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His words stung like a whip against her back. ‘You can’t, and you won’t. Which is why it didn’t matter,’ she said, the truth almost too painful to bare.
Her response jerked his head from his hands. ‘It didn’t matter?’ he demanded.
‘No. All that mattered was that the meeting was a success. Sofia is—was—an old friend. We lost touch after I was forced to change schools. When I realised I needed to fix the Firstview problem, I reached out to her. She’s been mistreated badly by...well. That’s her story to tell. Safe to say, her reputation is unjust. Her only condition to meeting with a rich, Italian business titan who would never have considered lowering himself to meet with an Arabic businesswoman with a bad reputation was that I keep my existing relationship with her a secret.’
Her words were like barbs and she could see that they had struck home. Amelia knew what it was like to have to prove herself in a male-dominated world, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard it must be for Sofia. The dark shadows in her old friend’s eyes were enough broad strokes to suggest that her road had been a hard one. But Amelia wouldn’t let Alessandro throw this deal away because he was too stubborn to see the wondrous possibility of its success.
‘That is unfair,’ he said of her last words.
‘But true. You are not the only one who has something at stake with this deal. This will be the making of her company—a chance to rise above rumour and prejudice. You will get to move ahead and achieve the success you forecasted for this project.
‘And what will you get?’ he demanded, the expectation of her betrayal vibrant in his gaze.
She could lie to him, but Amelia was so tired, and, unable to fight it any more, she confessed the truth. ‘More. I’d wanted more between us.’
CHAPTER NINE
MORE?HISINTERNALvoice roared.She wanted more?
‘By lying?’ he demanded incredulously.
‘You can’t have it both ways, Alessandro,’ she replied. ‘I undid the damage that I had done with the Firstview deal. You didn’t set rules as to how I did it.’ She looked up at him, her eyes wide with stubborn-willed refusal to back down. ‘And it wasn’t a lie,’ she ground out through clenched teeth.
She was a magnificent madness in his veins. They stood, toe to toe, breathing heavy and hard and hot and all he could think of was how much he wanted to take her mouth with his, to plunder the complex essence of Amelia Seymore.
‘I have done all that I can do,’ she said. ‘The decision is now yours.’
For a moment, he wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the deal or the unspoken thing that practically throbbed in the air between them. Anger, resentment, need and want thrashed in his chest, twisting and turning, desperate to get out.
As if she sensed it, her pupils flared beneath the heat of his attention, the flutter in her neck flickering in a way that made him want to see if he could feel it beneath the pad of his thumb. Feel that she was as affected as him, know the truth of it in her body—a body that couldn’t lie or betray him.
He forced himself to turn away and missed the flash of hurt that throbbed in Amelia’s eyes.
You can’t, and you won’t. Which is why it didn’t matter.
Her words taunted him as he stalked from the villa. Because she was right. He couldn’t trust her, wouldn’t. He punched Gianni’s number into his phone, unsurprised but annoyed when he was told that it was still out of reach.
At the very least, he should have felt satisfied. With Obeid the project could go ahead if he and Gianni wanted it to. He should have felt relief, he should have felt victorious. So why was guilt slashing wounds into his chest at the memory of Amelia’s words, of her accusation that he’d never trust her?
Because you want to.
The startling realisation pulled him up short.
He wanted to believe her, just as he’d wanted to believe his mother when she’d promised she’d take them away from his father and uncle.
And he’d never wanted anything more in his entire life. His father and uncle had become so much worse after their mother passed away that they had driven Gianni’s mother from the house leaving Gianni behind. Alessandro’s mother was all they’d had left but when Saverio had come in from the fields there was only so much Alessandro had been able to do to distract his father from his anger towards his mother. His desperation had been almost suffocating as he’d pleaded with her to take them away after one particularly brutal night.
We’ll leave. I’ll come for you and we’ll leave.
Gianni and he had stayed up all night, whispering reassurances and making plans through the minutes and hours, neither wanting to give up hope that Aurora Vizzini would come to take them away. Even as dawn had crested over the vineyards, and they’d rubbed sleep and sadness from their eyes, knowing that Alessandro’s mother had lied, the worst of it had been the hope; the desperate hope he’d had, the need to believe his mother when she had said that she would take them away, that they would be safe.
Nothing was spoken about that night ever again, not with his mother and not with Gianni. And sometimes, in the dead of night, he drove himself to distraction wondering if his mother’s promise had even happened.
But Amelia was different,an inner voice taunted him. Her first concern, when he’d brought her to Italy, was her sister. The protective instinct and determination in her so clear and obvious he almost couldn’t believe it. Truth had been the only note he’d heard when she’d told him of her childhood. And he’d read between the lines to see deeper, toknowthat she would do anything to protect her family. That she had sacrificed for her family, for what she thought was right. And she’d done it again when she’d agreed to lie to him for Obeid, putting Rossi Industries above her own needs, abovehim. Because she had known what that concealment would do to him.
But that anger—that constant simmering presence beneath his surface whenever she was near—lashed out. So much his life had changed in the space of just days. Or, he wondered, had the change started all those weeks ago in Hong Kong? When success, respect and admiration had led them down a path he’d never thought he’d take? One wrong move had completely undone the entire chessboard of his life. A move he was fighting hard not to repeat.
I’d wanted more between us.
