of what her mother had revealed. ‘It’s none of your concern.’
‘It is, actually. I can’t risk you snapping at photographers when we’re trying to build an image together. No matter what they say to provoke you.’
‘I wish I had snapped, Rigo.’ She shook her head. ‘All I did was try to stand up for myself for once. And in the end I walked away.’
‘In my experience, silence is sometimes the safest option.’
‘Maybe I’m tired of being quiet. Maybe I’m over having my options taken away from me.’
She thought of her mother’s manipulation, cold shame pooling in her veins. They were so different. He had been raised to value his privacy and had always chosen when to disclose his affairs. From the moment she’d been born her mother had used her to promote her own publicity. She had done her first photo shoot when she was four days old, her first solo interview at the age of three. She had been raised at the end of a camera lens.
‘Is that actually what you think this marriage is?’ His voice hardened. ‘Nobody backed you into a corner, Nicole.’
‘I cared too much about the implications. I thought I was making the right choice.’
‘You cared too much?’ He laughed—a cruel sound. ‘If I had known I was agreeing to marry a martyr perhaps I would have chosen another option.’
Nicole fought against the stinging emotion in her throat. His words were a cruel reminder that this entire relationship was nothing more than a sham. There was no way he could know how much she truly cared. Not just about her daughter, or about what the media said about them, but about what he thought of her, too.
It was ridiculous. After all the times he had hurt her in the short time they’d known one another he still had a strange hold over her emotions. From the moment they’d met she had felt it—that need for him to see her for who she really was. And for a few short hours she had honestly thought he had. But then, as always, reality had come crashing in and he had looked at her with the same scorn that everyone else heaped upon her.
She should just reveal her mother’s deception right now. It wouldn’t change his opinion of her anyway. No matter how hard she tried to step away from her past it was never going to be enough.
She stepped away from him, bracing her hands on the cold stone balustrade that overlooked the entire city. A tear fell to her cheek and she hastily brushed it away. She wouldn’t let him see how deeply his words cut.
* * *
Rigo watched Nicole visibly shrink from his words. Even with her back to him he could tell she was hurt. That had not been his intention. He simply didn’t understand how a woman who had spent most of her life basking in the limelight of the media could suddenly be so affected by their intrusion.
He laid a hand on her wrist, turning her to face him and noticing the telltale redness in her eyes.
‘I have upset you.’ He frowned. ‘I’m just trying to say that you always have a choice, Nicole. You choose to care. You choose to value everyone else’s opinion of you more than your own.’ He spoke softly, lifting her chin so that she would look at him.
‘Their opinions have always had to matter more,’ she whispered. ‘It’s hard to form a high opinion of yourself when you barely even know who you are.’ She stepped away from him, hiding her tears from him once more. ‘I’ve played a part for so long, it just became natural to let others dictate who I should be.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about me, Rigo.’ She sighed. ‘How could you want to marry me when you have no idea who I am?’
‘I know enough,’ he said coldly.
‘That’s just it. You think you know enough but really you know nothing at all.’ She shook her head. ‘Rigo, I’ve been a walking sham for most of my life. A persona created by my mother and her publicist,’ she continued, refusing to look at him while she spoke. ‘I’ve never broken out of rehab, or slept with married politicians, or done half of what the crazy rumours out there say I have. I was publicly provocative, but once the cameras were gone...I could never follow through. I could never trust anyone enough.’
She looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since their kiss.
‘Until that night with you I had never even... I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’
Rigo let a harsh breath escape his lungs. ‘You had never even what, Nicole?’ He watched as she visibly tensed at his words. He didn’t care if he was being cold. What she was saying was so absurdly far from what he knew about her he found it impossible to believe.
‘You were the first man I actually slept with.’ She shrugged self-consciously. ‘The others were all lies and scandals, drummed up for publicity.’
‘Excuse me if I find that hard to believe. You were hardly innocent that night.’
She bit her lip. ‘I almost told you—just before we got to your apartment. But then you were saying such wonderful things I just lost my nerve. I was selfish. I worried that it might make you stop, and I didn’t want you to see me differently just because of one small detail.’
‘That “detail” being your supposed virginity,’ Rigo said coldly.
His memory of their night together surfaced painfully. She had been nervous. The revelation of what she was telling him now made his stomach clench. Her unashamed response to their lovemaking that night had driven him wild...the way she had been so amazed by her own pleasure. He had been surprised at her shyness about her body, her seemingly unpractised explorations of his body. But once he had found out who she was he had assumed it had all been just a part of her act.
‘You’re telling me that you were a virgin?’ he said incredulously, his voice harsher than he’d intended.
‘Don’t say it like that.’ Nicole tugged her wrist out of his grasp, walking away from him into the dim light of the suite’s dining room.
‘Dannazione, Nicole,’ he gritted, stepping inside and shutting the door hard behind him.
She turned around, eyes wide at his sudden display of anger.
‘Don’t just walk away from me after all that.’
‘“All that” is my life, Rigo. My truth. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, or gain sympathy. I just needed to talk about something real for once!’ she exclaimed. ‘Do you know what? Let’s just forget this conversation ever happened and you can go back to whatever you thought of me before. Whatever makes you feel better.’
‘You honestly think I could forget knowing that I took your virginity and then threw you out on the street?’ Agitated, he ran a hand through his hair. ‘You walked away that morning after I practically called you a whore. Then, even when you knew that the child you carried was mine, you walked away again.’
‘Oh, no. You don’t get to turn this around on me just because you’ve realised how callous you actually are. I walked up to you in the middle of a crowded nightclub, Rigo, because you refused to answer any of my calls. I was honest about my pregnancy. The only reason I chose
