An Inheritance of Shame(9)

She took a deep breath. ‘So you’ve said it, Angelo, you’ve ticked me off your list, and you can go on happily now with your big business deals and fancy living. And I can get back to work.’

And stop acting out this charade that she didn’t care, that she’d only been angry or even annoyed. She couldn’t understand how Angelo could believe it, yet he obviously did, for he was annoyed too, by her stubbornness. He still had no idea how much he’d hurt her.

‘It’s been seven years, Lucia,’ he said, an edge to his voice, and she met his gaze as evenly as she could.

‘Exactly.’

‘I haven’t even been in Sicily since that night.’

‘Like I said before, there’s the phone. Email. We live in the twenty-first century, Angelo. If you’d wanted to be in touch, I think you just might have found a way.’ He bunched his jaw and she shook her head. ‘Don’t make excuses. I don’t need them. I know that one night was exactly that to you—one night. I’m not delusional.’ Not any more.

‘So you didn’t even expect me to call? Or write?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Even though part of her had stubbornly, stupidly hoped. ‘But expecting and wanting are two different things.’

He stared at her for a long, hard moment. ‘What did you want?’ he asked quietly, and Lucia didn’t answer. She would not articulate all the things she had wanted, had hoped for despite the odds, the obviousness of Angelo’s abandonment. She would not give Angelo the satisfaction of knowing, and so she lifted one shoulder in something like a shrug. ‘A goodbye would have been something.’

‘That’s all? A farewell?’

‘I said it would have been something.’ She tore her gaze from his, forced all that emotion down so it caught in her chest, a pressure so intense it felt like all her breath was being sucked from her body. ‘It’s irrelevant anyway,’ she continued, each word so very painful to say. ‘If you brought me up here to say sorry, then you’ve said it. Thank you for that much, at least.’

‘But you don’t accept my apology,’ Angelo observed. His gaze swept her from head to foot like a laser, searching her, revealing her.

She closed her eyes briefly, tried to summon strength. ‘Does it really matter?’

His gaze narrowed, his lips compressed. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Because you’ve managed to go seven years without saying sorry or speaking to me at all, Angelo. How can I help but think my opinions—my feelings—matter very little to you?’ He frowned and she shook her head. ‘I’m not accusing you. I’m not angry about it any more.’

‘You still seem angry.’

Seem, Lucia thought, being the operative word. If only it was as simple as that; if only she felt angry that he’d been so thoughtless as to leave her bed without a word. If only she felt clean, strong anger instead of this endless ache of grief. ‘I suppose seeing you again has brought it back, a bit, that’s all,’ she finally said. She couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘Why do you care anyway?’

‘I suppose…the same.’ Angelo sounded guarded. ‘Seeing you again has made me…want to make amends.’

Make amends? As if a two-word reluctant redress made up for years of emptiness, heartache, agony? Did he really think that was an equal exchange?

But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know how much she’d endured, the gossip and shame, the loss and heartbreak. He had no idea of the hell she’d been through, and she wouldn’t weaken and shame herself by telling him now.

‘Well, then,’ she said, and her voice sounded flat, lifeless. ‘I suppose that’s all there is to say.’

Angelo nodded, the movement no more than a terse jerk of his head. ‘I suppose so.’

She made herself look at him then, for surely this was goodbye. The goodbye they’d never had. They lived in different worlds now; she was a maid, he was a billionaire. And while she cherished the memory of who he’d once been, she knew she didn’t even recognise this haughty man with his hostile gaze and designer suit. He was so different from the tousle-haired boy with the sad eyes and the sudden smile, the boy who had hated her to see him vulnerable and yet had sought her out in the sweetest, most unexpected moments. What had happened to that boy?

Staring at Angelo’s hard countenance, Lucia knew he was long gone. And the unyielding man in front of her was no more than a wealthy stranger. She felt a sudden sweep of sorrow at the thought, too overwhelming to ignore, and she closed her eyes. She missed that boy. She missed the girl she’d been with him, full of irrepressible hope and happiness. The girl and boy they’d been were gone now, changed forever by circumstance and suffering.