He pushed aside the heavy heart-shaped leaves and fragrant clusters of flowers hanging from a basswood tree and she was sitting beneath it, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them tightly, gently rocking back and forth. She didn’t look up when he sank to the ground opposite her.
“Nicoletta. Tell me why you’re so upset over the things Eloisa has to say about everyone.”
She reached down and gathered up dirt in her hand, slowly letting it leak through her fingers to the ground. “You’re all different. You have to be. You can’t be like everyone else. I thought I could be like you, but it’s really not possible. I’m never going to fit in. At first I wanted to blame it on the fact that I was raped.”
She used the back of her hand to rub her forehead, as if she might have a headache. Taviano didn’t interrupt her, although he wanted to. He wanted to reassure her that she belonged with him no matter where they were or who he was. He forced himself to remain silent and hear her out.
“I realized, when Eloisa was talking so disparagingly about my mother and father, that I remember the way my mother would take me through the neighborhood, and we’d go to the park or library and wave and say hello to everyone. She knew everyone by name. They knew her. She liked them. She laughed all the time. She didn’t talk behind their backs. Not ever. She would have been so angry with me if I had done so. She gave me those lessons, Taviano, from the time I was little. People mattered to her, not money.”
“You mean the way they do to Francesca and Stefano? Or Grace and Vittorio? You aren’t as close with Giovanni and Sasha, but Sasha is just as down-to-earth as Francesca and Grace. Giovanni is the first man to look out for those less fortunate. Trust me, Sasha would box his ears if he ever got too pompous. Mariko doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, and Ricco is very kind. We work hard, Nicoletta, and most of what the public sees is so we can have alibis for what we don’t want them to see or know about our real business.”
She nodded. “I understand that. On the other hand, it’s so easy to just get on your private plane and go to any hotel and buy out an entire floor or the entire hotel if you want.”
“So, what you’re upset about is the fact that we have money.”
“I’m upset because you married me, Taviano, for all the wrong reasons, and I let you. I just let you. That’s why I’m upset.”
He studied her averted face. He could feel distress pouring off of her in waves. “You couldn’t care less about money. You didn’t marry me for that.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know why I married you. This is humiliating enough. The good thing is, we didn’t consummate the marriage. We can get it annulled.”
“That’s not going to happen.” He was very firm about that. “There are perks to all that money, Nicoletta, and the lawyers I have access to. One of those is getting my way. You better believe there won’t be an annulment or a divorce. I made that very clear. We need to stop going round and round on this issue and focus on moving forward.”
“You’re very frustrating, Taviano.” She sent him a look from under her long lashes that made him want to lean across the small space between them and kiss her. “Do you see how entitled that makes you? You’re just proving my point.”
“Why? Because I’m honest about what I want? I told you from the beginning I wanted you. I knew it was you. I didn’t make any bones about that. You ran, and I chased after you.”
“You rejected me when I threw myself at you. It took a lot of courage to try to seduce you.”
“We were both drunk, Nicoletta. That isn’t courage, it’s alcohol. The minute you freaked out, and you would have, what if I didn’t have the control to stop? Where would we have been then? Do you have any idea what it cost me to turn you down? I’ve had a permanent erection for far too long. It was indecent because you were too young, and I was supposed to be looking out for you.”
“You did look out for me. It’s not your fault that I fell in love with you.”
“Why the fuck do you have to say it like that?” Temper swirled in his gut in spite of his determination to go carefully with her.
She winced. He rarely swore at her, especially since that night two years earlier. “Like what? How do you want me to say it? It’s the truth.”
“Like loving me is the worst thing that anyone could possibly do. I’m sure that’s how my mother feels. Hell, I drive Stefano up the wall all the time as well. Maybe he feels that way, too.”