Page 74 of Casanova LLC

“I don’t want to sit. I’m leaving.”

“You’re not leaving.” He reached for my elbow. “I’ll make you some tea?—”

“I don’t want tea! I want to leave!”

He stepped toward me again, hand out.

I jumped back. “Please don’t touch me right now!” Asking Alessandro not to touch me made me realize just how upside down this had all become.

He immediately halted.

And I, contradictory mess that I was, threw myself against his chest just as a sob tore from my own. Fortunately, he ignored my directive. His arms came around me with fierce gentleness. He held me upright when my legs couldn’t be relied upon to do so. “Tell me what happened.” It was barely above a whisper.

“Richard had someone else.” Saying it was like puking up gravel.

After a long while, he murmured, “You didn’t know?”

I slowly pulled back. Met his eyes. “Did you?”

His mouth tightened. “I heard things.”

“Fro—from clients?”

He didn’t correct the terminology. He also didn’t correct the assumption.

“Well, had you heard there’s a child?”

Now he looked shocked.

I spun away from him. I looked out his tall window into the moonlight on the canal. I knew how beautiful it was, but at the moment it was unseeable. All I could see was the ghostly reflection of an imaginary face with Richard’s features. “They’re three. The child.” I turned back to Alessandro, also beautiful, also unseeable. “He said he didn’t want children.” The “with me” was implied. I put my face in my hands. “I really thought he loved me.”

“It’s possible he did, in his own way. Men are?—”

“Liars? Manipulators? They know if they love us just enough, delude us into loving them, we’ll accept all their shit. Accept the unacceptable.” I began to pace. “The last thing I was holding on to was that he may have been this awful person to other people, but he wasn’t that way with me. That he was a good man to me. Even if he never touched me. Especially if he never touched me. That showed he respected me. God, what an idiot!”

“Okay, Cara, that’s a lot to unpack, and we will. But can you please explain why this has anything to do with Visage?”

“Because she’s going to take it!”

“Who?”

“The other woman! The lawyer said she wanted to meet with me, can you believe the gall? She wants Visage.” My knees were shaking. Knocking. Could he hear them? “I can’t believe this. All that’s left is what I’ve built. Sorry, honey, I know you thought having Richard Craven’s child would get you Richard Craven’s money, but you didn’t get there fast enough. And you’re sure as hell not getting what’s mine. Jesus Christ, how many people do I have to make whole? They just keep coming. It’s never going to be over!”

My vision darkened. The edges blurred. Instantly, Alessandro was beside me, lowering me onto the couch, sitting next to me. “Claire. Listen to me. You’re hyperventilating. Everything’s coming back at you all at once. You need to breathe.”

I scoffed but in my current state it sounded like choking. “I can’t. I’m trying to, but I can’t.”

“Okay, okay. You’re spiraling. Focus on one thing: what are you feeling?”

“Anger.”

“Why?”

Fire exploded inside me, and, like a backdraft, rushed up through my chest and into my face and out my mouth: “Because I gave up everything for him! I lost friends. My home. My reputation. My respectability. And for what? A crook. A thief. A cheater! My father, just with money. No wonder Richard felt like home when we started dating! The fact that he felt so comfortably familiar should have been a red flag not a green light! I married the very thing I swore I never would.”

“Good, that’s it, let it out.” His hand cupped the back of my head. “Just take a big breath first. Please.”

He was treating me like he’d treated his nephew. And rightfully so. I’d devolved into a child and so what? I’d deal with that later. Right now, I had to continue. “And he had the balls to be jealous of you. What a hypocrite!” I looked into Alessandro’s pained, transportive eyes. “Because that’s what it had to have been, right? Jealousy? He ruined your whole life because of it—” He shook his head, opened his mouth as if to disagree, or soothe, or whatever, but I kept going. “And you know what? Of everything? Of all the things I gave up for him? I regret you the most.”

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