“The keys are with the car. Goodbye, Paolo. This time I mean it.”
She closed the door and he heard the electronic lock hum into place.
He lifted his finger to hover it over the keypad, determined to go inside and explain—What? How could he defend himself, or Ryan for that matter? His ex-wife had lied to him. He knew what betrayal felt like. It didn’t just undermine your belief in everything you’d been raised to see as inviolable, it crushed your ego. At least he had heard it from his spouse.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, hating himself.
Walk away, part of him urged. Let it go. Let her go.
Why in hell had Ryan done it? No man in his right mind would cheat on her. She was...
He rubbed the back of his neck, refusing to let himself dwell on exquisite memories of lips supple as rose petals, nipples so turgid and aroused he could hardly stop sucking on them, a wet pocket of heat so sensitive she’d climaxed the first time he’d pressed his finger inside her.
Breathing hard, he made himself return to the car when everything in him was screaming to go inside and take.
Who was he kidding? She’d claw his eyes out. And wasn’t it painfully funny how the thought of fighting past her defenses to the passionate woman beneath made the blood in his arteries sting with the urge to battle through and conquer.
This was the problem. His primitive self, so unpredictable and given to self-destruction, wanted things that were no good for anyone.
He drove back to Milan in a state of unrest, trying to convince himself it was for the best that she hated him. Maybe Ryan had been a cheat, but it didn’t make sleeping with the man’s wife okay. It didn’t mean Lauren was telling the truth about the baby.
Wallowing in his foul mood, he cursed passionately over tiny inconveniences like his shirt bringing the hanger with it as he pulled it off the rung. His cuff buttons refused to release and then, as he finally removed the shirt he was wearing, Lauren’s mobile phone dropped out of his shirt pocket onto the carpet. He stared at it for a long moment, striving for control, then eventually swore tiredly.
Searching out the number for the villa, he called her. It rang four times before she answered cautiously, “Buenasera.”
“It’s me. I have your mobile. I’ll bring it out tomorrow,” he told her.
Nothing.
“Lauren?”
She swallowed audibly and said a strained, “I’m sleeping,” then hung up on him.
She wasn’t sleeping. She was crying. Damn you, Ryan.
Damn himself. He shouldn’t have left her like that, but the last time he’d tried to comfort her—
Dio! What an untenable situation. Why hadn’t he said something to Ryan at least? Chastised him?#p#分页标题#e#
Because he hadn’t seen Ryan more than three or four times since that night. Occasionally he had received an email reading something like, Hey Buddy, I have a layover in Amsterdam. Come by for a beer? It was even more seldom that Paolo had been able to make it.
When they had sat down, it had been a rehash of glory days and whatever chances Ryan was taking on his missions and ruthless ribbing about how staid and responsible Paolo had become. They were both well past the age when they bragged about women, so the topic was avoided. Still, all the wild talk out of Ryan had often left Paolo wondering when his friend would grow up.
Ryan hadn’t had to, he supposed. That was the major difference between the two of them. Losing his father had been a lesson in mortality for Paolo, one that Ryan had never taken seriously despite watching comrades fall around him. Ryan had lived in a bubble of belief that he was free from impact no matter what he did.
And Paolo had perpetuated that belief by not challenging him on his betrayal of Lauren. Lauren’s asking for a divorce, questioning his fidelity, would have been Ryan’s first hint that he wasn’t as golden and untouchable as he’d come to believe. Thinking she was responsible for Ryan’s death was a burden Lauren didn’t deserve to bear. Paolo, the best friend, should have been the one to instill in Ryan that actions had consequences. If anyone was to blame for Ryan losing his life, it was Paolo. He should have made him see it was possible.
Instead he’d enabled Ryan to cheat on his wife, perpetuating Ryan’s belief that Lauren would never know and so wouldn’t be hurt by it. Perhaps Ryan had even operated under the certainty he would never be hurt by it.
Because his heart hadn’t been as deeply involved as his wife’s?
Disturbed, Paolo stroked his thumb on the cool black screen of Lauren’s phone. Ryan had loved Lauren, hadn’t he? Whenever Paolo had asked about her, his friend had always smiled with deep satisfaction. Smug, almost.