Page 5 of Bride of Betrayal
Chapter Two
Angelica had gonevery still. She looked up at Leo, unblinking, her face pale and set in an expression of…utter disbelief. He might have enjoyed it if the effect of her calling himLeodidn’t still run through his blood like an electric current. No one else had ever called him that. Not even Aldo.
And then she blinked, long dark luxurious lashes screening those world-famous almond-shaped eyes for a second. Her mouth opened and she said, ‘Have you gone quite mad?’
‘I’ve never been more sane.’
‘This is the day of my husband’s funeral.’
Leo let his mouth quirk up on one side even though he wasn’t feeling remotely humorous. ‘I can’t deny that I do find that quite satisfying.’
‘It’s not possible.’
There were two spots of colour high in her cheeks now.
‘Oh, trust me, it’s possible. Once you have the right connections and the funds with which to pay. As you were on your way to the airport you have your passport. That’s all the documentation you need. And your hand, to sign the registrar’s form.’
Leo knew on a rational level that what he was doing was unorthodox. And ill-advised even. But he was acting on an instinct too strong to ignore. Bring this woman to justice.Hisjustice. Make her pay for what she had done. He’d been tortured by nightmares for three years where this woman and a faceless man stood on the other side of the bars and taunted him, before kissing and starting to make love. He always woke up, his body rigid with rejection, pumping with adrenalin, nausea in his gut and a renewed vow that she would pay.
Yet now, she stood before him and he was enacting his revenge and she looked somehow less robust than she had in his nightmares. There was a fragility to her that he didn’t remember from before. Dark shadows under her eyes. She looked…somehow older, even though she was still luminously beautiful. As if she carried another layer of…something he couldn’t quite define.
Maybe they’d both been shaped by the previous three years except she’d had her freedom and he hadn’t.
Angelica took a step back. ‘This is crazy. OK, you’ve had your fun, Leo, I need to get to the airport so can we please leave?’ She turned as if to open the car door again but Leo reached out and wrapped his hand around her arm. It felt slim and fragile under his hand, reinforcing a sense of vulnerability. She turned back to face him and he took his arm away and pushed down any such notions.
This woman had gone from his bed to his business partner’s and had watched him be hauled off to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. She was about as vulnerable as a rhinoceros.
He shook his head, ‘You’re not going anywhere until you’ve paid your dues.’
The touch of Leo’s hand to her arm lingered, like a brand. She wondered if she was hallucinating. The fact that she was free must have gone to her head and she’d fallen asleep in the back of the car and she would wake up at the airport at any moment…
But no, the sun was still beating down and Leo Falzone was looking at her. Feeling a level of emotion that surprised her, she said, ‘I wish we’d never met.’
Leo made atsk’ing sound. ‘And lose all those happy memories? We had some good moments, Angel. Unless, of course, you were playacting the whole time, setting the ground for your lover, Aldo.’
Angelica’s emotion turned to nausea. ‘It wasn’t like that.’ And much as she hated to admit it now, because everything felt tainted, she and Leo had had good times. The best. Enough to make her believe he was falling in love with her. The anger spiked again and she welcomed it. ‘Why on earth would I marry you?’
‘You told me you loved me once.’
Angelica’s face got hot but before she could respond to that Leo was adding, ‘Tell me, were you in league with Aldo for long before we broke up? Or was it the fact that you knew you weren’t going to get a commitment from me that drove you into his arms?’
Angelica shuddered inwardly at that image. She’d never been in that man’s arms. One saving grace of the last three years.
‘I was not in league with anyone.’
‘Yet you were married within a month of our break-up.’
Angelica lifted her chin. ‘A break-upyouinsisted upon.’
Leo’s voice was mocking, ‘Are you trying to tell me now that you meant it when you said you loved me?’
Angelica’s insides twisted. She had. Not that she’d ever admit that now. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘So why say it, then? We could have continued as we were, but obviously you were gambling for more.’
She’d said it because it had burst out of her like an unstoppable force. And she’d learnt her lesson. Her heart was cold and hard now. It wouldn’t melt again until she saw her family.
‘Leo, we have nothing to say to each other, it’s all over. Aldo is gone, you’re out of jail.’
