A Scandal in the Headlines(25)

“It was a business arrangement, Elena. Love had nothing to do with it.”

An odd sensation worked its way through her then, blooming up from the darkest part of her and uncurling, and it took her long moments to understand that it was a fierce, unwarranted satisfaction. As if the fact he had not loved his fiancée, did not care that she’d left him as much as the fact he’d been left, was not more evidence that he was the worst kind of man—but instead something to celebrate. She despaired of herself.

“And you’re surprised she changed her mind?” she asked. That strange feeling hummed in her, making it hard to sit still, to keep her voice so smooth. “Why would anyone subject themselves to an arranged marriage in this day and age? That sounds like the perfect recipe for a lifetime of misery.”

“As opposed to what?” He laughed. “The great benefits romance brings to the equation? The jealousy, the emotional manipulation, the very real possibility that at any moment, as you say, people could fall out of it? What makes you think that’s the kind of security rational people should build a life on?”

“Because if it’s not entirely rational, at least it’s honest,” she blurted out before she could think better of it. “It’s real.”

“So is a contract.” His voice was dry. Amused. “Which has the added benefit of being tangible. Inarguably rational. And enforceable by law.”

“Maybe you were no more than collateral damage.” Elena didn’t know why she couldn’t stop. Why did she care why this man’s fiancée had abandoned him? He was Alessandro Corretti. Surely that was reason enough for anyone. “Maybe it wasn’t about you at all.”

“I was the only one standing at the altar,” he said, tilting his head slightly as he gazed at her. “Do you imagine she objected to the priest her father chose? Palermo’s great basilica itself? Hundreds of her closest friends and family members?”

“Maybe—” Elena began.

“I don’t want to speculate about Alessia Battaglia’s tangled, self-serving motives,” he said impatiently. “All that matters are her actions. If you want to psychoanalyze a doomed engagement, why not focus on your own?”

“I don’t want to talk about Niccolo again.” Or that doom he mentioned. Especially not that.

“Then let’s talk about you.” He lounged there so casually, but Elena knew better. He was still picking at her resistance, over platters of grilled fish and bottles of wine. Over flickering candles and glistening crystal glasses. Over her own objections. “Since you won’t let me do what I want to do.”

She could almost hear the music they’d danced to, lilting somewhere inside of her. Back when he had looked at her as if she was miraculous, not a battle to be won. Back when he had held her close for such a little while and made her name into a song.

“Fine,” she said. Anything to stop the memories, the emotions, that threatened to break her. The lump in her throat returned, and she had to breathe past it. “What do you want to know?”

“The man is a toad.” Flat. Certain. Daring her to argue with his characterization. She didn’t. “Less than a toad. Yet you agreed to marry him, and for all your faults of character, you don’t strike me as the kind of woman you would have to be to overlook such things.” Alessandro shifted in his chair, looking even more relaxed, but Elena knew better. She could sense what roared there beneath his skin, powerful and predatory. She could feel it. “Why did you?”

“Because I love—” She caught herself. Barely. She’d almost said loved. “I love him.” She watched his eyes flash, and enjoyed the fact he didn’t like hearing that any more than she liked saying it. “And not because he drove a pretty car or promised me a villa somewhere.” She held his gaze, and told the truth. “He was sweet.”

“Sweet.” Alessandro looked appalled.

“He told me that once he’d seen me, his life could never be the same,” she said, letting herself remember when Niccolo had been no more than a handsome, smiling stranger on an otherwise wholly familiar street. “He brought me flowers he picked himself from the hills above the village. He begged me to let him take me to dinner, or even simply take a walk with him near the water. It was the easiest thing in the world to fall for him. He was— He’s the most romantic man I’ve ever met.”

“It sounds like a con.”