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Bella wanted that. How she wanted that! “Were you with her tonight? Is that where you were?”
Vitalo wasn’t expecting that. His expression shifted and his jaw tightened and even before he’d answered, she knew that he had been. If he denied it, she would know it to be a lie.
“Yes,” he bit out. “She wanted to see me.”
Bella nodded, but mentally, she sagged. Too much of it made sense. “She was going to leave my father for you.”
Again, she’d surprised him. She saw the brutal flash of agreement on his features before he could contain it. “I didn’t know that until you told me, the day we did the tree.”
Lorenzo made a snorting noise. “All lies,” he snapped, drawing Bella’s attention. She hadn’t remembered they weren’t alone.
She stared at him – his face as broken as Vitalo’s now, and she shook her head. Two stupid men, fighting over a woman who didn’t deserve either of them. She began to shiver, all over. Her hands were numb and her brain heavy.
“I’m going to go,” she said, nodding, as though committing the plan to herself. “I need to go.”
“Don’t,” Vitalo begged, wrapping his hand around her wrist. “You need to stay.”
“No,” she shook her head, but didn’t pull away. She looked down at their skin, their connection and felt nausea again. It was all a lie. It had all been a lie. She sobbed, then, giving into her grief for a moment, because it hadn’t been a lie for her. She’d fallen completely in love with him.
Her fingers slid the wedding band from her hand and she pushed it into his palm. “Bella,” the word was thick with desperation. “Just wait. Just give me tonight. If you want to go tomorrow, I won’t say a word to stop you, but please, just stay…”
“I can’t,” she said, shaking her head, moving away from him, away from Lorenzo. “Is your driver outside?”
Vitalo sighed. “Of course, but…”
“Lorenzo?” She turned to her mother’s husband. “Would you like a lift somewhere?”
The Italian stood up, an unexpected ally in this dramatic evening. “Si, grazie.”
“The Bentley outside,” she said, nodding to the door. “I’ll just be a moment behind you.”
He left without a backwards glance, and Bella was conscious of everything, once more. The sound of their breathing, the breaking of her heart, the bruising on his face, the strength of his body, the movement as he came to her and lifted his hands, cupping her cheeks, holding her so he could see her and she would have to look at him.
“I cannot let you go,” he said with vice-like determination, padding a thumb over her cheek. “I cannot accept it.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“I will beg you to stay, to listen to me, I will beg you with all that I am, and I know you will listen to me because you are all that is good and kind and reasonable. I will beg you to stay and you will stay because you are the mother of my child and because you want me to say something that will make this okay. Please, Bella, let me take away this pain. Let me fix this for you.”
She swallowed, her eyes hooking to his, her heart hoping – ridiculously. “What can you say, Vitalo? You have lied to me this entire time.” Anger sparked inside of her, and the words came out crisp and defiant. “You were furious the night we met. You wanted to sleep with someone because you wanted to forget. You wanted to forget my mother and her marriage. You were jealous. You were hurting.”
A muscle jerked in his jaw and he glared at her, but he didn’t deny it.
“My situation with your mother is complicated to explain,” he said finally, “but if I were to put it simply, I would say there is nothing between us. There has never been anything between us except a fantasy.”
Perhaps he thought the words would make her feel better, but they didn’t. How could they? All Bella needed to hear was a blanket, and complete, denial.
“She loves you.”
His eyes glanced shut. “Perhaps.”
“Did she come to you before her wedding?”
“Yes.”
Bella nodded, taking his admissions and folding them away inside of herself. “And did she spend the night, right before you proposed to me? When you discovered I was pregnant?”
He hadn’t expected her to know that. His face blanched. “In the guest room,” he promised. “Your mother and I have never slept together, Bella. We have never touched, never kissed. Whatever we might have thought we wanted, at some point, our relationship was never physical.”
