“Think of it this way, Vincenzo. The faster you win this war, the faster you break up BFI into parts, the sooner you can settle into a blissful wedded life.”
Vincenzo couldn’t muster a reply. To use Alessandra and her happiness as a bargaining weapon against Greta Brunetti… The very thought filled him with distaste. What kind of a man would he have become then?
* * *
“I’d like to go home now, please. If you’re done for the night,” Alessandra whispered with a polite smile pasted on her mouth the moment Vincenzo reached her.
“That picture of us on the morning of our wedding…leaking it to the press… I never gave a direct, specific instruction to do that.” He pressed his fingers to her mouth when she’d have protested. “Hear me out, please, Alessandra.
“And before you shred my team into pieces, they only followed my order—to a T—that they improve my image in the media.
“So, yes, the ultimate responsibility is mine, but it was a thoughtless, general action rather than a deliberate, strategic one to hurt you, or to lessen the significance of that day for you.”
Her beautiful brown gaze mirrored her disbelief and hurt.
Vincenzo took her fingers in his and pressed. A harsh exhale left him when she didn’t pull away. “I should have realized it was so important to you. I should have—”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Si! It does matter. What you think of all this, it does matter.” He’d been about to say What you think of me, but held it back, “I’m beginning to understand how much what I did hurt you. But my intentions for you, for this marriage have always been the same. From the beginning.”
She held his gaze, as if she could hold him to his word like that. As if she could see into his heart.
“Just promise me that you won’t use me in this battle of yours,” she said.
“I won’t. I have already said our marriage will stand outside of it. Come now, Princess. Dance with me.”
She said nothing. Didn’t move.
“It’s a beautiful night. And I want to dance with my beautiful wife. I want to show all the men salivating over you that you’re mine. Only mine.”
Vincenzo waited. For all of Antonio’s disapproval, he knew in his heart that she was the one he wanted when he finally reached the end of all this. She was the one who had birthed the future he hadn’t even realized could be his.
He left his hand outstretched. Finally, with a soft sigh, she came to him. And everything else ceased to exist for Vincenzo. The crowd around them, the soft music, the moonlight, everything became secondary to the sensation of having Alessandra in his arms.
She was like liquid silk poured over taut, warm limbs, her face hidden in the curve of his shoulder. Her fingers a brand on the nape of his neck. Her breaths a soft whisper against his skin. For long minutes, they just moved to the music, their bodies easily swaying in a matching rhythm.
“You stole it from me.”
“Have you forgiven me yet?” he whispered. “For making that picture public.”
“You’re who you are.” The defeat in those words slayed him.
“I…there was something between us on the island, si. But I think, in the real world, we’ve broken that trust. Both of us.”
She lifted her head and stared straight into his eyes. And nodded slowly. She pulled away from him and leaned against the balcony. The chitchat around them carried on, but everyone was giving them a wide berth.
She looked around, her gaze thoughtful. “All these people…they worship the ground you walk on.”
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“They have known me for a long time, si. When I had nothing to my name, when I was nothing but a boy with big dreams. Even from a young age, I had a way with numbers. The stock market was an easy pattern for me to predict.”
“Like Massimo is brilliant with computers,” she interjected.
He let it go. “Antonio saw my talent and nurtured it. When I started playing the market, these people trusted me with their savings. When I started my investment firm, they were my first clients. They trusted me to do right by them. Now that I have a million times more, I try to remember them. I try to give it back.”
“I’m glad you were not all alone. But it’s still not family.”
He shrugged.
“She’s in love with you, you know.”
His head jerked to her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She wrapped her arms around herself, her wide mouth pinched. “Your assistant, Anna. It’s obvious. She thinks…they all think I’m a backstabbing witch who doesn’t deserve you.”
“What?”
“Were the two of you ever together?”
Vincenzo blew out a breath, looking out at Alessandra and then back toward a small group where Anna stood talking.
Antonio’s remark had suddenly made him see Anna’s frosty reception toward Alessandra clearly. “A long time ago. Years before I met you. And it was only ever a brief fling that I put a stop to as soon as we started working together.”
“And yet she had hopes that it would eventually be rekindled.”
He didn’t discount the truth of it now he understood. “Then it is my fault for not making myself clear to her. I never even realized until… Alessandra, I never led Anna on.”
“I believe you.” Said with such simplicity that he stared at her, stunned. “She told me that you have had an architect draw up plans for the Brunetti Villa. That you intend to pull it down and build something else in its place. That you mean to take over BFI by the bicentennial celebrations.”
Shock pounded through him. “Anna would never be so unprofessional as to betray my plans.”
“How else do you think I know about them? She hates my guts, because she thinks I stole her man, and she wants me to leave you. They couldn’t be more shocked if you had suddenly taken up farming, V.” Her gaze turned
