He stood up, his body jack knifing out of his chair, then he was rounding the table, coming to stand at her side. His hands on her arms were gentle but insistent as they drew her to standing.
“So you would walk away from what we have because you might meet someone who loves you? What if he doesn’t make you feel like I do? What if you don’t love him like you love me?”
She drew in a tortured gasp as the reality of that acted like a form of torture on her nerve endings. He was right, there was every likelihood she was walking away from something that was pretty great, and with no promise of anything better.
But that still wasn’t reason enough to stay.
She tilted her chin defiantly, her voice surprisingly level. “I want a real marriage. I want a real life.”
He groaned, his lips brushing over hers. “This is real.” He pressed a palm to her heart, its thudding echoing in her ribs. “Can’t you feel how real?” And he kissed her then, his mouth a torment because it was giving her what she needed while denying her so much. She needed him to say he loved her. She needed him to love her. Nothing else mattered.
“It’s a shadow.” But she kissed him back, her body melding to his, fierce hunger bursting through her, a hunger that was all darkness now, a hunger she resented.
“It’s light.” He contradicted, lifting her up higher on his body, his expression like thunder.
“You don’t love me.”
She pulled her head away just long enough to meet his eyes.
A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I want you in my life. You matter to me.”
It was something. Maybe she could make her peace with that?
“That’s not love.” She was some kind of sadist, determined to goad the admission from him.
He expelled a fierce breath, a muscle jerking in his jaw as he stared at her for several beats. Then, he shook his head. He didn’t say the word ‘no’, but his gesture was emphatic.
She tried to bring moisture to her mouth, but it was parched. She stared at him and it was like being tipped off the edge of the earth with no safety harness in sight.
“Love is a complication we don’t need.” He spoke with a confidence that she couldn’t believe he really felt.
“And it’s that simple?” She whispered, her body on fire even as ice rolled down her spine.
“Yes.” And he kissed her, intent on showing her just how simple things between them could be – how simple, and how spectacular. His hands pushed at her shirt, drawing it up her body, exposing her midriff as his fingers glanced across her flesh lightly, hungrily, possessively.
She groaned, because his touch was so right, but she had to be stronger than their chemistry.
“I can’t do this.”
He groaned, his lips still on hers, his body holding her tight.
“I was stupid to think our marriage made sense. Nothing about this is simple and straight-forward. I have to leave.”
Her statement flexed between them, her determination like a brick wall. She didn’t need to repeat herself. His features showed his surprise and then his acceptance of her statement.
She waited, on tenterhooks, but the ball of anxiety in her stomach didn’t abate. Finally, several seconds – that felt like hours – later, he spoke.
“No.” He moved away from her physically, putting a space between them, and his eyes - eyes that a moment ago had swirled with passion, were now like flint in his face. “That is simply not an option.”
Her breath was ragged. “What do you mean?”
His expression was unlike anything she’d ever seen. He was ruthless and fierce and determined.
“This marriage is about permanence. We both agreed we would do what’s best for Alfredo. You do not get to quit just because our circumstances have changed.”
“Falling in love with you isn’t a change in circumstance,” she whispered, but in truth, the idea of walking away from Alfredo sat inside her like a jagged stone. “I don’t want to leave him.” Her eyes showed pain. “I fell in love with him the first moment I met him. I can’t think of anything worse than not being in his life.”
“Which is why you’ll stay,” Benedetto said with a nod of his head, as though it were simple and resolved.
“I can’t.” Her eyes squeezed shut.
“You must.”
She shook her head, her eyes appeasing. “Surely you can see how cruel that would be.”
“Cruel?” He spat the word back at her. “Cruel to hold you to your promise? To make you stick to the deal we both made in good faith?”
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “Every day I spend loving you, knowing you don’t love me, is shredding me in two.”
Anger flashed on his face. “Then don’t love me.”
Another pale smile crossed her features. “The fact you think it’s that easy is proof you really don’t love me.” She shook her head sadly from side to side. “I can’t just turn off my feelings.” Her heart was breaking. “I love you, Benedetto.”
“Stop it,” he bit the words out. “Stop saying that. This was never about love.”
She flinched as though he’d struck her and he swore, regret in every line of his body. “I’m sorry,” he apologised swiftly. “It is just hard to have a conversation when you keep making it about some fanciful notion of love.”
A soft sound of surprise whooshed out of her. “You’re right.”
For a moment, his eyes flashed with surprise.
“There’s no point having this conversation.” Grief cut through her. “Our marriage is over.”
He shook his head swiftly, just one movement, but Cleopatra could see her path of action now.
“I love Freddie as though he’s my own son,” she whispered, her heart heavy. “I think the best thing for him is if I rent somewhere nearby. I can still spend the days with him, then.”
“And at night?” He prompted silkily.
“I’ll help you hire a night nanny, of course.” She’d thought discussing practicalities would make this easier, but it didn’t. It was like scraping open a wound.
“It’s for the best,” she whispered, when he didn’t answer.
His expression was ruthless once more, fierce and hard. “No.”
“It’s more than reasonable.” Tears filled her eyes. She blinked to clear them. “And would be the least disruptive for everyone.”
But Benedetto was intractable. “If you decide to quit this marriage, then you walk away from both of us, Alfredo and me. You walk away from me and you do not get to see him again. You cannot simply cherry pick which parts of this you want.”
Her expression showed shock; his didn’t weaken.
A shiver ran down her spine. She rejected his words – they were hateful and she couldn’t believe him capable of such callous coldness. “You wouldn’t do that.”
Silence surrounded them, sharp and hurtful. “You don’t think?”
She shook her head. “You’re not like that. You’re not vindictive.”
He drew himself up to his full height, his eyes blazing like burning coal. “This is not vindictiveness. We had a deal and you cannot simply ignore that.”
She dug her fingernails into her palms to stop from quivering.
“You are my wife.” Each word was its own sound, intoned sharply, as though if he said it enough times, she would agree to stay.
She took a step back, her hand reaching out for the chair she’d sat in a moment ago, her body in need of support. “You’re being unreasonable.”
“I’m being unreasonable?” He threw the words back at her. “That is like the pot calling the kettle black. I’m simply telling you how this works. Either you stay here with me, as my wife, my wife in every way, or you leave me and walk away as though this never happened. It’s your decision.”
Her eyes fell closed and the breath she drew in was ragged, her face a mask of torment. The world was careening wildly off its axis; she was filled with disbelief and hurt and rage. “You’re blackmaili
ng me?”
He didn’t respond. Anger slashed at her and she was glad for it, glad to feel rage more fully, instead of desperate pain and sadness. She stepped forward and pushed at his chest, hard, but he was immovable. A man built of rock.
“You’re using my love for him to keep me here?”
He stayed perfectly still, his eyes boring into hers, his face a study in belligerent derision. “You keep saying this word, ‘love’, but tell me Cleopatra, is it love to walk away?”
The sound of her gasping in a deep breath filled the room.
“Is it love to walk away from a little boy who needs you?”
Tears stung at her eyes. “I don’t want to walk away from him!”
“And what about me?” He demanded, catching her wrists; she’d been pummelling his chest without realising. He lowered his voice, but she spoke with a hushed urgency. “You say you love me in the same breath as telling me you’re going to leave?”
“I have to,” she moaned. “Can’t you see that? I have to.”
His head swooped down, his lips punishing her with his passion, the kiss intense and laced with everything he felt and wanted. Her body surged with needs, adrenalin coursing through her veins, but she pulled away, pushing at his chest again.
“I fell in love with you.” She dropped her eyes from his, guilt in the words, because they’d had an agreement, and she was the one who’d broken it. “I probably fell a bit in love with you the first day we met. I’ve never known anyone like you. I was overwhelmed.”
Silence. It prickled with her words, and his thoughts. Eventually, he spoke, his voice low and gruff. “Be that as it may, we had a deal. You don’t get to change the terms of it now.” He crossed his arms over his torso, his breathing ragged, so his chest moved with each breath.
Every cell in her body was reverberating in shock. “You seriously want me to stay here as your wife, even after this?”
“Yes.” He closed the distance between them, his body pressing to hers so she swallowed past the lump in her throat. Heat stretched through her veins.
“And if I leave, I won’t ever get to see Freddie again?” The words were wet with tears.
His eyes glittered in his symmetrical face; he dipped his head forward in one swift, disastrous sign of assent.
Her heart felt like it was being stretched across the room, from one side to the other. She stared at him, searching for words, trying to calm the dull ache in the pit of her stomach. Then, with a fatalistic groan, she shook her head. “I will never forgive you for this.”
He continued to stare at her for several seconds before nodding once. “Be that as it may, you will stay here as my wife.”
He woke with a heaviness on the periphery of his mind he couldn’t explain. His mind went first to Melinda, and then he recalled she’d been dealt with. He’d never see her again, and he was glad.
But then, he remembered. Cleopatra and her confession. Her haunted expression as she’d confessed how she felt, her shock when he’d reminded her of their deal, when he’d pointed out the reasons for sticking to it.
And now, with her agreement guaranteed, he lay in his bed as dawn broke over the city, guilt enveloping him.
He would never forget the look in her eyes when he’d done exactly what she’d accused him of: blackmailed him. He’d seen her determination to leave, to walk away from him, and he’d used whatever he’d had at his disposal to leverage her to stay.
Alfredo was an innocent in all this, and Benedetto knew enough of Cleopatra’s goodness to know how hard she’d fight to protect the boy from any unnecessary pain.
Still. It had been lower than low to prey on those feelings, to abuse her goodness for his own selfish needs.
Selfish? No. This marriage had never been about him. It was about Alfredo, about Benedetto’s duty to provide the child with the kind of stability he’d never known, the kind of stability Cleopatra had never had. Jack and Veronica had entrusted him with their precious son’s life and care, and Cleopatra was a part of that now.
He owed it to his friends to fight, tooth and nail, to keep this marriage on track. Fortunately, there was one way in which he could override Cleopatra’s concerns. One way in which he could remind her of the sense of this.
He hated seeing her in pain, the hurt obvious on her delicate features. He sat up in bed, his eyes sliding to the window. It was still dark, dawn just a promise in the sky. There was still time. Time to remind her of the passion they shared and the ways in which this marriage – though not built on love – could still be very, very good for both of them.
The house felt like ghosts had taken over. It was eerily quiet, and pitch black. He moved through it on muscle memory, hesitating briefly at the door to her bedroom. They’d spent weeks in this room together, so much so it had become the norm. It was only in the wake of Melinda and their dinner the evening before that he’d gone back to his own room. So why did he feel like he was crossing some inviolable threshold now?
Suppressing an oath, he pushed the door inwards, and was immediately hit by the sweetness of her fragrance – like vanilla and wildflowers. The blood in his veins vibrated and pulsed in response.
Her breathing sounded soft and regular. He moved to the edge of the bed, his eyes chasing the lines of her body, and something shifted inside of him, a sense of responsibility and guilt, a profound ache he couldn’t ignore.
This was a mess. Memories of her hurt the evening before, her eyes huge with disbelief as he’d insisted she stay married to him, haunted him now.
He pressed his hand to her cheek, feeling the softness of her flesh – like a rose petal on a cool morning. She stirred slightly, her eyes lifting to his, all heavy and drowsy in the pre-dawn darkness.
Confusion crossed her features, and then she reached for him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him lower – not that she needed to. At the slightest invitation, he responded, dropping his body over hers and pressing his lips to hers, kissing her because he didn’t have it in him to resist, kissing her because he needed her, and wanted her and needed her not to be sad anymore.
She whispered his name into their kiss and he groaned hers back, his hands finding the flimsy fabric of her nightgown and pushing it up her thighs. She wrapped her legs around his waist in a silent invitation and he was desperate to accept, desperate to be with her. He pushed at the waist of his briefs, struggling out of them because he didn’t want to relinquish their contact nor his kiss. Her breasts were so soft beneath the ridges of his chest, and her tongue darted into his mouth, duelling with his, so he was completely lost to this moment – lost to her.
He wanted to taste her all over, he wanted to taste her forever, to hold her forever, to kiss her forever. Why couldn’t she see how good their marriage was, just like this? Why couldn’t she understand that this was enough?
“Stop.” The word was rent with passion, throaty and deep. Her hand pressed to his chest and she collapsed to the bed, her face scrunched up in agony. “You have to stop.”
It was a word he responded to instantly, pushing up from her, a foggy sense of disorientation cloying at him. “I…”
“You don’t love me,” she whispered. “Everything about this is a lie.”
He shook his head, instinctively denying that.
But there was defiance in her face, even in the midst of such obvious heartbreak. “It’s fine. You were honest with me. But I can’t make love to you knowing that for me, it’s a promise that means something and to you, it’s just physical.” She swallowed, her throat moving visibly.
“This works,” he groaned, his features showing torment. His body was tense with feeling. “What we share together is worth fighting for.”
She bit down on her lip and shook her head so her pale blonde hair fluffed against her shoulders. “What we share is nothing special.” The words were heavy with sadness. “I’m sure you’ll be able to replace me easily enough.” She turned her face away then, focussing her determined gaze on the window
across the room.
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Her words were wrong somehow, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly why. He stared down at her, his expression tense, and then he stood, turning away from her.
“I shouldn’t have come in here. I’m sorry. It will not happen again.”
15
BENEDETTO STARED AT HIS WIFE and Godson with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. A week after going to her bedroom, a week in which he’d assiduously avoided her, he had to accept that he’d been wrong – about everything.
He looked out of his office towards the small garden at the back of the house, his insides kicking in response to the sight of them building a tower out of big wooden blocks.
He’d held her body close to his often enough to know how she felt – intimately, but he’d stopped looking at her. He’d stopped seeing her. Now that he looked– and properly saw her – he noted how drawn her face looked, how slim her already slender body had become. She’d lost weight, and she looked – exhausted.
Guilt barrelled through him.
His eyes travelled to Alfredo, the little boy laughing as he stacked another block, which caused the tower to teeter precariously. Cleopatra’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. Her hands shook a little as she lifted another block and used it to steady the tower at its base, staving off what had seemed like an inevitable collapse.
Alfredo – unaware of how close he’d come to construction disaster –grinned, and placed another block into position. Now that the building was secured, Cleopatra nodded encouragingly and took a step back, watching Alfredo without taking part. Her eyes were laced with apprehension, her features a mask of uneasiness.
He swore in his own tongue and turned away from the window, his eyes squeezed closed. With a lightning bolt of clarity, he realised what he had to do – and could only judge himself for how slow he’d been to realise it.
“We need to talk.” Benedetto caught her as she was moving through the living area. It was late enough that he knew Alfredo would be in bed; late enough to know they were alone.