Giancarlo paused in the doorway, hearing his mother’s famous laugh before he saw her. She wasn’t in her usual place today, reclining on her chaise like the Empress of Hollywood. She was standing at the French doors instead, bathed in soft light from the summer day beyond with a mobile phone in her hand, and even though there was no denying her celebrated beauty, his gaze went straight to the other woman in the room as if Violet wasn’t there at all.
Paige sat at the fussy little desk in the corner, typing something as a male voice responded to whatever Violet had said from her mobile phone, obviously on speaker. Paige was frowning down at her laptop as her fingers flew over the keys, and when Violet turned toward her to roll her eyes at her assistant, Giancarlo could see the face Paige made in immediate response.
Sympathetic. Fully on Violet’s side. Staunch and true, he’d have said, if he didn’t know better.
He’d seen that expression before. That was the woman he’d loved in all the passionate fury of those two months of madness. Stalwart. Loyal. Not in any way the kind of woman who would sell a man out and print it all up in the tabloids. He’d have sworn on that. He’d have gambled everything.
Giancarlo still couldn’t believe how wrong he’d been.
His stomach twisted, and it took everything he had not to make a noise, not to bellow out his fury at all of this—but mostly at himself.
Because he wanted to believe, still. Despite everything. He wanted there to be an explanation for what had happened ten years ago. He wanted Paige—and when had he started thinking about her by that name, without stumbling over it at all?—to be who she appeared to be. Dedicated to his mother. Deeply sorry for what had gone before, and with some reason for what she’d done. And not the kind of self-serving reason Violet always had...
He wanted her back.
And that was when Giancarlo woke up with a jolt and recognized the danger he was in. History could not repeat itself. Not with her. Not ever.
“Darling,” Violet said when she ended her call, turning from the window and smiling at him. “Don’t lurk in the hallway. It was only my agent. A whinier, more demanding fool I have yet to meet, and yet I’m fairly certain he’s the best there is.”
But what Giancarlo noticed was the way Paige straightened in her chair, her eyes wide and blue when they flew to him, then quickly shuttered when she looked back to her keyboard.
He could think of a greater fool than his mother’s parasitical agent. It was something about finding himself back in Los Angeles, he thought as he fought back his own temper, as well as seeing Paige again. It would have been different if he’d encountered her in some other city. Somewhere that held no trace of who they’d been together. But here, their history curled around everything, like a thick, encroaching smog, and made it impossible to inhale without confronting it every time.
With every goddamned breath.
“I must return to Italy,” he said shortly. Almost as if he wasn’t certain he’d say it at all if he didn’t say it quickly and that, of course, made him despise himself all the more.
“You can’t leave,” Violet said at once. Giancarlo noticed Paige seemed to type even more furiously and failed to raise her head at all. “You’ve only just arrived.”
“I came because it had been an unconscionably long time, Mother,” he said softly. “It was never my intention to stay away so long. But I have a solution.”
“You are moving back to Los Angeles,” Violet said, a curve to her mouth that suggested she didn’t believe it even as she said it. “I’m delighted. That Malibu house is far too nice to waste on all those renters.”