Page 43 of Bound By The Italian’s 'I Do'

ISSYBOWEDHERhead and breathed deeply before leaning back against the door and dragging her hair off her face. ‘I don’t... Gianni, please...’ She pinched the bridge of her nose and fought back the hot swell of tears. ‘I’ve... I’ve had some doubts.’

‘What kind of doubts?’ he asked gently.

Bitter-tasting guilt rose up her throat at what she was about to admit. ‘We took everything he said in blind faith.’

‘I know it hurts,bella, but admitting that he was a bastard in business does not have to taint your memories of who he was as your father.’

‘But I feel disloyal for even questioning it to myself,’ she whispered.

‘A child is programmed to trust their parents,’ he said in that same gentle tone. ‘When my mother ran away without me... It came close to breaking me. My own mother abandoned me and I’ve never been able to trust anyone but Alessandro since.’

Not wanting to inadvertently offend him, Issy hesitated before asking, ‘Is that why you’ve never had a long-term relationship?’

He gave a low laugh. ‘I never think about it but that’s very likely. My social life is great fun and I have many friends, but no one I would consider close. That includes my past lovers. I’ve never had a conversation like this with anyone before or shared the confidences I did with you yesterday.’

‘It’s the same for me,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve always had Amelia to talk to and we confide absolutely everything in each other, but I think that’s because wehadto pull together. If she hadn’t been there I think I would have grown to hate my parents for sinking into dependency, you know, for not being enough to keep them sober. I always make myself remember how it was before the business was taken and how happy we were as a family and how secure I felt—Ihaveto hold on to that. When I FaceTime my mum, I sometimes catch glimpses of the mum I remember and I cherish those moments, and when I think of my dad I remember the man who read to me and led all the standing ovations at my ballet recitals, and it kills me to think that wasn’t who he really was.’

‘Thatiswho he was,cara. The family man and the businessman were separate parts of him.’

‘But if he sold you that land fraudulently and bribed officials to make it happen then his protestations of innocence after you forced the takeover were lies, and if you’re right that there were other victims then that means my entire childhood is tainted.’

‘Only if you let it be tainted.’

‘But it means everything we had, all the privileges Amelia and I enjoyed, were built on fraud and lies.’

‘But the father he was to you wasn’t a lie. He loved you and Amelia and it seems to me that he destroyed himself in alcohol because he couldn’t live with the repercussions of what his business decisions had done to his family.’

‘I can’t believe you’re sticking up for him.’ Not after everything. How could Gianni give her reassurance after what she’d tried to do to him?

‘He must have had some good in him to produce a daughter like you.’

‘What, a vengeful liar who was hell-bent on destroying you?’

‘No, a fiercely loyal, kind-hearted, beautiful woman who couldn’t go through with her vengeance without additional evidence. Don’t forget, I have read the messages between you and your sister. When she messaged you that she’d found proof of corruption against us, your reply said,Thank God for that.That same day you took a photo of yourself with a patient and your hair was still chestnut. In the few days between that message and photo being taken to when we met in the club, you’d dyed your hair. You had doubts,cara, I know you did, and your sister knew it too and told you what you needed to hear to get you to actually act on your plans.’

The tears Issy had been holding back fell down her cheeks. How could a man she’d known for such a short time have the power to decipher her own thoughts and feelings better than she was able to?

‘Bella?’

Breathing deeply, she wiped her eyes on her knees. ‘I can’t believe I’m admitting this but you’re right, I’ve had doubts about his version of what happened between you and him.’ Doubts that had grown the deeper she’d delved into Gianni’s life and found nothing remotely untoward about his business conduct, doubts compounded with every gushing interview and profile published about him. No one had a bad word to say about him, not even his broken-hearted lovers. ‘But, Gianni, I don’t have any doubts about Amelia. None at all. She’s my rock and guardian angel rolled into one. I can’t bear to think of what would have happened to me without her. Why would she lie to me?Why?’

Now he was the one to take his time to answer, saying slowly, ‘I can’t answer that but you need to think on this—why did she message such important news to you instead of calling you? Your whole plan hinged on Amelia finding proof that we were corrupt to push you into action. Consider if it is possible she messaged instead of calling because she was afraid you’d hear the lie in her voice.’

Issy sat on the edge of her private swimming pool with her legs submerged in the warm water up to mid-calf. Soon, the sun would make its descent and fill the sky with the orange haze that had captured her attention every night she’d stayed on this island. It had been her only respite from thinking of Gianni.

She was still thinking of him.

Gianni Rossi had occupied much of her thoughts in the years since she and Amelia had first hatched their plan. At the start of it all, it had been a tiny flightless fledgling plan but over the years it had grown in substance. Grown wings. As the plan had developed and she’d begun her research on him, slowly but surely Gianni had begun to occupy more headspace. By the time she’d started her job at the hospital he was the first thing she thought of when she woke and the last image she saw before she fell asleep.

She would never know the truth of what happened between Gianni, Alessandro and her father but she accepted that whatever Gianni had done, he truly believed her father had fleeced him. She did believe that. Gianni was not the monster she’d believed for so long; a belief she’d had to keep feeding to herself over the years to stop from faltering in her quest.

Amelia had sensed Issy’s doubts. She was certain of it.

She closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her belly to ride the spasm of guilt that came from her own doubts. She couldn’t think of Amelia right now, couldn’t bear to let her mind take her where it so desperately didn’t want to go.

Her eyes snapped back open. What she wanted was Gianni. To feel the light that always filled her when his gaze captured hers. To go to him as Isabelle Seymore, the auxiliary nurse who liked ballet, books and junk food more than was good for her, both of them stripped back to just their essences, all pretence and deception between them gone.

And she wanted to know the real Gianni, the man who’d opened up to her and without an ounce of self-pity told her his story.

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