Concern now writ on his face, he pulled the duvet off himself, swung his legs around, and, his feet planted on the floor, stretched an arm out to her. “Come here.”
Hugging her arms tightly around herself, she shook her head with more force.
Fully naked, her bronzed giant of a man got to his feet, as beautifully masculine as it was possible to be.
Gabriella closed her eyes for strength and lifted her chin before locking her stare onto his and reminding herself of exactly the monster he was. “I’m leaving you.”
It was such a rare occasion for Tommaso to be lost for words that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d stared at someone in silent disbelief at something they’d said. In the silence that followed Gabriella’s three nonsensical words, he looked more closely at her. All the colour their passion had brought to her face through the night had drained away. Eyes that had shone with desire and emotion were as dim as the most overcast day.
He could feel his own colour drain away. “Is this some kind of joke? Because it isn’t a funny one.”
“Not a joke,” she said with quiet steadiness. “I’m leaving you.”
He clasped the back of his head, remembering how only hours ago Gabriella had done the same to pull him down for a kiss. “Have you taken something you shouldn’t?”
“Only a dose of reality.”
The bitter bite in her tone was as disorienting as her words. Tommaso had woken as fuzzy and contented as a satiated cat. He’d listened to Gabriella’s movements in the dressing room with a heart that had never felt so full and with the sense that his world had righted itself. “What does that mean?”
“That I can’t stay.”
A grim laugh broke free. “You know you can’t leave.”
Features tightening, her neck strained as she looked him dead in the eye. “The only way to stop me leaving is to kill me.”
“What thefuck?” His feet were moving toward her before his brain had fully comprehended her coldly delivered words. Grasping her shoulders, he peered right into her face. “Why would you say something like that, Gabba?”
She didn’t flinch from his hold or avert her cold stare. “It’s the only reason I’m here. My life for my life.”
He tightened his grip and brought his face even closer to hers. “You’re here because we love each other. We’ve been in love with each other for years.” Tommaso knew it with bone-deep certainty. Even when he’d hated the air she’d breathed, he’d been incapable of contemplating a life without Gabriella in it.
He loved her.
A dart of animation sprang into her eyes. A long beat later, she shook her head vehemently. “That’s not true.”
“Like hell it isn’t – last night didn’t happen in a vacuum.” He pressed his forehead to hers, willing her mind to open and let him back in. “You can’t tell me what we shared wasn’t love.” Their feelings had been there in every kiss and touch.
Her face suddenly twisting in misery, she reared her head and wriggled her shoulders against his hold. “Love isn’t built on the barrel of a gun or from threats. I couldneverlove you.”
“Because I’m my father’s son?” he managed to challenge through a throat that felt as if something were clawing it.
“Because you’reyou.” Where her strength came from, he would never know, but suddenly she wrenched herself from his hold and staggered back.
Holding her palm out in a clear warning for him to keep his distance, she tremulously said, “When I agreed to this marriage, it was to save my own skin, but now I see that death would be preferable.”
“Don’t say that,” he whispered tightly. “Never say that.” Nausea a bubbling cauldron in his guts, he snatched his robe from the floor and punched his arms into it, trying to think coherently through the hot mist of blood pounding in his head.
All those weeks ago, he’d sat in Gabriella’s apartment with a gun in his hand and a cobra unfurled in his chest. He could feel it there again now, priming itself to strike all over again. But not at Gabriella. The cobra’s venom was aimed at Tommaso’s heart.
Her eyes shone with unshed tears. “Last night was just a ghost of what could have been if I wasn’t Gabriella Romano and you wasn’t Tommaso Esposito, can’t you see that? If we didn’thave that horrendous history with our fathers and if you were a stranger to me, then I could believe in the magic of what we shared…”
“So you did feel it too,” he cut in, a glimmer of hope flaring even as the cobra’s teeth positioned around the vital organ that beat only for her.
“Yes!” she cried. “But that only makes it worse. Last night was a betrayal of my parents and a betrayal of everything I hold dear. Even if I didn’t have the guilt of my parents, I could never love you. You’re a monster, Masino. You try to rewrite history to pretend you saved my life, but you took it, not for my sake but as punishment and a power trip for your warped ego. Last night wasn’t the start of some beautiful future – there is no future. Not for us. I will never look at you and not see a monster, and I cannot build a life with a monster. Iwon’t.”
Tommaso gazed into the beautiful face firing pain and loathing at him, and felt the graze of the cobra’s teeth on his heart. “I’m not letting you go, Gabriella. I can’t. We made a deal.”
“A deal made with a gun aimed at my head.” Suddenly, she was breaching the distance between them, the bravado and defiance from those early days lighting her face as she drew close to him. “As I said, the only way to stop me leaving is to kill me, so go ahead and do it.” Eyes glistening, lips trembling, she clasped his wrists and tugged his hands to her throat. “You don’t even need your gun. You can squeeze the life out of me right now. I’m not strong enough to fight you.”
