Page 29 of Marriage Made In Hate

L UCA HEARD HER speak but it made no sense.

He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Her expression did not change.

‘I mean I’m not Matteo’s niece,’ she said again.

His frown deepened. ‘What are you saying?’

She stood up, not answering him, simply picking up her discarded clothes and putting them back on. He watched her, lying back, propping himself up on a couple more pillows. What the hell was going on?

‘Bianca—speak to me!’

She started to button her blouse. ‘I’m not Matteo’s niece,’ she said, and her voice was as expressionless as her face. ‘For the simple reason that his brother was not my father.’

‘ What? But Matteo—’

‘Matteo thought he was because his brother thought he was. And his brother thought he was my father because that was what my mother told him.’

Luca saw her take a breath, and then something finally showed in her expressionless face.

She finished doing up her blouse, slipped her feet back into her shoes.

Luca stared at her. ‘You know this?’

He saw her swallow.

‘I’ve known for a few days now. You see…

’ She hesitated, as if speaking was difficult.

‘When I came back to London from Italy there was something I knew I needed to do. You know that after my mother died my aunt took me in, even though she resented me? She gave me a home when she could have handed me over to be put into care.’

She paused, then went on.

‘She hasn’t stayed in touch before—I send her Christmas cards, but never hear back—but now she’s getting on, and she hasn’t had an easy life.

I wanted to do something for her. Matteo had settled some money on me, saying it was from my father’s estate.

Out of that I wanted to buy her a bungalow near the sea, which I knew was her dream.

After all, why not? I could afford it now I’d discovered who I was. So I went to see her and I told her.’

She paused again for a moment, her expression changing again.

‘And she told me I had no right to offer her anything.’

Her voice dropped.

‘Because I had no right to accept anything Matteo Fiarante possessed. Because I was not his brother’s daughter at all.

Because…’ she took another ragged breath ‘…my mother was already pregnant when she met Matteo’s brother.

She’d been “carrying on”, as my aunt put it, with an Irishman who worked at a pub. A red-headed Irishman.’

She picked up her handbag from where she’d dropped it on the floor.

‘That’s where I get my red hair from, Luca, and my green eyes.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘And that’s probably why I was pouring drinks in a bar when you first met me—blood will out, after all.’

She looked at him with eyes that had no expression in them—none at all.

‘I won’t tell Matteo. Not yet. If the treatment is successful—as I hope with all my heart it will be—then I’ll tell him. He’ll be able to take it then. And if it isn’t successful…’

For the first time Luca could hear emotion in her voice.

‘Well, then what I think I must do is go and see his lawyer on some pretext…explain the situation to him. If…if he thinks it would hurt Matteo too much to know the truth then I won’t tell him.

When the time comes, I’ll simply refuse his legacy to me.

I have no right to it, and presumably whatever Matteo was going to do with it before he knew of my existence can still be done—I’m sure the lawyer will sort it out. ’

She hitched the strap of her bag onto her shoulder and took another breath, steadier this time. Her face had gone back to being expressionless.

‘I want your word, Luca, that you’ll go along with me on this.

I may not be Matteo’s niece…there may not be a drop of shared blood between us…

but I’ve come to care for him—care about him.

I can’t turn that off just because I’m nothing more than a stranger to him after all.

And I can’t hurt him with the truth before he’s strong enough to take it.

And if that time doesn’t come—well, he shall die in peace, in the happy belief that I’m his long-lost niece, his brother’s daughter.

As for his other fantasy…’ She paused. ‘That’s all it was—all it is.

I’m not your godfather’s niece, not his heiress, and not suitable to be your viscontessa .

I’m just a common-as-muck girl out of the East End of London, just like I was six years ago. ’

She walked to the door. Pulled it open. Cast one last look back at him.

‘Sorry about that, Luca.’

Then she was gone.

Luca stared at the closed hotel room door. Inside his chest, his heart had started to thud like a hammer pounding him into the ground.

* * *

Bianca had reached the lift. How she’d got there she didn’t know. How she walked inside it and found a button to press she didn’t know either. Because she couldn’t see. Her vision had gone.

Everything had gone.

Luca had gone.

Lost now for ever like the fantasy he had only ever been, conjured up by the man who was not her uncle after all.

She felt the lift plummet down, leaving her stomach behind—and also an organ even more vital.

The lift stopped moving. There was the slightest pause, and then the doors were opening.

On robotic legs, she stepped out into the lobby.

Two hands fastened around her upper arms like vises.

‘Where the hell ,’ demanded Luca, ‘do you think you’re going?’

* * *

He thrust her back into the elevator, jabbing at the control button for his floor. How he’d reached the lobby before she did, he didn’t know. How he’d yanked on the barest minimum of clothing to make him even fractionally decent—just his trousers—he didn’t know either.

He knew only one thing.

Bianca was trying to leave him.

He pressed her back against the wall of the car as it soared back up.

She struggled against his grip, but he would have none of it.

He was breaking every rule in the MeToo handbook, but he didn’t give a damn.

He kissed her instead, crushing her to him.

Kissing her and kissing her till she was breathless, boneless, helpless…

‘Don’t leave me!’ he said. ‘Don’t ever leave me!’

The lift was stopping, the doors sliding open. He pulled her out, hustled her back into his room. He hadn’t shut the door—there’d been no time. But once inside he kicked it shut with his bare foot, crushing her against him.

‘No more leaving, Bianca! No more leaving ever! Not you—not me—not either of us! Do you understand me? Do you?’

He broke into Italian. It was the only language that would do. The only one that could be spoken fast enough, vehemently enough, passionately enough.

Lovingly enough.

As the torrent poured from him he cradled her face in his hands, tilting it up so she would look at him. Tears were shimmering in her eyes. With an oath he broke off, pressed passionate kisses on her eyelids, which fluttered closed.

‘No tears! No crying! No weeping! And no leaving! Because why would you want to leave? Why? Six years it’s taken us—six years!—to be back together again! To make it right between us!’

Her face contorted. Words spilled from her.

‘We’re only together because you thought I was someone worthy of you now! Because you thought me Matteo Fiarante’s niece! But I’m not! I’m not his niece! I’m exactly the same as I was six years ago—when you said I wasn’t good enough for you.’

Italian broke from him again. Crude this time, and full of expletives. But he didn’t care.

‘Then shame on me!’ The hands cupping her face gentled, his voice too.

He poured his eyes into hers. ‘Bianca, six years ago I said what I should never have said. I said it because I thought you wanted too much of me—more than I wanted. But now…now I want everything. Everything. Everything that you are.’

He took a breath, his expression changing, his voice changing.

‘As for what you’ve told me—yes, I’m sad. How could I not be? I am sad that you are not Matteo’s niece…that he is not your uncle. Sad simply because it meant so much to you and to him. Of course I’m sad. But that’s all I am, Bianca.’

He let his hands slip from her face, rest on her shoulders instead. Tears were still shimmering in her eyes and he wanted them gone. Wanted that haunted look in her face gone.

He wanted only one look in her face…her eyes. The one that echoed his.

‘Forgive me,’ he said simply, plainly, so that there could be no doubt, no misunderstanding—not ever again.

‘Forgive me if I gave you cause to think it would make a difference to me. Because how could it? How could it change you for me? How could it change me ? I am what I am, Bianca.’ His eyes held hers, and then he said to her the most important thing he would ever say in his life.

‘And what I am, what I will always be, is the man who loves you.’

Softly, gently and infinitely carefully, he lowered his lips to hers, in a fleeting touch whose echo would last for ever. All his life—and hers.

And as he lifted his mouth away he saw the tears in her eyes well up and spill, then pour down her cheeks.

It was all he needed to see.

* * *

She went into his arms and they came about her. She felt the bare wall of his chest against her breasts, his hands around her waist, holding her while she wept.

After a long while her tears dried, and she could cry no more. He let her straighten. As she did so, she became aware of a discreet but insistent knocking at the door. Frowningly, Luca released her, opened the door. Two men in dark suits stood there.

‘Is everything all right?’ one asked.

His voice was polite, but wary too. The other one, Bianca realised, was looking past Luca at her.

‘Are you all right, madam?’ the second one asked her directly.

With a start, she realised who they were, why they were here, and what they were seeing. Luca wearing nothing but a pair of trousers, chest bare, feet shoeless. Herself with her face swollen with tears. They had presumably, she realised, received a report of Luca hauling her into the lift.

She gave a laugh—a shaky one. ‘Thank you, yes, we’re fine. I promise you. Thank you so much for your concern,’ she said.

‘Yes, thank you,’ corroborated Luca. ‘I apologise for my…alarming behaviour. You see…’ he turned to address the hotel’s security team ‘…I wanted to propose to my fiancée, but I was somewhat…precipitate.’

The first security guard looked suspicious. Confused. ‘Fiancée…? Propose to her…?’

‘It’s a long story,’ Bianca said.

‘And complicated,’ added Luca.

‘But I’m absolutely fine,’ Bianca assured the two men. ‘Truly I am.’

‘So you see,’ said Luca, ‘I’m sure you’ll understand that we wish to be a little…private right now?’

Two pairs of wary eyes went from Bianca to Luca, then to Bianca again. She smiled at them reassuringly. And there must have been something in that smile to make them reassess the situation. Or perhaps it was the radiance in her face…the glow of happiness in her eyes. The look of love about her…

‘Then please accept our apologies for having disturbed you,’ the first one said dryly.

‘Not at all,’ said Luca graciously.

He shut the door, turned back to Bianca. But he did not come to her. Instead, he stayed where he was. Went down on one knee. Lifted his face to look up at her.

‘Will you marry me, Bianca?’ he said.

And it came from his heart. From his very being. From all that he was and ever would be.

She’d thought she had cried all her tears. Thought there were none left to shed.

She was wrong.

* * *

She was crying again, and with an oath in Italian, Luca lurched to his feet.

‘Bianca!’

He knew alarm was in his voice, and a lot more. He caught her hand and kissed it. Hung on to it tightly.

‘You do want to marry me, don’t you? I mean, we can live in sin…

or just go on being fidenzato to each other for the next hundred years…

but wouldn’t you like a wedding? Most females would, or so I’m told, and to be honest I’d probably quite enjoy one too.

’ His throat tightened. ‘I know Matteo would. We could do it for him. Because, you see…’ his voice changed, became sombre ‘…whatever the outcome of his treatment, and whenever you tell him about your real father, I know… I know , Bianca…that it will not kill his feelings for you.’ And now he gave her hand a little shake of remonstrance.

‘Any more than it will kill mine for you. Because it’s you, Bianca, who we care about… feel for. You we love. You I love.’

He lifted her hand to his mouth, grazed her knuckles in the time-honoured gesture of homage.

‘Say yes,’ he said to her as he lowered her hand again.

‘Say yes and make me the happiest of men. It’s taken me six long years to deserve to be happy, but now I truly think I do.

We’ll take care of Matteo, you and I together, until the end comes.

And when it does—whenever that should be—he will know that his fantasy, his dream…

’ his voice softened ‘…has become the truth. A truth that will last our lifetimes.’

He paused, his gaze pouring into hers. Her eyes were diamonds, with the last tears to be shed.

‘Say yes, Bianca,’ he said again.

Her lashes lowered, sweeping away the tears.

‘Yes…’ she said, her voice a whisper.

And then a cry, a broken sound, was wrenched from her.

‘Oh, God, yes , Luca! Yes! Because I love you so, so much. I always have and I always will, and I can’t ever not love, love, love you!’

He crushed her hand to his lips again, emotion filling him, and as he lowered it he slipped from his finger the signet ring he always wore. Slid it onto hers.

‘This must do until I get you back to Italy,’ he said, a crooked smile forming at his mouth.

‘I left the one you bought me at Matteo’s house,’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘Not that one. Oh, you can wear it every day, if you like, but that’s not the ring you’ll wear on our wedding day. Not that one at all. Only one ring will do for you then.’

She gave a wry laugh, looking pointedly at him. ‘A priceless heirloom for an East End girl?’

He shook his head again. ‘For the beloved of my heart,’ he said.

Another cry broke from her and he swept her into his arms. Where she would stay for ever now.

Beloved of my heart.

His own words echoed through him—as he knew they would through all the years ahead.