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Emotions speared through Jane; curiosity at the forefront. “Your father?” She couldn’t disguise her condemnation as she added, “The father you told me was dead?”
He nodded, and ran slightly unsteady fingers through his hair. “He had seen something about me in the paper. He wanted to ask me a favour. A business favour. Can you believe that? I hadn’t seen the man in over a decade, and he wanted to lure me into his fucked up world.” He shook his head. “I said no, and he said that he would at least like to meet you. To congratulate me on my marriage.” He lifted his eyes to her, and shook his head slowly. “My father is a murderer. He murdered your father. And there he was, trying to insinuate himself into my life, and yours.” He exhaled a long, slow breath. “I knew you were safe. I doubled the security at the Villa and I ditched the event I had been supposed to attend. Instead, I went to see him.”
“You did?” She squeaked, shock making her voice unnaturally high. “What happened?”
He opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Some details you are better not knowing. I made certain he would never disturb us again. I made it clear that you and I were not a part of his world. I made sure he knew that I would wish almost anyone else in the world to be my father, rather than him.”
“Stop keeping secrets from me, Carlo,” she shouted, her eyes fixed on his demandingly.
He thought about evading the question, but in the end, he didn’t. “We fought.”
“Fought?”
“We fought,” he repeated. “My father is not the virile, healthy man he was when I left home. He was weaker. Weakened by his lifestyle. But I attacked him.” He closed his eyes. “I punched him until his face was bloodied, because I was so terrified of what might happen to you.” His expression was haunted. “I had lived in fear for the entirety of our marriage. I had seen the death threats and I had wondered every day at the fact that someone out there could want to hurt you. You. Sweet, kind, beautiful you.”
Jane swallowed, her eyes enormous in her face. She would not be derailed by sympathy. His situation had been hard for him, but of his own creation. “And then?”
His laugh was filled with pain. “Then I got really drunk, flew back to Rome and took my fear of you being hurt out on you. The one person in this world I loved, and the one person in the world I wanted to protect.”
Jane couldn’t hide her hurt. “I can’t believe this. It’s too much. Too many secrets. You should have been honest with me about all of this.”
Carlo groaned. “I was trying to insulate you from it all. My father, who had killed your father. His enemies, who wanted to hurt you to hurt him. Don’t you see? My birth right was your threat. The genetic promise I could offer you was danger. My greatest fear was that this world I come from… that it would tear you apart.”
Jane swallowed, and reached out for support. Her fingers connected with the white wall and she pressed against it firmly. He had wanted to protect her. He had been worried about the threats to her. She got it. But he’d gone about everything in the worst way possible. And instead of feeling adored and cherished, she’d felt sidelined and ignored. “You tore me apart,” she clarified simply. “Not your world. You. And you alone.”
He nodded, a harsh expression on his face. “I didn’t see it that way then.”
She moved her head stiltedly, a jerk of assent. A breeze brushed in from the window behind them, sending her hair wisping around her face. She reached up and tucked it neatly behind her ears. “I know. But neither of us can reach back and change the past.” She turned to face him, and her expression was set into a mask of determination. “I loved you so much, but I can’t let myself love you again.”
At the look of deep surprise on his face, she almost stopped talking. But her own sanity was at stake.
“I loved you, Carlo, but we’re bad for each other. I make you possessive and crazy, and you make me insecure and lonely.” She stood up on tiptoes, and forced herself to press a chaste, brief kiss against his stubble roughened cheek. “I have to go.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist, disbelief making his voice hoarse. “No, Jane. You can’t.”
She stayed close to him, because it felt so, so good. “I can. And I am.”
He ran a hand along her back, from her neck to the small of her spine. “But you belong here.”
She smiled sadly and shook her head. “Maybe once upon a time. Now not.” She stepped out of his arms, and walked purposefully towards the door. As her hand cupped the brass knob, she turned to face him.
“And Liz?”
He ground his teeth together. He had lied to her for too long, about too much. “You have to understand how worried I was about you. When you left me, I lost any ability to keep you safe.”
“So Liz is… your proxy?”
He nodded slowly. “One of my security agents. A trusted employee, and a friend.”
Jane hadn’t thought she could feel any greater degree of sadness. But it tore through her now. Since leaving Carlo, her friendship with Liz had been the most meaningful of her life. And even that had been a lie.
“Do you not see that everything I’ve done since you left me has been to keep you safe?”
Jane dropped her hands to her side. “I didn’t want you to keep me safe. I wanted you to love me. That’s it. You had no right to do any of this.”
“No right to want to make sure you weren’t murdered to avenge some stupid mafia grievance? Something so unconnected with you and me?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. Her blue eyes shone with inner-strength. “I married you because I loved you. I left you because that wasn’t enough.” Her voice cracked and she took in a deep breath to steady herself. “I made those decisions. You should have trusted me to take care of myself. If I had known about the threats, I would have been able to take suitable measures. You left me vulnerable by not trusting me enough.” She darted her tongue out and traced an outline of her lower lip. “And you broke our marriage because you didn’t trust me enough.”
