even hired her,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “Considering her last employer.”
Alessandro tried to remember the job Lilley had mentioned, the most recent one, which for some reason she’d left off her résumé. It all seemed like a million years ago. “She worked as a maid. In Minneapolis. And she worked for a relative …”
She looked at him in disbelief. “I’ve never seen you so stupid and slow. Until six months ago, she was Théo St. Raphaël’s housekeeper in the South of France. He’s her cousin, you know. She left his employ just days before she started working for you.”
It felt like getting hit in the face. Alessandro staggered back. “Théo St. Raphaël?” he said faintly. “The Count of Castelnau is Lilley’s cousin?”
“She’s lied to you all along.” Olivia regarded him. “But you expected that, didn’t you? You always expect women to lie to you. Surely you had her background checked before you married her?”
His heart hammered in his chest, so hard and fast he thought it might break through his ribs. “No.”
“Prenup?”
The ballroom, the noise of the guests, seemed to be spinning around him. The crowds parted, and he saw Lilley’s face. She smiled at him across the room, her face shining, as honest and bright and beautiful as ever. He turned his head away, feeling sick. “No.”
“Clever girl,” Olivia murmured. “I wonder what else she’s lied to you about.” She gave him a sideways glance. “How well do you really know her?”
His jaw was tight. “I know she’s pregnant with my child.”
“Do you?” Her eyes were steady and cold. “Do you really?”
It felt like an ice pick through Alessandro’s brain. He heard the echo of Heather’s voice from long ago. The baby’s not yours. I lied.
He tightened his hands to fists. “Of course the baby is mine,” he ground out. “Lilley wouldn’t lie about that.”
“You know how conniving and ruthless people can be.”
“I know how conniving you can be,” he said harshly.
“Me? I’m an amateur.” Olivia laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “All this time you believed her to be some small-town innocent, didn’t you? And she probably planned this from the start. Perhaps her goal is full control of Caetani Worldwide, split equally between her father and her cousin.”
He stared at her. “I don’t believe you,” he choked out.
But that was a lie. He did believe her. That was the problem.
Olivia’s eyes met his. “So ask her.”
With a low curse, Alessandro pushed past her. Shoving through the crowd, Alessandro stalked towards his wife. Just moments before, he’d felt such reckless joy, a strange breathless certainty about Lilley. Now, that feeling had evaporated as if it had never existed. All that was left was cold despair.
And fury. As he walked towards her, blood started to pound through his body, boiling hot, thawing him out limb by limb. He welcomed the anger. Stoked it.
He’d given Lilley everything, and she’d made a fool out of him. She’d lied to him from the beginning. Faked her name. Her résumé. And perhaps even—
No. He cut off the thought savagely, his hands clenching at his sides. Guests saw his face and backed away, the crowd parting for him like magic.
Lilley was laughing as she talked to Vladimir Xendzov, and the man’s eyes caressed her face with admiration. Was Lilley flirting with him? Toying with him? Using him, as she’d used Alessandro?
Lilley looked over Xendzov’s shoulder and blanched when she saw Alessandro. “What’s happened?” she breathed. “What’s wrong?”
“Tell me your name,” Alessandro said in a low voice.
The other guests clustered around Lilley glanced between them, suddenly uneasy at his tone of voice. Looking bewildered, she answered, “Lilley Caetani.”
“No.” He set his jaw, hating her soft, deceptive beauty that had lured him into trusting her. And more. “Tell me your name.”
More guests fell silent, turning to look. The Irish rock music abruptly stopped. Suddenly, amid hundreds of people, it was quiet.
His wife swallowed, looking to the right and left. Then with a deep breath, she whispered, “Lilley Smith.”
“Tell me!” He thundered. “Your name!”
She suddenly looked as if she was going to cry. “Alessandro, I was going to tell you.”
“When?” he bit out. “After you’d stolen my company for Hainsbury and your cousin to pick through?”
“No!” she gasped. “I tried to tell you before our wedding. You said you already knew. You always know so much. I believed you!”
“You believed I would actually marry you, knowing that? You lied from the start, even about your name!”
She flinched. He saw the tremble of her eyelashes. “I changed my name three years ago, when my father divorced my mother while she was dying. I didn’t want to be a Hainsbury anymore. So I took her maiden name—”
“You knew Caetani Worldwide would never hire you with either Hainsbury or Théo St. Raphaël’s name on your résumé.”
“Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.
“You came as a spy.”
“No! I was just desperate for a job while I tried to start my business!” She shook her head tearfully. “I went to San Francisco to follow my dream—”
“Bull,” he said brutally. “You went to San Francisco to seduce Jeremy Wakefield into giving you information about Preziosi designs, so your father could have them copied in China in advance. Until I took you to the Preziosi ball and you realized a greater prize was possible for you.” He gave a hard laugh. “You decided to become my mistress, so you could funnel information to your family.”
“I would never betray you!” she said with a sob. “I was going to tell you everything! I swore it to myself, when I finally realized you didn’t know about my family. All this time, I thought you did, until the day I first told you I loved you.”
Her voice trembled, but her tears weren’t going to work on him, not this time. “That was weeks ago.” He grabbed her by the shoulders, looking fiercely into her weepy eyes. “All this time, I thought I could trust you. And you were waiting to stab me in the back. What was your goal? How are they going to work against me? Are your father and cousin planning a hostile takeover of my company?”
“You know me better than that!” She hiccupped, and her eyes became huge as she looked up at him. Unchecked tears streaked her rosy cheeks as she whispered, “Don’t you?”
“I wish to God I’d never met you.” Alessandro’s
