Chapter Fourteen #2
She struggled out of his hold, clasping her hands over the place where his fingers had dug in, her whole body shaking with all the emotions bombarding her at once—shock, panic and anguish at his visceral reaction to discovering her identity, but topping them all was confusion.
What had she done that was so terrible? So unforgiveable?
But one thing she did know was that she hadn’t lied to him.
‘You never asked,’ she said. ‘I—I thought you’d forgotten all about me… If you must know, I was embarrassed to remind you, because it made me realise that while our friendship back then had been so important to me, it never had been to you.’
She’d loved being with him that summer. Because she’d been lonely, too.
Her father had disappeared that spring, she’d had to leave all her friends behind in Dorset to live at Westwick, and every night for weeks she’d listened to her mum’s wrenching sobs through the bedroom wall, not knowing what to do to make her happy again.
But then she’d discovered Dario. And every time she had made that surly boy smile, even laugh, it had felt like she had achieved a miracle.
And it had helped to convince her, long after he’d gone back to boarding school, that she’d be able to fix not just her mother’s sadness, but that somehow she might have fixed him, too.
He swore, in both English and Italian, then turned away from her to march to the tall, mullioned window which looked out onto the grounds.
He growled something else in Italian…the words thick with anger. But she grasped the meaning. He was accusing her of deceiving him. Of knowing who he was, of knowing all about his dysfunctional relationship with his father, because she’d witnessed it, and pretending not to know.
‘What exactly was I tricking you into doing, Dario?’ she asked, her voice shaking as she approached him, knowing she had to find the courage to confront him—and to stand up for herself. Because she wasn’t the only one who had wanted to change the terms of their arrangement.
Perhaps she was a na?ve idiot to have fallen in love with him.
And yes, maybe that was because she had known the damaged, victimised boy, as well as the man he had made himself become.
But why was he so upset that she’d been able to see past the ruthless, controlled autocrat to the caring, tender, protective, possessive man he could be…
if he had ever allowed himself to need her the way she needed him.
She hadn’t tricked him—not intentionally.
Because he was the one who had always held all the power in this relationship.
And she was the one who had fallen hopelessly in love.
Yet she had never demanded more from him than he was willing to give her, because in some neglected part of her heart, she’d convinced herself she didn’t have the right to ask.
Yes, she should have told him who she was, but the reason she hadn’t was she had been scared he would look at her with the same blank expression on his face her father had given her the last time she’d seen him, before he’d walked out on her and her mother.
But whose fault was it really that she loved Dario so much now, when he had never even attempted to disguise his desire for her? Not once.
When he swung back round, his gaze was harsh, fierce, still furious.
‘You tricked me into caring about you. Into needing you. More than I should. Much more than I ever wanted to.’ He glanced around the library, then swore again. ‘Dio, I even considered keeping this estate that I hate, just so I could keep you…’
He spat the words at her, as if that was the greatest insult of all. And worse, as if she had been angling for that all along…as if the feelings she had tried so hard not to burden him with had been nothing more than a scheme to make him keep Westwick.
Her eyes burned with all the tears she’d never shed for that little girl, who had wanted her daddy to love her but had never understood why he couldn’t.
And the grown woman who had wanted to tell this man that she cared for him deeply, that she wanted more than a fake marriage but had been scared of asking too much of him, too soon.
How had she allowed herself to be so vulnerable? Again.
‘I didn’t trick you…’ she said, the tears scalding her throat now as she fought like hell to hold them back. She wouldn’t cry—she wouldn’t let him make her cry. ‘Do you really think I care about Westwick or my job more than I care about you? About us?’
He reared back as if she’d slapped him. The flash of panic and fear in his eyes only confirmed what he’d already told her though. He didn’t want her to care about him. Which only made it so much harder to admit that she always had.
‘I did not ask that of you. Nor do I require it.’
And there it was, the rejection she’d feared all along.
But as she tried to gather herself, to guard what was left of her already battered heart from more pain, he added, ‘This relationship can never be real.’
‘Why not?’ she asked, but she could see the answer she’d feared in his eyes.
‘Because that is not what I want. And it never was. Not even as a boy.’
It wasn’t true. She knew it wasn’t. She had seen how lonely he had been that summer, the way he’d softened towards her over the weeks, even when he’d tried to disguise it. Even as an eight-year-old, she’d understood—he’d needed her.
But she couldn’t reach this man the way she’d once been able to reach the boy.
And she would only hurt herself more now if she tried.
‘You know that day your father came to visit you, I hated him so much. The awful things he said to you, the way he talked to you as if you were nothing. It was so obvious he didn’t know you, that he didn’t care about you…’
He stepped forward, his face rigid with rejection now. ‘Don’t talk about that day. I don’t ever want to hear you talk about it again.’
‘He hurt you, and you were already so broken…’ she carried on, despite his warning tone, refusing to be silenced again. ‘But you know why I recognised how broken you were?’
He didn’t respond, his gaze fierce with fury.
‘Because my father had already abandoned me, too.’
He flinched, and she saw a moment of regret cross his features. But that too was ruthlessly controlled. ‘This has no bearing on your deception now.’
She shook her head, feeling sick inside.
‘When did you become him, Dario?’ she whispered.
‘When did you close yourself off from your emotions so completely, that you believed the lies he told you about Sante? When did you convince yourself that it’s better to feel nothing than to let yourself get hurt?
’ She gulped, because he was staring at her now as if she’d lost her mind.
She didn’t care. She wasn’t going to let him gaslight her and make out like she was the coward here.
‘I didn’t tell you I was Tali because I was convinced you didn’t remember me, and you know why I was convinced about that?
Because for a moment, I didn’t recognise you either that day in the library.
’ She glanced at his scar, which flexed as he clenched his teeth.
‘Oh, I knew who you were, the scars, your injured leg, but I didn’t recognise the boy who could smile, who could laugh, who I’d managed to draw out of his shell…
Until we were in Sicily and then Capri… But that was all just an illusion, wasn’t it?
You were on an endorphin high that I’d supplied.
’ She gulped in a painful breath, the sickness, the regret, the devastation almost more than she could bear.
‘I get it now… It wasn’t me you wanted. It was just some great recreational sex, and to get your mother’s palazzo back. ’
‘I never promised you more…’ he began, his words so terse and defensive she wanted to scream.
‘No, you never did. And that’s on me. But you knew every time I reached for you, every time you reached for me, that I wanted more…
And on some level, you let me believe there could be more.
You know, my dad made me think I had no value because he didn’t want me.
I won’t let you do the same…’ she declared, even though she knew in many ways she already had.
Because it was going to take a very long time to repair her heart.
She threw up her hands, looking round the library she’d always loved.
The place where she’d agreed to his bargain, in order to save it…
The place that was tarnished now… Because it was a symbol of how stupid she’d been to think a pile of stone and mortar, however grand, however beautiful, however important to her, and the people she loved, could ever mean more to her than her pride and confidence and self-respect.
She’d allowed herself to fall in love with a man who’d closed off his heart a long time ago—and she’d been too starry-eyed and optimistic to truly have known she couldn’t fix him too, the way she’d had the tiles on the roof repaired, or the potholes in the driveway filled.
‘If you want to sell Westwick, to demolish it, I can’t stop you…’ she said, utterly defeated. She’d failed her colleagues, her mum, and that hurt, but she’d failed herself more. ‘Because our bargain is done.’
She turned and walked away from him. He didn’t say anything to stop her, the silence deafening…
Somehow, she managed to keep the tears inside her, until she walked down the stairs, past the workmen, then through the hallways smelling of fresh paint.
She broke into a run, though, as she passed the carriage house, where her old office was, and the flat that was no longer her home, and rounded the stables until she reached the path through the fields leading towards the woods and her mother’s cottage.
She’d have to tell her mum and Ellie and George and everyone else how badly she’d fucked up, soon.
But somehow losing Westwick, and everything she’d worked so hard to save by making that stupid deal with him, didn’t feel as painful as losing the dreams she’d nurtured for the last few weeks—god, maybe even years—that she could be the one to scale the walls Dario Lorenti had built around his heart.