AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Is it because of what I said about your mother? I know it was none of my business and I’m so sorry...’ I began realising I was begging after all when he held up his hand.
‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘If you’re going to make an emotional scene now though, I may have to reconsider my offer. I know you’re young and naïve but I got the impression you understood exactly where this was leading.’
The chill spread through me at the curt tone. He was talking to me as if I were a child.
‘But I...’
‘You came to me, Edie, if you recall. You made it clear you wanted me as a lover. If you now feel you gave away your virginity too cheaply, I’m afraid it’s too late to change your mind.’
I trembled, the blood exploding in my ears, the caustic, casual tone almost as agonising as the contempt on his face.
‘You... You knew?’ I gasped, shock warring with devastation.
He leaned forward. ‘Of course I knew. I’m not quite as inexperienced as you are.’
‘But you didn’t say anything?’ I said, still unable to grasp why he seemed angry about it.
‘Why would I? It was none of my concern,’ he said, but I could still hear it in his voice, that edge of steel, the accusation. And then the rest of his comment came back to me, hitting me in the solar plexus with the force of a sledgehammer.
If you now feel you gave away your virginity too cheaply.
And I realised what he was accusing me of. Of trying to trick him, to deceive him, to make him feel beholden to me, to barter my body for money. When I had never once put any demands on him. Even now all I’d asked for was a proper goodbye.
‘I didn’t expect anything in return,’ I said. ‘I gave myself to you freely. I wanted you to be my first.’ I tried to explain, the words tumbling over themselves, struggling to get out of my mouth in the face of his cynicism. ‘Why would you even think that?’ I asked, horrified anew at the accusation and the cool scepticism on his face.
‘All sex is a transaction,’ he said. ‘Of one form or another. Your mother knew it, and so did mine.’
‘That’s not true. My mother always loved the men she slept with...’ I said, my heart shattering in my chest. This wasn’t just scepticism; this was damage. How could he believe the things he was saying? What had happened to him that would make him so hard, so cold, so uncaring and so cynical? He’d said he didn’t hate his mother, but now I could see he’d lied.
‘How convenient then, that she only ever fell in love with rich men,’ he said, the mockery in his voice reminding me of all the times I had been teased or insulted, made to feel less than, an outcast, because of the way people judged my mother.
But this was so much worse.
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, tears I knew I couldn’t shed. I’d thought he’d understood. That he’d been on my side. But he was worse than any of them.
‘You bastard,’ I whispered, trying to locate the anger I should be feeling to cover the misery.
‘We’re both bastards, Edie. I thought we already established that.’
‘I’m not talking about the circumstances of your birth. You... You used me,’ I said, still not able to believe it.
‘We used each other. You amused me this week, and I gave you the chance to discover what a sensual person you are. Something that you’ve clearly been denying, or you wouldn’t have remained a virgin so long.’
I nodded. ‘Well, thanks for that,’ I said, trying to sound flippant, trying to wound him the way he’d wounded me. ‘I’ll be sure to use the lessons you taught me about how to pleasure a man when I take my next lover.’
His jaw tightened, his brows lowering in a thunderous frown as I turned and fled.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in the helicopter, the blades whirring, the sun dipping towards the horizon as the huge black machine lifted into the sky, that I finally let the tears fall. Tears of anguish, and grief. And humiliation at my own stupidity. But, most of all, tears of heartache—which only made the humiliation worse.
How could I ever have been young enough or naïve enough to be fooled by Dante Allegri—to have believed that, buried beneath the ambition and the ruthlessness, the magnetism and the overpowering sexuality and the horrors he had obviously suffered as a child, there lay a kindred spirit, a man who, despite everything, had a good heart?
I gulped down my sobs and scrubbed the tears off my cheeks, forcing my gaze away from the villa and towards the horizon.
I would survive and I would prosper. I would be the best employee he’d ever had. And I would be grateful for the important lesson he had taught me. A lesson I thought I had learned during the years of my childhood.
Never to fall in love with a man who valued money and power and ambition—for whatever reason—over love.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
