Bestselling Authors Collection 2012(84)

Tension speared across the muscles in Constantine’s jaw. “Is that what he called it?”

“What would you call it?”

“Funny. I’d have said you were in a better position to answer that question.”

She stiffened. “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“How would you describe what he attempted to do tonight?”

She didn’t want to say the word. Couldn’t. It would make it too real. She moistened her lips. “After you rescued me… You said he’d done this before. I’d forgotten until just now.”

“The drug will do that to you.”

“Who else did he drug? Who did he do this to before me?”

“Ariana.”





Five


Gianna bolted upright in bed. “Oh, no. Oh, Constantine, no. Not Ariana.”

“It’s all right. I found her—”

She burst into tears. “How could it be all right? He…he…” She fought to get the words out. “She would have been terrified when she returned from Italy and saw me with him. I’d never have gone out with him if I’d known. And I’d have made him pay for hurting her. I swear I would have. Somehow. Someway.”

“Calm down, Gianna.” Constantine lifted onto his elbow and smoothed her hair back from her face. “She wouldn’t have been terrified when she saw the two of you together for one simple reason. Unlike you, she consumed all of the drug d’Angelo gave her. She has no memory of the events of that night. Not being drugged. Not of how close she came to disaster. Not of my arriving in time to save her. I saw no reason to tell her the sordid details then, or mention it since. She was barely seventeen.”

“Seventeen?” Tears slipped down Gianna’s cheeks. “So, he didn’t…?” She couldn’t say the word.

“No. I got there in time. She barely even remembers d’Angelo.”

Something else clicked. David’s opening salvo at the Midsummer Night’s gala when he’d first spoken to Constantine. “That’s what he meant about your timing.”

Constantine nodded. “I wasn’t in a position to make him pay with Ariana. But I swear to you, he won’t get away with it again.”

“What happened? To Ariana, I mean?”

“Come.” He eased her back into his arms and she surrendered to the embrace, using his warmth to comfort her distress. “I’ll tell you the story if you promise to go to sleep afterward.”

“I promise.” Honesty forced her to add, “If I can.”

“You have to understand something that is very uncomfortable for me to speak of.”

He’d switched to Italian again, his voice stiff with pride and something else. Pain? “Something from your past?” she hazarded a guess.

“It has to do with the manner in which I was raised.”

“Old Italian aristocracy?”

“That’s at the root of it, yes. The Romanos have the name, but not the money to go with it. We own the land and the palazzo, but have no way to maintain it. Because it has been in our family for so many generations, it would be sacrilege to sell. So we struggle over money.”

“Why not get a job?”

Constantine laughed without humor. “You and I think alike. Unfortunately my father considered this beneath him. We are only recently poor. My grandfather made some unfortunate investments and my father finished the job with other bad choices. More than anything, I wished to start up my own business. But there was no capital. No seed money. I attended Oxford. My grandmother—she wrote the Mrs. Pennywinkle children’s books before Ariana took over. You are familiar with Mrs. Pennywinkle?”

“Sure. I loved her stories as a child.” They were beautifully illustrated tales, all about a china doll named Nancy who passed from needy child to needy child. With each subsequent owner came exciting adventures and heartrending problems for whichever youngster came into possession of the doll. By the end of the book, Nancy had helped resolve the child’s problems and magically moved on to the next boy or girl in need. “I even owned a Nancy doll. It was one of my favorite toys growing up.”

“My grandmother, Penelope, paid for my education with the royalty money she earned from them. But I could not take her money to start up my business. It would have been—”

“Dishonorable?”

He slanted her a swift, hard look. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Not even a little,” she instantly denied. “I’m in total sympathy with you. Our family also went through a period of financial difficulty.”

“I vaguely remember Babbo telling me about that. It involved your uncle Dominic, didn’t it?”