Page 4 of ‘I Do’ for Revenge

She’d presumed he was just being overprotective and it had made her feel cared for. She felt nauseous now when everything began to make awful sense. Had she really been that starved for love and attention? Her twisting gut told her the answer.Pathetic.

Vittorio’s excoriating look just flayed Flora further. She felt as if she’d lost three layers of skin. She muttered, ‘I need to go.’

He put out a hand. ‘By all means, you know where the door is.’

Flora turned and went towards the door, the dress moving stiffly around her. His cruel callousness stopped her though. She turned around again. ‘I’m very sorry for what happened to you and I can understand your need to see justice done.’

She pointed to herself. ‘This was not the way to do it though, far from it. What you did today reduced you to my uncle’s level. You’re just as mean and ruthless. You humiliated me for sport.’

For a moment he didn’t react, then he said, ‘Nothing happened to you today that you won’t have forgotten about in a week. Believe me, I could have been far more ruthless with your uncle. He still has assets. He has a way back if he wants to work for it. And you have your own funds from your parents.’

Flora’s mouth opened. ‘How do you know about that?’

The fact that he obviously didn’t know that her inheritance was already totally depleted was something she wasn’t going to divulge. Sickeningly, a memory came back, of her uncle persuading her to sign a form allowing him access to her inheritance before she came of age—he’d told her it was for her benefit but after these revelations, she knew that that action had not been for her benefit. Her naivety made a hot flush of mortification rise up.

Vittorio shrugged. ‘It came up when I was investigating your uncle. If anything you should be thanking me. You’re free now to live your life, out from under your uncle’s shadow. You’re twenty-two, you have your inheritance. Today isn’t the cash-in day you’d hoped for, but I’ve no doubt you can manufacture a strategic marriage all of your own, once everyone has moved on to the next salacious news story.’

Flora, somehow, found it within herself to push down the rising nausea and lift her chin. She said, ‘You know what? I should have suspected something when you never pushed for us to meet alone or have a conversation. This is the most we’ve talked since we met. I thought you were just being a gentleman.’

Vittorio shook his head, eyes glittering like obsidian. Hard. Cold. ‘I’m far from a gentleman.’

Flora hitched her chin higher. ‘I know that now. And you’re right about something else. I am free to live my life. I hope I never see you again.

‘You—’ she pointed at Vittorio with a trembling finger ‘—are not a nice person.’

Something caught her eye and impulsively she pulled the engagement ring he’d given her off her finger. It was a large, ostentatious diamond, in a gold setting with more diamonds either side. It weighed a ton. She resisted the urge to fling it at him, and put it down on a nearby table. ‘You can have that knuckle-duster back. And by the way, I didn’t mention it at the time because I didn’t want you to feel bad, but you have no taste.’

It was probably the meanest thing Flora had ever said to anyone and she immediately felt awful, but before she could forget what this man—and her uncle—had put her through she turned and walked out.

Her dress took up most of the elevator as she descended and as she walked through the ground-floor lobby she willed the nausea to stay down and finally made it outside, sucking in lungfuls of air.

People stared as they walked past but she was oblivious. Panic now replaced the sense of nausea. She had nothing. No one. Nowhere to go. She was completely alone and she was only realising now that she’d been alone all along because her uncle and aunt had never really cared for her.

They’d taken her inheritance!

And that man back there? Flora couldn’t imagine him caring foranyone. He was cruel, cold, heartless, ruthless, cynical, mean—She stopped. Took a breath. And realised that amidst the panic, there was also something far more fledgling rising up. A sense of...liberation.

Vittorio was right about one thing. She was free now. Totally free. Free of that sense of loyalty and obligation she’d had since her uncle had taken her in.

She looked around her as if seeing the world for the first time. She was on the precipice of something both terrifying and a little exhilarating. What would she do? Where did she go from here? The panic crept back, but she forced herself not to let it overwhelm her.

As she stood there on the pavement outside Vittorio’s offices, in her wedding dress, with her hair coming loose, Flora said to herself,Think. Think.The first thing to do—find a bed for the night and get rid of this dress. And then...she would tackle tomorrow.

Flora turned left and set off, head held high, ignoring the looks and jeers from a group of young guys on mopeds. She would find a way. She would. She had to. She had no choice. There was no one she could ask for help. She was on her own now. And that was okay. She believed in the goodness of people—most people—and that good things would happen. With this blind faith guiding her, she disappeared into the streets of Rome, the train of her wedding dress trailing behind her.

Vito stood at his window for a long time, drink forgotten. He was unsettled by what had just happened.

You think?jeered a voice.

He ignored it. The truth was that his focus had been solely on Umberto Gavia for so long that when Gavia had proposed the marriage of convenience, Vito had gone along with it, seeing it purely as a bonus addition to his overall takedown of the man.

And, as Flora had never really made much of an impression, he’d found it easy not to think of her as a person, standing in a church waiting for him, because of course he’d always known he wouldn’t be there.

But she hadn’t known that. And he hadn’t really thought of those consequences beyond the inevitable social embarrassment they’d cause Umberto Gavia. But now he did think of her. Because she’d stood right in front of him reminding him she was a consequence. A person who, if she was to be believed, hadn’t had much of a clue as to what was going on.

And yet she’d agreed to the marriage. So he’d just assumed that she and her uncle were in cahoots. Therefore she’d deserved—

What?demanded a voice.To be humiliated in front of Roman society? To be judged and punished like her uncle?

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