Chapter Ten
Leontina was subdued the next day, but Pau expected that.
What he had not anticipated was that he would feel something less than stellar himself, which made no sense, since he was finally enacting the final piece of his revenge against the loathsome Umberto Tavian.
His plans had all come together, even better than he’d imagined they could. Today was a day of celebration.
Yet he somehow did not feel much like celebrating at all.
He should have been bursting with joy today, yet he felt…
as close to muddled as he thought he’d ever been.
As if all of that pressure inside him had exploded and left him reeling, when he prided himself on always being sharp and in command—and therefore, he had always hoped, immune to the sort of thing that had taken down his father.
Pau did not intend to trust the wrong person, and usually he could depend on his tried-and-true discernment to make certain he was protected.
But there appeared to be no protection from Leontina and the things she made him feel—little as he wished to admit he felt anything at all—
The trouble was, he hadn’t slept well.
After what had happened the night before, he hadn’t told the staff to move Leontina into his room the way he’d said he would.
He’d considered that the smart and only reasonable course of action, particularly after Leontina had responded to the news of their journey today by turning on her heel and leaving the dining room. Without a word.
But this meant, of course, that she hadn’t been in his bed when he’d finally retired, after spending entirely too long scowling at the stacks of books in every corner of this house, noting which ones she’d taken out and looked at.
After hours of wondering what, exactly, she’d learned about him in reading what he’d read, the way she’d said she would.
If he was the man he’d always thought he was, he’d kept thinking—for reasons that remained opaque to him even now—he would welcome this little project of hers. He would have nothing to hide.
That had been what had forced him to take himself off to bed.
Because, of course, what could he have to hide?
He was Pau Calixto. His life was a wide-open book, available to any who looked his way because he was precisely who he appeared to be, and the actual books in his home could only support that.
And why should it matter to him what Leontina thought of him, anyway?
They had decided to marry, and stay married, no matter what. The die was cast.
But he’d found himself standing in the center of his bedroom without any lights on, entirely too aware that she was not there.
As if her absence was a hole inside him.
When he’d finally thrown himself into the bed, he’d faced a very long night. Because the bed that had always seemed appropriately sized for him seemed entirely too big and empty without her.
He did not wish to contemplate how that was possible.
But even a long, hot shower had not helped, likely because Pau found that even the damned shower stall was no longer his.
The entire monastery was haunted, not by the ghosts of his ancestors as might be expected, but by Leontina.
He swore he caught her scent around every corner, only to turn it and find no one there.
He spent the morning furious that on this, his day of victory, he was unable to think of anything but her. And not because she was the means to his long-planned end, which would have been acceptable. He didn’t know what it was, this dark obsession.
Pau only knew it plagued him.
When she appeared in the front hall at the appointed time, it was like a body blow. He hated that, too. She gazed at him with a guarded sort of calm that he found offensive, especially when her eyes were still too green, too dark, too compelling.
Maybe the real trouble was he remembered the night in the shower too vividly. Leontina on her knees in all of that steam, her jade gaze hot and fixed to his with his cock thrusting in and out of her perfect mouth—
She is a witch, he assured himself.
More importantly, this was not the day for such reminiscences. Today was about Bernat. It was about coming full circle. About Umberto, at last, reaping what he sowed.
“When you are ready,” he intoned, and he was certain that there was something too knowing in the way Leontina looked at him. He was sure that she would speak up, because that was what she did—
But she didn’t. She only inclined her head like the subservient wife she’d never been here, and somehow that was worse.
He found himself fuming as he ushered her out into the drive and saw her into the waiting vehicle.
They sat in the back seat of the SUV as his men took them to the waiting plane, tucked away on his private airstrip.
Yet somehow, though he could have reached out a hand and touched her at any point, he felt as if she was much farther away.
His tragedy was that he was far too aware of her just the same.
Pau had not given Leontina any directives about how she ought to dress for the occasion of returning to the home she’d escaped, but he could find no fault with the outfit she had picked.
It was not one of her baggy dresses, which he hadn’t seen at all in a long time.
Today she’d chosen a long-sleeved dress in a dark hue that managed to emphasize her pregnant belly without clinging too closely anywhere else, making her look elegant and untouchable—especially with the jewelry she wore, hints of gold at her wrists, her ears, her neck.
She’d twisted her hair back into a smooth ponytail, and it called attention to her classic, gorgeous features.
She bore no resemblance at all to the invisible girl in saggy clothes who crept about in the servants’ stairs. She was, with no guidance from Pau at all, exactly who he wished to present to Umberto today.
So there was no reason at all that she should get under his skin.
Though he had a whole plane ride to think about it.
It was how at ease she seemed. How relaxed. She sat across from him on the plane and acted as if she was alone, and utterly unbothered, while he thought seriously about climbing the walls.
Landing in Tuscany did not make it any better. He felt almost…edgy, being back here. They moved from the plane to sit in the back of yet another vehicle, and this time, he tried to keep his gaze on the landscape. The cypress trees rose like taunts on every rolling hill.
And as soon as he saw Umberto’s absurd castle heave into view, he felt restlessness all over him.
Pau told himself that this was foolishness. He had finally achieved what he wanted. He should have been filled with nothing but triumph. Perhaps he needed to actually parade Umberto’s daughter in front of him and behold the old man’s reaction to get the full effect.
Maybe he was expecting to feel all that triumph too early.
That said, he wasn’t a complete fool. He had brought his security detail with him on this trip, because he didn’t trust Umberto as far as he could throw him—and given that he would not touch the man if his life depended on it, that was not far.
But Umberto could teach slithering to snakes.
There was every reason to think the old man might well react violently once he realized he was truly backed into a corner.
Once he understood that Pau had bested him—again—and better yet, with the daughter Umberto had dismissed as unimportant except as a bargaining chip.
As the Land Rover navigated its way over ancient hills and winding roads, Pau could admit to himself that he rather hoped that the old man did try to get violent. His face already hurt from Giaco’s fists. Why not fight every male in the Tavian family this week?
It would solve all manner of problems if Umberto tried, because unlike with Giaco, Pau would happily fight back this time. And he had no doubt that he would win.
How satisfying, he thought. It would tie things up neatly and truly bring it all full circle. It would be fitting in every way.
The only trouble was, he wanted Umberto to live a while with the knowledge he’d been bested.
Pau found himself regretting the fact that he was not more pugilistic.
He allowed himself a few brief daydreams as the vehicle bumped along, but he preferred strategies and probabilities to wrestling matches.
And he was so busy thinking about the various ways he would celebrate his enemy’s death when the glorious day finally arrived that they were walking up to the grand front door of the castle itself before he realized that his wife had not spoken a word all morning.
He hadn’t noticed because she had been like a thorn in his side all this while. The scent of her was driving him mad—he’d resorted to imagining himself some kind of cinematic action hero in defense.
“I doubt we will stay long,” he told her, perhaps a bit more darkly than necessary, as they walked.
She looked at him then with that fake smile he detested welded into place and no hint of the Leontina he thought he knew in those dark jade eyes. Darker than usual, he thought. And far blanker. “As you wish, husband,” she said.
So demurely it made him frown at her, and he was sure he saw an answering flare of the heat he knew—
But the castle doors were opening. And the staff took one look at Leontina, got wide-eyed, and ushered them both inside with his security detail at his heels.
“Welcome home,” one of the staff murmured to Leontina, though the look on her face was more…concerned than welcoming.
The smile Leontina gave the woman was not fake. “I am not returning, I assure you,” she said quietly. “Only visiting.”
Pau thought the other woman looked relieved.