Frustration seared through him. “It’s not a question of what I want—I can’t do it, Olivia. You know that as well as I do. You were brilliant tonight. Why can’t you just focus? Do exactly what you did tonight and, after Paris next week, this will all be over.”
Her mouth twisted. “And then there’s the spring/summer shows. It will never stop until I’m out.”
“You agreed to do this,” he pointed out harshly. “You know you have to wrestle these demons of yours. Me pulling you from this campaign, making me the bad guy, won’t help you do that. It will only make you feel like a failure. And that will hurt you more than those reporters ever could.”
Her eyes flashed that blue fire they’d spit at him onstage. “I am not you. I am not some impenetrable force that can cut off my emotions at will, who puts work above everything else.”
He rocked back on his heels, her accusations hitting him like a blow to the chest. “I do not put business above everything else. I have been by your side every minute these past few weeks when you needed me, Olivia. I have been there for my family my entire life. So do not say I don’t care.”
Her gaze drilled into him. “You are making me your wife for the sake of your company, Rocco. How much more evidence do you need that you are married to Mondelli?”
“I do not feel,” he bit out, “that sacrificing a year of my life is too much to do for the company I’ve built into an international powerhouse. A symbol beloved and revered by all Italians.”
She nodded. “Exactly my point. It isn’t a problem because you will never allow yourself to feel. You won’t even talk to your father because you’re afraid he’ll be the kryptonite that fells you.”
His gaze narrowed. “Are we talking about something other than our deal? Because the way I remember it, you were right there with me. You agreed to marry me because you don’t believe in the concept of love.”
Her shoulders slumped. “That was before I met you, Rocco. Before I let myself get to know the part of you that you don’t bury ten miles deep.”
His chest seized. “Olivia...”
“No.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “You don’t get to hide on this one. You know I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since that night in New York when you pulled your pumpkin carriage up to the Lincoln Center and saved my soul like the fairy-tale hero you are. Actually—” she pursed her mouth “—maybe it was before that, maybe it was that night in Navigli when you rocked up to my table, sat down and blew my mind apart with your intellect and charm.” She held his gaze, regret in her blue eyes. “But none of that really matters, does it? I’ve gone and done the unforgivable. I’ve fallen in love with a Mondelli, and that only ever ends in heartbreak for the Fitzgerald women.”
He took a step toward her. She moved back with a shake of her head. “You don’t get to solve this one with sex, Rocco. You don’t get to sweep me off my feet and use that superior skill of yours on me, because we both know you can do it. We both know you will do it if I let you.” She held her hands up. “This is me saying I’m done. Walking away from my addiction.”
“Maledizione. Olivia.” His hands dropped to his sides. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to say I care about you, because you know I do?”
Her eyes dimmed. “If you cared about me, you would set me free. You would allow yourself to tell me how you really feel. Because only a fool would spend the rest of her life pining away for a man who’s always going to put her second to his real marriage.”
He worked his jaw. “You are asking for the impossible.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “Funny, Giovanni always told me to reach for the impossible. I’m surprised he didn’t teach you the same.”
She stood up. “I will do Paris next week and then I’m reevaluating. Everything.”
The hair on the back of his neck rose, his stomach hardening to stone. “We are marrying in front of five hundred people in three weeks, Olivia.”
She lifted her chin. “That was included in the everything.”
“Olivia.” He growled the warning at her.
She nodded. “I know. You will make me rue the day I put pen to paper.” Her bleak gaze held his. “The thing is, I’m terrified if I follow through with this. If I make myself last this year, there will be nothing left of me at the end. And then what does it really matter?”
She turned and walked away. He let her go. Because she was asking for the impossible, and he couldn’t give it to her no matter how much he wanted to. He’d been over it in his head a million times, and he’d still come up with the same answer. Taking Olivia out of the ten-million-dollar Vivo campaign would be brand suicide. It would destabilize Mondelli when it was still rocking from the loss of Giovanni.