“Our marriage is nothing but a…farce.”
“No! I married you, Alessandra. I promised to spend the rest of my life with you. It is not something I undertook lightly.”
Alex searched his face, hoping to see a flicker of something that she could hang on to. That implacable gaze didn’t soften. Slowly, his words sank in, bringing yet more questions.
“Why? Why did you marry me? Why not just seduce me and walk away? I made it so easy for you anyway. I begged you to take me to bed. I chased you for the entire week after you showed up in Bali. I…you could have just walked away after we slept together. You could have dumped me—told me I had been nothing but a toy to play with.”
“I do not treat women like toys. That’s a Brunetti specialty.”
“Then why?”
“You’re beautiful, you’re smart, you’re a treasure any man would love to possess. For a man who grew up with nothing, who would always remain a bastard, who built his empire by trampling all the people in his way, you’re the real prize, Alessandra.
“I married you because for the first time in my life, I saw something I wanted outside of revenge and everything it stood for. Outside of a campaign that has consumed me for the last twenty-odd years.
“I married you because taking you for myself was the final icing on the cake. Because taking you from that old woman makes it all complete.”
Alessandra nodded, her stomach falling. “I don’t know what to say to a man who thinks he can take me from the woman who gave me a home, who thinks I’ll support the total destruction of my family. Who thinks possessing me somehow…improves his standing in the world. I will not…”
God, she wasn’t going to be used again in a battle between people she cared for.
She’d done that and had the scars to show for it.
She wasn’t going to be anyone’s weakness. Or anyone’s weapon. “I’m not a prize. To be won. To be possessed. To be snatched from someone’s hands. To be used as a weapon against someone else.” Alex forced herself to meet his gaze. “I want you to leave. Leave this house. I can’t deal with this now… Please, leave, V.”
He stood there, unmoving, unaffected, like a bloody big boulder that not even a gale of wind could budge.
After what felt like an eternity, he nodded. And left.
Alex stood there at the window, her throat dry. Her chest empty.
Of course, he hadn’t married her for herself.
She wasn’t a princess and this wasn’t a fairy tale where she could magically wave a wand or press a kiss to Vincenzo’s mouth and her frog would transform into a prince.
* * *
“She’s gone.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Vincenzo barked the question at the carelessly lounging figure of Massimo Brunetti.
He tucked his hands into his pockets and stared down at the two men relaxing in their chairs on the balcony on this unseasonably cold early June afternoon.
The drive up to the villa had been just as spectacular as it had been the first time around. He looked at it with the objective eye of a man who meant to cut it all up to pieces and scatter it into the wind.
But as much as he relished the idea of destroying the very symbol and stronghold of the Brunettis’ centuries-long power and privilege, other concerns rode him harder right then.
Alessandra hadn’t returned his calls in five days, forcing him to visit the ancestral home again.
His patience, always on thin ice these days, was spiraling into a monster of a temper after this latest stunt from his sweet wife.
Cristo, it had been the worst week of his professional and personal life.
Beginning with a huge crisis in the finance department of his company, followed by Alessandra jumping on a flight out of Bali to Milan without informing him. Then his own long flight to catch up to her, their ill-timed confrontation that had quickly spiraled out of control thanks to the Brunettis bringing her up-to-date with all his supposedly Machiavellian motivations, followed by an urgent call from the twenty-four nurses that looked after his mother demanding his immediate presence at his estate in Tuscany.
Which meant he’d been forced to leave Alessandra alone for too long, letting the doubts he’d seen in her eyes fester and harden. He had loathed giving her that time apart from him, especially when it was spent around the Brunettis, who were more than happy to fill her ears with poison against him.
But he’d had no choice but to go to his mother. Usually, he didn’t mind dropping everything in his empire to look after her.
“You shouldn’t have left her like that…” Leonardo offered in an almost polite voice, his expression thoughtful. “Not so soon after she found out your true colors. The least you could have done was let her rage at you, maybe even let her throw one of her powerful punches at you. Anything would have been better than to leave her alone to stew in your betrayal.”
“I didn’t betray her—” Vincenzo bit out and then calmed himself with a discipline that was hanging by its last thread.
He had not betrayed Alessandra. He had simply left out a chunk of truth that he’d hoped to explain in full later on. He’d hoped to appeal to her strong sense of justice and fair play. He’d totally miscalculated the depth of her attachment to this group of privileged, spoiled Brunettis. “I had obligations I had to meet. Now, how about you tell me where the hell she is?”
“We don’t know where Alex is,” Massimo said. “After you left, she locked herself in her room, and when Natalie went to check on her the next morning, she was gone.”
“You expect me to believe Alessandra didn’t ask you for help to hide from me? That you didn’t happily join in this
