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‘But she doesn’t deserve to be hurt. She’s done nothing—’
‘You’ve got no idea what she did! This is no more than she deserves!’
And her mother grew claws before his eyes. ‘Oh, I’d say it’s clearly much less than she deserves, after the misery you put her through.’
‘What are you talking about? I gave her the best night of her life!’
‘You clearly gave her one hell of a lot more than that!’
The thump in his temples thundered out a warning that pieced together in ugly sequence in his brain. ‘What do you mean? What are you saying?’
She shook her head, hand over her mouth. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. If you don’t know, then maybe there’s a reason for that.’
A reason for not knowing?
Not knowing what?
What the hell had he given her?
Why wouldn’t he be told?
Unless...
And as his blood surged loud in his ears, a drum call to war, a drum call to action, the thumping beat of his heart pounded out the only possible answer and he felt sick to his very core.
‘Are you saying Valentina was pregnant—pregnant with my child?’
Lily stiffened where she stood, but her eyes were wide and fearful, the fingers of one hand clutching at her throat. ‘I didn’t tell you that.’
He turned, already on his way out. Already with one mission in mind.
‘Luca—wait! Listen to me!’
But there was no waiting. No listening. Because for three weeks he had harboured this woman in his house, treated her like a princess, made love to her like she actually meant something, and all the time she had been harbouring the ugliest of secrets.
Had she been laughing all this time? At him not knowing? At him, thinking he had the upper hand when all the while she’d already exacted her revenge in the worst possible way?
Now it was time to find out the truth.
The truth about what she had done to his child!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HE FOUND her curled into a window seat tapping away on the laptop, her hair hanging loose, the ends flicking free around her face, and wearing gelato-coloured clothes, looking like innocence personified.
Innocence?
Oh no.
He felt like growling.
Once he might have been taken in. But not now.
Because now he knew better.
She looked up as he approached and an electric smile like he hadn’t seen before lit up her face for just a moment, until she blinked and the smile turned to a frown. The laptop got forgotten on a cushion beside her as she sat up. ‘What’s wrong, Luca? Why are you home so early?’
‘All this time...’ He dragged in air, needing the time and the space to get the words out in the order he wanted when so many were queued up ready and willing to be fired off. ‘All this time, I never imagined you were capable of such a thing.’ He shook his head from side to side as he looked at her, seeing a new Valentina where once he had seen a goddess, seeing finally the spiteful, vengeful bitch that she really was. ‘When were you planning on telling me? Or was it your dirty little secret?’
The blood drained from her face, guilt leaching her face. ‘Luca?’ And from where he was standing the pathetic whimper of his name on her lips sounded like a confession.
He shook his head, blood pounding in his temples, pounding out a call to war, the sound stealing the volume from his voice until his words came out rasping against the air. ‘You don’t even try to deny it!’
Her hand plastered over her mouth. More denial. More proof.
‘Luca,’ she implored from behind her hand as the tears started to fall. He was unmoved. Of course there would be tears. He’d expected them. Because she had been found out for what she really was.
‘How long,’ he demanded, ‘were you going to keep it a secret?’
‘Who told you?’ she asked. ‘Was it Lily?’
And her words damned her to a hell worse than anything he could devise. He felt sickened by her confession. Sickened that the denial he hadn’t realised he’d been secretly hoping for did not materialise.
Sickened that she could have done such a thing.
‘Does it matter?’ He strode away, unable to look at her for a moment longer, clawing fingers through his hair until his scalp burned with the pain. And still it wasn’t enough. Then he spun back. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
She looked as if she’d lost her place in the world.
