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Certainty settled down inside him, along with a bone-deep pain and regret. He should never have picked her up off the street and taken her home. Or at least he should have found her a place to live and a job far away from him, where she would have been able to create the kind of life she wanted, not be dragged into his own self-centred plans.
Anna was right to be afraid of you.
His hand was shaking as he grabbed his phone from his pocket and called one of his assistants to get Leonie’s location. Luckily she was still a few minutes away, so he ordered the assistant to get the driver to bring the car around to the back of the chapel instead of the front. He’d get another member of staff to intercept her and bring her here, where he could talk to her, tell her what he intended to do.
He paced around for ten minutes, conscious that the moment when they were supposed to exchange vows was getting closer and closer, and that the sooner he made an announcement the better. But he needed to tell her first. She deserved that from him at least.
Finally the door opened and Leonie was ushered in.
His heart shuddered to a complete halt inside his chest.
She was in that gorgeous wedding dress, a princess out of a fairy-tale. The veil that covered her face was white lace, densely embroidered with silver thread, and all that could be seen was the faint gleam of her red-gold hair. In one hand was a spray of simple wildflowers, gathered from the meadow near the castle, while the other held her skirts out of the way so she could walk.
His beautifulgatita.
She will never be yours.
He hadn’t thought that particular truth would hurt, but it did, like a sword running through him. He ignored the pain. He wouldn’t be the cause of any more hurt for her. She’d had enough of that in her life already.
‘What’s happening?’ Leonie pushed back her veil, revealing her lovely face, her cornflower-blue eyes wide and filling with concern as they saw his face. ‘What’s going on, Cristiano? Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
The deep violet-blue of her eyes was the colour that he only ever saw on the most perfect days here in the valley. The warmth of her body was like the hot, dry summers that were his only escape from the silence and the cold. Her rich, heady scent was like the rose garden hidden in the courtyard, where he’d used to play as a child.
She was everything good. Everything he’d been searching for and never known he’d wanted.
Everything he could never have—not when he’d only end up destroying it.
He stood very still, shutting out the anger and the pain, the deep ache of regret that settled inside him. Shutting out every one of those terrible, raw, destructive emotions.
‘I’m sorry,gatita,’ he said. ‘But I’m going to have to cancel the wedding.’
Leonie stared at the man she’d thought she’d be marrying today, shock rippling through her. She’d been nervous that morning as a couple of Cristiano’s staff had helped her prepare for the ceremony, doing her hair and make-up, preparing her bouquet and finally helping her into the gown.
But she wasn’t nervous about finally seeing her father after all these years. In fact, she’d barely thought about him, and even when she had it had only been with a savage kind of anger. Not for herself and what he’d done to her, but for what he’d done to Cristiano.
No, it was marrying Cristiano that she was nervous about. And she was nervous because she was hopelessly in love with him and had no idea what that was going to mean. Especially when she was certain he didn’t feel the same about her.
She’d had a battle with herself about whether or not to tell him about her feelings and had decided in the end not to. What would telling him achieve? Who knew how he’d take it? Perhaps things would change, and she didn’t want that.
Anyway, she knew that he did feel something for her, because he showed her every night in the big four-poster bed in his bedroom. It was enough. She didn’t need him to love her. She’d survived for years without love, after all, and she’d no doubt survive the rest of her life without it, too.
Of course there had been a few nagging doubts here and there. Such as how he’d mentioned having children, but said they wouldn’t be for him. They’d only be in service to his grand revenge plan. That had seemed especially bleak to her, but then she couldn’t force him to care if he didn’t want to. She would just love any children they had twice as much, to make up for his lack.
What was important was that now she had her little cottage in the countryside—although the cottage had turned out to be a castle and she had a genuine duke at her side. She had more than enough.
More than the homeless and bedraggled Leonie of the streets had ever dreamed of.
Except now, as she stood there in her wedding gown, staring at the man she’d been going to marry, whose green eyes were bleak, she suddenly realised that perhaps all of those things hadn’t been enough after all.
‘What do you mean, cancel the wedding?’ Her voice sounded far too small and far too fragile in the little stone room. ‘I thought you were going to—?’
‘I thought so, too,’ he interrupted coolly. ‘And then I changed my mind.’
She swallowed, trying to get her thoughts together, trying not to feel as if the ground had suddenly dropped away beneath her feet. ‘Cristiano—’ she began.
‘De Riero has arrived,’ he went on, before she could finish. ‘And he has brought my son and my ex-wife with him.’
Leonie stared at him. ‘You...weren’t expecting them?’
