A Night of Living Dangerously(55)

She gave a sob, and Vladimir Xendzov placed a hand on his shoulder. “Enough. You’ve made your point.”

Alessandro twisted out of the man’s grasp, barely restraining himself from punching his face. “Stay out of this.” He suddenly hated Xendzov, Olivia and every other vulture in his colorful, festive ballroom. Setting his jaw, he looked around the ballroom and shouted, “All of you—get the hell out!”

“No,” Lilley said behind him. “Stop it, Alessandro.”

Her voice was harder and colder than he’d ever heard from her lips before. Surprised, he turned back to face her.

Lilley’s eyes were still grief-stricken but her shoulders were straight, her body rigid. “Our guests haven’t done anything to deserve your abuse. And neither have I.” She squared her shoulders and said, “Either tell me, right now, that you know this baby is yours, or I will leave you. And never come back.”

An ultimatum. He stiffened. “I’m just supposed to trust your word, am I?”

Lilley’s face turned pale, almost gray. “I’m not going to stay in a marriage you don’t know how to fight for.” She glanced back at Olivia bitterly. “She’s the one you always wanted. A woman as perfect and heartless as you.”

In a swirl of purple-and-pink skirts, Lilley turned away.

Alessandro grabbed her shoulder. “You can’t leave,” he ground out. “Not without a paternity test.”

She looked at him, and he could have drowned in the deep grief of her brown eyes. “I’m done trying to make you love me,” she whispered. “Done.”

Alessandro couldn’t show weakness. Couldn’t let her know how close she’d come to breaking him entirely. “You’ll stay in Rome,” he said harshly. “Until I allow you to leave.”

Her eyes glittered.

“No,” she said. “I won’t.”

Her face looked strange, her eyes half-wild as she took a deep breath.

“I slept with a different man, just like you said.” Blinking back tears as she looked up at him, she choked out with a sob, “And I loved him.”

Her words were like a serrated blade across Alessandro’s heart. He staggered back, stricken. “And the baby,” he breathed, searching her eyes. “What about the baby?”

Lilley’s brown eyes were dark as a winter storm. Tears streamed down her face like rain. For answer, she pulled her canary-yellow diamond ring off her left hand and wordlessly held it out to him.

Numbly, he reached for it. Lilley turned away, pushing through the crowds, not looking back.

And this time, he didn’t try to stop her. Gripping the ten-carat diamond ring tightly against his palm, Alessandro closed his eyes, leaning his head against his fist as he felt the first spasms of grief course through his body.#p#分页标题#e#





CHAPTER ELEVEN


A WEEK later, Alessandro sat in his study staring at divorce papers, feeling numb.

He hadn’t seen Lilley since she’d fled the reception, running out into the streets of Rome with only her passport and wallet, still dressed in the fuchsia ball gown. He had no idea where she was, and didn’t care. Let the lawyers find her.

He looked down wearily at the documents spread across his desk. He didn’t need Lilley, he told himself. He didn’t need their baby.

Except a hard lump rose in his throat every time he passed the room that would have been the nursery. The walls were soft yellow, and Lilley’s painting of baby elephants, monkeys and giraffes was propped against the wall. Alessandro’s car still held the stuffed elephant he’d bought the day before the reception, and it was in his trunk right now, wrapped in festive paper decorated with baby animals, tied with a bright yellow bow.

The ache in his throat increased. Alessandro clenched his jaw. He’d burn the toy, he thought savagely. Then he’d repaint the nursery’s walls with a color that wouldn’t remind him of either Lilley or the baby. No blue. No pink. He couldn’t use brown, either, the color of her eyes. Nor red, the color of her lips. So what was left?

Black. Just black.

He leaned his forehead into his hands. He was better off without them. Better off without Lilley constantly pestering him to jump in the pool or dance or play. Without hearing her soft voice speak dreamily of their future children, of a happy marriage that would last fifty years. Without seeing the sensual, breathless expression in her face as she looked up at him in bed, the moment before he pushed inside her.

Va bene. He didn’t need them. He’d go back to the life he’d had before, working all day to earn money he didn’t need, having meaningless affairs that were forgotten by morning. Trusting no one. Forever alone. Perfetto.