Her Shameful Secret (11 page)

“Maybe soccer isn’t Antonio’s sport.”

“Ha!” Fia said as she tried to give a pacifier to her grumpy baby. “He was one of the best athletes in school. Football, swimming, skiing. He could do it all. He needed a sport for every season to expend his energy.”

“I had no idea.” She should have known. Antonio was lean and muscular and moved with enviable grace.

“Really?” Fia gave up on the pacifier and shifted baby Giulia onto her other hip. “How long have you known him?”

“A few months.” But she hadn’t known that he loved sports. There were no trophies or sports equipment in his home. He didn’t tell stories about his adventures or his triumphs. Was it really a passion of his or did his abilities come to him so easily that he didn’t think much about it? “How about you?”

“My husband has known him since their schooldays, and they’ve been together through the good times and bad.” Fia raised her voice over Giulia’s tired cry. “That’s why Antonio is Dino’s godfather.”

Isabella watched Antonio ruffle Dino’s hair. His affection for the boy was apparent. “He takes that role seriously.”

Fia nodded. “We couldn’t have asked for anyone better.”

“I’ve never seen him around children,” she murmured as she watched Antonio approach her. Her heart began to beat fast. “He’s completely different.”

“Not different,” Fia said. “More like he’s …”

“Unguarded?”

“Exactly.” Fia patted Giulia’s back but the baby continued to fuss. “I think it’s the little one’s bedtime.”

“Here—let me hold her,” Antonio said, and reached out for the baby.

Isabella couldn’t hide her surprise as he cradled Giulia in his arms. The baby stopped fussing and stared at Antonio with wide eyes as he spoke softly to her.

“How did you do that?” Isabella asked. She couldn’t soothe a baby that quickly even after years of babysitting.

Antonio smiled. “I have this effect on all women.”

Fia laughed and lapsed into Italian. She spoke fast and Isabella struggled to keep up with the conversation. Eventually she allowed her gaze to fall on the baby, who was now falling asleep in Antonio’s arms.

He was good with children and he liked being around them. How had she not known about this side of Antonio? Before she would have described him as sexy, powerful and remote. But today, as she watched him around his friends and their children, she knew there were many sides of him she had yet to discover. She needed to dig deeper to understand him.

When they left the party it was late at night and the
birthday boy had been asleep for hours. Isabella had enjoyed visiting Antonio’s friends. She could tell they were curious about her but they’d made her feel welcome.

She’d noticed how open and relaxed he was with his friends. He was much more formal with his mother, and had been watchful and cautious with his brother. If she wanted to understand Antonio she needed to know the source of the strain between him and his relatives.

But Isabella was hesitant to ask. She bit her bottom lip as Antonio drove back to his apartment in comfortable silence. She didn’t want to ruin a perfect evening, but she didn’t have a lot of opportunity to find out before she left Rome.

“Antonio, why did you have such a difficult relationship with your brother?”

Antonio frowned, and she felt the mood shift in the small confines of the car. “It’s not something I like to talk about.”

“I know, but I feel like I’m missing a huge piece of the puzzle.” If she had known their history she could have avoided so much heartache. But some instinct warned her that Antonio would have kicked her out sooner or later even without his brother’s interference. “What happened between you two?”

Antonio felt Isabella looking at him, curious and expectant. He knew he owed it to her. It wasn’t just about him and his brother. Isabella had been affected, too.

“My brother and I were close when we were young,” he said, looking straight ahead as he drove through the busy streets. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he remembered how much fun he’d once had with
his brother. “My parents didn’t have any more children so it was just the two of us. I often heard us described as the heir and the spare.”

“Ouch. That’s not very nice. Did they said that to
you
?”

He didn’t care about the label anymore, but he found Isabella’s indignation a comfort. “The servants or guests would say it when they didn’t think I understood. Or when they thought I was out of earshot.”

“Still, that’s not something anyone should say about a child. It’s something he’d carry with him. Either he tries to live up to it or fight against it. It would have the power to define him.”

“I knew there was some truth to it,” he admitted. “My parents loved me, and I was cared for, but Gio was the center of attention. There were times when I felt envious and resentful, but as I got older I realized I was the lucky one.”

“Lucky? How can you say that?” she asked. “Your parents played favorites.”

Antonio glanced at Isabella. She was curled up against the passenger side door with her arms crossed. If she was trying to keep her distance she was failing miserably. Isabella was already taking sides in his story.

“I was lucky because I wasn’t pressured to perform better. My parents had high expectations for both of us, but I was lazy and unfocussed. Everyone knew that Gio was smarter, faster and better than me,” he said matter-of-factly.

“That’s not true,” Isabella said.

“It was at the time,” he said, frowning as he noticed how Isabella leapt to his defense. She’d used to do that when she read an unflattering news item about him,
even when she didn’t have all the facts. “Or it could have been my family’s mindset. He was firstborn. He was the heir. Of course he was the best at everything.”

“That is
so
unfair,” she muttered. “I don’t know how you could have stood it.”

“Don’t worry, it didn’t last long,” Antonio said. He glanced at Isabella as the streetlights flickered through the window. She looked upset for the child he’d used to be. “I hit my stride in my late teens.”

“Uh-oh,” she said. “You shook up the status quo?”

He nodded. “We started getting competitive. Gio needed a challenge, but he never thought I would eclipse him. I was tired of hearing, ‘If only you were more like your brother …’ I wanted someone to say that to Gio. And they did, but not in the way I wanted.”

Isabella leaned closer. He caught a faint hint of her scent.

“What happened?”

Antonio shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “One day my father told us that he thought the Rossi empire was going to the wrong brother.”

Isabella’s gasp echoed in the car. “Why would he say that?”

“I think he said it to make Gio work harder. It made
me
work harder. I openly gloated, but I was secretly horrified.” He hated how he had felt. How he had acted. Antonio closed his eyes, wishing he could forget the devastation in Gio’s face. “For once I wasn’t the other brother. The spare. And I wasn’t going to have that taken away from me.”

Isabella scooted closer. “But being the heir was part of Giovanni’s identity?”

He nodded. “My father unintentionally created a
chasm between Gio and me. Our competition wasn’t so friendly anymore. Gio saw me as a threat.”

She reached over and placed her hand on his arm. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, there wasn’t any physical fighting. And we were a team when we needed to be. But I learned to keep my thoughts private. I could never show what I wanted or what was important to me. Otherwise Gio would go after it.”

“Like what?” Isabella asked.

He shrugged. “It was little things at first. I saved up and bought a motorcycle, but I didn’t have it for more than a week before Gio stole it one night and wrecked it. Stuff like that.”

“I don’t consider that as
little
stuff,” Isabella said. “He destroyed your property. It was vandalism. It was
wrong
. Why didn’t your parents intervene?”

“At first they just believed that boys would be boys. Then they decided that it was a phase we would grow out of.”

“It sounds like they just didn’t want to take sides. Or deal with it,” she said, and gave a sympathetic squeeze on his arm.

“Probably.” He wanted to cover her hand with his and enjoy the feel of her. “Then it started to escalate. Sometimes I felt I was being paranoid. I had no proof he was behind the sabotage and the thefts, but I had my suspicions. And then we were in the running for the same honor at university. I knew he was going to pull something, but I didn’t think he would get me expelled.”

“He got you kicked out?” Isabella’s voice trembled with outrage. “That’s horrible. How did he do that?”

“He told the dean at the university that I was cheating
and he manufactured evidence.” His voice was calm and controlled, but cold anger weighed heavily against him as he remembered the injustice. No one had believed him. And to add insult to injury Gio had been commended for making the difficult decision to reveal the deceit of his own brother.

“Couldn’t you have proved otherwise?” Isabella asked. “What about your parents? Didn’t they defend you?”

He shrugged his shoulders, hiding the hurt. “My mother believed I was set up, but not by Gio.” She had refused to hear a bad word about her firstborn, and Antonio still felt the sting of betrayal.

“And your father?”

The sting intensified. “He believed that I was cheating and that I had shamed the family,” he said quietly. It was hard to get the words out. “I was disinherited.”

“You were punished and Giovanni got away with it? Did you retaliate?”

“I wanted to, but my friends talked me out of it. They told me I was lucky to get out of that poisonous atmosphere and I needed to move on or it would destroy me. I knew they were right but I was still bitter.”

“Something tells me that’s an understatement,” Isabella said. “Now I understand what drives you to work so hard.”

It did have something to do with his success. He had something to prove. “Eventually my father welcomed me back into the family.” He smiled as he remembered the awkward reconciliation. “After I made my first million. My father was very proud of what I had achieved without his help.”

“And Giovanni never confessed?”

“No.” He didn’t know if Gio had kept silent because he’d wanted to enjoy the spoils of war or if he’d been afraid of what their disciplinarian father would have done if the truth came out. “I didn’t speak to Gio for years. Not until I saw him at my father’s funeral almost two years ago. He asked for forgiveness. It was sincere and genuine.”

That was what his instincts had told him, but now he wondered if he had gotten it wrong. Maybe he’d wanted to believe Gio and have his brother back.

Isabella pulled her hand away from him. “And were you able to forgive?”

“Not forgive so much as move on,” he admitted. “Gio should have felt secure. I didn’t think we were in competition anymore. But for some reason I didn’t trust that the treaty would last.”

“He was your competitor for longer than he was your friend?”

Antonio nodded. That was why he’d he still been cautious around his brother. “I knew I had to keep my guard up. But I made a mistake.” He paused, unsure if he wanted to reveal this to Isabella. “I couldn’t hide how I felt about
you
.” He felt Isabella’s tension.

“So you think Giovanni went after me and I wasn’t able to resist his charms? That’s why you were so quick to believe him?”

“It fit his pattern. He went after something, or in this case someone, who was important to me.”

Isabella leaned back in her seat. “Why didn’t you tell me about this? You could have shared your concerns.”

“I didn’t think I had to.” He had trusted Isabella, but he’d seen how close she’d become with Gio. He’d thought that Isabella wouldn’t choose his brother over
him. That she wasn’t capable of crossing that line. But Gio’s charm had been too seductive for her.

“It would have helped knowing that I was a target,” Isabella said. “Or maybe you wanted to test me?”

“Why would I do that?” he asked, suddenly weary.

“Did you ever consider that your brother knew he could sabotage our relationship with just a lie? All he had to do was raise suspicion.” She tossed her hands in the air. “He knew you wouldn’t open up and talk about it. That your suspicion would fester until finally you couldn’t trust me anymore.”

“That’s not what happened,” Antonio said as anger curled inside him. Why was he telling her any of this? He should have kept quiet.

Isabella crossed her arms. “Your brother’s ploy worked better than he could have imagined.”

Antonio gritted his teeth. “You’re giving Gio far more credit than he deserves.”

“Giovanni played on the weakness in our relationship,” she pointed out. “He was around enough to see what we couldn’t. He knew you wouldn’t talk about what was on your mind, and he knew I would do anything to get you back.”

Isabella’s words pricked at him. There was some truth in them. Hadn’t he learned anything from the past?

“You kept making the same mistakes with your brother,” Isabella accused. “But don’t worry, Antonio. I’ve learned
my
lesson. We weren’t meant to be together. I’m not fighting for us anymore.”

Her words were like a punch to his chest. He wanted to say something sarcastic. Something biting. But it would only reveal how much he felt the loss. Instead Antonio stared straight ahead and pressed his foot
harder on the gas pedal. Isabella might not like it when he went quiet, but he had learned that silence was his best shield.

CHAPTER NINE

I
SABELLA
lay in bed wide awake and restless. Her bedsheet was tangled around her legs from her tossing and turning. The silence in Antonio’s apartment made her tense. She stared at the ceiling, wondering if she had made the right decision to come back here. Lately she’d made the wrong choices. Like Giovanni.

When she had slept with Antonio’s brother she had been drunk and deeply hurt. She blamed the alcohol, Giovanni—and herself. She didn’t remember a lot about that night, but she knew she had made the choice. She could have stopped it anytime.