Page 38 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

‘That wasn’t respecting my wishes, it was because you knew I’d destroy the business if you didn’t.’

Eyes flashing dangerously, his voice rose for the first time. ‘When will you understand that I no longer care about the business? I agreed to your terms because I hoped the time I managed to negotiate with you would be enough for you to realise the truth for yourself, but you won’t open your eyes to see and now I have nothing left to lose. Destroy Claflin Diamonds if you want. Destroy my entire business. I don’t care. Go outside and tell the waiting press and the world what I did to you. I don’t care. The minute you walk out of here my life as it is is over, but I will not let you walk away without hearing the full truth, so if you want to be gone by one o’clock I suggest you sit down, open your ears and let me speak.’

White noise swam through Rebecca’s head. Her heart was thumping madly, the beats adding to the cacophony in her brain, making it hard to think coherently.

She had three choices. One: fight her way past him. Two: launch herself through the patio doors. Three: sit down and let him have his say. Only the second option held any appeal. It was by far the least painful of the options with the only wounds likely to be her body being torn to shreds from the glass she’d jump through. To fight her way past Enzo meant having to touch him. Smell him. All the things that played havoc with her senses and confuddled her brain. To sit down and listen meant...

Nothing, she realised. He couldn’tmakeher listen. If she concentrated hard enough, she could block his words out.

Storming back to her seat, she drank the entirety of what hadn’t spilt of her gin and plonked herself down, crossing her legs and folding her arms tightly. ‘Go on then. Get it over with.’

His chest rose slowly before he gave a sharp nod and retook his own seat. His gaze locked on her. Let him look, she thought. Enzo staring into her eyes didn’t mean her ears would listen.

‘Your grandfather was a self-made man. He started with nothing. He despised your father, not because of the age he left school or the job he did but for his lack of ambition. Your grandfather equated ambition with success. He saw in me a kindred spirit, a young man he could help mould in the way your mother refused to be moulded. I am certain that is part of the reason why he went so far as to cut your mother off—she refused to be your grandfather’s carbon copy in female form.’

Currently trying to picture herself standing on a beach somewhere hot and imagining the feel of warm salt water lapping at her feet, Rebecca suddenly realised she was thinking of her idealised version of Mauritius and quickly tried to imagine herself somewhere else.

Mauritius was where they were supposed to fly that evening for their honeymoon.

‘He always expected her to come crawling back. He never dreamed she would be taken so young.’ He grimaced. ‘People don’t. We expect those we love to become like Methuselah before they die. We do not expect to lose our children. Her early death set his demons off. He never stopped loving her. And he always loved you.’

She snorted quietly. Disparagingly.

‘He did love you, Rebecca.’

‘He didn’t know me.’

‘He kept your graduation photo on his desk.’

Her head jerked at this and, against her will, her eyes focused on his. ‘How on earth did he get that?’

He shrugged. ‘He had his ways and means. He kept tabs on your mother over the years. Your graduation photo replaced an older one from when you were a little girl blowing out the candles of your birthday cake. I can’t remember how old you were in it. Ten, maybe. Your graduation made him proud. Not having a relationship with you was his greatest dying regret and why I think he did what he did with his will.’

Her snort at this was much louder. ‘He screwed you over because he regretted not having a relationship with me? Yep, that makes a whole heap of sense.’

‘By the time he died, your grandfather loved two people. You and me. He loved you because you were his flesh and blood. He loved me because what started as a business relationship where he was the master and I the apprentice became a mutually respectful friendship. There was a great deal of affection between us. Even when Beresi took off and my wealth mushroomed and I no longer needed him as my mentor, our friendship endured. I have become certain that writing that clause in his will was his way of forcing you and me together.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEDOLPHINPODRebecca had been trying to envisage herself swimming with evaporated into a mist. She stared incredulously at Enzo. ‘Did you drink the whole bottle of Scotch while I was getting my stuff together?’

He held the now half-full glass aloft. ‘I should have. It would make all this easier to deal with.’

‘I’m not stopping you.’

‘I will wait until you leave before I do that. For now, it is good to be clear-headed, and I do not want you thinking this is all coming from the mouth of a drunk.’ He laughed grimly. ‘I am certain now that it is what your grandfather wanted to happen. You and me. He would often show me your photo and say what a beautiful young woman you’d turned into and that it would be a lucky man who married you. I used to think he was just being a proud grandfather but now...’ He swallowed some more of his Scotch. ‘You and I were the only two people he loved and the two people with him when he died.’

Rebecca, having had to quit trying to imagine herself somewhere else, felt her heart somersault into her stomach.

‘After his diagnosis, your photo was moved from his desk to his bedside table. Always he would look at it.’ Then he added matter-of-factly, ‘After his death, I learned to hate your face.’

She recoiled, inwardly and outwardly.

His eyes rang with self-loathing. ‘Yes, Rebecca, I admit I hated you. I was the closest thing Ray had to family. His wife and daughter were dead and his granddaughter wanted nothing to do with him. It was me he named his next of kin with the hospital. It was me who arranged for him to have twenty-four-hour care in his home and who moved into his guest room so I could make sure they didn’t cut corners with his care. I did all that because I loved him like he was my blood and then I read his will and learned that he had, as you put it, stitched me up like a kipper, and betrayed me for the granddaughter who’d rejected him and who he’d only seen in photographs.’ That awful grim smile curled on his face. ‘He set things up so we would be forced to meet. Whether he predicted my reaction to the clause I cannot say. I discounted the other routes I could have taken to overturn his will or come to an agreement with you because in my fury with him, my heart was filled with vengeance... I am afraid that is my inherited blood from my mother coming out in me...and the target for my vengeance was you, Rebecca Emily Foley.

‘I had people watch your every move. I kept close to you. I was waiting for a plausible opportunity to hook you in. I knew it would be easy to seduce you because my money and the looks I have been blessed with mean women are easy for me. There is not a woman alive who I have wanted who has not wanted me in return.’ He spoke as if revealing a not particularly important fact. ‘And then my opportunity came along and finally I came face to face with my nemesis.’

He broke away to take another drink, closing his eyes as he drained the last of his Scotch.

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