Page 16 of Innocent's Wedding Day with the Italian

Hands suddenly abandoned her fists and cupped her cheeks. Rebecca squeezed her closed eyes even tighter.

‘If it is nothing to do with how you see yourself then why are you so willing to accept that everything including my desire was a lie?’ he asked savagely, his breath hot on her face. ‘Dio, I do not believe there’s a man alive who—’ The abruptness with which he cut himself off this time was matched only by the swift release of her cheeks and the removal of his heat.

She opened her eyes as he rose to his feet.

Dragging his fingers through his hair, he shook his head before landing his gaze back on her. ‘You never believed in me, did you?’

With the chill that had replaced the warmth of his body having stolen her breath, Rebecca could only gape at him.

His firm yet generous lips twitched before a short bark of laugher escaped them. ‘Or is it better to say you never believed in yourself? I remember when I proposed, you kept asking, ‘Why? Why me?’ I didn’t know you like I do now and I thought you were putting on an act, but you were being genuine, weren’t you? You have such low esteem that your first thought when receiving a marriage proposal was to ask why—’

‘Turns out I was right to ask that,’ she interrupted shakily.

His brow drew into a disbelieving line. ‘Would you have asked the question if you had confidence in yourself? You are beautiful and smart and funny but I think of all the times we went out and you were always worried you didn’t look good enough or would show me up, and I think too of how frightened you were to meet my mother because you were afraid she would think you weren’t good enough...’

Rebecca’s heart was thrashing wildly against her ribs. ‘Stop twisting things. This isn’t about me, this is about you.’

Another bark of laughter and a widening of his mouth into a smile that contained more bitterness than warmth. ‘Without you there is no me, don’t you understand that? If your insecurities hadn’t made you question yourself so much, you would already know it and not only understand but feel righthere,’ he punched a fist into his chest, ‘that as big a bastard as I am and as terrible as my behaviour has been, not everything was a lie.’

How she wished it was possible to close her ears as easily as it was to close her eyes. She wished even harder that she could close off her emotions and the longing to believe him, but the hard shell she’d managed to erect around herself earlier had softened into mush.

What ordinary woman in her position wouldn’t have questioned why a wildly attractive billionaire who could have anyone he wanted would want to marry her? And what ordinary woman wouldn’t worry about making a fool of the man she loved when out in the high society world he inhabited and which was so alien to her own that it could have been set on a different planet? She’d thought the hotel they’d met in had been posh? Within days of that meeting, Rebecca’s definition of posh had been blown out of the water. Compared to the places Enzo had taken her to, that hotel had been a rundown dive. She, a primary schoolteacher who, apart from her university years, had lived her whole life in the same end-of-terrace house in the suburbs was suddenly thrown into a world of glamour and limousines, Michelin-starred restaurants and private member clubs. If she’d actually engaged her brain and thought back to that first meeting, she’d have realised that something about it was all wrong, that there was no way Enzo, whose London offices were in the capital’s highest skyscraper, would conduct business in such an ordinary place.

But she’d been too caught up in the glamour and the awakening of feelings smothered for so long she’d forgotten they even existed in her. Feelings like happiness.

Being with Enzo had made her so happy.

The grimace that had been so much of a feature since they’d been holed up in the villa returned to his face at her silence. ‘I’m going to get something to eat.’

She stared at him blankly at the sudden change of subject.

He took a visible, deep breath. ‘It is getting very late. I have not eaten all day. I don’t imagine you have either. Do not starve yourself out of spite of me.’

Turning, he set off towards the villa, but had only taken five paces before he stopped and twisted back to face her. ‘One other thing. If I really was prepared to do anything to get those shares, as you seem to think, I would have made love to you every single time you begged it of me.’

When Enzo’s tall frame had disappeared into the shadows, Rebecca flopped back into the curved support of the egg seat, then drew her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself. Her cheeks were still enflamed from his parting shot, her stomach so tight and cramped she didn’t think she would ever desire food again.

If only her desire and feelings for him could be so easily switched off.

She’d been an idiot for thinking she could maintain her hard shell and survive the night here without hurting herself further. Having Enzo personally hand over the shares he’d coveted so badly wasn’t worth what being with him did to her.

She’d lost count of the times she’d begged him to make love to her, and for him to throw that back at her was mortifying and cruel.

But there had been no cruelty in his matter-of-fact delivery.

If he was telling the truth then his refusal to make love to her had been as agonising for him as it had been for her.

The worst of it was that she did believe he was telling the truth on this. It had been the fevered sincerity that had blazed from his eyes; and she hugged herself harder, knowing she mustn’t think like this. If she accepted this one part of their relationship as the truth then what else would her foolish heart beg her to accept? That he did love her? And what excuses would her foolish heart start making for him then? Would it make her think he’d been perfectly justified in lying about absolutely everything? Would it make her think he had a point about her never believing in herself? Would her foolish heart make her gaslight herself?

She rubbed her chin into her knee. She really should have followed her initial instincts and headed straight to the airport. She might be home by now and not sat in Enzo’s garden...

Home? She almost laughed. She didn’t have a home any more. Not one she could live in. She’d signed a tenancy agreement before she’d moved to Italy. A newlywed couple were now living in the only home she’d ever known and were legally entitled to stay there for a year.

A place to live was just one of the many things she would have to sort out when she returned to England. Finding herself a job was another. Her replacement had already been appointed, and her heart swelled painfully to realise all her now ex-colleagues had witnessed her jilt Enzo at the altar. He’d paid for them to fly over and paid for their accommodation. He’d paid the expenses of every friend and family member she’d included on the guest list.

Rebecca sprang off the egg seat and blinked furiously against yet another batch of hot tears. She didn’t want to remember Enzo’s incredible generosity, all brought about when she’d voiced doubts about marrying in Florence because the price might prohibit many of those she wanted to be there from attending. He was generous to a fault, and she didn’t think it was an act. He had more money than he could ever hope to spend in a thousand lifetimes and donated a set percentage of his annual income to various children’s and animal charities, a philanthropy that predated her entry into his life by many years.

Acknowledging this only made his treatment of her harder to understand. How could a man with such a generous heart be capable of such deviousness, and as she followed his footsteps and slipped back into the villa, her chest tightened and she found herself wishing almost as hard as she’d wished that the oncologist’s diagnosis of her mother’s cancer was wrong that Enzo had convincingly denied that everything between them had been staged. Wished he’d successfully given her a plausible explanation for everything.

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