Page 2 of Bride of Betrayal
That had made her lover’s rejection even worse, the fact that he’d not only taken her innocence, literally, but also destroyed her nascent hope for a life not blighted by violence. A life that could contain the ordinary, yet extraordinary pleasures of normality like having a family and not living in fear for their lives.
In a way she was glad she’d learnt that lesson, harsh as it had been, because she could move on with her life, and know what to expect. And being free was enough for now. She didn’t need anything more.
She only had to walk away from this grave and get to the car, instruct the driver where to take her and then…she could finally rip it all off. The veil hiding her lack of grief. The custom-made Dolce & Gabbana dress. The outward display of wealth that had hidden so much.
‘Signora Bianchi, your car is over here.’
She nodded at one of the funeral directors and saidgrazie, turning from the grave to follow him. She felt like telling him not to call herBianchi, she was free of that hated name now. But she held her tongue. He led her over to where a driver was standing by a car. He opened the back door.
Angelica lifted her face slightly from where she’d been looking at the ground, as much to watch her step in the vertiginous heels as to avoid eye contact with anyone.
The driver was tall, tall enough to send a tiny frisson ofsomethingdown her spine. She lifted her head a little more but the sun was in her face and she couldn’t make out much more than his height and broad shoulders. His cap was pulled low.
She told herself she was being ridiculous. For the first year of her marriage she’d thought she’d seen her ex-lover everywhere but of course she hadn’t because he was in jail. Incarcerated because of his business partner Aldo’s greed and jealousy. As much as she’d known he hadn’t deserved it, she’d been in a jail of her own, albeit a gilded one, so they’d both been punished for their ill-fated association with each other, and Aldo. Did that make them even? She wasn’t sure. But what she was sure of was that she never wanted to see him again, and she was pretty certain he wouldn’t want to see her either. Not after that brutal break-up and everything that had ensued.
Leonardo Falzone undoubtedly wouldn’t understand why on earth she would have gone from him to his best friend. He’d see it as a betrayal even if he had been the one to dump her. Aldo hadn’t missed the opportunity to stick the knife in even deeper. It hadn’t been enough to steal his friend’s business and get him locked up on false charges, he’d had to steal his lover. But even when Angelica had tried to tell Aldo that it would mean nothing because Leonardo hadn’t felt anything for her, Aldo hadn’t listened.
She knew that Leonardo had been released from prison because the press had been full of it, but there had been no sign of him coming to collect his dues. Angelica was sure that it was the news of his nemesis’s release that had pushed Aldo over the edge, making him even more volatile than usual. Hence his overdose. A sad, pitiful end to a sad, pitiful human being.
Time to move on, finally. She stopped just before stepping into the car and lifted her face slightly and said, ‘Straight to the airport, please.’
She was aware of the driver dipping his head to indicate he’d heard her and then she was in the back of the car, in the dark cool interior. The privacy division between her and the driver was up, so she couldn’t see him walk around the car. She breathed a sigh of relief and finally yanked off the veil. She wasn’t even taking a suitcase with her. All she needed was her passport. She was leaving everything behind.
She pulled the pins out of her hair and loosened it, wincing a little with relief. She also kicked off the shoes, stretching out her pinched toes.
She put her head back against the seat and felt tension slowly draining out of her body as the car moved away from the graveyard in central Rome and out into the city.
She was exhausted. She wanted to sleep for a month. At least. And then—she lifted her head when she saw a sign indicating a turn for the airport. A turn the driver didn’t take.
Another turn-off for the airport approached and again the driver sailed past. Angelica sat up straight. Tension flooded her body and something that had been familiar for three years now, and constant. Fear.
She leaned forward and knocked on the privacy window. No response. She knocked again. No response. The fear churned and turned to panic. She tried the door of the car. Locked. It wasn’t as if she could hurl herself from a car that was speeding into the outskirts of Rome. She hadn’t survived the last three years to fall at the final hurdle.
And then anger started to rise, eclipsing the panic, and she welcomed it. Sheknewshe was safe from harm now. Aldo was gone and anyone in league with him had scuttled back under whatever rock they’d come from, and good riddance. If she’d had any doubt otherwise she would have been much more circumspect today.
So there was no one who could possibly want to harm her—her blood ran cold. The driver. Tall, broad shoulders. Angelica shook her head as if that might clear it of the ridiculous notion that perhaps it could be— At that precise moment the privacy division slid down a few inches.
The driver had taken off the cap and Angelica could see the top half of his face. It took a second for her mind to compute what she was seeing. A broad forehead. Thick dark hair. Messy. But it was those eyes, under dark slashing brows.His eyes.Indelibly burnt onto her brain, and into her memory.
Dark. Dark as the night. It was only when you got really close that it was possible to make out lighter hints of gold. And she’d been as close as one could get. She’d drowned in those golden lights.
She breathed out his name as if she had to say it out loud to be sure. ‘Leonardo Falzone.’
Those eyes flicked to the road and then back. ‘Ciao,Angel.’
Angelica went cold. If she’d been in any doubt that this man was who she thought he was, it was removed.Angel.He was the only one who used to call her that.
‘Don’t call me that.’
His eyes were on the road now. Hard, obsidian. ‘You used to like it.’
A memory flash of two bodies, sweat-slicked, joined as one, straining to reach the pinnacle, hearts pounding, ecstasy just out of reach, and him, this man, reaching his hand down between their bodies to touch her, saying,‘Come for me, Angel, I need you to—’
Angelica snapped, ‘I used to like a lot of things. What are you doing here? Where are we going?’
Her heart was pounding now. Not out of fear. Even in this situation, Angelica wasn’t scared. She knew that no matter what had happened between them, this man wouldn’t hurt her. Physically. It suddenly struck her that she’d just spent three years with a man where the threat of violence hung in the air like a noxious perfume, but who could never have really harmed her because he never had access to that deepest most secret part of her.
The ways he’d had to harm her had been external. Through the people she loved.
