“Then maybe I’d have deserved it.”
“You think it’s that simple?” she said, turning around, frustration driving the words out of her. “That I yell at you, or scream at you, or pound that gorgeous face into mush and then we’re even?”
Their eyes met across the room and held. That stillness she found fascinating about him descended again. He reminded her of a jungle cat—all restless energy and contained violence, preparing every single move for an attack.
A white shirt unbuttoned showed off the tanned V of his throat, with an enticing glimpse of curls at the bottom. Dark smudges under his eyes told their own tale—he was as much of a workaholic as her.
He looked a little rumpled after the long flight chasing her, coming after the fact that he’d been working straight for thirty-six hours when she’d left him. The gray of his eyes deepened—the only signal in all his stillness that betrayed him. That told her he’d been just as consumed by what was between them as she had.
Even now as she looked at him, there was no doubt what her foolish heart and her greedy body wanted.
More of what he’d made her feel. More of those warm, lazy nights. More of the man who’d promised her she’d never be alone again.
More of him.
She cleared her throat, ashamed of how little control she had around him. “Natalie spent a lot of hours—at the risk of increasing wrath from Greta and Leo and even Massimo—trying to convince me that you’re not the utter monster your actions prove. That long ago, you were the only protector she’d known against a cruel world. That she owes you a lot. At a time when there was nothing she could do for you in return.”
His gaze became opaque, but Alex noted the stiffness of his shoulders. “Didn’t she tell you that I did demand a price for all that I’ve done for her, in the end?”
“You’re surprised she stuck up for you. Are you that much of a villain then?”
“I don’t know if I’m a villain, Princess. But I’m definitely not a hero,” he said, walking into the expansive room and completely owning it in a matter of seconds.
Greta had gone to great pains when Alessandra had moved in to create a welcoming space for a lost teen. Every inch of this room had been a haven to a girl whose own mother had broken her heart repeatedly.
“I thought Massimo had all the rights to Natalie’s loyalty,” he said so softly that she could barely make out the words.
“I’m sure they wish it was that simple, that one emotion for one person could trump or cancel out the emotion you feel for another. But it doesn’t work like that, does it?”
His head jerked. She’d chinked that armor, she was sure.
But when he spoke, his voice was as cool as ever. “I will admit I do not have much experience with emotions and family and all the complex, twisted drama that comes with it, si? So, no, I’ve no idea how it works.
“But if Natalie’s misguided loyalty toward me—she was a fierce little thing even as a teen—paints me in a different light in your eyes, then I will thank her for it.
“Don’t look for redeeming qualities in me that don’t exist, cara. Don’t forget either that I’m the same man you married recently.”
The sheer arrogance of his statement swept through Alex like a wave threatening to drag her under. “You expect me to just shove everything you’ve done to them under the rug and carry on with you as though nothing has happened?”
“What if you learned that I had done all this—” his arms swept out to encompass the villa “—to them, for no other reason than that I was a cutthroat businessman who wanted to rule the finance center of Milan and BFI is automatically the first target?”
Afternoon sunlight gilded his face, caressing it with loving hands.
Her breath hitched in her lungs as she suddenly saw the resemblances she’d never seen before. The set of his eyes—so much like Massimo’s, especially when he was smiling. The curling disdain Vincenzo’s mouth so artfully expressed—exactly like Leo’s when he was displeased.
So many small things hit her, causing her heart to stutter. Ramming her conscience again and again with the fact that he belonged here, in this place she’d called home. Weakening her anger. Confusing her hurt with too many emotions he far too easily evoked.
“That you can even think it could ever be that simple…shows how completely differently we’re wired.”
“Fine. How about we forget the whole cursed lot of them for a few minutes?” A little frustration slipped into his voice.
“You’re the one who entangled me in this.”
“Our marriage can stand outside of all this Brunetti drama, Alessandra.”
“That’s where you lose me, V. Maybe that’s what comes of playing with people’s lives like you’re conducting a chess game. Maybe you’re incapable of seeing that to demand my loyalty while at the same time you’re destroying them…is impossible. I can’t see how we can possibly go forward from here… Because you lied to me.”
“Not a single time did I lie.”
“Fine. If you want to split hairs, then you hid a great big truth from me.
“I’m trying to understand what you might have felt as that little boy, why you chose this path of revenge years ago. How much Greta’s momentary thoughtlessness might have hurt—”
“I wouldn’t refer to calling my mother a whore and a gold digger as a momentary thoughtlessness,” he said, baring his teeth in a growl. “I grew up destitute, thanks to her. My mother had a mental breakdown she never recovered from. She lost her livelihood, and we were turned out onto the streets. It turned into early onset dementia.”
Her heart thumped in her chest, the anguish in his eyes dissolving her righteous fury. Still, she had to try. “That is not Greta’s fault.”
“No? That my mother went untreated for so long, that she had a mental breakdown and that she didn’t
