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"I wanted to tell you then, but—" he raises a shoulder.
"But you were too busy telling me about your fiancée."
"About that." He shuffles his feet. There’s a guilty look on his face. A look I’ve never seen before, considering how cocky and confident this man normally is. "I broke it off," he murmurs.
"What?" I blink. "What do you mean?"
"Meaning, it was an arrangement. But I ended it."
"Excuse me?" A headache begins to drum at my temples. "What do you mean, it was an arrangement?"
"It’s the kind you were in when we met."
I lock my fingers together in my lap. “Okay, stop it. We’ve been through this, remember? I already asked you if you were kidding me when you told me you had a fiancée—similar to how you pretended to be engaged to Olivia—and you told me that wasn’t the case. You lied to me?”
Color smears his cheeks. He rolls his shoulders, then glances away. When he looks back at me, it’s as if he’s dropped the last barriers between us. As if he shrugged off that coat of ego he’s worn so closely to his skin that it became part of him, but he’s now torn it off and tossed it aside.
The person looking back at me is Declan—but not as I know him now. It’s the Declan I met when he was twenty-one, and he looked at me and knew I was the one for him. He’s looking at me like the woman he wanted me to be then, but who he’s found now.
“If you remember, I didn’t answer your question. I simply didn't correct your assumption." He shifts his weight from foot to foot. "I didn't have an engagement like when I pretended to be Olivia’s fiancée so she could save face with Massimo. I had one a bit more like the one you had with Massimo, when your family arranged an alliance with a rival Mafia clan. Your engagement was an arrangement, as was mine. But you were genuinely expected to marry him to solidify the alliance, while I was expected toactas if I genuinely expected to marry her. Mine with Olivia was pretend, through and through. It didn't even last through one dinner because it wasn't as important to maintain the façade.”
A thousand butterflies take wing in my belly.No, no, no, don’t go there. You can’t let yourself hope. Not now. Not after he squashed all the joy out of you, and hurt you, and mis-used your trust, and made you believe you could never love anyone else again... but him.
And that’s the thing. Despite how he broke my heart I still am not over my feelings for him.What does that mean? Why can’t I move on from this man? Why is it that everything in me is holding out hope for him to explain his actions? Why is it that I still want us to be together?
I throw up my hands. “What are you trying to tell me? Can you spell it out in simple English? My brain cells are dying here.”
He blows out a breath. "I entered into an arrangement with the Bratva.”
“The Bratva?” I stare at him.Did he say the Bratva?
“What for?” I burst out. “Why would you associate with an underground criminal organization?”
“I wanted access to money to fill the production gap for my movie. And if I pretended to marry her, Nikolai Solonik, the leader of the Bratva would loan it to me.”
“Are you aware of the potential consequences of mixing up with the Bratva?” I throw up my hands. “How do you even know him?”
“He’s, uh, family... In a roundabout way.”
“He’s family?” I stare. I left Napoli, hoping not to be associated with the Mafia in any way, and now, he tells me he’s linked to the Bratva? “How is he family?”
“His sister Karina is married to my brother Arpad. That also provides me with a bit of a safety net. I knew he couldn’t dick around with me—” He raises a shoulder. “And he had the money and the contacts I needed to accelerate the pace of production of the film on the ground.”
My heart drops into my stomach, then flips back into my chest. My head spins. "If your financiers hadn’t pulled out, none of this would have happened—which I still can’t understand. Why would they do that? You’re one of the most popular leads in Hollywood already."
He half smiles. "That’s the name of the game. You’re up one day, down the next, much like your own career."
I glance away. I don’t want to show him just how difficult it's been. I made enough money from the sales of my first album, but given what's needed to produce the next one, and without the help of a label to cover the overhead, it's far more challenging than I thought it would be.
"You don’t have to hide your thoughts. If anyone understands the fickleness of this business, it’s me,” he murmurs.
I still don’t look at him.
"I know how difficult it was for you, after your tour got canceled.” His voice grows even softer.
I swallow around the ball of emotion in my throat. "That must make you happy, right? Looks like you're getting even more revenge than you bargained for."
"That’s not true, baby, and you know it."
