Page 23 of Seduced by Her Fake Husband (The Martinelli Wedding #2)
Chapter Twelve
T he dormant terror leapt back into life in a single pump of Luisa’s heart. “You want me to go…? But why? What’s happened?”
“Nothing’s hap–” He cut himself off and drew in a long breath of air.
“Last night happened. My job here is to keep my brother focused on the wedding and ensure he makes it to the church on Saturday and exchanges his vows. Instead of watching over him and making sure he didn’t do anything stupid at the ball, I spent the night fucking you and have slept half the day away. ”
She flinched, not at the crudeness of his language but the denigration of everything they’d shared. “That’s what you call it? Fucking?”
“That’s what I have to call it,” he stated bluntly. “And if we had only fucked then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I need you to go home, Luisa. I will tell people we had an argument and agreed it was best you leave so we both had a chance to calm down.”
“What happened to this week being too important to allow rumours to circulate about our marriage?” she asked tremulously. “Because that’s what you said to me when I suggested we have separate rooms instead of this suite. You dismissed it.”
“Things have changed, but your reasoning back then was solid and if you leave now it will have the added effect of making it more believable when we announce our plans to divorce on Monday.”
She didn’t just flinch at this, she recoiled as if he’d struck her with his bare hand. She could barely speak to say, “You still want us to divorce? Even after last night?”
He was unyielding. “More so. Last night was a mistake that went too far. I need you gone, not just because you’ve become a distraction to me but for your safety.”
White noise was buzzing so loudly in her head that it was difficult to make sense of what he was saying. “What has my safety got to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with it. The way you make me feel is dangerous, Luisa.”
“So you keep saying,” she said in a tone so hushed she barely heard it herself.
“I keep saying it because it’s the truth and I need you to understand it.”
She shook her head and hugged herself tightly. Her heart was beating so hard she could hardly breathe. “Who are you trying to convince, though, Gennaro? Me or yourself?”
A tic appeared right beneath his eye. “You know the kind of man I am.”
She stared at his implacable face and swallowed back a swell of nausea. She had the strong feeling she was going to be sick.
“I got too close, didn’t I?” Her voice sounded all quivery and wrong. Everything inside her felt quivery and wrong. “And now you want me gone, out of sight and out of mind so you don’t have to deal with it.”
He muttered a curse and expelled a long, ragged breath “ No, Luisa, I want you gone for your own safety because everything I feel for you is dangerous and last night has made those feelings a thousand times worse. I let it go too far and have put you in danger. I’m a jealous, violent man, you know that – why the hell do you think I imposed the rules I did on our marriage and kept the distance I did with you? It was for your sake.”
The white noise turned into a scream in her head and suddenly she was hurling the phone she hadn’t even realised was still in her hand at him. Only her terrible aim stopped it hitting him in the face.
He jumped to his feet like he’d been shot. “What the fuck , Luisa?”
She’d thrown the covers off and launched herself off the bed to shove hard at his chest before she even comprehended what she was doing. “If you’re so violent, retaliate,” she taunted shrilly, shoving at his chest again. “If you’re that incapable of controlling yourself, hit me.”
If he’d been implacable before, he was a block of marble now. “Stop it,” he ground out through clenched teeth.
“Stop what?” She pushed his immovable chest as hard as she could.
“Stop goading you into hitting me? I want you to hit me. Go on, Gennaro. Prove what a violent shit you really are. Blacken my eye before I take myself to Dante and let him kiss it better for me.” She brought her face right up to his.
“And then I’ll let him fuck me better too. ”
Impossibly, his features darkened even more, the marble turning to granite.
She laughed, a bitter ragged sound, right in his dark, stony face. “I bet he’s amazing in bed. I bet he can do things to a woman you’ve never even dreamed of.”
The tic pulsed even harder.
“Which of us would you want to kill first? Me or Dante? Picture it. Go on. I dare you. Picture me and Dante naked together. Picture us laughing at you because I promise you, that’s what we’ll do when we’ve finished screwing each other’s brains out.”
She’d been lifted into the air and laid on the bed before she could catch a breath.
Catching her chin in his hand, he brought his face down to within an inch of hers. “You push me too far,” he said savagely.
“Then hit me,” she spat. “Do it. You know you want to.”
His mouth twisted and then, breathing heavily, he dropped her chin as if her skin were scalding him and strode away from her. “Pack your things, Luisa. And put some clothes on. I want you gone within the hour.”
The coldness that filled her as Gennaro’s long legs crossed the suite seeped into every atom of her being.
Atoms that only hours ago had been filled with the fizz of his lovemaking.
Not his fucking . That’s how it had started but not how it ended, and it slammed into her that this was really it, this was the end of them.
Gennaro was walking out of her life as if none of what they’d shared had happened.
“You coward !” She was on her feet with the words screamed out of her before she knew she was going to say them.
His steps faltered.
“Even after all that provocation… you didn’t even come close to hitting me. None of those rules you imposed on our marriage were for my sake: they were for your sake because you’re too scared to let anyone in.”
His legs started again on their journey out of her life.
“You seduced me thinking you had everything under control but I broke through, didn’t I. I breached the distance you impose on everyone, and that terrifies you and so you’re running away.”
He reached the door and grasped the handle.
“I understand that fear, Gennaro – I’ve felt it the whole of my life, and it’s all been tied to you.
My feelings for you. That’s what scared me – how you make me feel.
” A tear broke free and rolled down her cheek.
She wiped it away with the back of her hand and fought to hold back the rest. “And now I understand why. It’s because deep down I’ve always known they’re feelings you will never allow yourself to return. ”
His head jerked but his back remained firmly turned to her.
“You’ve spent so long containing your emotions for fear of being like your father when you are nothing like him that you’d rather spend the rest of your life alone and lonely than take a chance on a real, human relationship.
You’d rather throw my love back in my face than risk opening your heart to what we both know could be something truly special.
And that makes you a coward. We could have it all, Gennaro.
You know we could. But you won’t take it.
You’re not even prepared to try.” Her voice finally broke, the tears she’d barely been holding back breaking free, and then her legs buckled beneath her and she slumped to the floor sobbing uncontrollably.
He left the suite without looking back at her.
Gennaro sat at the main pool terrace playing poker with his brother and a couple of his cousins. For the first time in his long amateur gambling career, he found himself on a losing streak.
Niccolo, with his monster hangover, wasn’t faring much better. Gennaro didn’t even have a mild hangover as an excuse.
He couldn’t rid his ears of the sound of Luisa’s sobs.
The relief he’d expected to find at ending things with her had failed to kick in.
The barbed wire-laced weight in his chest had grown. He took another large drink of his scotch in an attempt to numb it .
A hotel porter appeared from the direction of his suite, heading towards the lobby. He was pushing a trolley loaded with luggage.
The weight spread to Gennaro’s throat, making it difficult to breathe.
“I wonder who that belongs to,” Niccolo muttered.
Gennaro had another drink of his scotch without responding.
“Lucky bastard, whoever it is.”
He flicked his stare to him. Even with his hangover, Niccolo was more on edge than he’d been since Gennaro had reminded him of everything he stood to lose if he didn’t make an effort to play the happy loved-up groom.
Their father’s appearance at the table added another layer to the froideur.
After hovering a few moments, he cleared his throat and brightly said. “Can anyone play?”
Niccolo eyed him coldly. “Fuck off.”
Their cousins continued studying their cards and pretended not to hear anything, but the poolside was busy, and Gennaro noticed people on neighbouring tables turn their heads.
Seeing his father’s face turn red with embarrassment and outrage, Gennaro got to his feet and leaned into him.
Speaking in a low voice, he said, “How many times do you have to be told? You’re not here because Nic wants to patch up nearly two decades of estrangement and play happy families with you.
You’re here because Lorenzo demanded you be invited so he could make a friend of you, but no amount of sucking up is going to get you a seat on the top table at the wedding breakfast.”
His father’s ageing face convulsed yet somehow he managed to dredge a smile, as if what his eldest son had just whispered in his ear was something warm and witty. “He’s still my son.”
“You gave up the right to call him your son when you used his head as a football all those years ago.”