Page 39 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

‘I built you up in my head as a Medusa figure but meeting you in the flesh...’ He took another long breath through his nose. ‘You were sonice.’ He laughed disbelievingly. ‘Believe me, I was not used to nice. I was used to calculators. But you were nice and witty, and yoursmile...Dio, your smile. But I was set on my path and I was still too full of anger and hurt to see that I should step off it but every day my conscience was getting louder. I remember the first time we kissed—Dio, I can still feel it—and you would not believe how it made me feel. I could not believe it myself. It felt like you’d drugged me, and then the night you told me you were a virgin...’ He stretched his hand over his forehead and rubbed it. ‘I think I was already in love with you then.’

‘No!’ The word had shot out of Rebecca’s mouth before she was even aware of the terror grabbing hold of her or aware that she’d jumped back to her feet.

‘Yes.’ Enzo’s stare was bleak but unwavering. ‘You need to hear this as much as I need to say it. No more hiding, Rebecca. It is too late for that. I told you last night, your virginity changed everything for me. My conscience would not let me take you to bed, but still there was a war going on in my head and if I had realised what was happening to me instead of continually justifying my actions to myself, I would have confessed everything to you. I wish to hell I had confessed it all then.’

‘Not as much as I wish you had,’ she whispered, holding her stomach tightly.

‘Cara, I willneverforgive myself for what I did to you. I let my hurt and fury drive me to vengeance against a woman who had donenothingto deserve it apart from exist. I was fully prepared to detest you, but meeting you and hating you was impossible. You brought something out in me that I didn’t understand, and I didn’t understand it because I’d never felt it before. I had never walked a pavement with anyone before you and needed to walk along the kerb so I would be the one that was hit if a car swerved off the road, and I wish like hell that I’d understood what the hell was happening to me before I proposed to you.’ He gripped his hair, the knuckles of his fingers white. ‘You made me wait so long for your answer that I thought my heart had stopped beating and then when you finally said yes... I have never had a rush of blood to my head like it. That was the moment that it hit me that I loved you and I have been living in dread of losing you ever since.’

Rebecca’s legs finally gave way beneath her and she sank back onto the sofa. ‘Why are you doing this to me? Haven’t you hurt me enough?’

‘If I could take back all the pain that I’ve caused you and inject it into my bloodstream then I would. I wanted to tell you the truth. I knew that to marry you on a lie was unforgivable and I tried many times in the months before our wedding to find the words and throw myself on your mercy but the fear in my heart...’ He punched his chest. ‘I’ve never known fear like it; worse than the fear I had of my mother being imprisoned. It left me so damncoldto imagine my life without you because for the first time in so very long I’d found true happiness, but the longer I left it, the colder I felt.’

He dragged his fingers down his face. ‘I have thought of what you said about me sabotaging our wedding and I think you could be right.’ The ghost of a smile flickered on his face. ‘Your grandfather taught me irony and I have to say it is ironic that if he were still alive, it is him I would have turned to.’ He gave a bitter laugh and shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking straight when I confessed to my mother and two bottles of red wine did not help, but the closer the wedding got the harder it was for me to live with what I was doing to you and everything you were giving up for me. I never intended to tell her anything, not consciously, and while I know I have no one to blame but myself for all this, I will never forgive her either, because she took her vengeance knowing she would destroy the one thing that mattered the most in the whole world to me—you. Your love.’

Reeling at everything he’d just confessed, aching to believe him, aching even harder to forgive him, Rebecca hauled herself back to her wobbly legs and staggered to the bar.

‘You cannot imagine what it has been like for me having you in my life,’ he said quietly as she groped blindly for two glasses. Blindly because her eyes were swimming. But she didn’t have to be able to see to sense Enzo rising to his feet and closing some of the distance between them. ‘Before you, I enjoyed my life and the advantages my wealth gave me but always there was something missing. I never understood what it was until I met you. That something was you.’

Having just poured them both a hefty slug of whatever had come out of the closest bottle to hand, Rebecca pushed one drink along the bar for Enzo and took a large mouthful of her own. Vodka. Strong enough to make her eyes water and burn her chest. Strong enough to clear her mind of the haze she’d fallen into listening to him.

‘Do you know, Enzo, words are really easy to say,’ she said, keeping her back to him. ‘I want to believe you. I would giveanythingto believe you. But I can’t.’ She downed the rest of the clear liquid, slammed the glass on the marble bar and spun around to face him.

He was leaning back against the floor-to-ceiling window. His arms were folded, his chest rising and falling in rapid, ragged motions.

‘I’m sorry but you’re not a teenager,’ she told him quietly. ‘You’re a thirty-three-year-old man, worth billions, and all from your own hard work. It is beyond credulity for me to believe you were too frightened of losing me to tell me the truth if guilt has been eating you for months in the way you claim.’

His eyes bore into hers; lasers trying to drill into her mind before he unpeeled himself from the window and took the five steps to the bar. He closed his fingers around the vodka she’d poured him. ‘What day is it?’ he asked.

Taken off guard at the question, she had to grope for it. ‘Sunday?’

‘Sì. Sunday.’ He raised the glass and peered into it in the same way he’d studied his Scotch. ‘A day when business is closed.’ He turned sharply to her. ‘Have you not questioned how I was able to transfer the shares into your name and add your name to the business in such a short time frame and over a weekend?’

‘Because you’re Enzo Beresi and always get your own way about everything.’

His lips curled. ‘I do not walk on water. They were completed so quickly because I had already set everything in motion. My plan was to give you all the documents the morning after our wedding over breakfast and confess everything because my one hope was that us being married meant you would feel obliged to try and forgive me.’ He raised his face to the ceiling and muttered something under his breath before looking back at her. ‘But you wouldn’t have forgiven me, would you?’

Blinking rapidly to fight the burn of tears stabbing again at her eyes, she swallowed. ‘I guess we’ll never know.’

He shook his head slowly and brought the vodka to his lips before changing his mind and lowering it back to the bar. ‘No. You wouldn’t have forgiven me. I understand that now. And I understand now why I could never bring myself to tell you.’ He brought the vodka back to his mouth but still didn’t drink. ‘I never realised why the thought of telling you made my chest cold when you are the best person I have ever known. You have a warmth to you, Rebecca, and believe me, in my world that is rare.Dio, you won Robina over in ten minutes—that is normally the time it takes her to decide that she hates someone. I saw all the goodbye cards you got from your school. The children and their parents, your colleagues...they all loved you. A woman like you...’ He rubbed the glass over his chin. ‘But now I understand it. It became clear to me last night. I kept the truth from you because I knew in my heart that you were waiting for a reason to end things with me. Discovering your grandfather’s will was the excuse you were looking for. If it hadn’t been that, you would have found something else.’ And with that he finally downed the vodka in one huge swallow, smacking his lips together and then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Utterly gobsmacked, it took a moment for Rebecca’s vocal cords to work. ‘Honestly, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I wasn’t looking for an excuse for anything, and I can’t believe you’re blaming me foryourlies. I gave up everything to be with you. I wouldneverhave left you.’

Weariness seemed to make him compress into himself. ‘I am not blaming you for anything,cara. This whole situation is on me. I created it and I will have to live with the consequences for the rest of my life.’ Then he straightened and looked at his watch. ‘It is nearly one o’clock. You should go. My driver is waiting for you. Tell him not to run over any of the press—they will have their cameras trained on the car. He is an excellent driver and I would hate to lose him to a prison cell.’ He stretched an arm, coming within millimetres of brushing against her, and wrapped his hand around the bottle of vodka.

Pulling the bottle to him, Enzo cast her another glance with eyes that had lost all animation. ‘Please, Rebecca. It is time for you to leave and for me to pickle my liver. Excuse me for not seeing you out but I have never been into masochism.’

He unscrewed the lid but before he could pour the liquid into the glass, Rebecca surprised them both by snatching the bottle from him. ‘You can pickle yourself in a minute, but first I want you to tell me why you thought I was looking for a reason to leave you because, honestly, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I wasnutsabout you.’

‘Excellent use of past tense there,’ he muttered.

‘What do you expect?’ she cried. ‘You have destroyed my trust. I would give anything to put this behind me and put my trust back in you but I can’t.’

‘And I cannot blame you for that but I think the word you mean iswon’t.’ Taking back hold of the bottle, he prised her fingers from it, poured himself another generous measure and brought it to his mouth. ‘Seriously, Rebecca, go. I’ve said all I need to say. Leave me to drink.’

Impulse and rising fury had her pushing his hand before he could drink. The glass tipped, spilling vodka over his T-shirt. ‘Don’t tell me what I meant—I meantcan’t, now tell me where you got the idea that I was just looking for a reason to leave you.’

His jaw clenched. He ran his hand over the spilled liquid soaking into his clothes and, without saying a word, poured himself a replacement and drank it in one swallow.

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