A Scandal in the Headlines(60)

And when the plane took off and soared into the air above Sicily, she didn’t let herself look back.

“Because I can,” he’d said to Niccolo. That was why he’d danced with her. That was why he’d done all of this. Married her. Just as she’d suspected, it was all a game. Because he could.

She hadn’t thought she’d hear him admit it.

And as she’d sat in his car in the sun-drenched village square, twisting all of those diamonds around and around on her finger, Niccolo’s harsh words circling in her head, she’d had to face the facts she’d been avoiding for far too long.

She’d been so sure that she, Elena Calderon, deserved what Niccolo had represented. That she should be the one chosen from all the girls in the village to swan off into a posh life, dripping in gowns and villas.

Alessandro had been right to accuse her of that, but wrong about why—and around him it was even worse. He was the most powerful man she’d ever met. His ruthlessness was equal parts intimidating and exciting. He was beautiful and lethal, and he’d wanted her as desperately as she’d wanted him.

Some part of her obviously believed that she deserved no less than the CEO of one of the most successful media corporations in Europe. That she deserved rings made of diamonds, private islands and a three-story penthouse perched over Palermo like an opulent aerie.

How remarkably conceited she was.

She remembered then, as the plane winged across the blue sea, one of the last nights they’d spent on the island. They’d sat together on the beach, watching the sunset. He’d been behind her, letting her sprawl between his legs and against his chest.

He’d played with her hair and she’d watched the sun sink toward the horizon. She’d felt so filled with hope. So unreasonably optimistic.

Until she’d recalled the last time she’d felt that way.

It had been the night of that fateful charity ball. She’d finished dressing in the new, beautiful gown Niccolo had chosen for her, and she’d been unable to stop staring at herself in the mirror of their hotel suite. She’d looked so glamorous, so sophisticated. And she’d felt the same sense of well-being, of happiness, roll through her.

This is exactly how my life should be, she’d thought then.

On the beach with Alessandro, she’d shivered.

“What’s the matter?” he’d asked, tugging gently on her hair so she’d look back at him. The reds and golds of the setting sun cast him in bronze, once again like a very old god, perfect and deadly.

“Nothing,” she’d lied, and she’d wanted it to be nothing. Just an odd coincidence. No reason at all for that sudden hollow pit in her stomach.

He’d smiled, and kissed her, then he’d wrapped his arms around her like a man in love and had tucked her under his chin in that way she adored, and she’d known without a shadow of a doubt that it was no coincidence. That it had been a sign, and she’d do well to heed it.

That when the forty days were up she had to leave him. She had to.

And she’d gone ahead and married him, anyway.

But then, she thought now, shifting in her narrow seat, every decision she’d made for more than half a year she’d made out of fear.

Fear of what Niccolo would do to her. Fear of her parents’ disappointment. Fear of losing Alessandro—a man who had insulted her upon their first meeting, thought the very worst of her even as he slept with her, and had even married her in undue, secretive haste in a sleepy little village where no one knew him.

Niccolo was a disgusting creep, but he’d had a point.

And the truth was, though she never would have phrased it the way he had, she would always smell of fish and hard, thankless work like the people she came from. No matter what airs she tried to put on, what gowns or jewels she wore, she was a village girl. She had no place with a man like Alessandro.

More than that, he was a Corretti.

Maybe Alessandro really was the man he claimed he was, a man who strove to do what was right no matter what his family name. She thought of that painful conversation in the elevator and she ached—because she wanted so badly to believe him. To believe that the darkness she’d seen in him today was an aberration, not the true face he’d kept from her the way Niccolo had.

Maybe.

But she had to accept that it was just as likely that he was exactly who Niccolo had told her he was. Exactly who she’d believed he was.

It was time to go home. It was time to stop playing at games she hardly understood. It was past time.