Page 3 of Bride of Betrayal
But this man who was now driving her to some unknown location, he’d had the power to decimate her. And he already had. But she’d survived. He no longer had that power and never would again.
He asked mockingly, ‘You’re not going to congratulate me on my exoneration of a crime I didn’t commit? On my freedom?’
A guilt that wasn’t hers made her insides cramp a little. ‘I know you didn’t deserve what Aldo did to you.’
His eyes met hers through the mirror and she shivered. No gold in those eyes today. Just endless dark depths. ‘And yet you did nothing to stop it, or defend me. You were in on it with him, obviously.’
He did believe she’d betrayed him, as she’d feared.
No, she hadn’t done anything, because she couldn’t. She’d had nothing to do with it but Aldo had made sure she was implicated by forcing her into a relationship. Not that this man would listen to her. Not that she could tell him. She still had too much at stake. Too much to protect. If there had ever been a time when she would have confided in this man, it had long gone.
She asked, ‘Where are you taking me?’
He just said enigmatically, ‘You’ll soon see,’ and the privacy window slid back up. Angelica sat back, folding her arms tight across her chest. She was reeling. She hadn’t expected this. She’d never expected to see Leonardo Falzone again.Really?asked a small voice.Didn’t you dream of him? Dream of him telling you, ‘I love you too’ after you’d blurted out how you felt?
Angelica’s lips pressed together, as if that could help block out the memory of the horror-struck look on his face when she’d told him she loved him three years ago. She’d been so wrong. She’d read emotion into his desire for her but it had just been physical. And, to give him his due, he’d never promised anything other than that. There’d been no talk of a future, or feelings. Just a mutual fascination, bonding over a shared background, both growing up in different parts of Sicily. Both blighted by the violence endemic in that society. Both of their lives ripped asunder because of it. And then there had been the mutual combustible chemistry. Like nothing she’d ever experienced.Or ever would again,whispered a voice. She ignored it. It still mortified her to think she’d fallen for her first lover. More fool her.
Leonardo had lost his entire family right in front of his eyes. A horror he’d told her about one night in bed, in a suspiciously dispassionate voice. She’d told him about losing her father, who’d been on the periphery of the Mafia violence but not peripheral enough. She’d told him about being scouted by a modelling agency and how that had helped her to get away from Sicily.
And not just her, her mother and younger brother. Her brother had already been in danger of aggravating the local Mafia gangs by the time she’d had enough money to set them up in a new place, far away from Sicily to protect them from any chance that the same people who’d killed her father might consider them to be too risky to stay alive. Her brother had been angry and disillusioned after the death of his father. Angelica had seen too many young people fall foul of the gangs and her brother had had good reason to antagonise them, which would have only put them in the crosshairs of danger.
It had taken all of Angelica’s and her mother’s fortitude to make him see that he would have to let it go and move on with his own life.
She’d been advised not to tell anyone about their new whereabouts, to almost treat them as if they were in a witness protection programme, for fear that anyone from their past would try to contact them or expose their location, and so Angelica had remained vigilant, telling no one, not even her lover. Even though she’d wanted to.
And, after growing up in a society where silence about criminal activity was ingrained in your blood, it had been terrifying to think of trusting another with their safety. It had led her to keeping herself to herself, while working, avoiding close friendships or relationships. Leonardo had been the first person to sneak under her guard and he’d done it before she could pull the drawbridge back up.
She’d almost told him about them so many times, but she’d always held back at the last moment. Their affair had been so whirlwind, literally just a few weeks. She was going to tell him on the day that she’d told him she loved him, feeling as if she could trust him with her most precious secret, but he’d rejected her and it had been one consolation at least that she hadn’t spilled everything to him.
Not that that had kept her family safe, because Aldo Bianchi, Leonardo’s business partner, had somehow found out about her mother and brother and their whereabouts, even though she didn’t live with them, and had taken huge care to always protect their new lives.
He’d then used that information to blackmail her into marriage, demonstrating the terrifying reach of the Sicilian gangs. By then her brother had been about to do his final year school exams. They’d been happy, settled. He’d been talking about university courses he wanted to do. He no longer talked about seeking justice or vengeance for their father, but Aldo had threatened all of that, telling Angelica it would only take one phone call for her father’s killers to come and finish the job.
Aldo had grown up in a foster home with Leonardo. He too had been a part of that toxic violence, but where Leonardo had cut all ties with anyone from his past, Aldo had assured her that he still had contacts. He’d shown her a video of her brother, going to school. Laughing. Messing. Being a carefree young man. And her mother—shopping. Doing mundane tasks. Also happy.
The terrifying knowledge that he had someone close enough to put her mother and brother under surveillance had meant she had no choice but to comply. This wasn’t a situation where she could go to the police. This was a threat that operated on a far more dangerous and insidious level.
Angelica dragged her mind back from things she couldn’t change. So what did Leonardo want now? Revenge was the most obvious thing. And now that Aldo was gone, clearly all the blame was to be lain at her feet.
She’d been wrong to believe Leonardo when he’d told her that he had no interest in living under the yoke of the cycle of violence and retribution of their forbears. Clearly, he was no different, seeking his vengeance. And yet…could she really blame him? She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he might have been through while in prison.
She pushed aside any hint of remorse or sympathy. It was because of her association with this man that she too had suffered, and her family had been in danger.
She cultivated the rising tide of anger, anything to distract her from the far more disturbing emotions making her chest tight.
Leo had to try and control the tumult in his gut, but Angelica’s scent lingered, even now with a privacy window between them. That distinctive scent of gardenia mixed with something much earthier. It had instantly evoked a slew of images in his head—seeing her for the first time at that function in Rome. Reeling at her beauty.
The first kiss. The first touch. The first time he’d seen her naked, and put his hand to her flesh, feeling as if he were tainting her. He’d been her first lover…or had he? That had tortured him in recent years, the idea that she’d feigned her innocence while laughing at him behind his back for his romantic gullibility.
Leo shut out the memories. Shewastainted now, by her relationship with his ex-business partner, but he had no intention of ever touching her again. He just needed her presence.
Before sitting into the car, when she’d lifted her face briefly and he’d seen the familiar lush outline of her mouth, it had taken all of his strength not to haul her into him and crush it beneath his. Driven by anger,notdesire, he told himself now. But his hands clasped the steering wheel tightly betraying that inner turmoil.
He shouldn’t have come here.He’d had no choice. She’d haunted him for three years of torturous incarceration.
There was unfinished business between him and Angelica Malgeri. Angelica Bianchi. Soon to be Angelica Falzone. Leo’s mouth tipped up into a mirthless smile as he saw the steeple of the chapel appear in the distance. After all, wasn’t this what ran in his blood, in spite of everything, handed down from generations? The need for vengeance?
This woman had proven to him that he was no better than his ancestors, in spite of his attempts to pretend otherwise, and all he could do now was lean into that need and exorcise her from his system for good. He would have no peace until she’d paid her dues.
