At the Count's Bidding(55)

                “The point is, my darling, you were four,” Violet said quietly. “You are not four any longer. And while I flatter myself that I remain relevant, I am an old woman who has not commanded the attention of packs of paparazzi in a very long time. I’m perfectly capable of enjoying an afternoon with my assistant and, if you insist, one driver.”

                “And you wonder why I refuse to have children,” he growled at her, and it took every shred of self-preservation Paige had to keep from reacting to that. To Giancarlo and the pain she could hear beneath the steel in his voice. “Why I would die before I’d subject another innocent to this absurd world of yours.”

                “I didn’t wonder,” Violet replied. “I knew. But I hoped you’d outgrow it.”

                “Mother—”

                “I don’t like being locked away in Italian castles, Giancarlo,” she said, and there was steel in the way she said it, despite the smile she used. It was the famous star issuing a command, not a mother. “If you cast your memory back, you’ll remember that I never have.”

                There was a strange tension in the room then. And though she knew better, though it would no doubt raise the suspicions of the woman who could read anyone, standing right there beside her, Paige found herself looking to Giancarlo as if she could soothe him somehow. As if he’d let her—

                And she found that great darkness blazing in his eyes as he slowly, slowly turned his attention from Violet to her.

                As if this was something she’d done, too.

                Because, of course, she had. When he’d been far older than four. And what she’d done to him hadn’t been an accident.

                The truth of that almost knocked her sideways, and she would never know how she remained standing. She wanted to tell him everything, and who cared what Violet thought? She wanted to explain about her mother’s downward spiral. The money owed, the threats from the horrible Denny, the fear and panic that she’d thought were just the way life was. Because that was how it had always been. Paige wanted him to understand—at last—that she never, ever would have sacrificed him if she hadn’t believed she had no other choice. If she hadn’t been trapped and terrified herself, with only hideous options on all sides.

                But this wasn’t the place and she knew—she knew—he wouldn’t want to hear it anyway. He didn’t want to know why. He only wanted her to pay.

                He didn’t realize that she had. That she still did. Every moment since.

                And so she stood there, she said nothing the way she’d always said nothing and somehow she managed not to fall to her knees. Somehow Paige managed not to break into pieces. Somehow, she stared back at him as if she’d never broken his heart and she wished, hard and fierce and utterly pointless, that it were true.

                “Don’t worry,” he said quietly, as if he was answering his mother. All of that darkness in his gaze. All of the betrayal, the loss. The terrible grief. It made Paige’s chest ache, so acutely that she forgot to worry that Violet would be able to sense it from a few feet away. So sharp and so deep she thought it might have been a mortal blow, and how could anyone hide that? “I remember everything.”





                                      CHAPTER SEVEN

                LUCCA WAS A walled city, an old fortress turned prosperous market town, and it was enchanting. Paige dutifully followed Violet through the bustle of tiled red roofs, sloped streets and the sheer tumult of such an ancient place, and told herself there was no reason at all she should feel so unequal to the task she’d done so well and well-nigh automatically for years.