Page 41 of The Italian's Marriage Bargain

‘Felice!’

She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bring herself to face the man who had just broken her heart. Instead her eyes worked the room, taking in the massive floral bouquets, the champagne cooling in a silver bucket, the candles burning,La Bohèmethrobbing through the heavy air, and finally she dragged her eyes to where Luca stood, Anna just a foot away, her raven curls still falling from being hastily pushed away by him—but not hastily enough.

The image of her in his arms, of that beautiful face resting on that strong chest in this most beautiful of surroundings was etched on Felicity’s mind for ever.

‘Ho provato a telefonare, il signore.’

The Italian was rapid, but it didn’t take Einstein to work out what Rafaello was saying, and with a strange surge of confidence Felicity watched their stunned faces as she managed a translation.

‘Which might have helped—’ Felicity gave a thin smile as she crossed the room to the bedside table ‘—if the telephone hadn’t been taken off the hook. You were right, Rafaello; Signor Santanno really didn’t want to be disturbed after all.’

‘Felice, please.’ Tossing Anna to one side, Luca was next to her in a second, grabbing at her arm, swinging her around and forcing her to face him. ‘This is not how it seems. Tell her Anna.’ His pleading eyes hardened as he turned to his smirking mistress. ‘Tell her how you planned this, tell her I knew nothing about it…’

‘Come now, Luca.’ The smirk widened to a malicious grin as she sidled over, her rounded hips sashaying across the room, tossing her mane of hair, not a trace of contrition as she faced Felicity. And for a second, for a horrible moment, Felicity swore she saw pity in those beautiful almond eyes. ‘Felicity had to find out about us sooner or later. I’m sure given time she’ll come to understand.’

‘Understand this!’ Her words were like pistol-shots, the pity in Anna’s eyes neither wanted nor needed. ‘You can have him, Anna—all of him. And I didn’tjustfind out; I’ve known all along. The only mistake I made was believing Luca when he told me how much he thought you’d changed, but I think his first assessment of you was rather more correct.’

‘And what was that?’ A flicker of doubt flashed in her eyes, and a muscle was pounding in her smooth olive cheek as she turned questioningly to Luca, but it was Felicity who answered her.

‘Well, you’ll have to forgive my rather poor Italian, and I’m sure you’ll understand if my pronunciation isn’t quite correct, but the wordputtanais the one that springs to mind.’ And, turning on her heel, she left the room, ignoring Luca’s calls, even managing a hollow laugh at Anna’s emerging hysterics.

He caught up with her at the lift, blocking the gap with his shoulder as she slammed the heavy iron gates. Even though it must have been agony, he barely winced as she struggled to close them. ‘Felicity, you have it all wrong.’

‘No, I don’t,’ she shouted. ‘You told me she’d changed, told me you were taking her to the hospital every morning, told me she was sitting at her husband’s bedside, willing him to live—and look what was really going on. God, I even insisted you drove her home last night; you must have been laughing yourselves sick in the car. Poor, blind Felicity. Poor, trusting Felicity. I trusted, you Luca; I trusted you and look where that got me.’

‘You’ve never trusted me!’ His voice was a roar, and the urgency in it, the sheer volume behind it startled her.

A surge of nervousness had her forcing the lift gate closed as she wrestled to keep him out. Like a keeper slamming the gate on a deranged animal. Only when the gate was firmly shut did she look at him again, but her hand was on the button, pushing for the ground floor as she prayed for the beastly lift to move.

‘You never trusted me,’ he shouted again, ‘not for a single moment, but you have to trust me now.’

‘Why? So you can humiliate me again? So you can carry on your sordid little affair with an air of respectability? Well, forget it, Luca. A mistress with a ring is something I’ll never be.’

‘Come out of this lift this instant.’ His voice was still loud, still packed its usual authoritarian punch, but there was such raw urgency in it, such an air of desperation that Felicity almost did as he begged. But this bitter end was just too painful to face. The lift was starting to move, beginning its slow descent, and maybe it was for the best, she decided. What was the point in hearing more lies, shovelling hurt onto hurt?

But there was one more thing she needed to say, three little words that would prove the magnitude of her pain, so he clearly knew just what he had flicked away.

‘I loved you, Luca—loved you all along. And just look where it got me!’ Her words echoed upwards as she shouted to the walls.

Slamming at the gate, wrestling with the weight of iron, if he could have put his hand through the metal-work and grabbed the thick oily chain, somehow held onto her, Luca would have. Instead he gripped onto the gate, gripped for a second or two as her final words washed over him, screwing his eyes closed as the truth finally dawned.

That surly, moody chameleon who had shared his bed, who had teetered into his life on too-high heels in a too-tight dress, had really, truly loved him.

‘Luca?’ Anna was coming over, but he barely even recognised her, didn’t even have it in him to be angry with her at this moment. Nothing seemed to matter now. Nothing except what he had lost. ‘It is for the best. Felicity is too soft for you—too soft to be a Santanno. She will be okay.’

But as Luca turned, as Anna saw his broken, shattered face, heard that usually strong voice so hoarse, so bereft, for the first time in her life she felt an alien sting of guilt, a rumble of shame, and she watched the man she adored dissolve before her eyes.

‘She probably will,’ he mumbled, speaking in English, the only thread he had left that bound him to Felice. ‘But will I?’

CHAPTER TWELVE

THROUGHthe tiny steep backstreets she ran, slipping, stumbling, but not caring, immune to the curious looks of the locals as she ran sobbing by. There was no master plan, no direction or purpose to her journey, just an overwhelming need for space, for distance. Gulping air into her lungs, she felt the cool rain on her burning face and only then did she register where she was.

The Trevi Fountain. Neptune standing proud and tall, just as she had left him a year ago, water cascading, the glitter of coins at the bottom, tossed in the eternal hope that the world would keep on turning, that life would go on and that one day in the future you surely would return. But all Felicity felt as she stared into the water was agony, and wonder at how a city so beautiful could have caused so much pain, how she could be holding a place responsible for taking away so much that was dear.

Her brother.

Her husband.

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