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Bella swallowed; her throat was like razors. “Did you think about how this would make me feel?” She whispered, lifting her fingers to her temples and rubbing them.
He dropped his hands to her hips, then wrapped them around her back, but she stayed stiff in his arms, her body like a metal rod. “I have thought of little else, agape mou. I have wanted to tell you, to talk to you about it, to be honest with you, but I have been terrified of you reacting like this.”
She jerked her head up to his, her eyes fiery. “You didn’t know who I was, when we slept together. But when you proposed? You knew. And you told me you wanted to keep it secret, because you wanted us to have time to get to know one another. It all sounded so reasonable. But really, you wanted time to work out how to keep mom happy, right?”
“To keep you happy. The situation is not ideal,” he admitted, running a hand up her spine. She felt nothing. The familiar lick of desire was dead inside of her. “But I knew with time we would get through it.”
“How?” She pushed at his chest then, hard, and he was surprised enough to be caught off balance, stepping backwards, his large frame bouncing away from her. “My mother is in love with you. Lorenzo says she’s loved you for over ten years. I have no idea if you love her, or have loved her, but how in the world would we ever ‘get through’ that?”
He straightened, his expression taut.
“I have no interest in taking part in some sort of Oedipal play,” she continued, her voice harsh. “I married you because I wanted our baby to have a family, because I wanted to avoid a messy custody dispute, and because I truly thought our chance at happiness together would be as likely as anyone else’s. And then,” she said, reigning her temper in a little. “I fell in love with you.” Her eyes latched to his, and she saw surprise cross his face – it brought her no pleasure. “Every time we slept together, I was in love with you. Every morning, every smile, every look.”
A tear ran down her cheek.
“You need to know that, so you can understand why I can’t be with you now. I’m not just sickened by the idea of whatever you and mom mean to one another. I’m not just angry about being lied to and used. I’m hurt. For every moment of love I felt in our marriage, betrayal scores me so much deeper. I am hurt and I am broken and I am done with you, and this.”
“If you love me, stay and listen,” he begged, pushing past her words, knowing he couldn’t let her leave. “Please, please, stay.”
“My father died knowing mom wanted to leave him for you.” She straightened, squaring her shoulders. “You haven’t just betrayed me. You’ve betrayed him. Do you think I could ever forgive you for any of this?” She glared at him, her expression laced with ice, and then she turned her back and walked to the front door.
“I had no idea your mother was going to do that,” he said urgently, following behind. “I told her from the beginning that we could never be together. I loved your father, he was very important to me. Listen to me, please,” he begged. “You know what my own father was like, what he did to my mother. I would never knowingly cause anyone to feel that pain of infidelity, agape.”
She paused, her hand on the door.
“You asked me if I had any siblings out there I didn’t know about, if my father’s affairs had led to children. There has. There is. I have a sister, Cleopatra, and I have seen first-hand how affairs are like a ripple in a pond – one decision that leads to another and another and the damage is never contained. Your mother said she was in love with me and I was young and stupid and she was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen,” he reached for her, curving a hand around her elbow.
“I thought I loved her, too. I realise now that it was just obsession, a sexual fixation because she was the original forbidden fruit.”
Bella snorted, her stomach contorting with disgust.
“But all along I told her I wouldn’t be with her. Even after your father’s death, I knew I could never betray him like that.”
“You continued to see her, though. To lead her on, even knowing how she felt about you?”
“We were friends,” he defended uneasily.
“You came to her wedding. You were angry. Jealous.”
“I was… yes. She’d begged me to give her what she wanted. She’d told me she wouldn’t marry Lorenzo if I told her I loved her. I was angry at her. Not because she was marrying him, but because she was using him, using me. I was angry because I was starting to see that this was all a big game to her. That she’d played your father and me off against one another, that she was doing the same with Lorenzo. I saw that she was getting off on toying with us both, and I was very angry with her.”
“So you’re entirely innocent in this situation?” She asked mockingly, rolling her eyes even as her heart was breaking and tears were threatening to rush down her cheeks like the Niagara falls.
“No,” he shook his head. “You are the only innocent here.” He dropped his head forward, pressing his forehead to hers. “You do not deserve any of this, but I am begging you to stay anyway, because I am as much in love with you as you are with me,” he said, the words everything she’d wanted to hear, but ripping her apart now.
“No.” She straightened, pulling away from him and jerking the door inwards. “You’re not the man I thought I loved. I don’t know you.” She glared at him, her intent resonating in every line of her body. “I need space. Don’t contact me. Don’t call me. Don’t message me. I’ll let you know anything to do with the pregnancy via text message; but I don’t want you to reply anything other than an ‘okay’ in acknowledgement. I don’t want to think about you, I don’t want to know you exist until I’m ready to see you again.” She drew in a shaking breath. “We’re having a baby together and I get that you’ll want to be a part of his or her life.”
She bit down on her lip, trying to hold it together. “I’ll work out a way to make that happen and if you truly mean what you’ve just said – if I’m the innocent in this situation – then you’ll respect my wishes and do as I say. Okay?”
He shook his head, and she swore, for a second she thought she saw his own eyes moisten. “No.” The word was graveled. “It is not okay. It is absolutely not okay.” He closed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms and she was sad and hurting so she went, her heart tender and needing something even when she realised Vitalo would never be able to deliver it.
“I made a mistake when I was twenty five years old. I got pulled into a game I didn’t understand, with a woman I thought I cared for. I have paid for that mistake again and again and again, tormenting myself for what I did to your father, for how I betrayed our friendship. I cannot lose you because of that same mistake. Until I knew you, Bella, I didn’t understand a thing about myself. I didn’t understand women and love and happiness. You brought me to life, you made me who I am. I cannot lose you. Please, don’t leave me.”
“How can I stay?” She whispered, and his mouth sought hers, his kiss gentle, loaded with his hopes and needs.
“Stay because you want to,” he said, simply. But it wasn’t simple. Nothing about it was simple.
“God, Vitalo, I can’t.” She broke away from him with a guttural noise of pain. “She’s my mother. I know she’s flawed and I get that she’s hurt you, but I can’t just… Did you even think about what you were doing to my relationship with her? About whether I’d want to get in the middle of whatever you and she have?”
