Bestselling Authors Collection 2012(92)
“I warned you about that. You agreed to it.” Didn’t she get it? “I didn’t dare communicate or visit. I sure as hell couldn’t have you with me in Italy. It would have distracted me and I’d never have gotten my business off the ground.”
Gianna swept a hand through the air to indicate the plush area around them. “You had time for this, though. You had time to build Romano Restoration into a going concern.”
“And why do you suppose I did that?” His accent thickened, just as his voice lowered. Darkened. “Why do you suppose I left you?”
“You said…” Her chin wobbled precariously for a brief instant before she clamped down on the helpless betrayal. “You claimed you weren’t in a position to support a wife, but that would change. I understand that you wanted to bring more to our relationship than just a name. I really do get that.”
“If you get it, then—”
She cut him off with a swift, chopping sweep of her hand. “You said soon.” Anger warred with her tears. “Damn it, Constantine, it’s been more than a year and a half. That isn’t soon.”
He couldn’t argue her point. Each month he’d been away from her had felt like a year. “I know, sweetheart. I really do. It couldn’t be helped. If there had been any other way—” he stopped her before she could speak “—any other way that I could have lived with, I’d have taken it. Please believe that.”
“I just wanted to be with you. We could have found a way, either in Italy or here.”
Gianna took another step in his direction, and Constantine clamped down on the clawing need to settle this once and for all in the most basic way possible. “As much as I wanted to be with you, I am not the sort of man who can live off the generosity of others. I watched my—” He broke off, switched gears more roughly than he’d have liked. “I’ve seen others live that way. But I won’t. Ever. You do understand that, don’t you?”
Her chin shot upward. “Do I understand that your pride is more important than anything else? You made that abundantly clear.”
His anger broke free. “How do you think I spent the past year and a half? When Lazz and Ariana married, I’d just scraped together enough money to launch my company in Firenze. I worked day and night to build a small, modest business into something prosperous enough that I could afford to relocate here. Do you think such a thing happens overnight? Do you think it easy to acquire the contracts necessary to give me the start I needed over here? Do you think I could have accomplished such a thing in nineteen short months if I hadn’t funneled every ounce of drive into my business?”
She moved closer still, everything about her impacting like a physical blow. Her sweet scent. Her generous curves. Her staggering beauty. “I could have worked with you,” she whispered. “Helped you.”
“Distracted me,” he corrected. “If I’d had you waiting in my bed I never could have accomplished a tenth of what I’ve been able to, because I never would have been willing to leave your arms.”
She smiled while tears of pain glistened in her green eyes. “Then we would have been poor. But at least we would have been together.”
He shook his head. “You must allow me to be a man, Gianna. You cannot control all things in this relationship.”
She stiffened. “What do you mean by that?”
He stared broodingly at his open hand. It never ceased to amaze him that there wasn’t a physical brand to mark the presence of this Inferno the Dantes generated. He ran his thumb across his palm in a habitual gesture. It didn’t matter how hard he rubbed, he could never erase what had been done to him.
“You started this the first time you touched me,” he informed her, holding out the hand she’d infected. “But I intend to finish it.”
She stilled, the prey sensing the predator for the first time. “How?”
Daring fate, he closed the remaining distance between them and laced their fingers together, used the pull of The Inferno to draw her in. “You made me yours. You caught me. It doesn’t matter whether you still want me or not. You initiated something that can’t be stopped with a simple, ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ It’s too late for that. You will be mine.”
Her mouth firmed. “You’re right. It is too late. I’m not someone you can simply pick up or set aside when the mood strikes you.”
“Did it sound like I was setting you aside when I proposed marriage?”
“You mean at the gala? You consider that a proposal of marriage?” she dared to scoff. “That was simply your clever way of removing the competition.”