelia was looking at was a love that would never be fulfilled because of her and a pregnancy Luca had never banked on.
She felt sick. She also couldn’t move because her feet seemed to have become cemented to the square foot of carpet on which she was standing.
Luca was the first to notice her presence and she saw him still, and his body language must have transmitted something to the woman in his arms because she, likewise, looked up, and now they were both looking at her in complete silence.
‘I’m guessing—’ at long last she found her voice, and she was pleased that it didn’t shake or wobble or worse ‘—that I’ve interrupted a special moment between you two?’
‘Cordelia...’
Luca’s voice was hoarse, emotional in a way she had never heard him be emotional before and, more than anything else, that brought the sting of tears to her eyes.
Isabella was untangling herself from his embrace, making a move to come towards her, and Cordelia, horrified at the prospect of having to listen to some love-struck platitudes, was suddenly galvanised into action.
She began backing away. The high heels were an encumbrance. She wanted to run as fast as she could, but all she could manage was a fast-paced hobble, one hand lifting the long red dress, the other clutching the little bag so tightly she suspected it wouldn’t survive the vice-like grip.
She was aware of Luca saying something in Italian behind her but she was oblivious to his approaching steps until she felt his hand circle her arm, pulling her to a stop.
Heart beating like a sledgehammer, Cordelia swung around to look at him and spied Isabella standing hesitantly in the doorway of the office, as dainty and as fragile as spun glass. Her eyes were red from crying but, even so, she remained a beautiful woman, with dark, chocolate-brown hair upswept and a long black dress accentuating a gamine figure. There was a glittering choker at her neck, a string of diamonds that would have cost the earth, befitting the woman who, as Luca had once told her, was his appropriate match.
It was obvious that, along with that understatement of the year, there were a million other things he had failed to mention.
‘Cordelia...’
‘I don’t want to hear, Luca.’ Her eyes were dark with disappointment, anger and hurt. ‘How could you?’
‘How could I what?’
‘I don’t know...’ Her voice was laced with biting sarcasm but underneath the acidity she was all too aware of the gathering storm as her mind flew off in all sorts of directions. ‘Hmm...let me think...how could you what, I wonder? Abandon your own stupid gala so that you could have a final intimate moment with the woman you always wanted to marry? Is that a good beginning to your question, Luca?’
‘This is ridiculous.’
‘No, Luca...’ She tugged at the exquisite diamond on her finger, remembered when it had been chosen and what she had felt when, only a couple of days ago, after it had been sent away for refitting, it had been slipped onto her finger. ‘This...’ she handed him the engagement ring ‘...is ridiculous.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’ve got to be joking!’
‘Take the ring, Luca, because I don’t want it.’
‘You’re overreacting and interpreting something in completely the wrong way.’
‘Am I? I don’t think so. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that was Isabella, wasn’t it? The old family friend you were always destined to settle down with? One wealthy family marrying conveniently into another wealthy family?’
Luca remained silent.
He was put on the spot, all the years of never explaining himself coming to the fore. He clenched his jaw. He wasn’t going to take the ring, which was lying in the palm of her outstretched hand. Intense frustration washed over him.
‘You’re wrong in whatever assumptions you’re making, Cordelia. You need to trust me on this.’
His words hovered between them. For a second, Cordelia stopped to consider what he had just said, but only for a second because, as far as she was concerned, if she’d misread the situation, then it was up to him to clarify.
How hard was that? More to the point, was this what marriage to Luca was going to be? What had she agreed to take on? What would be the role of a convenient wife? Exactly?
Part of her wanted to curl her fist round that ring and shove it back on her finger because when she projected to a future without him, she literally quailed with fear.
But a greater part was forced to ask the question—would marriage mean hugging to herself a love that could never be brought out into the open? A love that turned her into someone so emotionally dependent on Luca that it was okay for him to do exactly as he pleased without explanation? Would she be facing a life of having to take his word for everything?
He’d reassured her that he would be faithful, but then he would have, wouldn’t he? It would be in his interest to tell her what he knew she would want to hear.
But she had seen what she had seen and if her interpretation had been off target, then he wouldn’t be standing there in front of her now, still as a statue, with eyes as cool as an Arctic blast, expecting her to just blindly believe him. He would be defending himself.
She shoved the priceless diamond at him.
‘I can’t go through with this. I’m sorry. When Dad comes, we’ll leave. Right now, I’m going to pack my bags, and don’t worry. I won’t be
