Page 79 of Savage Seduction

“Stop!” Vittoria silenced me with an angry swipe of her hand through the air. “You have no right to speak to my daughter about anything! You think Marco bringing you here, forcing you upon us, means anything? He will soon grow bored with you. I know my son.”

“He cares for me,” I said, my voice trembling. “And I care for him.”

Love, I had wanted to say. I love him.

But fear of my own emotions stopped me. It felt like a lie, even to myself. How could I love him when there was so much left unsaid between us? After what I had done, the secrets I was keeping?

Vittoria saw the look on my face and sneered. “Care? You foolish girl. All he feels for you islust. Marco is his father’s son. Even if you were somehow to blind him enough to put a wedding band on your finger, he’d show you your place when he takes his mistresses.”

I gasped. “Marco would never!”

She laughed, a sound full of condescending pity. “You have no idea how families like ours work. That’s why you don’t belong here. You think you could make a scene and keep him from taking lovers when he grows bored with you? You fool. You should leave if you know what is good for you. Leave before you are forced out.”

Her shoulders still stiff with rage, she stalked away.

I retreated to my room, my ears ringing with her words.

Because it was true, wasn’t it? That I didn’t belong here. She sensed somehow that I was bad for her son. She wanted me gone.

Was she right?

And yet my heart clung to the way he made me feel when I was in his arms in bed every night. The rightness of being there, as if I belonged to him and him with me.

My hands dropping to my belly, I gazed at myself in my dressing-table mirror. My stomach was still flat, but the little life in there was growing every day. I had seen it with my own eyes today.

We had made this little one together, me and Marco. And it hadn’t been just lust. I could not accept that.

But his mother’s words echoed in my ears, full of a ring of truth.

I felt sick, my head spinning, and I sank on shaky legs onto my mattress.

Stay with me, Marco had said. I’m not ready to lose you.

I felt more for him than I had ever felt for anyone, but what if none of it was real? What if it could be over in a heartbeat like his mother said?

What if I thought our bodies were speaking unspoken promises of forever, but his was speaking of just carnal bliss? Something he expected to fade in time. Something that deserved no true place in his heart or his family?

What if I was meant to be the easily discarded mistress and a different woman meant to be his bride? What if he thought that I understood all of that?

I picked up my phone and dialled his number. Then hung up immediately before it rang. What the hell had I been thinking? Had I really been going to ask him to explain his relationship with Maya?

I dropped my phone on the bed and paced the room. I wished he were home so I could see him. And figure out how to tell him everything.

But this mess was all of my making. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know who had spiked his drink. I had still been the reason he hadn’t come home the night Chiara had been terrorised.

I needed to make it up to her. She was spiralling. If something happened to her again, it would be my fault. I had to make sure she would be okay.

Chapter 29

BETH

I checked the upstairs hallway to make sure Vittoria wasn’t around before I knocked lightly on Chiara’s door.

I had not been expecting her to open it, but she did, giving me an accusing look.

“Hi, can I come in?” I asked.

“What do you want?” she said, her eyes red and face tear blotched.

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