“She doesn’t recognize you?” Alex whispered, her heart breaking for him. For herself too.
Because how was she to cross this divide caused by him holding on to his pain and fury for so long? How could she hope to turn him from this path of destruction when he was utterly determined to see Leo and Massimo as enemies, when his hatred had such strong foundations in his terrible childhood.
And if she stayed with him, knowing his plans for people she loved so deeply, what did that make her?
He shook his head, his jaw tight. “She thinks I’m still a ten-year-old boy. She’s…frozen in that year.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Because I don’t want the pity I see in your eyes.”
“Then what do you want from me?”
As she watched, half fascinated, half furious, he reined all that emotion back in. As easily as if he’d packed it away and locked it up. No, instead he channeled all that pain into hatred, into fury, into revenge. “The vows you made to me. The future we promised each other. That’s what I want.”
“I still can’t believe Greta could’ve done something so—”
“Because you’re buried under the weight of your obligations to them. You don’t know their true colors—you’re not tainted by the privilege and power that resides in their blood.”
“And you think that means I can’t love them just as much? When I found out Carlos was my biological father and came to live with him, Greta was already married to him and didn’t even know I existed. But she welcomed me with open arms, she made a home for me here, she was the rock in my life when he died. Leo and Massimo, they accepted me and treated me like a real member of their family. You can’t imagine what they mean to me, Vincenzo.”
“And yet you presume to understand my animosity toward them?”
The leap of anger in his eyes—so unusual, especially directed at her—gave Alex pause. She wanted to try and see this from his point of view, but he’d put her smack-dab in the middle of it.
She took a deep breath and chose her words carefully. “You’re right. It’s nothing but lip service of me to say that I…understand what you went through. But you…you don’t know what life was like for Leo and Massimo with your father, Silvio. They’re innocent of any wrongdoing. They don’t deserve to have their lives ripped apart like this.
“Your true culprit is Silvio Brunetti. Not them. But he’s dead now.”
He shrugged and the casual cruelty with which he did it with no pause to even consider her entreaty felt like a slap. “They bear the name I’ve hated all my life. Anyway, there are always casualties in war, cara. It’s unavoidable.”
Her heart sank. “Is that what this is, V? War?”
“Si. One I have waged for a long time. One I’ve invested everything into. I looked for weaknesses, sore spots, for years. I hit them with everything I had. And I don’t intend—”
“Wait…” interrupted Alex, a cold finger raking its way down her spine. Pieces falling into place emerging in a picture that made her want to run away again.
Alessandra Giovanni: Supermodel. Style Icon. Businesswoman. Philanthropist. Adopted Daughter of the Powerful Brunettis of Milan.
She remembered the headline now.
That feature had been released in a magazine no more than a few days before she’d flown to Bali for yet another photoshoot.
Where the mysterious, gorgeous, gray-eyed Italian businessman had showed up.
Their accidental meeting when she’d visited the ruins of an old temple…
Their shared love of ancient architecture…
The three hours he’d waited the next day while she finished her shoot, as if there was no other place on earth he’d rather be, those gorgeous eyes eating her alive.
The promise to show her sights she’d never see on a formal touristy visit…
Their first kiss under the most magnificent waterfall…
The questions about her charity, about the business she planned to launch, about all the things near and dear to her… The way he’d left her wanting more after that first night of intimacy on the balcony of her villa… The fairy-tale proposal and the marriage vows he’d recited in that deep voice…
Had any of it been real?
Nausea threatened to flood her mouth. “Did you come to Bali specifically looking for me? To see if you could use me in this war of yours?”
He didn’t precisely flinch but she knew him. Knew every small shift and jerk of his beautiful face.
“Answer me, Vincenzo,” she screamed, the question bursting out of her on a wave of fury and unspeakable hurt.
“Si. I did come looking for you. Alessandra—”
“Because that article quoted Greta as saying, ‘Alessandra is the one I love the most in the world,’ right?”
Again that dreadful, soul-crushing silence.
Despite her best efforts, tears broke out onto her cheeks, making her vision fuzzy. Distorting those clear-cut features. Twisting that sensuous mouth.
“I looked for weaknesses, sore spots. I hit them with everything I had.”
It hadn’t been enough that he’d come after BFI and BCS. Or that he’d somehow achieved ownership of Silvio Brunetti’s shares in BFI. He’d had to hit them where it would hurt them personally too, hadn’t he, especially Greta?
Everything had been premeditated. Planned. Perfectly executed.
And she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks.
She turned and faced him, wiping her cheeks roughly. Hurt gave way to anger, to a fury unlike any she’d ever known. “So how do you see this whole thing playing out exactly? What is it that you expect of me while you wreak havoc through these people’s lives? People I love, let me clarify.”
“I expect you to do what you’d have done if you hadn’t found out. To give our marriage
