AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Not the authorities. Damn it all. How had she ever let the conversation turn in this direction? To the one secret she hoped to never have to say aloud.
“It’s complicated,” she replied. It would be too much to ask for Nico to continue accepting her terse answers at face value. Not this time. He was angry; he would want answers.
Sure enough, his eyes burned dark and intense as he stood, arms folded, waiting for her to continue. Louisa’s skin burned from the intensity. She thought about lying, but she’d never been very good at it. Pretending, masking her emotions, sure, but out-and-out lies? Not so much. Looking back, it was a wonder she’d managed to keep Comparino a secret at all.
“I didn’t have a choice—I had to stay in Boston. If Steven had known I had property in my name—property of my own—he would have...” Angry tears threatened. She looked down so he wouldn’t see them.
“He would have what?” Nico asked.
“Taken it,” she replied, choking on the words. “He would have taken the palazzo the same way he took everything else I had.”
At last, the ugly truth was out in the open and Nico would never look at her the same way again. How could he? She was a stupid, gullible fool who let a master manipulator ruin her life. Shame rose like bile, sour and thick in her mouth. She didn’t dare raise her eyes to look into his face. She couldn’t bear to see pity where there’d once been admiration. There was only one thing she could do.
Spinning around, she took off down the path.
* * *
What the—? Nico stared at Louisa’s retreating figure before sprinting after her. “Louisa, hold up!”
“Leave me alone,” she said. “I have to get to the winery.” She sounded as though—was she crying?
It didn’t take long for him to close the distance between them. When he did, he touched her shoulder hoping to slow her pace, only to have her tear free of his grip so fiercely you’d think he was physically restraining her. She turned and snarled, “I said leave me alone.”
She was crying. Tears streaked her cheeks. Their tracks might as well have been scratches on his skin, they hurt that much to see. This was about more than her thief of a husband stealing property. “What did that bastard do to you?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.”
She tried to surge ahead again but he had height to his advantage. It was nothing for him to step ahead and block her path. Not unexpectedly, she shoved at his shoulder trying to make him move. “I said forget it.”
“I can’t,” he said, standing firm. Not after seeing those tears. “Talk to me.”
“Why? So you can laugh at what a stupid idiot I am?”
Idiot? Nico shook his head. “I could never think that of you.”
“Then you’re a bigger fool than I am,” she said, jaw trembling. “And I’m... I’m...”
Her face started to crumble. “I’m a damn big one.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
LOUISA BURIED HER face in her hands. Nico stood frozen by the sight of her shaking shoulders, wanting to comfort her but afraid his touch might make her run again. Eventually his need to hold her won out, and he wrapped her in his arms. She sagged into him, fists twisting into his shirt. His poor sweet Louisa. Steven Clark should be glad he was in prison because otherwise Nico would... Heaven knows what he would do. He pressed his lips to the top of her head and let her cry.
After a while, the shaking eased. “I’m sorry,” she said, lifting her head. “I didn’t mean to lose it like that. It’s just sometimes I think, no matter how hard I try, Steven will always be there, taunting me. That I’ll never completely escape him.”
Suddenly all her comments about needing to be on her own took on new meaning. She was running from more than scandal and a failed marriage, wasn’t she? He could kick himself for not realizing it sooner. He risked another brush of his lips against her hair before asking, “Did he hurt you badly?”
“You mean physically?” She shook her head. “He never laid a hand on me.”
Thank God. Not all abuse was physical, however. Emotional abuse was insidious and painful in its own way. His parents played mind games all the time, driving one another to madness out of revenge or jealousy. “But he hurt you all the same, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he did,” she said, giving a long sigh. Backing out of his embrace, she stumbled just far enough to be out of reach, wiping her tears as she walked. “It’s my fault, really. The signs were all there from the very beginning, but I chose to ignore them. Love makes you stupid.”
