The Bride's Awakening (16 page)

The castle was quiet as he entered; it was four o’clock in the
afternoon and he had no doubt Ana was at her own office. He thought of surprising her there; he’d make love to her right on her own desk. His mouth widened into a grin at the thought of it. First, he would check in at the Cazlevara office and then…Ana. He could hardly wait.

He was just sorting through the post left by his secretary when his vineyard manager knocked on the door.

Vittorio barely glanced up. ‘Yes, Antonio? Everything went well while I was gone?’ He tossed another letter aside, only to pause when he realized his manager had not spoken. He glanced up, saw the man twisting his hands together, looking uncertain. Afraid, even. Vittorio’s eyes narrowed. ‘Antonio? Has something happened?’

‘It’s Bernardo, Lord Ralfino…Bernardo and the Contessa.’

Vittorio stilled. He felt as if his blood had turned to ice water; the sense of coldness gave him a chilling clarity, a freezing resolve. He’d been expecting this, he realized. He wasn’t surprised. ‘Has my mother been plotting again?’ he asked levelly. ‘Now that I am married, she seeks to disinherit and discredit me once more?’

Antonio shook his head, looking wretched. ‘Not the Dowager Contessa, my lord. Your wife.’

For a moment Vittorio couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. The words made no sense. What his manager was saying was impossible, ridiculous—

Vittorio drew a breath. ‘Are you saying my wife is acting with Bernardo?’

‘She told me not to ring you,’ Antonio confessed unhappily.

‘What?’ Vittorio could barely process it. His wife had been attempting to deceive him? To scheme against him? The shock left him senseless, reeling, nearly gasping in pain.

‘I know you do not wish Bernardo to—well, I knew you’d want this approved,’ Antonio continued, ‘but since she said—and you’d given her authority—’

Vittorio laid one hand flat on his desk, bracing himself. He would not jump to conclusions. He would
not
. He kept the rage and fear down, suppressing it, even though it fermented and bubbled, threatened to boil over and burn them all. He would not let it. He would listen to Antonio, he would hear Ana’s side of the story. He would be fair. ‘What has happened, Antonio?’

‘Bernardo went to Milan,’ the manager confessed. ‘He is marketing his own label. I didn’t know of it until yesterday, but the Contessa approved it, arranged the meeting—’

‘His own label?’ Vittorio repeated blankly. Was his brother actually trying to take over the family winery, to make it his own? And Ana was
helping
him? Had they been planning this—this
takeover
—together while he was gone? Or even before? He could hardly make sense of it, his heart cried out its innate, desperate rejection of such lies, even as his mind coolly reminded him that this was exactly how he’d felt returning from his father’s funeral, hoping—desperately hoping—that now his father was dead his mother might turn to him, if not with open arms, then at least with a smile.

She’d turned her back instead. Something had died in Vittorio then, that last frail hope he’d never realized he’d still clung to. The desire for love. The hope it would find him. He’d lost it then, or thought he had, only to find the desire and the hope—the need for love—inside him, latent, and with Ana it had begun to grow, young and fragile, seeking her healing light.

Now he felt as if it had been felled at its tender root. His heart had become a barren wasteland, frozen and unyielding. He turned back to Antonio. ‘Thank you for telling me. I will deal with it now.’

‘I would have rung you, but since the Contessa was meant to be in charge—’

‘I completely understand. Do not think of it again.’ Vittorio dismissed the man with a nod, then turned to stare blindly out of the window. Rows upon rows of neat growing grapes stretched
to the horizon, Cazlevara’s fortune, his family’s life blood. He’d made love to Ana out there, among those vines. He’d held in her arms and loved her.

Loved
her.

And now she’d betrayed him. He tried to stay reasonable, to keep the anger and hurt and oh, yes, the fear from consuming him, but they rose up in a red tide of feeling until he couldn’t think any more. He could only feel.

He felt the hurt and the pain and the sorrow, the
agony
of his mother and brother’s rejection, over and over again. Day after day of trying to please his father, only to strive more and more; nothing he’d ever done was enough. And then when his father had died, torn between despair and relief, he’d wanted to turn to his mother, thinking that now she would accept him, love him even, only to realize she’d rejected him utterly.

And now. This. Ana had somehow been working against him with his brother, waiting until he was gone to use the authority he’d given her on
trust
to discredit him. This, he acknowledged, was the worst betrayal of all.

‘Lord Cazlevara is here to see you, Signorina Vi—Lady Cazlevara.’

Ana half-rose from the desk, smiling at Edoardo. ‘You don’t need to stand on ceremony, Edoardo. Send him in!’ Yet, even as a smile of hope and welcome—how she’d missed him!—was spreading across her face, another part of Ana was registering the look of wariness on her assistant’s face and wondering why he seemed so uncomfortable.

‘Good afternoon, Ana.’

‘Vittorio!’ The word burst from Ana’s lips and, despite his rather chilly greeting, she couldn’t keep from smiling, from walking towards him, her arms outstretched, needing his touch, his kiss—

Vittorio didn’t move. Ana dropped her arms, realization
settling coldly inside her. He’d heard about Bernardo, obviously. He knew what she’d done. And he hadn’t liked it.

‘You’re angry,’ she stated, and Vittorio arched one eyebrow.

‘Angry? No. Curious, perhaps.’ He spoke with arctic politeness that froze Ana’s insides. She hadn’t heard that voice in such a long time; she’d forgotten just how cold it was. How cold it made her feel. Vittorio leaned against the door frame, hands in his pockets, and waited.

Ana took a breath. She’d been preparing for this conversation, had known that Vittorio, on some level, would not be pleased. He’d try to distance himself; that was how he stayed safe. She
knew
that, yet she’d trusted what she felt for him—and what she believed and hoped he felt for her—that their love would make him see reason. She’d told herself so hundreds of times over the last week, yet now that the time had come and Vittorio was standing here looking so icy and indifferent, all the calm explanations she’d come up with seemed to have vanished, leaving her with nothing but a growing sense of panic, a swamping fear. She didn’t want her husband looking at her this way, talking to her as if she were a stranger he didn’t really like. She couldn’t bear it. ‘Vittorio,’ she finally said, and heard the plea in her voice even though her words sounded firm, ‘Bernardo showed me the vintage he’s created. He’s been working with hybrids—you didn’t know—’

‘Funny, I thought I knew everything that happened in my company. And, as I recollect, my brother was assistant manager, not head vintner. Or did you give him a promotion in my absence?’ He spoke pleasantly, yet Ana heard and felt the terrible coldness underneath. It crept into her bones and wound its icy way around her heart. She felt like shivering, shuddering, crying out.

This was what Constantia had lived with day in, day out. This was what Vittorio had been to her, a man who refused to be reached, whose heart was enclosed in walls of ice. No wonder the
woman had gone half-mad. She already felt perilously close to the edge of reason after just a few minutes under his freezing stare.

‘No, I didn’t give him a promotion,’ Ana replied as levelly as she could. ‘I wouldn’t presume to do such a thing—’

‘Wouldn’t you?’

Ana forced herself to ignore the sneering question. ‘But I did allow him to market his own wine. He’s in Milan right now, talking to some merchants about it. I thought we could put it in the catalogue this autumn—’

‘Oh, you did, did you?’ Vittorio took a step into the room, his pleasant mask dropped so Ana saw the icy rage underneath. ‘You didn’t waste much time, did you, Ana?’ he asked, fairly spitting the words. ‘The moment I’d gone, you were plotting and planning behind my back.’

Ana quelled beneath the verbal attack. Did he think so little of her? ‘It wasn’t a plot, Vittorio,’ she insisted, ‘though I can understand why you might think that way. But I am not your mother, and Bernardo has changed—’

Vittorio gave a sharp laugh. ‘Nothing has changed. Don’t you think I have a reason for keeping him on as short a leash as I do?’

Ana struggled to keep her calm. ‘Vittorio, your brother was ten when your mother tried to disinherit you—’

‘And he was twenty when he tried to sabotage the winery and discredit me to my customers, and twenty-five when he embezzeled a hundred thousand euros. Don’t you think I know my own brother?’

Ana stared at him in shock, her mouth dropping open before she had the sense to snap it shut. Realization trickled icily though her. ‘I didn’t know those things,’ she finally said quietly. Vittorio gave another disbelieving laugh and she thought of Bernardo’s words:
I have done things I regret, even as a grown man.
She almost felt like laughing hysterically, despite the panic and the fear. Perhaps she should have asked Bernardo to clarify what he’d
meant. Perhaps she shouldn’t have leapt in so rashly, thinking she could heal old wounds, hurts that had never scarred over, just festered and bled—

Still, Ana knew there was more going on here, more at risk than Vittorio’s sour relationship with his brother. There was his relationship with
her
, a fundamental issue of trust and love. She had to ask crucial questions, and now she was afraid of their answers.

‘I really didn’t know everything he’d done,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Still, I believe Bernardo has changed. If you just give him a chance—’

‘So he’s convinced you,’ Vittorio stated quietly. He turned away so she couldn’t see his face. ‘He’s turned you from me.’

Ana suddenly felt near to tears. Vittorio’s voice sounded so final, so
sad
. ‘Vittorio, it’s not like that! I just wanted to give Bernardo a chance, not only for his sake, but for
ours
.’

‘Ours,’
Vittorio repeated, the word dripping sarcasm.

‘Yes, ours, because your hatred of him poisons everything! Poisons—’ She stopped, not wanting to expose herself so utterly and admit she loved him. ‘And he could be a credit to you,’ she continued quietly. ‘He rang me from Milan this morning, and the meetings went well. He’s not trying to take some kind of control—’

‘So he says.’

‘This bitterness must end,’ Ana stated. Her voice trembled and she forced herself to go on, to say the words she’d shied away from. The truth was the only thing that had the power to heal. ‘It poisons you, and it poisons our love.’

She felt as if she’d laid down a live wire; the room crackled with uncontained energy.
Love.
She’d said it, admitted to that most dangerous forbidden feeling.

Vittorio turned around; his eyes were like two pools of black ice. ‘Love?’ he enquired silkily. ‘What are you talking about, Ana?’

Ana blinked, forcing back the tears. She would be strong
now, even if that strength meant being more vulnerable than she ever had before. ‘I love you, Vittorio. I gave Bernardo a chance for love of you—’

‘Just like my mother took my inheritance, claiming she did it out of love for me?’ Vittorio mocked.

‘Is that what she said?’

‘Or something like it. I found it rather hard to believe.’

Yet Ana didn’t. She could see Constantia’s twisted reasoning now, understand how she might do anything—
anything
—to keep Vittorio from becoming the cold, hard man his father had been, and had wanted to make him. Yet, right now before her eyes, he was changing, hardening, the last weeks of love and gentleness falling away as if they’d never been, leaving her with a man she didn’t like or even know.

‘It’s true, Vittorio. I don’t doubt Bernardo has hurt you, as has Constantia, but this cannot go on. You are all poisoned by it—all three of you. I thought if Bernardo proved himself to you, you could see each other as equals. Forgive each other and learn to—’

‘Oh, Ana, this is all sounding very cosy,’ Vittorio drawled. ‘And completely unrealistic. I didn’t marry you to play therapist to my family. I married you to be loyal to
me
.’

Ana blinked. ‘And does that loyalty mean blind obedience? I can’t take any decisions for myself? You didn’t want a lapdog, you said. You rather touchingly referred to our marriage as one of
partnership
—’

‘A business partnership,’ Vittorio corrected. ‘That is what I meant.’

Ana swallowed, struggling to stay reasonable, as if her heart and soul hadn’t been shredded to pathetic pieces as they spoke. ‘Yet you do not want me to have any concern with your business—’

‘I do not want you to use your influence to put my brother’s concerns forward!’ Vittorio cut her off, his voice rising to a nearshout before he lowered it again to no more than a dark whisper. ‘You have betrayed me, Ana.’

‘I love you,’ Ana returned. Her voice shook; so did her body. ‘Vittorio, I
love
you—’

He shook his head in flat dismissal. ‘That wasn’t part of our bargain.’

She searched his face, looking for any trace of compassion or even regret. Every line, every angle was hard and implacable. He had become a stranger, a terrible stranger. ‘I know it wasn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘But I fell in love with you anyway, with the man you…you seemed to be. Yet now—’ she took a breath ‘—you are so cold to me. Vittorio, do you not love me at all?’

A muscle jerked in Vittorio’s cheek and he didn’t answer. He gazed down at her, his eyes hard and unrelenting, and suddenly Ana could stand it no more. She’d felt this exposed only once before in her life, when she’d flung herself at Roberto, hoping he would take her into his arms and admit he was attracted to her, to make his love physical as well as emotional. She’d been rejected then, utterly, or so she’d thought. Yet that moment was nothing—
nothing
—compared to this. Now Vittorio was rejecting her emotionally; he was rejecting her heart rather than her body and it hurt so much more.