It was too much to bear. Alessandro lay on his side and watched Meghan sleep, curled up like a child, next to him.
It hurt too much.
He hadn’t asked for her love, hadn’t wanted it.
Hadn’t ever expected it.
Yet now it was his.
Precious, rare, beautiful.
He rolled on his back and closed his eyes. What could he do with such a gift? He couldn’t even begin to know its value, to understand its worth.
He only knew that it was a gift he would lose, utterly, hopelessly, when she discovered the truth.
Had he actually imagined that he could keep it from her? That the denizens of Milan, eager for his blood, his shame, would keep it from her? The few comments she’d heard so far, the innuendoes she’d figured out, were nothing, nothing, to the secrets that remained.
And when she discovered them he knew he’d see disgust instead of tenderness, revulsion instead of compassion. Then she would leave. Even if she didn’t, even if some brand of honour kept her from going, she would leave in the ways that mattered.
Heart, mind, soul.
He couldn’t bear that. It hurt as much as her love did, innocent and ignorant as it was.
So he kept hurting her. He couldn’t help it; it was the only way he knew to protect her from more pain. To protect himself.
And he hated himself for it more than ever.
He hated himself more now than when he’d seen his photograph plastered on a thousand tasteless tabloids, than when he’d joked and drunk and slept his way through a worthless life, than when he’d killed his brother.
And he didn’t see how it could ever get any better.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘MAY I come in?’
Emilia Bentano stood at the doorway of the Milan town house, a heavy designer bag over one shoulder.
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Meghan managed through stiff lips, after the shock of seeing this woman again—at her door—had eased.
‘I know I didn’t come off well in Greece,’ Emilia said. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘Are you?’ Meghan doubted it. So why was the woman here? To sow more discord between her and Alessandro?
That, she thought grimly, could hardly be done. In the week since they’d returned from Amorphos he’d been aloof, removed. The mask firmly in place. It happened every time their bodies— their souls, their hearts—joined, no matter how briefly.
He drew away; he grew cold. His charm was interspersed with careless mocking comments, a calculated indifference meant to drive her away.
Sometimes Meghan wondered if it would be enough to make her go.
She was so tired of the strain, the pretence. She wanted something real and warm and safe.
This was not part of our bargain.
Leaving him would tear her apart, heart and soul, mind and body. She would never be the same again. She would never be whole.
She didn’t know what else to do.
This slow torture was accomplishing the same thing, only more slowly, more painfully.
And yet at night Alessandro reached for her. Their bodies merged with a desperate yearning that seemed at odds with the strained pleasantries exchanged each day.
They didn’t speak, yet his eyes burned into hers as if memorising her features, as if sending forth a plea.
She just didn’t know if she had the strength to believe any more. To fight for it.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ Emilia said quietly, sensing Meghan’s indecision, offering sincerity. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Alessandro … perhaps explain why he is the way he is.’
Meghan’s hand tightened on the door handle. A warm breeze caressed her face; she could smell the begonias that tumbled in a riot from their pots onto the steps.
‘What do you mean?’
Emilia shrugged, smiled. ‘Don’t you have questions? Haven’t you wondered? Everyone has seen what a transformation Alessandro has made in these last months … wondered if it will last. If it’s real.’
‘I know it’s real,’ Meghan said coldly, but her heart was hammering and there was a hollow ring to her words that even she heard.
Emilia raised her eyebrows, cool and knowing. ‘Do you? Do you really, Meghan? Because if I were you in your place I’d wonder. I’d wonder very much.’
‘But you’re not in my place,’ Meghan observed with a detachment she was far from feeling. ‘As much as you may have once wanted to be.’
Emilia was unfazed. ‘Did Alessandro tell you that? Yes, we were lovers. I once thought we might marry … After all, a man like Alessandro would expect to marry eventually, and we’re very much alike.’
The thought that Alessandro was similar to this walking piranha made Meghan taste bile in her throat. Alessandro was nothing like this … not the Alessandro she knew.
The man she wanted him to be … the man she thought he wanted to be.
Yet was that really him? Or a façade?
A fake.
‘I think,’ Meghan said slowly, ‘you’re just trying to cause trouble. But I know you’ll bother me until I let you have your say, so you might as well come in.’
Emilia’s mouth curved up into a triumphant smile. Meghan stepped reluctantly aside, and the other woman sashayed into the house with such sultry confidence that Meghan wished she hadn’t given in.
Yet she wanted to know.
No matter what the truth meant, what it revealed.
She wanted to know.
Then there would be no more secrets.
‘What a quaint little home,’ Emilia said with a gurgle of laughter. ‘Does Alessandro spend much time here?’
Meghan heard the disbelief in her tone, as if she couldn’t imagine Alessandro relaxing in such a boring, bourgeois place.
Maybe he was bored, she thought numbly. Maybe it was all getting too old, too familiar. And it had only been a few weeks.
She led the way into the friendly square lounge, with its squashy red sofas, its long windows spilling sunshine onto the wide pine boards of the floor.
Emilia looked around with an expression of mild distaste, wrinkling her nose as if she were too polite to mention how awful she found it all.
Meghan gritted her teeth. ‘Sit down.’
‘Thank you.’ She perched elegantly on the edge of a sofa, her bag on her lap. She wore, Meghan saw, a tightly fitting red leather jacket and matching skirt, her legs long and bare, her toenails in open sandals painted scarlet.
Meghan sat across from her in an armchair.
‘Now, what is it you want to say?’
‘Ah, yes. Well … in fact …’ Emilia smiled the smile of a sly cat, a cat with a mouse’s tail dangling from its sleek jaws, and opened her bag. ‘I thought these might tell the tale better than I ever could.’ She took out a sheaf of newspaper clippings. Meghan’s stomach dipped.
She held out her hand and took them silently, grateful that her hand didn’t tremble. She leafed through them, one eye-brow raised, making her uninterest known though her mouth was dry.
Meghan handed them back, heart