Baby By Accident(82)
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He sensed her coming up behind him. “That isn’t even an issue compared to what we have to deal with.”
Frustration blistered in him. He’d thought he’d left this behind. He’d thought any remaining contact would be through their solicitors. He’d thought he’d never have to see her again, talk to her again, want her again.
“I’ll give you what you want.” His jaw hurt from the tight clench. “I won’t contest the divorce.”
Her huff was filled with disgust. “So you think that absolves you of your behavior?”
She wanted the last ounce of his blood. The last slip of his pride. Yet this was fair. Her demand was even worthy. The Italian in him understood—an eye for an eye. “No, nothing will absolve me of my behavior.”
A short, sharp silence fell.
He felt her breath, the beat of her heart like it was his own. Crippling pain at the loss of her torched at the deadness, the emptiness. Now, now he was no longer terrified of the numb blanket covering his emotions. Now he wanted it to stay until she left. Protect him until she’d finally left his life for good.
She sighed behind him. “Okay. I accept you were very upset when you arrived in London last night and that was my fault. So, you did something stupid. We’ll put it behind us.”
Last night? Her fault?
“What?” He jerked around and stared at her in complete bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”
Her mouth was firm and resolved, but her eyes were no longer crystal clear. They were muddy with disappointment. At him. Obviously. He accepted that. However, he wasn’t following her conversation, didn’t understand how last night’s drunken dissolution had anything to do with her.
“Let’s not play games.” Her mouth tightened even more before she turned and walked across the room to the paper she’d slapped on his desk. Taking the tabloid in her hand, she started to drop it into his wastebasket. “It’s not important anymore.”
A tabloid.
“Wait.” He stomped over and grabbed it from her. There he was on the cover, a silly grin of anguish on his face, a woman he had no recollection of on his arm.
Trouble in paradise for Vico and his bride?
“Dio.” He stared at the headline and then swung his head around to meet her saddened gaze. “This? This is what you’re talking about?”
“I saw it the minute I landed.” Her hands twisted in front of her. “It hurt, Vico. It hurt.”
His heart pumped. Jerked. Broke free of the dead clutching at it. “I don’t—”
“I know I hurt you, too, though.” Tears welled in her crystalline eyes. “So I’m willing to forgive and forget.”
“Lise.” He slapped the tabloid down. “I was a fool and got drunk. But I slept on my couch. Alone.”
“You did?” Hope swept across her face.
“Si.”
Why did it matter to her what he’d done last night? And if she’d seen the damn tabloid only after she landed, why had she left the villa for London? Why was she here?
Why was she here?
He stared at her. Confusion mixed with lust inside him. The simmering brew kept bubbling on the edge of his numb soul, kept curling around the spirit that somehow had found a way back into his being.
“So there wasn’t anything to it, then?” Her voice was soft, trusting.
He swept frustrated hands through his hair. “I have plenty of sins to claim, but being a playboy is not one of them. Never has been.”
“Really?”
“Si, really.” What did this matter? His foolish heart was trying to change this tiny part of his reputation in her eyes, when there were huge boulders of sins waiting for her inspection.
“I believe you,” she said. Then, she smiled. A brilliant smile that lit her face.
His soul broke free of the deadness, jumping to life and whirling around his fast-beating heart. But his brain clutched at it and pushed it down. Reminded it of the divorce papers she’d ordered, her mother’s words she’d agreed with.
Reminded his soul of his intrinsic unworthiness.
“None of this matters.” He turned away from that smile.
“It doesn’t matter that your wife believes you?” Her voice iced.
“No.” He paced across the room. Stuck his hands in his pockets. Kept his lust entrapped. “Because soon you won’t be my wife.”
The silence chilled his spine; a shudder of loss ran through him as he heard his own words. But he needed to force them into his soul so it would shrink back. He tried to find the edge of the dead numbness inside him so he could pull it over his aching emotions.