Page 6 of Bride of Betrayal
‘And you’re still here. Do you really think it’ll be so easy to walk away and not face the consequences?’
Angelica went cold inside. ‘I’ve done nothing.’
‘Except warm the bed of the man who put me in jail, not to mention colluding with him.’
She got colder. ‘There was no collusion.’
‘You were married. You inherited his share ofmycompany.’
Something eased inside her. Now she knew what the stakes were.
‘You can have it. I have no interest in owning any part of your company.’
But he dashed her hope that she could see an end in sight when he said, ‘It’s not that simple. It would be a long and legally laborious process to transfer your inheritance of his estate to me, but if we were married…it would be a lot simpler.’
‘I’ve had my fill of marriage, I’ve no intention of getting married again.’
‘Sorry to hear that. It wasn’t the idyll it appeared to be?’
He didn’t sound sorry at all. Angelica clamped her lips together. She’d fallen so hard and so fast for this man that it had taken her totally unawares and she’d almost lost herself entirely, but not before he’d shown her how he really felt. She could never trust him again. They’d spent a heady few weeks together, indulging mostly in the insane chemistry that had sparked between them, she needed to remind herself of that, and that there hadn’t been much time for getting to really know one another. It had all been surface level—which she’d subsequently found out was all he had wanted.
‘Come to think of it,’ he ruminated now, ‘you did seem to spend a lot of time apart, so maybe all really wasn’t well. Did Aldo’s sheen wear off once you realised what a snake he really was?’
Angelica hid behind attack to disguise any hint of just how flimsy the marriage had been. She raised a brow. ‘Reading the gossip columns in jail, were you?’
Now his face flushed but Angelica was too agitated to enjoy it. Her flight would have gone by now. She had to contact her family.
‘Look—’
‘No, you look.’ He cut her off. ‘We are not leaving this place until we are man and wife. I want my rightful share of the company back and I need a wife to rehabilitate my image.’
Angelica had heard that steely tone before. She’d heard him speak to adversaries in that tone when they’d been together. And he’d used that tone the day he’d told her to leave, because the relationship was over. Because he had no intention of embarking on a long-term commitment. He hadn’t elaborated on that, but Angelica had surmised at the time that the trauma of watching his family be slaughtered had marked him for life. Not that that knowledge had helped her broken heart. It had only made it ache for him and that reminder was like a thorn now.
Worse had been the prospect that it wasn’t even trauma holding him back from loving her, but that it was because he just hadn’t been that into her.
This man didn’t deserve her sympathy. ‘You told me the day you kicked me out that you weren’t into long-term commitment. What’s changed?’
His mouth thinned. ‘Unsurprisingly spending time in a prison affords one time to think. But nothing has changed in that regard. This will not be a long-term thing. It’ll be marriage in name only—to take back what’s mine and to show people that I am settling down, to promote an image of stability and respectability. I can see the merit in that. The business thrived under the image of Aldo’s supposed respectability.’
Angelica felt like snorting. Her husband had been anything but respectable. It occurred to her that perhaps this was all a bluster to demonstrate that Leo was serious about getting his due—and Angelica had meant what she’d said, she had no desire to keep Aldo’s half of the business. She’d happily sign it over to Leo.
He didn’t want to marry her. He couldn’t wait to see the back of her three years ago. Maybe if she called his bluff he’d realise how ridiculous this all was. And she couldn’t deny the appeal to shake him up a bit—after all, he’d hurt her badly in the past. But that was gone. He didn’t affect her any more.
Angelica angled her face up. ‘You’re right, you know. You didn’t deserve what Aldo did and you do deserve to have your life and business back. I have no desire to stand in your way. If that means getting married, then let’s do it.’
He tensed visibly and inwardly Angelica breathed a sigh of relief. He had been bluffing. But then his demeanor changed and he took her arm and led her over to where the men were standing outside the church building.
‘Let’s get going.’
Angelica’s blood went cold. She resisted Leo’s attempt to urge her into the dark interior of the chapel. ‘No, wait.’
The other men had gone in ahead of them. Leo looked down at her. For a second, Angelica felt dizzy. Was she really standing here with Aldo just buried, still in her funeral clothes, and with Leo expecting her to walk down an aisle? In spite of how he’d rejected her before, she couldn’t deny that she’d still had dreams… She shook her head to dislodge the humiliating reminder of the pull he’d had over her.
‘Wait…’
He arched a dark brow. ‘You thought I didn’t mean it? Don’t you remember that I don’t bluff?’
A memory flashed back of this man taking off his shoes and socks by the Trevi fountain in central Rome, with Angelica looking on in horror saying, ‘You wouldn’t dare…’ only to watch as he’d calmly rolled up his trousers to his knees and climbed over the fence around the fountain and stepped down into the blue/green water, beneath which shimmered all the coins thrown in by tourists making their wishes.
