kissed me. Every one of those times we lay in bed together, every one of them was a lie!’
He took a step closer and held out one hand to her. ‘No, Bella.’
She turned away. She never wanted to touch him again. ‘And all the time you couldn’t wait to be rid of me. You couldn’t wait to drop the pretence and dump me.’
‘It wasn’t like that.’
She spun back around. ‘You deceived me!’
‘What choice did I have? Marry you, or say no to Umberto and watch Garbas get his greedy hooks in you?’
She stilled, her breathing hard and frantic in her chest, her mind seizing on the one thing that finally pulled the pieces together. ‘This is all about Consuelo? Grandfather was so worried about my friendship with him that he would get his henchman to marry me? Why couldn’t he have just warned me if he was so worried?’
‘Would you have listened—you, who always sees the best in everyone? You, who could not believe he was a criminal even when he was charged with fraud by the police? Try to see it from Umberto’s point of view: Garbas knew you would inherit as soon as you turned twenty-five. Umberto wanted to ensure you would be safe from his greed.’
She shook her head. ‘Even if what you say is true, what danger is Consuelo to me now that he’s been charged?’ And even as she said the words a creeping suspicion filtered into her psyche, no more than a floating piece of black silk on the wind at first, it took shape and form and became three-dimensional and ugly.
‘You were responsible for that, weren’t you. It was no surprise to you that day of the funeral—no surprise that Consuelo had disappeared. Because you already knew. You were the one who tipped off the authorities. You—you wanted to be sure he could not touch me. You got Consuelo arrested.’
‘He’s a criminal, Bella. It’s no more than he deserves.’
She blinked, appalled at his implied confession, horrified by the sheer magnitude of his machinations—all to ensure she would marry him. ‘You don’t even try to deny it. You always hated Consuelo. Always!’
‘And why wouldn’t I hate him? He was the one who called me asking for money one too many times and, when I refused and told him he was a fool, he gloated that I was the fool and that his brother was having an affair with my wife! He gloated that I was the last to know, that everyone—everyone—knew and were laughing about me behind my back.’
A bolt of lightning squeezed through the shutters; a blast of thunder rent the skies and rumbled long into the distance.
‘Consuelo’s brother died here …’ she said.
‘Manuel was having an affair with my wife. He was supposed to be a friend. They were both supposed to be my friends.’
‘And you were so worried I would marry someone who did the dirty on you that you put me through all this. How considerate of you.’
‘He’s a scumbag, Bella. You deserve better.’
‘He’s a scumbag?’ She looked up at him, wondering how she could ever have imagined that she loved him—someone who manipulated people, facts and the truth to gain his own ends. ‘So what the hell does that make you?’
She saw him flinch. She was glad that she could cause him half the pain he had caused her. ‘The joke’s on you, of course,’ she continued. ‘For I had no intention of marrying Consuelo. Yes, I liked him—but as a friend, that was all. Maybe you might have given me some credit for making my own decisions.’
‘You think he would have left you alone, knowing you were coming into your inheritance? Don’t kid yourself. It was the money he was interested in.’
‘Maybe you’re right. It would not be the first time I had fallen prey to a man who wanted nothing more but to use me and abuse me for his own purposes.’
‘Bella, listen to me …’
‘Why should I, when all you have ever told me is lies?’
‘No. Hear me out. Yes, what I did was wrong, but I was bound by a promise I had made to a dying man. I would marry you, I had decided, but I was going to let you go—once I knew you were safe. I wanted you to find someone worthy of you, who loved you for who you were and not how much money you had.’
‘How very noble of you. And meanwhile you lock me up in some cold, barren castle in Spain and pretend you are not interested in me. Or were you pretending when we did make love?’
‘That was never a pretence.’
She nodded but she could not bring herself to look at him. ‘Maybe. But your love was. That’s where I have an issue. Our marriage is a sham, Raoul, a complete and utter sham. I want a divorce as soon as it can be arranged.’
‘Bella—Gabriella—please, give me a chance to explain. I left today because I was disgusted with myself. I had promised myself I would protect you. I would keep you safe, and when it was safe I would let you go where you could find the love of a good man—a worthy man. I would not stop you.
‘Except I did not realise I was already falling in love with you. I thought that, if I didn’t say it, it wouldn’t matter, that it wouldn’t count. But last night, when we made love in the storm, and afterwards in my bed, I could not deny what had already happened to me in Venice. And today, instead of fleeing, I had to turn around to tell you. I love you, Gabriella. I had to come back and ask for your forgiveness and to tell you I love you with my life.’
She laughed. Insanely. Manically. Whether it was a delayed reaction to the shock of almost falling from the window onto the rocks below, or a reaction to the callous way he had treated her, she didn’t know. But the sound was cathartic, strengthening her, increasing her resolve. ‘And now, when everything else has come unstuck, you serve up with the one thing you know I have been waiting for. The one thing I have been begging for you to say all along.’
‘Bella, it’s not like that.’
‘Isn’t it? Isn’t this the last card you have to play, the final roll of the die? Your last feeble attempt to keep me prisoner in a loveless marriage? But it won’t work, Raoul. Not now. Because I don’t believe you. And, even if I did, it doesn’t matter any more because I don’t want your love. Not if this is the way you show it.’
‘Gabriella …’
‘No,’ she said, standing strong now with a new resolve. She’d been a fool but she had survived, and she would keep on surviving all by herself. ‘I don’t want to know. Just arrange that divorce, Raoul. I want to be free of you and I want it now.’
MARCO told him she was there, waiting for him at the sea door—with the signed papers, no doubt, though why she hadn’t sent them via her lawyer he had no idea. Maybe she thought she had left something here.
He was on his way down to her when he spotted it, the paperweight sitting on his desk, the paperweight she had bought for him that day in Murano. He lifted it up to the light, watched the way its dark
