Olivia Gates - One Night In…

‘Ah. She always liked to cause trouble.’

He riffled through the clippings with an uninterested air. ‘Ah, yes. I think I remember this one. She was quite good in bed, if I recall. Daring.’

Meghan closed her eyes.

‘And this one … Hmm, memory’s a bit fuzzy there. Probably had too much to drink. I often did.’

‘Don’t do this.’ She felt faint, dizzy, sick.

Alessandro glanced at her over the top of the clippings and smiled coolly. ‘But why not, Meghan? Isn’t this what you want to know? Isn’t this why I found you here, staring at these photos?’

‘I was trying,’ Meghan replied as levelly as she could, ‘to find out why you are the way you are.’

‘Do not!’ His voice came out sharp. ‘Do not psychoanalyse me. I know who I am. These clippings prove it. And if you fell in love with me, Meghan, then you fell in love with a false image. What you wanted me to be, not what I am.’

It was what her own mind had been telling her, and it hurt. It hurt more than she’d ever thought it would to hear him say it, admit it.

‘You were kind to me,’ Meghan whispered, her eyes starting to pool with tears. The room, the clippings, Alessandro, were all a blur. ‘You told me you would never hurt me.’

‘Da tutti i san, by now you should’ve realised that wasn’t true!’

Her vision swam; she clutched the arm of her chair like an anchor. ‘Are you telling me you lied?’

‘I got what I wanted,’ Alessandro replied dispassionately. ‘You.’

‘I don’t believe it.’ She clung to one last hope that even now he would relent. Change. ‘This isn’t you.’

‘Yes, it is. I warned you, Meghan.’

Alessandro’s face was a mask, terrible in its blankness. It was as if the life had drained out of him, and Meghan didn’t know if she could get it back. She dragged breath into her lungs. ‘What about the car accident?’

He stilled, and for a tense moment Meghan wasn’t sure what he would do next. What he was capable of. She stiffened, forced herself to remain still.

‘Are you asking me if I killed my brother?’ he asked, his voice indifferent. ‘You saw the headlines. Omicidio. Assassino. They speak the truth.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘Was it?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I read the tabloid gossip, every word. Maybe I picked that stretch of road—crashed the car in a way that would only injure the passenger. Who knows?’ He smiled mockingly, and Meghan shook her head, desperate now.

‘Alessandro, that can’t be true. Even if you were capable of such a thing, it would be an insane risk.’

He walked up to her, tilted her chin with cool fingers so Meghan was looking with anguish into his own blank eyes.

‘But don’t you know by now that I like to take risks? It’s what makes me good at business. You were a risk, weren’t you, gattina? Too bad that one hasn’t worked out.’

She shook her head. ‘No, it can’t …’ Her voice trailed off into desperate silence.

His fingers tightened on her chin. ‘Tell me, Meghan,’ he said softly, ‘when you look at those clippings, what do you feel, think? What do you believe?’

Her mind spun, whirred hopelessly like a stalled engine. She thought of what she’d felt: the horror, the repulsion, the fear, and knew they were reflected in her eyes, her face. She tried to think of a word, an explanation, but nothing came out.

Something flickered to life in Alessandro’s eyes and then deadened. Like ash, dust, ice. ‘You see?’ he said softly. ‘You do believe it, don’t you? I warned you before. I won’t change.’ He paused, his voice turning ragged. ‘I can’t.’

She stared. Her mind blanked. She couldn’t speak.

He dropped his hand from her face and glanced down at the clippings; the photograph of the ruined car was on top. ‘Damned by silence,’ he mocked.

‘Alessandro, don’t …’ she began, her voice a thread, but he ignored her.

‘Never mind. It’s just as well, you know. I was starting to get bored.’

‘Bored?’ she repeated faintly, and he smiled, a bitter twisting of his lips.

‘Surely you saw in those papers that I’m a man of many tastes, pleasures? I’ll get a few things,’ he continued tonelessly, ‘and move to my flat. You can continue to live here. I don’t mind.’

Meghan felt as if she were plummeting through a cold, dark tunnel. She gazed at him in shock, her mind finally catching up, making sense of what was happening. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying,’ Alessandro replied in clear, cutting tones, ‘that I don’t want to live with you any more. This marriage was a mistake, a bad risk, but unfortunately neither of us can undo it now. I won’t bring shame to the di Agnio name again.’ He held up one hand to still the wave of protests rising within her, unspoken. ‘You’ll still get what you want. I’ll come with you to that godforsaken town in Iowa you once called home. I’ll give you security. You, on the other hand, need give me nothing.’

‘Alessandro …’ Meghan was on her knees on the chair, tears streaking silently down her face. She felt as if her world had been torn apart in a matter of minutes and lay around her in bloody shreds. And she hadn’t lifted a finger to stop it. She hadn’t had the strength. ‘This isn’t what I want.’

He looked at her as if he didn’t care. As if he’d already moved on, forgotten. ‘Pity,’ he remarked, ‘because this is what you’re going to get.’

Meghan remained half kneeling on the chair as Alessandro moved through the house. She knew he was gathering his things, preparing to leave her for ever.

And she didn’t know what to do.

She hadn’t expected this utter rejection—the man she loved turned into a stranger she couldn’t even understand.

She should have spoken sooner—done something, thought something, acted. Shown him … But what? She’d still been reeling with shock, with disappointment, with sorrow.

And now it was too late.

It’s never too late, her heart cried out, and Meghan forced herself to listen. Alessandro was her second chance at life, at love; she was his. She wouldn’t let go of it lightly.

She couldn’t let him leave.

Not like this. Never like this.

On weak, wobbling legs she walked up the stairs, her mind buzzing but blank. She wished she knew what to say, what to think. She only knew she had to act.

She turned the corner, came to the bedroom door. And saw him.

Alessandro sat on the bed, his head bowed, his hands fisted in his hair. Meghan’s heart contracted, ached with a desperate longing that nearly made her stagger.

She recognised that stance, the bleak despair in every agonised line of his body. She’d felt it herself.

It was the look of a person who believed his own soul was damned because everyone had told him it was, even when his heart had cried out for belief, for love.

For salvation.

She’d felt it when one man had condemned her; Alessandro had suffered the judgement of an entire country.

This is the man I love.

This was the man. No matter what he’d thought, what he’d felt, what he’d done.

She loved Alessandro.

And she knew, had to believe, that he was the man she thought he was, knew he was.

The man he meant to be.

She must have made some sound, for he looked up, his face hardening into a mask once more.

‘I’ll be out of here in a few minutes,’ he said coldly. ‘Can’t you wait?’

‘No, I can’t,’ Meghan said. Her voice was a scratchy breath of sound but she forced it to come out stronger. ‘And you won’t.’

‘I won’t?’ he repeated in a mocking tone. ‘You should know by now there’s little I won’t do, gattina.’ He stood up, grabbed the half-filled bag at his feet and slung it over one shoulder.