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He cursed as he flung his hands from her shoulders, pacing to the desk, where he took two steadying breaths before being able to face her again. ‘Something’s happened,’ he said. ‘Are you going to share it with me or are you going to make me stand here and play twenty questions?’
She waved her hand in the direction of the letter, its pages still abandoned in the corner, where they’d fluttered down onto the floor. ‘Paolo wrote to me,’ she said. ‘And it made for interesting reading, the story of your vendetta against him.’
Her eyes glittered blue ice, her chin was set and defiant and inside he felt sick. This was not the way she should have found out.
He crossed the room, snatching up the pages and scanning their contents.
‘This whole trip, my whole reason for being here, was simply so you could satisfy your desire for revenge.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he snapped, though he knew it was, at the start.
‘Oh? What was it like then? Surely you’re not going to tell me you stumbled upon me by accident, completely unaware of my connection with Paolo?
‘Oh,’ she said, throwing her head back, ‘I’m so stupid, I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to work it all out. You planned this whole fiasco from the start. How convenient that I’m a designer. How easy that proved to be to get me here—all you had to do was pay enough to Gianfranco and he just about pushed me onto you. And once here, you had no intention of letting me go.’
He dragged in a short, sharp breat
h. ‘No! Though it’s true I have a score to settle with Paolo.’
‘And taking me away from him was part of that vendetta.’
‘Why should he have you? He doesn’t deserve you. Yes, in the beginning, all I wanted was revenge. But that was before I met you. Then I knew he wasn’t good enough for you. That you deserved better.’
‘And you were supposed to be better? I believed you, you know. I stood up for you against Paolo when he pleaded with me not to come to Jebbai. I actually felt sorry for your “fiancée”, too ill to be able to take part in her own wedding preparations, and yet you were using me the whole time. Using me to get back at him.’
‘Maybe it was like that at the start,’ he admitted. ‘But not all the time. I wanted revenge, that’s true, but once I met you I knew you were not just some possession of Paolo’s that I had to have. I wanted you for myself then, for the woman you are. I had to have you, body and soul.’
She crossed her arms, the expression on her face mirroring her body language and screaming her disbelief. ‘Tell me about Helene,’ she said. ‘What was so special about her that you couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else having her?’
His jaw clenched, teeth grating together. The questions were bound to come, he expected it now, but still that made it no easier to deal with. ‘She was young and pretty, a student at university, very clever. Our parents supported the marriage, it would have cemented relations between a huge oil conglomerate and a producing nation. It would have been a good match.’
‘Did you love her?’
It was a difficult question and so long ago. He was sure he’d thought he’d loved her once, but now, knowing Sapphire and the way she made him feel—maybe he had just liked the idea of being in love. He shrugged. ‘I was barely twenty years old.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question.’
‘Then, no,’ he said on a sigh. ‘I didn’t love her. But I wanted her. It could have been a good marriage, beneficial to both our families and interests. But it was not to be.’
‘Because Paolo got there first.’
‘He interfered in something that had nothing to do with him,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘He should have stayed out of it. And for what he cost me I swore I would take something from him, to make him suffer loss even just a fraction of what I had lost. To make him realise the damage he had done and to make him pay.’
‘He saved her! He stepped in and did more than a friend should ever be asked to do, he stood up for her and rescued a terrified girl from a marriage she didn’t want, and from a man who would ruin her life. And yet you can’t see what an heroic thing he did? Then you pursue him for years, years, merely because he snatched something you wanted.’
She paused, her face flushed and eyes wild. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you got over it?’
Breath hissed through his teeth as he sought to bring his breathing under control. ‘You think that losing Helene is what this is all about?’
‘Isn’t it? Though I’m sure your pride took a beating too—knowing that someone was smarter and faster than you. I’m sure you’ll never forgive Paolo for that.’
His fist slammed onto the desk, toppling items and scattering pens. Pain shot up his arm but it was nothing compared to the hate. To the pure, unadulterated hate for someone who’d cost him so much.
‘That’s where you’re wrong. I could get over him taking Helene. I could even live with him outsmarting me, if that’s how you see it. But I will never forgive him for what he did to my parents.’
‘Your parents? What are you talking about?’ Her brow furrowed, her head tilting to one side.
‘On the day they should have been at my wedding, the day they should have been celebrating my marriage to Helene in London—on that very day, on the side of a Swiss mountain, they were swept away by the avalanche that killed them.’
