Chapter Six
Chapter Six
“You left him . Now you return, pregnant with his bambinos, and ruin his life all over again.”
Nyra’s knife and fork clattered to the plate as the words, spoken in a rough Italian accent, whipped her. She looked up from her breakfast in the empty dining room to find Adriano’s childhood nanny, Maria, watching her from the end of the long table, her flinty eyes unflinchingly critical.
Nyra took a sip of her orange juice. Her throat clogged with tears, she nearly choked.
Maria had arrived late last night. When Nyra had seen her get out of the chauffeured car, she’d hurried into her bedroom and locked it. It had been a cowardly thing to do, but she hadn’t been prepared to face the woman who worshipped Adriano and knew him the best.
She should’ve guessed that Adriano would send someone to look after her. Maybe even to keep an eye on her, she thought morosely.
It was Maria he had first introduced her to upon their arrival in Italy, Maria who had blessed their union with fat tears in her eyes. Maria, who hadn’t immediately dismissed her as a toy that had caught his passing fancy. But…Nyra had always felt like Maria could strip off layers of the armor she cloaked herself in and see the lost, lonely girl beneath.
Pushing her chair back, Nyra stood up and kissed the old woman’s cheeks. “It is good to see you, Maria.”
The leathery texture of her skin, the smell of lemons and something else, made her stomach slosh. Not in a bad way. More like the indulgent, unstoppable ache one felt in the presence of someone old and kind. And it was Maria’s no-nonsense advice Nyra needed.
Had Adriano known that she’d needed someone who wouldn’t indulge her or criticize her?
Maria took a couple of steps back as if to see Nyra better. Joy replaced the scowl as she patted Nyra’s cheek. “You look well, but you’re miserable. You miss him.”
There it was, what she’d feared. Maria seeing through her defenses.
Nyra swallowed, and under the guise of serving breakfast for the old lady, turned away. She poured herself a little coffee and settled down at the table in front of Maria. Even her tongue-lashing was preferable to silence.
“So, why did you come back?” Maria said, picking through the fruit bowl with a sour expression.
“You don’t know what happened between us,” Nyra said, even the little bit of coffee she allowed herself daily not helping. “I would appreciate it if you don’t blame me for everything.”
The older woman cackled. “Of course I blame you for everything. You left. You left my Adriano after making him a vow.”
“He threw me out,” Nyra burst out. “Humiliated me in front of the whole family. Didn’t even ask me if—”
“So you take petty revenge? You think that’s what marriage is,” said Maria. “Or maybe you think that is what you deserve, to be thrown out like yesterday’s garbage.”
The words struck her hard enough that Nyra fell back against her chair. Her eyes filled with tears, and she blinked them back furiously. “You think Adriano is not culpable at all?”
“Adriano is proud, arrogant, and does not make it easy to understand him. But he also has no idea what a healthy relationship, much less a marriage should be. What his parents engaged in was…a destructive show. He despises lies and half-truths and petty games.”
“I…” Nyra had no response.
“Do you know how many women his mother found for him from the moment he turned thirty—princesses and daughters of cabinet ministers, heiresses…” She let her expansive gestures say the rest. “Adriano would meet each and every one, but there is no…spark. No interest. He tells me marriage is not for him, especially not the kind his society takes part in. And then he goes to Vegas, and brings you home. As a wife, breaking all his own rules. Despite what everyone said, I saw something in you, Nyra.”
“What? What did you see in me?” Nyra said, desperate to know.
Maria sighed. “I thought that you could see Adriano. Not the powerful banker who holds so many lives in his hand and who is constantly fixing things for people. I thought you saw the…loneliness in him.”
Nyra swallowed and looked away. She had sensed the same loneliness in him as she’d felt most of her adult life.
“Or maybe I’m nothing but an old fool and what everyone says about you is true. That all you wanted was a comfortable life for as long as it lasted.”
“That’s unfair.”
“No? Then why let him send you away without a fight? Why hide yourself like a dirty secret in his life for nine months? Why would you not be a proper wife to him? This is not a woman committed to her relationship. This is a woman scared of living the life she has been gifted.”
Nothing Maria said was untrue. It was like watching her reflection in the mirror and disliking everything about it. “Why do you say I’m ruining his life?” Nyra asked, a glutton for punishment.
“Because if you leave forever, he could move on, si ? He could forget about you, forget about his one mistake and move on. Maybe marry some accomplished, pretty socialite, someone from his own world, and have a decent life. A woman who shares everything with him. My Adriano deserves that after everything he has done for others.”
Maria left the room as quickly and fiercely as she had. A storm shaking the hollow foundations of Nyra’s delusions.
Like yesterday’s garbage… The words haunted her for a long while after.
Was that how she saw herself? Had she been waiting for Adriano to come to his senses and dump her this whole time? With her sister reaching out to her, had she known that moment was close? Had she made it true by spinning lies and selling his silver, literally?
Nyra knew she couldn’t go on like this. Once, loneliness, loss and sheer powerlessness had been thrust on her. But they didn’t have to dictate her life anymore. Neither would those be the gifts she passed onto her children.
This marriage didn’t have to be about love, but neither did it have to be a barren, miserable existence. All she had to do was adjust her expectations and they could have a decent life together. Adriano, she knew, would be a good father, and together they would do their best.
They might even flourish without the sticky expectations that came with loving him.
* * *
Adriano felt as if there was a hot skewer pounding behind his left eye. He had been up for eighteen hours, and even before that, he hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks. His penthouse in Milan was every bit as luxurious as his family home, but he couldn’t sleep because his bed was empty.
Because Nyra wasn’t there with him, pressing her soft body against his. Tucking those ever-cold feet against his.
He popped a couple of painkillers and made his way toward the boardroom.
Christo , he missed her. And not seeing her, not reassuring himself that she and the babies were okay was a particularly cruel way to punish himself, even after his return from Tokyo.
Pride, it seemed, was a prickly, demanding thing. He’d been resolved to make her miss him, as much as he missed her. At least, physically, if nothing else. Although, in just two weeks, he was ready to crack like an egg.
But now there was this…media shitstorm to deal with, because someone had leaked Nyra’s background. It was as bad as she’d feared it would be.
That Adriano Cavalieri, the most preeminent banker in all of Italy, chairman of the prestigious Bancaria Cavalieri—an institution that had been standing for three centuries and represented loyalty and stability—was married to the daughter of a man who had embezzled millions from innocent, hardworking people across Europe.
Adriano had worked at the bank in some capacity for sixteen years, and yet his integrity, his decision-making, his stability, and even his sanity apparently, were in question because of who Nyra’s father had been.
While he had released a statement to mollify the general public, to inform them that his wife was also an innocent in the financial scandal her father had perpetrated, hell would freeze over before he offered any kind of explanation to his board.
How dare they summon him as if he was their errand boy? As if he hadn’t remade their fortunes in the last decade a hundred times over?
He came to a standstill outside the boardroom, finding Bruno standing there like a stalwart soldier. Like him, his head of security hadn’t known a moment’s respite in three days.
“Any new information on who leaked it to the press?” Adriano asked.
Bruno shook his head. “As far as my sources can dig, no money was exchanged. The lack of a money trail makes it hard.”
“Have you checked my parents’ movements? And Fabi and Federico?”
Looking startled, Bruno said, “That’s…unfair, no?”
Adriano shrugged. “I didn’t protect her once. I won’t make that mistake ever again,” he said, useless anger tiding through him.
The last thing he wanted was for Nyra to retreat even further from him because someone had made her worst nightmare come true. “The security at the penthouse,” he said, “you should be there.”
“No, I should be at your side. It’s not just the board that’s getting wild. The chatter online about you and her has been pretty bad. All the old forums have been revived and the anger over her father’s actions is as violent as ever,” Bruno said. “She’s safe at the apartment, Adriano. If she needs anything after the last few days, it’s your reassurance that this hasn’t changed the status quo.”
“ Christo , Bruno! She knows me.”
“Does she? You made me bring her back and you deserted her at the apartment. And you forbid her contact with her twin.”
“She’s not alone. She has Maria,” he said, guilt and anger twinning through him now. Why was it that it never came to him naturally what she needed? Why was he so bad at this…marriage, at this damned relationship?
“Nyra deserves to—”
“Basta!” Adriano crowded the other man, not that his half-brother flinched.
Once again, jealousy gripped him in a chokehold. That Bruno understood Nyra and her needs better than he did grated on him like barbed wire around his chest. That it was because Adriano was wired differently, because some things were beyond him, made it worse. For all that Bruno had been raised outside of the Cavalieri protection or the privilege it brought, his mother had been a kind, generous woman.
Whereas growing up as the heir, all Adriano had been taught was to never show weakness. With all the volatility he’d grown up with, he had simply decided that he wouldn’t take a wife at all. Until a waitress with bright eyes had toppled him. “I don’t need marital advice, fratello . Not even from you,” he said, and then pushed the double doors open.
Even facing the wrath of his board members—most of whom had less integrity than he possessed in his pinkie finger, felt easier than the confounding puzzle of how to win his wife and her easy affection back.
But this time, he would protect her, no matter what.
* * *
They were barely halfway through the torrent of complaints and advice his board had for him—including immediate divorce proceedings and discreetly packing his wife off to another continent never to be seen again—when the doors to the boardroom were pushed open.
Bruno scowled at this unsanctioned interruption.
A shocked hush fell over the room as their heads turned toward the doors. Adriano’s heart rattled against his rib cage.
Dressed in a brown leather skirt that fell a few inches past her knees and a pink cardigan and leather boots, it was his wife. At her ears, diamond studs glinted.
For a second, he couldn’t believe it was Nyra at all. With her thick curls running down her back like a silky waterfall, he thought it was her twin. She looked like something out of a glossy magazine, like a supermodel.
Until one’s gaze drifted lower.
The slenderness of her frame made her belly stick out. Her body had changed in the two weeks since he’d seen her, and he wanted to curse himself for staying away.
Around him, he could feel the collective focus of the room shift to her bump. To her. He thought he might have even heard a couple of gasps, the bolder ones even reaching for their phones.
The small matter of his heir—the next Cavalieri to hold the chairmanship—and that he had remained a bachelor for so long, had been a pain point for the board. He couldn’t count the number of times they had thrown their daughters at him.
When Adriano had shocked everyone by showing up with a wife, it had been another disappointment to them. Because he refused to parade her through high society for them to pick at like she was fresh meat.
She had been his secret, his respite, only his .
And even after the debacle of their temporary separation—he refused to call it anything else—they had managed to keep the news of her pregnancy out of the media. Now, all of it was moot with her dramatic arrival. He frowned at that uncharacteristic behavior.
She was here, looking like a ripe cherry he wanted to sink his teeth into. Every instinct in him urged him to get her away from the curious, covetous gazes in the room.
“Hi, Adriano,” she said hesitantly, her gaze meeting his, oblivious to the grasping attention on her.
Only she wasn’t oblivious. With each step he took toward her, he saw the strain of her smile. The tight grasp of her knuckles over the strap of her handbag.
“Surprise,” she said, the gap between her front two teeth flashing at him with her wan smile. In the fading sunlight, her golden skin gleamed like some rare metal. Her mouth was painted a vivid red he’d never seen on her and her eyes…clearly made up to look even bigger, shone with a feverish resolve. The scent of her coiled through him—rose and vanilla, and even that felt different, as if it was laced with…something new.
“Nyra,” he said, walking around the massive desk toward her. Taking her shoulders, he shuffled her to the side, shielding her with his large frame. “Is something…?” He nodded toward her belly, almost lifting his hands protectively.
His large hands hung in midair uselessly, until he pulled them back to his sides.
“Everything’s fine,” she said, putting her own palm there.
“Why are you here?” he said, slowly coming out of the shock of seeing her.
She looked healthy and well, he told himself, the knot in his gut loosening. Actually, she looked fucking amazing. A sour sense of defeat curdled in his stomach as he wondered if this was the result of his leaving her alone.
“I wanted to…” Pink crested her cheeks. Her gaze drifted to his mouth and lingered. “See you.”
“Why didn’t you call? I’d have flown over—”
“I did. Multiple times since the news…came out. I was told you were busy dealing with the scandal.” She said it like it was a curse word. “Your personal cell phone went straight to voicemail.”
“You tried to reach me,” he repeated like a fool, before casting a glance over to his personal assistant. Who lost all color in her cheeks immediately. “It’s been a madhouse here, and I don’t know even know where my cell phone is.”
Nyra’s chest rose and fell. “So you didn’t tell her to cut me off?”
“Of course not,” he said, clasping her wrist.
Her pulse quickened under his fingers. And beneath the resolve and the smile, he saw the fear she was fighting very hard.
Sweat beaded her upper lip, even though it was cool in the boardroom.
She had thought he’d cut her off? Or even that he would throw her out again? His fury at his assistant and himself was so great that he pulled back from her.
And yet she’s here , his mind repeated. She sought you out.
“Nyra, you know I wouldn’t do that, right? Especially in your condition?”
She shrugged, refusing to meet his eyes. And he had a feeling he shouldn’t have tacked on the pregnancy. “Is this the shooting squad, then?” She shifted around him to face them, even as he could see the tremble in her shoulders. “Should I stand in front of you and save you?”
Laughter burst out of him. His chest and his throat felt raw from the force of it. He didn’t remember the last time he’d laughed like that. Not since she’d started acting strange with the discovery of her twin, in fact.
Her gaze latched onto his mouth, her breath coming in a soft gasp. “I forgot how much I love your laugh,” she said, touching his lower lip. For a second, it felt like the last few months hadn’t transpired at all and he had the old Nyra back.
She pulled away, coloring. “I’m sorry for bringing this down on you.”
“I told you, bella . You’re not responsible for your father’s actions.”
“Even if I was the one who leaked to the press my full identity? Even though I brought this stain on your prestigious bank and your name?”