Olivia Gates - One Night In…

‘You told me the tabloid truth. I want to know what really happened the night of the car accident.’

‘That has nothing—’

‘Yes, it does,’ she cut him off. She pressed her hands flat against his chest. He shrugged away, but she kept on holding him. Touching him. ‘I think I’m smart enough to realise that even being the world’s biggest playboy wouldn’t drive you like this. Torture you like this. It has to be something else. So what else is there? It must be the car accident. Something happened that night—something that is consuming you with guilt. I know what guilt feels like, Alessandro. I know what it tastes like. It tastes like cold metal. It rides you, wakes you up in the night, drenched in sweat, in icy terror. I know. You said I had shadows, but you have them too, and I don’t want them here any more.’

He looked down at her, curled his fingers around her hands as if to remove them, then stopped. His eyes weren’t blank; they were shadowed with pain, darkened with sorrow.

‘It’s not that simple.’

Meghan felt the first tremulous thrill of victory. She leaned in, kissed the rapid pulse of his throat. ‘It is.’

Alessandro shook his head, the barest of movements, his eyes closed, his face working into hard lines, harsh angles.

‘What happened that night?’ Meghan asked softly. ‘You argued—you said something to Roberto and he didn’t like it. He was shaken, frightened. What did you tell him?’

Alessandro was silent for a long moment. Meghan could hear the ragged rasp of their breathing; the pounding of their hearts. Outside a child laughed, a muted sound of joy from another world.

‘I told him the truth.’ Alessandro spoke through stiff lips, his eyes focused on a distant place, a remembered time. His voice was little more than a whisper.

‘What was the truth?’

His hands curled tightly around hers; he was holding onto her now, Meghan realised. He didn’t want her to let go.

She wouldn’t. She never would.

‘He’d made a mistake.’ Alessandro stopped, and Meghan held her breath. She knew it would take time, and it would take pain, to bring the truth from him. She could wait. ‘He had no head for business, Roberto,’ he continued after a moment, his voice turning toneless. Meghan understood the need to distance himself from the telling. ‘He was an artist, burdened by my parents’ expectations. He never should have …’ He let out a low breath, shook his head, then continued. ‘After my father died, the company was Roberto’s alone. He made all the decisions, and he couldn’t handle the responsibility. He never should have been given it.’

It should have been you, Meghan thought. Alessandro was the one with the head for business; he’d designed the most stunning piece of jewellery she’d ever seen. Yet he’d been passed over since he was a child—perhaps a bit too high-spirited, his mischievous pranks turning wilder as he was continually overlooked. It was so easy to imagine. To understand.

‘He made some bad business deals,’ Alessandro finally said. ‘Ran into debt, terrible debt, and he couldn’t get out. He became desperate, but he was also stupid. He wanted to pay back the loan sharks without anyone noticing, so he started embezzling from the company. Our company.’

He looked down at her, regret etched on every line of his face. ‘I found out. I wish I hadn’t. Roberto would be alive today …’

Meghan doubted that, but she held her tongue. Alessandro’s honesty—his confession—was too precious.

‘I used to check the company’s finances,’ he explained, expressionless once more. ‘I … I always had an interest. When I realised what was going on I was angry.’ He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I was very angry—unreasonably so, perhaps—and I went to find him immediately. He was at a party—Paula, his wife, was there. Everyone was there. I spoke to him—I tried to keep it private …’ Now his voice turned urgent, almost pleading. ‘But Roberto decided to brazen it out. He said he didn’t know what I was talking about, asked why I was checking up on him, so I stated figures. Facts. Then the life drained out of him. I saw him then, defeated, hopeless, and I was glad.’ He looked at her, his face twisted with torment. ‘What sort of man does that make me, to feel that way towards my own brother? My own brother, who never did me a moment’s harm?’

Meghan shrugged. She felt eerily calm. In control. At last. ‘A natural one, to have such a reaction in the heat of the moment.’

‘He left the party; I followed him.’ He was determined to finish it now, to have the reckoning. ‘We got in the car. Once we were alone Roberto became furious. I’d never seen him so angry, so … hateful. I knew he was afraid, but I didn’t let him off. I didn’t give him any mercy.’

‘Did he ask for it?’ Meghan asked.

‘He told me that I should turn a blind eye to his doings, that he’d always turned a blind eye to mine. I said … I said …’ Alessandro dragged in a shuddering breath. ‘I said I’d see him rot in hell first.’

Meghan’s fingers ached from where he was clenching them, clinging to her as his last hope for redemption. She held on.

‘And then?’

‘And then …’ He drew in another breath. ‘And then he said that’s just what I’d do.’

Alessandro was silent, his lips pressed tightly together, unable to say any more. To finish the story.

Realisation dawned slowly, achingly. ‘He was driving the car, wasn’t he?’ Meghan said softly. ‘He tried to kill you both.’

Alessandro didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Tenderly Meghan reached up and stroked his face, let her fingers trail along his cheek.

‘You took the blame,’ she surmised. It all made sense now. It was all so horrifyingly clear. ‘You didn’t want to sully his perfect reputation, did you? His wife … Your mother …’

‘He tried—’

‘What did you do? Trade places in the car? Emilia said you walked away without a scratch, but you must have had some injuries.’

‘A concussion,’ Alessandro said tonelessly. ‘I dragged him across to the passenger seat, managed to get myself behind the wheel before I blacked out. It was the only way,’ he told her, urgency roughening his tone into a demand. ‘Roberto was the kindest, gentlest person … He had a moment of terrible weakness, but one that would be remembered for ever. I knew they’d believe I was driving the car—maybe they’d even think I meant to do it. They’d believe anything of me. It hardly mattered. But Roberto never hurt anyone.’

Except you, she thought. He hurt you.

Meghan shook her head slowly; love swelled within her, hurting her with its beauty and joy. This was the man she loved. ‘And for this you feel guilt? Shame?’

‘I killed him,’ Alessandro whispered. ‘If I hadn’t confronted him … if I hadn’t said that …’ His voice turned angry, savage in its recrimination. ‘I knew he was weak. That he didn’t have a head for business. I’d always known it. It didn’t help matters that I was partying every night, acting the playboy to thumb my nose at my parents and the world. I was stupid and reckless, and no more so than the night I got into that car. If only I’d taken the keys …’

‘He would have done it another day,’ Meghan said calmly. ‘Another way. He was desperate, Alessandro, forced into a corner. It’s not your fault.’

‘It is.’ He spoke with such certainty that her heart plummeted; then she felt angry.

‘You can’t be responsible for someone else’s actions! Didn’t you show me that when I told you what happened to me? Was I responsible for Stephen’s actions? For what he did to me?’