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He’d done wrong—he knew that—but she had too.
‘You’re the one who found a strange woman in our apartment and immediately decided I was having an affair.’
She shook her head with incredulity. ‘If you’d come back early from a trip abroad and found a strange semi-naked man in the apartment, what would you have thought?’
Stefano’s heart was thumping violently against his ribs. ‘I do not say I wouldn’t have been a little suspicious but I wouldn’t have made assumptions as you did.’
No, if he’d found a strange man in his apartment wearing his robe, his fist would probably have connected with the man’s face before he’d had time to think.
‘I would have asked you to explain,’ he continued, pushing the thought away. ‘I would have listened to your answer. You didn’t ask for my side. You decided the facts to suit yourself. You swore at me and threw water over me in front of my most senior members of staff. You humiliated me.’
‘You were ignoring me.’
‘When?’
‘That night. I called. It went to voicemail...’
‘My sister who I didn’t know existed had suddenly appeared in my life,’ he interrupted. ‘I had just been told the father I thought had died when I was a child had been alive all these years and had a new family but that there was no chance of me meeting him because he had died a few weeks before. Forgive me if I was too busy trying to make sense of my life to answer my phone.’
He hadn’t even noticed it ring. Christina had sent a courier to his apartment with a letter and some photos—photos of him as a child—ending her note with a number for him to call.
She’d been waiting outside the apartment building.
‘Too busy to answer the phone for your wife? Too busy to call when I left a message and texted you asking you to call me?’
‘I didn’t get the messages until four in the morning when it was too late to call you back, but I did text you. I told you I would call you later in the day, which I would have done after the meeting you interrupted, but you jumped to the conclusion that I was with another woman. You stormed into my boardroom and accused me of having an affair in front of my most senior members of staff. You threw water over me.’ As the humiliation flooded back over him, his temper rose. ‘You broke your word. You said you would trust me. You lied to me!’
Anna stared at him for the longest time, her lips parted but with no sound coming out. But then the colour rushed back across her cheeks and she got to her knees to thump the floor.
‘You selfish, selfish bastard. Twisting this all round to hide what you’ve done. I’ve made mistakes and done things I’m ashamed of but you took advantage of my amnesia just so you could have your revenge. You let me think I still worked for you! No wonder you didn’t want me calling Melissa—that wasn’t for my sake, it was to protect your lie! You’ve been lying to me for over a week!’
‘You hit me with a demand for a hundred million pounds!’ he shot back. ‘You knew I wouldn’t take that lying down.’
‘Of course I knew that! Why do you think I issued it?’
‘You wanted me to react?’
‘I wanted you to speak to me and I was crazy enough to think that demanding a hundred million and a load of your assets would force you to communicate. You’d cut me off. You fired me and blocked my number. You served me with formal separation papers. You changed the security number for the apartment so I couldn’t get in. It was like I’d never existed for you. I wanted to hurt you as much as you were hurting me. I knew the only way I’d be able to get your attention was by hitting you where I knew it would hurt the most—your wallet.’
‘You walked out on me,’ he reminded her harshly. ‘Did you think I would beg you to come back?’
‘I came back the next day and couldn’t get into the apartment. You didn’t even give me twenty-four hours before locking me out.’
The cold mist in his head had thickened, nausea roiling in his guts as he thought of his own contribution to the mess that was the end of their marriage. He had cut her off. His pride and ego had been dented so greatly that he’d struck back before she could do any more damage.
‘Why did you want to get my attention so badly?’
‘Because I needed you and because, despite everything, I couldn’t accept we were over.’ She pinched the bridge of her nose and held out her other hand for the bottle. He took a nip himself before passing it to her.
She took a long slug.
‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough?’
Her hair swished as she shook her head. ‘Nowhere near enough.’
The trembling anguish in her voice sent a fresh roll of dread through him.
Her hands were shaking so much the bottle slipped from her hand and onto her lap, then rolled onto the floor.
