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It felt good to be in the flat with Elysa. It felt damn good to sleep in the same bed with her. And it was fucking perfect to make love with her before we fell asleep and then again when we woke up.
“When you first asked me to move back into the flat, I wondered if you were doing it as part of damage control…you know, for the sake of appearances,” I confessed at breakfast.
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t give a shit about appearances, Dante. You know that.”
I stroked her cheek with a finger, delighting in how I could just touch her whenever I felt like it. Hold her when I wanted. Kiss her. Make love to her. It was the best feeling in the world.
That good feeling didn’t last long.
When I got to work, I could see that everyone wason high alert, thanks to the media circus surrounding the affair rumors.
Pippa barged into my office where I was in a meeting with our head of brand, discussing some new acquisitions we intended to make in South America. I wondered if Elysa would like to visit Argentina's wine country with me.
“Dante.” Her tone was brisk but urgent. “You need to come with me. Now.”
“What is it?” I braced for the bad news.
“Elysa’s doing the press conference,” she stated, and for a moment, I thought I’d misheard her.
“What?” I stopped dead in my tracks, staring at her like she’d just sprouted another head. “What do you mean, Elysa’sdoingthe press conference? What is she doing?”
“She called the press conference herself.” Pippa gestured for me to follow her down the hallway. “She’s in the Palazzo ballroom. We should get down there.”
“How would she even know how to call a press conference?” I asked, walking briskly.
“She may have…don’t fire me, alright.”
I sighed. “She made you do it without telling me.”
“Yes,” Pippa admitted.
When I walked into the ballroom, I saw Elyssa standing at the podium at the front of the room. Her back was straight, her chin was high, and her hands rested lightly on the sides of the lectern.
Cameras flashed in bursts, and the low murmurof reporters filled the room, but Elysa didn’t falter. She was calm, composed, and, I realized with great pride, completely in control.
I stopped just inside the door.
She spoke in Italian as she addressed the crowd of journalists. Although her accent had a tinge of American, it didn’t detract; it only enhanced the image she portrayed of a committed wife who learned the language of her husband’s country.
“My husband is one of the most decent men I know,” she said in Italian. “He hasneverbehaved unprofessionally with Lucia Falcone, though she certainly has when she told me lies that she was having an affair with Dante.”
There was a lot of murmuring from the journalists, and cameras flashed relentlessly.
“Our marriage is our business and no one else’s,” she continued.
A journalist shouted, “But you’re not living together.”
“Didn’t I just say that my marriage is our business and certainly not yours?” she snapped. “We’re here to discuss the accusations made by the Giordano Hotel Group’sformergeneral counsel. The reason I’m here is because she accused my husband of adultery, which he isn’t capable of.”
“But what about the photographs?” someone demanded in English.
There was a moment of silence beforeshe effortlessly switched to English and addressed the room with the same poise.
“The rumors and photographs are nothing more than an attempt to discredit him and, by extension, my marriage and me. Someone took innocuous business meetings and twisted them into something they’re not. I was on the train to Piedmont when one of those photos was taken, and I can assure you—there were at least twenty of us in that car, including me.” She shook her head. “Even if he were the most dishonest asshole in the world, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to grope his mistress in front of his entire work team… and his wife.”
Laughs rang out amongst the journalists.
I could barely breathe as I listened to her. She wasn’t just defending me—she was publicly declaring her loyalty and her love, even after everything I’d done to push her away.