Chapter Eleven
THE DRIVE BACK to the hotel was very different to their earlier journey.
Sure, he put up the privacy screen, but there were no teasing whispers.
No intense closeness or dazed desire. It was all a con.
Lily couldn’t trust herself to speak, so she counted, trying to blank out the shame pouring through her. He’d used her so badly.
He said nothing but he was too intelligent not to know there was an issue.
Which meant he had the self-control to wait for complete privacy for an argument, but no concerns about seducing her in the very same semipublic space.
Which told her everything she needed to know—sex with her meant nothing to him.
It was just a convenient add-on to this situation.
‘What happened?’ he asked the second they were inside their luxurious villa. ‘Did someone say something? Was it Emiliano? You know he’s very young.’
‘And yet, he’s not as emotionally incompetent as you.’
She marched into the room. He didn’t. He remained near the door, immobile aside from the muscle twitching in his jaw.
‘You didn’t need to worry about him,’ she said. ‘You didn’t need to defile yourself to defend him from me.’
‘Lily—’
‘You are so full of shit,’ she snarled. ‘Insisting our different backgrounds don’t matter?’
‘They don’t.’
‘Yet, you were so worried I was some threat to Emiliano, that you made the oh-so-noble sacrifice of sleeping with me so then I’d be your sloppy seconds.
Did you think your young cousin would have too much loyalty to you to be interested?
Newsflash, Massimo, he was never interested in me and I was never interested in him. ’
‘I know that.’
‘Now. But you didn’t then. That night on the cargo plane, you asked about my job in P1 to see if I’d spill company secrets. You wanted to know if I fancied the damned drivers. You were pathetic.’
He huffed out a heavy breath. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘No? Then why were you even on the plane when you have your own jet?’
His gaze dropped, avoiding her eyes. Guilt. Discomfort. It didn’t matter.
‘You boarded deliberately because you knew I was on it, didn’t you? You knew my name.’
At the deep point where all the pain welled, anger now erupted. She’d thought that issue as he’d called it, the chemistry between them, had been the one area in which they were truly equal. The only arena in which they met on the same level. But even that had been a lie.
‘You think so little of him, but he never once said anything inappropriate to me. Never once flirted. Never once moved too close. We talk about tyre compound. That’s all he and I have ever talked about.’ She whirled away, unable to stand looking at him she was so hurt.
‘You think even less of me.’ Anger curled within her.
‘Did you honestly think I’d fall into bed with either of you?
With anyone? You really saw me as a weapon that had to be neutralised?
’ She couldn’t believe it. ‘I was lonely that night and I’m not going to apologise for thinking I’d met a fellow free spirit and indulging in a moment.
But you, sir…’ She whirled and spat the words at him.
‘You have so much to grovel about. You didn’t just conceal your identity, but your motives.
If I’d known who you really were, I never would’ve gone near you. ’
‘Which is why I didn’t tell you!’ He exploded. ‘And I know that was wrong. I know there are no excuses, but I lost my head. I sat next to you for ten seconds and—’
‘No. Don’t.’ She wouldn’t hear false declarations now. ‘It really blew up in your face, didn’t it?’
‘How things began is irrelevant. Don’t let a minor detail wreck the progress we’ve made.’
It was hardly a minor detail. ‘You think progress can be built on a pack of lies?’
‘I know I screwed up. I can only try to do better. But I am responsible for—’
‘You’re not—’
‘We’re both responsible for this baby,’ he growled. ‘We both have to do what’s best—’
‘But we don’t agree on what is best and we never will. Because I am not like you.’
Because unlike him, she wasn’t only concerned about the baby. She had feelings for him as well.
‘Doesn’t anything I’ve done since then count?
’ he argued. ‘Don’t let your damned need for independence blind you to the bigger picture.
I’ve respected your wishes as best I can, Lily.
I can support your work and study. I’ve taken care of your family.
I will never abandon you the way they did.
I will never abandon our child. You can trust—’
‘How have you taken care of my family?’ she interrupted. ‘What about my family?’
He snapped his mouth shut.
‘What else haven’t you told me?’
He drew in a deliberately deep breath. ‘I was going to tell you. I was just waiting until…’
‘I was fully under your spell?’ she finished for him sadly. ‘What have you done?’
He lifted his chin. ‘I’ve purchased your parents’ business.’
‘You what?’
‘They were happy with the deal.’
He’d made them a deal. Had he done that while she was doing press-ups by the pool? ‘And that’s important, you think?’
‘I think it’ll help.’
Of all the things he’d stunned her with tonight, she would never have expected him to be naive.
‘Until they burn through whatever money you’ve given them and then come back for more,’ she said bitterly. ‘So they get the payout you promised I would never see.’
‘Lily—’
‘Don’t kid yourself that you did this for me. They could have threatened your reputation but apparently, you’ve bought their obedience. You really will do anything for Hearnshawe.’
‘The garage still exists. There’s a new accountant in place. They just wanted to get above the breadline.’
‘So you know them better than I do? Despite having never met them personally?’
He looked tense. ‘They just needed some help.’
‘Oh? Is that all? I’m amazed he told you that. That he let you do all that. You out-alphaed the alpha. You want applause?’
‘Well, I’m not sorry I did it,’ he said defiantly. ‘When Finn gets out of jail, we can get him work at the factory. Reintegrate him.’
She gaped, appalled.
‘What’s your next trick, resurrecting Callum from the dead?’ She was so hurt by his interference. ‘They don’t even talk to me and you’ve…’ She gasped for air. ‘You’ve rewarded them.’
‘You were worried they would be a problem. Now they won’t be. I fixed it.’
‘How gangster of you. Are you pleased you have everything perfectly within your control now?’ She blinked furiously. ‘Doesn’t it matter to you how they treated me?’
‘What matters to me is that they don’t hurt you more. They’re not going to bother you.’
They would always bother her. She was hurt that he didn’t see that and he hadn’t talked to her before doing anything.
‘So you just sorted it all behind my back like some delightful surprise? Like you sorted the problem of Emiliano talking to a mechanic you can’t trust?’ She couldn’t believe him. ‘You’re not a fairy godmother with a wand to fix everything. Don’t you understand that some things can’t ever be fixed!’
‘Of course I know that!’ he roared. ‘But this could be made better.’
Not better. Unbearable.
‘We can work together, Lily.’
‘Well, this wasn’t us working together, was it? This was you doing whatever was necessary to get full control. Of me. Of them.’ Just as he had his damned company. ‘Is Emiliano never to be allowed a girlfriend while he’s racing?’ she asked.
He blinked. ‘What?’
‘Because you don’t want him to have any distractions. Focus is all-important. Right?’
He shoved his fists into his pockets. ‘It takes time to learn to compartmentalise.’
‘Do you think you compartmentalise?’ she scoffed.
‘You have no balance at all. It is nothing but work. You have no real family relationship with him. You have no social life. Barely a sex life and heaven forbid a love life. You’ve cut everything but work out of your life.
It’s unfair to ask Emiliano to do the same.
Don’t project your own failings on him. As I said, he’s not as emotionally incompetent as you. ’
‘My failings?’
She stared at him and slowly shook her head. ‘The thing is you almost had me. You almost got everything you wanted—my stupid surrender. Do you know I actually was starting to really like you?’
More than like. And he knew it. Because he winced.
‘We don’t have much in common at all, Massimo. I might be independent, but I’m not heartless.’ She swept her hair back from her face. ‘In the car tonight when you couldn’t resist me, I felt so desired. I thought I was truly wanted.’
She’d thought he ached for her in the way she ached for him. That what was between them was something whole and lovely and more than anything she’d known before.
‘You were wanted. You are.’
‘No, I’m only ever a means to an end.’ She pressed her fist to her chest. ‘I needed to be eliminated from Emiliano’s radar. But then I got pregnant so I had to be kept…satisfied.’
She’d been such an idiot. She’d wanted to achieve; whether anyone noticed or not, she just wanted to move forward in her own life. And now it felt as if he’d taken all of it away from her. But he’d also given her something she would always protect.
‘Lily, don’t—’
‘Call it as it is?’ She could hardly stand to look at him.
‘You’re a hypocrite. So noble in your quest to get Hearnshawe to succeed, upgrade safety mechanisms, protect Emiliano.
But it’s all a smokescreen. You’re just ruthless.
You did just want revenge on your grandfather.
You blur the lines to get what you want, which makes you as morally grey as my family.
In fact, you’re even more self-centred than they are.
You’re like the man who hurt you most. You’re him, needing to keep an iron grip of control over everything in your life. ’
As controlling as his grandfather. As her father.
He whitened. ‘I don’t just make unilateral decisions. I build a team, defer to expertise. I do my best—’
‘I’m not talking about the team or even Emiliano now. I’m talking about the rest of your life. The massive amount that you just ignore. I thought it was arrogance, but actually it’s just sad.’
Anger flickered in his eyes, but he didn’t respond. The truth was he never would have given her a second glance.
‘You never wanted to marry. You never wanted me. You never wanted this baby. So let’s just say it’s not yours,’ she said. ‘Then you can just go away and stay away.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Yes, you can. You have to. Not for me, but for yourself. I don’t think you even know what you truly want.
’ She dropped her gaze. ‘You’ve spent all your adult life trying so hard to take care of the company, take care of Emiliano.
Everything to honour your parents because you think you failed them.
You think you failed me, too, except that did take both of us. ’
Silence.
‘But I won’t be another thing you have to feel guilty about and do your best with. Your entire life you’ve been working to someone else’s blueprint. You should have better favourite things to do than choosing from colour swatches on a screen. Are you brave enough to go for what you actually want?’
Did he know what that even was? Couldn’t it be her? Why couldn’t he want more from her?
But he didn’t answer.
‘You’re not sacrificing the rest of your life for me,’ she said huskily.
‘You’re going back to a caravan in the bottom of a garden over my dead body.’
She braced. That harsh whisper told her so much. She didn’t give a damn about the luxurious lifestyle he could offer. She’d live beneath a bridge if it meant she could truly be with him. He was what she wanted—and for him to truly want her.
But he didn’t. He just wanted to ensure she was okay and that wasn’t enough.
‘You don’t want me to suffer in any way because of the baby, right?
’ Tears filled her eyes. He cared, but not enough.
‘I won’t suffer because of the baby. I’m going to leave Singapore on the next available flight,’ she said shakily.
‘Don’t try to wear me down, it won’t work.
I will live wherever you want as long as it’s apart from you.
You can see the baby if you really want, but you don’t come near me, because that is what will cause me to suffer. Don’t you come near me.’
He didn’t. He didn’t move. As far as she could tell he didn’t even breathe for a solid two minutes. And she was spent—silenced by her own stupid emotion.
‘Okay,’ he finally spoke. ‘I’ll make the arrangements. You and the child can be free of me, from Hearnshawe, too, if you think that’s best.’
That wasn’t what she thought was best at all. That wasn’t what she wanted him to say. But he’d not fought. Not tried to convince her. He capitulated, completely.
And she was devastated.