Celebration: Italian Boss, Ruthless RevengeOne Magical ChristmasHired: The Italian’s Convenient Mistress Page 13

  ‘You’ve served your purpose, then?’ Malvolio stood in the doorway, and she was too numb to be shocked at the sight of him. ‘The great Ranaldi’s tossing you out?’

  ‘Your brother-in-law’s a bastard!’ Caitlyn retorted. Her mind was just not there. Her brain was hypothermic, frozen by Lazzaro’s brutal words, all her responses slower, her thought processes functioning at basic survival level.

  ‘I could have told you that and saved you the trouble.’ Malvolio came over, smiled down at her sympathetically. ‘The Ranaldis are all bastards—or bitches,’ he added. ‘We’re not good enough for any of them …’

  Her defences were utterly down. She wasn’t seeing the red flags that were waving, wasn’t hearing the frantic urgent alert as her brain struggled to hit her warning bell. And then she did. Like a fog horn screaming in the darkness, suddenly she heard it, and panic, fear, was gripping her. Only it was just a little bit too late. She could taste the whisky on the mouth that crushed hers, the putridness of his breath, the blood on her lips. There was hate and anger in him as he wedged his body against her—and she knew, knew what was going to happen. Knew that even though she was kicking and screaming, his hate was stronger. And as he slammed her to the ground all she could hope was that it would be quick.

  That this hell would soon be over.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHAT the hell had he done?

  Lazzaro paced the lobby, his hand clamped over his mouth, his breath hyperventilating into his hand, as his staff watched on bemused. Glynn the only one with the nerve to approach him.

  ‘Is everything okay, sir?’

  He didn’t answer—didn’t even hear him. His mind was with Caitlyn, hating what he’d done to her. He could see her in his mind’s eye, standing frozen as he’d shamed her, humiliated her—and for what?

  Because once she’d wanted him?

  Because all this time she’d loved him?

  It was like an axe splitting his skull open—and he hated himself more as he remembered that night they’d first met. Hell, if he’d had a photo of her, if she’d been in a magazine …

  Roxanne was poison—she twisted things, blurred the truth—and she wasn’t Caitlyn.

  Just as he wasn’t Luca, so Roxanne wasn’t Caitlyn.

  Sweet, trusting Caitlyn—which she was.

  She was!

  He trusted her. For the first time in the longest time he trusted someone—actually believed in someone—and it truly terrified him.

  ‘Sir?’ Glynn’s face blurred out of focus. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’ He could see the worry on his manager’s face. ‘Malvolio was just looking for you—I said you were in your office. Maybe I could call him for you …?’

  ‘Malvolio!’

  He was running now, pounding the button for the lift with his hand. Caitlyn had been telling the truth. All along she had been telling the truth—and that meant right now he’d left her alone with him.

  Never had a lift taken so long. Every second as it sped him upwards felt like an hour. Vainly he parted the sliding doors with his hands in frustration in his haste to get to her, racing through the gap and into the hell he’d created—just in time to see her pushed to the floor.

  Ripping him off her, slamming him across the room, he knew someone was looking after him—someone up there was looking after him. Because with every fibre of his being he wanted to slam into Malvolio, to hit him, to rip him a new face. But if he did, he knew he’d kill him.

  He’d kill him.

  His fingers were somehow pressing the security alert button, and that tiny pause was long enough to regroup, to see her sitting on the floor, hugging her knees, to acknowledge that he’d got there in time. And then he faced the bastard—only Lazzaro wasn’t the only one filled with hate. Malvolio had his share too.

  Screaming like a demented woman, his eyes bulged in fury. ‘You think you’re so good. Your whole family thinks it’s better—you’re users—’

  ‘Shut it.’ Lazzaro was in his face, but Malvolio wasn’t to be contained.

  ‘You swan around like God on the day of reckoning—judging us, shaming us, humiliating us. No wonder Luca hated you!’

  Security was there then, already alerted by Glynn. And Lazzaro’s office was a ball of chaos for a while—but only a little while. Lazzaro cleared them all out quickly, for which Caitlyn was grateful—because she didn’t want to see Malvolio ever again. She would make statements and all that later. Just not right now.

  Sitting on the edge of the plump sofa, holding a tissue to her lip, Caitlyn watched as he closed the door, stared at him as he came over to comfort her—stopped him with her eyes as she delivered her words.

  ‘He’s right.’

  ‘Caitlyn—’

  ‘Everything Malvolio said is right.’

  ‘Don’t—’

  ‘All I ever did wrong was fall in love with you, and you took something nice, something pure, then turned around and shamed me with it.’

  ‘Don’t talk about that now.’ His usually strong voice was a croak. ‘I need to know that you’re okay. Did he hurt you anywhere else, apart from your lip?’

  ‘He didn’t hurt me!’ Caitlyn shouted. ‘At least nowhere near as much as you did. You made me feel cheaper and dirtier and more ashamed than Malvolio just did …’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ He tried to take her hand but she pulled it away. ‘I was coming back to say I was sorry.’

  ‘Well, you were already too late.’ On surprisingly steady legs she stood up. ‘I’ve forgiven you so many times, Lazzaro—and I swear I never will again. I swear that I’ll hate you for ever.’

  Friends were golden.

  Real friends. Because, even if he’d started as a colleague, Glynn was actually a friend. He came without question when she buzzed him, put his arm around her and led her out as Lazzaro stood there. He drove her home and poured her some wine and called in the troops—an army of friends who swarmed like butterflies, who held her hand every step of the horrible way and told her over and over, till she almost believed it, that none of this was her fault—that she was absolutely better off without him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Ask your cousin.

  During the grim post-mortem that came at the end of any romance—where you bargained with yourself and beat yourself up over the mistakes that actually weren’t mistakes, were just you—in the sleepless nights when you rang your voicemail just to hear his voice, replaying every conversation in a futile search for the clue that’s going to unlock the mystery of what went wrong, Caitlyn actually found one. She heard for the first time not just the agony but the loathing in his voice as he’d said it—felt again his hand pushing hers away as she touched his pain and he shut her out.

  ‘Ask your cousin.’

  So she did.

  She reacquainted herself with her wardrobe and her make-up bag, and stepped out like a foal on wobbly legs, into a world that seemed just a little too bright and loud, and bravely asked the question she had to.

  She’d sworn she’d never go back to him.

  Would never set foot in the hotel again, would never be in the same room with Lazzaro Ranaldi as long as there was a breath left in her.

  She’d sat and drunk and cried with friends, had read the self-help books and grudgingly accepted that he just ‘wasn’t that into her’—she had done all the things a girl had to do when she’d had her heart ripped out and stomped on: rung friends instead of him, deleted his mobile number so she wasn’t tempted to text him in the middle of the night, removed him from her inbox. And she’d waited.

  Waited to feel better.

  To believe that time healed.

  That one guy didn’t fit all.

  That of course there were others.

  Millions and millions of others, walking the globe at this very minute …

  But there was only one him.

  Only one man who could literally stop her heart as she walked into the hotel bar and saw him sitting there. Only one
man she’d actually have done this for—whether it made her brave or stupid that when he’d called her and asked that they might meet she’d agreed.

  For closure.

  Closure for him as much as for her.

  ‘Thank you.’ It was impossible to look him in the eye when he greeted her—impossible, because if she did she’d start crying. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ She’d insisted they meet in the bar, unable to face his office. ‘I’m sorry it’s so public. I just couldn’t face the …’

  She couldn’t even say it—couldn’t stand to go back to the office where it had all happened.

  Lazzaro understood. ‘I know how you feel.’

  ‘I know you do.’ She gave a tight smile, because he must—because she didn’t actually know how he did it, how he sat in the same office not just where Malvolio had been so vile, but where he’d fought so bitterly with Luca.

  Why he put himself through it.

  Even if Caitlyn couldn’t look him in the eye, still she could see the pain etched on his face. The scar that was gouged on his cheek was red and livid today—as if the hell, the cesspit of demons inside, were all clamouring surface-wards now. She wasn’t conceited enough to consider it had anything to do with her—she knew his rivers of pain went far deeper than that.

  ‘How’s Antonia?’ That wasn’t why she was here, they both knew that, but she wanted to know. She cared for the other woman whose life had been upended.

  ‘She’s doing very well.’ Lazzaro managed a small smile at Caitlyn’s surprised expression at his upbeat response. ‘She really is. The marriage wasn’t good—well, we knew that. But it turned out she knew it too. Not about the affairs, of course …’

  ‘Affairs?’

  Lazzaro nodded. ‘It would seem that when you stumble on the truth you find a lot of untruths.’

  ‘Who said that?’ Caitlyn frowned as she tried to recall.

  ‘I did.’ Lazzaro gave a tight smile. ‘Very Zen of me.’

  God, why did he—how could he—still make her laugh? How, on this, the blackest of days, in the midst of an impossible conversation, when nothing about this was easy or right, could he, even if for just a second, manage to eke out a laugh?

  ‘She really is okay,’ Lazzaro continued. ‘It turns out that she had wanted to end it for a long time—only she didn’t know how, didn’t feel she had enough reason to walk out on her marriage.’

  ‘Now she has.’

  ‘She is sorry for what happened, and concerned for you too.’

  ‘She doesn’t blame me?’ Tears that had been held firmly in check couldn’t be contained now. A big fat one was rolling down her cheek, and she quickly wiped it away—but it was a pointless exercise, because when he answered her, when this usually distant, emotionally absent man spoke, the softness, the tenderness in his voice, was so unexpected, so laced with the right words, it lacerated her.

  Not just what he said, but the fact that it was him saying it.

  ‘You have nothing to feel guilty for. You did nothing wrong, Caitlyn. Antonia knows that, and so must you.’

  ‘I do know that.’ She nodded, because now—hearing him say it, knowing Antonia had said it—finally she did.

  ‘I should have taken your first complaint more seriously …’

  ‘No!’ She shook her head, because that really was pointless. ‘It’s done now. I’m just glad that Antonia’s okay.’

  ‘She is. She said …’ His voice trailed off and Caitlyn frowned.

  ‘Said what?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Oh, but it did to Caitlyn. But he shook his head, that part of the conversation clearly over. Which brought them to the next, and Lazzaro swallowed hard before he spoke again. ‘I owe you an explanation.’

  ‘You do?’

  A muscle was pounding in his cheek, his face was moist with perspiration and his tongue moved to moisten dry lips. When that didn’t work, Caitlyn watched as he drained his drink in one gulp. She could almost feel his fight or flight response, knew that he might just stand up and walk out. Because she was feeling it too—was sitting there with her neck so rigid, her nerves so taut, that at any moment she could walk out too—just not go ahead with this appalling conversation.

  Only Lazzaro didn’t get up and walk out. He sat there and faced it, and so too must Caitlyn.

  ‘After I offered you the job I found out you were Roxanne’s cousin. From that moment on …’

  ‘You were waiting for me to reveal my true colours?’

  Bitter with regret, he nodded. ‘I didn’t want to like you, knew that I must never trust you … only more and more I did. When Roxanne came that day, told me about your legal battle when you hadn’t even mentioned it …’

  ‘What would you have done, Lazzaro?’

  ‘I would have helped.’

  ‘No.’ Caitlyn shook her head. ‘That would have proved to you that I was using you. My mother grew up in that house. Apart from a couple of years when she had me, she’s lived there all her life. She’s renovated it, decorated it, furnished it …’

  ‘You don’t have to explain …’

  ‘You’ve made it so that I do,’ Caitlyn pointed out. ‘It wasn’t about money—and it wasn’t even about the house. It was about her home. My mum offered to Cheryl to leave it in her will equally to both Roxanne and I …’

  ‘I misjudged you.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘I have misjudged many things—you see, Roxanne and I …’

  His hand tightened on the glass he was holding, and she wanted, how she wanted, to reach out and hold it, to comfort him, console him somehow as he served up his wretched past. Only it wasn’t her place any more.

  Never had been her place, Caitlyn realised, because Lazzaro had seen to that.

  Lazzaro had refused to let anyone in.

  ‘There was an incident,’ Lazzaro bravely started. ‘One that didn’t reach the newspapers. When he came to my office, I told Luca that I had arranged rehab for him, that I would stand by him so long as he made some attempt to sort himself out—only he wouldn’t go.’ His voice was surprisingly calm—resigned, even. ‘He just wouldn’t accept there was a problem—but everyone could see it. His drinking, the gambling—he had debts everywhere. I was running around cleaning up the messes he was leaving behind him, and I just couldn’t do it for ever …’

  ‘Of course you couldn’t.’ Caitlyn’s voice was strong. ‘He had to acknowledge it before he could get help …’ But that wasn’t the issue today, and they both knew it.

  ‘Roxanne turned up as he was leaving. He sort of pushed past her and knocked her over. She was upset—we were both upset. I helped her up and she started crying, so I comforted her …’ It was as if he were giving a police statement, his voice unnervingly even as he reeled off the appalling train of events, delivered brutal words in an impassive tone. ‘I told her I was sorry for all Luca was putting her through …’

  It was Caitlyn whose throat was dry now, and she was grateful when he picked up her bottle of water and topped up her glass. She took a sip, but just about missed her mouth because her hands were trembling so much.

  ‘I started kissing her, telling her I would treat her so much better than Luca … Things were getting a bit out of hand, and then …’

  ‘Luca came back?’ Caitlyn finished for him.

  ‘Luca caught us.’

  ‘That’s when he hit you?’

  ‘He went crazy … said that I had always been the better one, the older one, the smarter one, that I had screwed up his life, that I had taken everything good from him and now I was taking the woman he loved, that I’d humiliated him over and over …’ He pinched the bridge of his nose, screwed his eyes closed as he relieved that hell. ‘He said quite a lot more than just that.’

  ‘I’m sure he did.’

  ‘Then he stormed off. And I went to the hospital to get stitched.’

  Caitlyn watched, tears streaming down her face, as he gagged out an expletive and
this strongest of men almost fell apart.

  And for the first time he faced it.

  As if a fist had gone into his stomach, he let out a shudder of breath, almost doubled up in agony—and he told her. Or did he? Because he truly didn’t know if he was talking it or living it again. At that point he wasn’t sitting with Caitlyn, he was back pacing in that hospital cubicle, a wad of gauze pressed to his cheek, so incredibly angry he was climbing the walls. He just wanted the hell out of there, wanted to get stitched so he could go and find Luca, to make things right, to fix his brother. Then everything had just faded into oblivion. Aghast, he’d watched as a stretcher whizzed past his cubicle. It was as if he was looking at himself in a mirror, and he’d seen the horror on his own face mistaken by a nurse, who’d pulled his curtain tightly closed. Only Lazzaro had opened it, striding into the resuscitation area despite the protests of the staff. Their angry shouts had been dim in his ears, theirs the shocked expressions as they’d looked down at the body they were working on and seen it was the mirror image of this intruder who had marched in. And he had seen the wretchedness in the doctors’ eyes as they’d realised he was his twin.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Paltry words that had been delivered by a doctor even before Antonia had arrived.

  He hadn’t even needed a local anaesthetic when they’d sutured him—his whole body had been numb with pain as he’d lain on the hospital trolley and the needle had slid in and out of his flesh.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Paltry words that had been delivered hours later, as he’d held his brother’s cold blue hand, had stared at a face that might as well have been his—had felt as if it was his.

  ‘I knew he was dead the moment I saw him …’ The tirade that had spewed from his mouth abated a touch, and still Caitlyn listened. ‘I knew he was dead, and that nothing they were going to do would bring him back. It was over by the time Antonia arrived, and then my mother …’