The Consequences of That Night (At His Service #6)(51)

His heart was breaking.

He loved her.

The realization struck him like a blow, and he stopped. He loved her? He’d tried not to. Told himself he wouldn’t. But all this time, he’d been lying to himself. To both of them. He’d been in love with her for a long time, possibly as long as she’d loved him.

He’d certainly been in love with her the night they’d conceived Sam. It wouldn’t have made sense for him to have taken such a risk otherwise.

His body had already known what his brain and heart refused to see: he loved her. For reasons that had nothing to do with her housekeeping skills, or even now her skills as a mother, or her skills in bed. He didn’t love her for any skills at all, but for the woman she was inside: loving, warm, with a heart of sunlight and fire.

And now, all that light and fire had abruptly been ripped out of his life, the moment he’d started to count on her. He wasn’t even surprised. He’d known this would happen. Known the moment he let himself love again, she would disappear.

He had only himself to blame....

“Thank God you saw sense.” Hearing the low rasp of Alain Bouchard’s voice, Cesare ducked behind a thicket of orange trees. Peering through the branches, he saw two figures standing on the shore, frosted silver by moonlight. “Here.” Bouchard’s accented voice was exultant. “Get in my boat. You’ve made the right choice. I won’t let him hurt you now.”

Clenching his fists, Cesare took a step toward them. Then he saw Emma wasn’t making a move to get in the boat. She had turned away, and was trying to calm the baby, who had started to whimper in her arms. Her long white veil trailed her like a ghost in moonlight.

“He didn’t hurt your sister, Alain,” she said in a low voice. “He would never hurt her. He loved her. In fact, he’s still in love with her. That’s why I...why I couldn’t go through with it.”

Cesare stopped, his eyes wide, and a branch broke loudly beneath his feet. Bouchard twisted his head blindly, then turned back to Emma. “Hurry. He might come at any moment.”


“I’m not getting in the boat.”

The Frenchman laughed. “Of course you are.”

“No.” Emma didn’t move. “You have to accept it. Cesare is always brutally honest, even when it causes pain. Her death was a tragic accident. He’s never gotten over it. Cesare is a good man. Honorable to his core.”

Bouchard took a step closer to her on the moonlit shore.

“If you really believe that,” he said, “what are you doing out here?”

Cesare strained to hear, not daring to breathe. He saw Emma tilt up her head.

“I love him. That’s why I couldn’t marry him.”

Cesare stifled a gasp. She loved him?

Bouchard stared at her, then shook his head. “That doesn’t make any sense, chérie.”

She gave a low laugh. “It actually does.” She wiped her eyes. “He’ll never love anyone but Angélique. Heaven help me, I might have married him anyway, except...except I saw his face in the chapel,” she whispered. “And I couldn’t do it.”

Cesare took a deep breath and stepped out of the thicket of trees. Both figures looked back at him, startled.

“What did you see?” he asked quietly.

“Falconeri!” Bouchard stepped between them. “You might have fooled Emma, with her innocent heart. But we both know my sister’s death was no accident.”

“No.”

“So you admit it!”

“It’s time you knew the truth,” Cesare said in a low voice. “I’ve kept it from you for too long.”

“To hide your guilty conscience—”

“To protect you.”

Bouchard snorted derisively. “Protect me.”

“When she married me, she didn’t want a partner. She wanted a lapdog.” Cesare set his jaw. “When I threw myself into work, trying to be worthy of her, she hated the loss of attention. She hated it even more when I started to succeed. Once I no longer spent my days at her feet, worshipping her every moment, Angélique was restless. She cheated on me. Not just once, but many times. And I put up with it.”

“What?” Emma gasped.

Bouchard shook his head with a snarl. “I don’t believe you!”

“Her last lover was an Argentinean man she met while visiting Paris, who frequently traveled to New York on business. She decided Menendez was the answer to the emptiness in her heart.”

Bouchard started. “Menendez? Raoul Menendez?”

“You know him?”

“I met him once, as he was having a late dinner in a hotel in Paris with my sister,” he said uneasily. “She swore they were just old friends.”

Cesare’s lips curved. “Their affair lasted a year.”

He frowned. “That’s why she wanted a divorce?” For the first time, he sounded uncertain. “Not because you cheated on her?”

“I never could have done that,” he said wearily. “I thought marriage meant forever. I thought we were in love.” He turned to Emma and whispered, “Back then, I didn’t know the difference between lust and love.”

Emma caught her breath, her eyes luminous in the moonlight.

Bouchard stood between them, his thin face drawn. “She called me, the night before she died—sobbing that her only love had betrayed her, abandoning her like trash, that he’d been sleeping with someone else all the while. I thought she meant you. I never thought...”