Proof of Their Sin(30)
Frustrated, Paolo shrugged on his clean shirt and slid her phone into his pocket. He didn’t know why he kept it with him, just wanted the connection to her even though it was like wearing a badge of dishonor. His mood grew even more dour once he reached his aunt and uncle’s house. Isabella’s absence was noted by all and Vittorio was determined to make the most of it.
“What happened, Paolo? A spat over your dancing with Mrs. Bradley last night? I don’t blame Isabella. Mrs. Bradley’s a stunner. And not the woman I saw with our old friend in Berlin.”
“No?” Paolo said shortly, impatient with the way the Bradleys were overtaking every minute of his life.
“Definitely not.” Vittorio shook his head. “What kind of coglione deceives a woman like that?”
* * *
Lauren followed the dirty fingernail as it traced the train route on the map, listening carefully to broken French and Italian heavily laced with Spanish. The wind kept trying to pick up the map so she moved her empty espresso cup onto the corner. Its saucer clinked on the metal table of the al fresco café right before a screech of braking tires and a car horn scattered the nearby pigeons in a discordant mass of flapping wings and cooed protests.
As the birds cleared, Lauren saw Paolo leaving his car in the middle of the road, slamming the door as though it was a perfectly good parking space. The driver behind him shook his fist and shouted abuse.
“Go around,” Paolo barked in Italian, keeping his gaze fixed on Lauren. When he was close enough, he set his fists on the map and leaned low enough to be eye to eye with her. “What are you doing here?”
Despite his level tone, she could practically taste the antagonism rolling off him. He was furious and she had no idea why. She was the injured party.#p#分页标题#e#
She sat back, repositioning her cheeky new hat over her shorn head so she could see him better. “Is that a philosophical question? Why am I on earth? Because I think it’s quite obvious I’m at this café for coffee and directions.”
His expression grew more dour, stirring an imaginary flock of birds in her belly. It took all her strength to hold his gaze when inside she was frantically rebuilding her self-worth. She could take acts of malice from jealous nobodies like her step-siblings, but Paolo’s dishonesty had burned like a dose of poison, spreading an ache to every corner of her body, leaving her distraught. She had thought she could trust him.
Through her haze of disillusionment, one festering question throbbed: why had he done it? Did he hate her that much?
She looked away, brows pleating. Why did she even want to trust him? She didn’t need him. She was self-sufficient.
If she kept telling herself that, she might even believe it.
“Directions to where?” he asked, scanning the map.
“Venice,” she murmured, unable to sound as enthused as she wanted to be. “Dino here tells me I should see it along with Rome, Naples, Pompeii... He started in Palermo.”
Paolo turned his head long enough to say bluntly to her companion, “Leave us,” before he lifted his Neanderthal knuckles off the map. Folding his arms, he ignored Lauren’s mouth as she hung it open at his audacity.
“Why are you here and not at the villa? You knew I was coming,” he said.
“And you thought I’d have tea and cookies waiting? I assumed you’d leave my phone on the hall table. Believe it or not, I wasn’t keen to see you. Please stay to finish your coffee, Dino. Gracias.” She stood to gather her things, determined to end this by separating herself from Paolo swiftly and cleanly. “You’re creating a jam,” she pointed out. People were looking and she’d never been comfortable at the center of attention.
“Why didn’t you use the car in the garage?” He took her bags with proprietary ease, leaving her scrambling to hang on to her purse at least.
“I felt like walking, but it was cooler than I expected. Hence the new hat.”
“If you’d taken the car, I would have known you were shopping and wouldn’t have run through the house like a madman, yelling for you. Don’t do that again, Lauren.”
To cover how disturbed she was by that revelation, she snorted, “When would I have occasion to? After this we really are never going to see each other again.” She meant it. Keeping Ryan’s secret and making her feel a fool was unforgivable.
He said nothing as he stowed her bags in the space behind the driver’s seat.
Rather than argue, she said haughtily, “Leave everything on the front step,” and started to turn away. This was painful enough, hating him while still reacting to every little flex and shift of his powerful body.