Then he puts it in his pocket and strides back into the villa.
Chapter Eighteen
Vincenzo
ILEAVE THEvilla an hour later, heading over the lawn to the helicopter. I have business in Naples and I’m more than ready to forget what just happened between Caterina and I, lose myself in the day-to-day operation of my business.
The meetings I attend run all day and into the evening, ending only at midnight. But I’m too restless to fly back to the villa, not to mention too angry.
The volcanic fury sitting inside me is no one’s responsibility but mine, and I need to get a handle on it somehow. After all, people tend to die when I get angry.
So, at three in the morning, I’m sitting in a rooftop bar, drinking vodka, watching the lights of the city spread out beneath me. The associates I was meeting with, and who’ve been drinking with me, have all left, mainly with women, and there’s another woman beside me. She’s almost in my lap and has making noises about going somewhere more ‘comfortable’, but I’m half-drunk and only half listening, because I can’t stop thinking about Caterina.
The ring box is still in my pocket, my empty threat about giving the rings to Annika echoing in my ears. I was never going to give them to Annika. Those were bought for Caterina and Caterina alone. I only said that to her because I was furious and I wasn’t sure why.
She told you you sounded like your father.
Fuck. That’s true. I was already disappointed because she didn’t want the rings or me, that she only wanted her so-called freedom, so that comment only kicked my rage into high gear. I’d built my life these last twenty years onnotbeing him, never ever. So to tell me that I sounded just like him was… A red rag to a bull.
But that’s not all she did.
I grit my teeth, not wanting to remember the look in her eyes after I told her that I’d shot Stefano. The look of pity that glowed there and her saying sorry that there hadn’t been another way for me, as if she’d been concerned about me. About the effect killing my own father had on me.
She was right to be concerned. You’re a monster.
My jaw aches and I down the glass of vodka in my hand. The liquid is ice-cold and it burns on the way down, but it does nothing to ease the leaden weight in my gut.
She’s right to be concerned, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. My hands are so red it doesn’t matter whose blood is whose, and I accepted that as my role the day I picked up the gun and shot him with it. What’s done is done. There are no second chances, no shots at redemption, and there are none for her either.
Why not though? Why not give her the freedom she wants?
She’s right, it would be simple, but I can’t do it. I won’t. She wouldn’t be safe no matter how many new identities she has, and that’s not even considering the fact that she might be pregnant.
The wolf growls a protective warning at the thought of children, and the man is in agreement. My child, out in the world and unprotected is a possibility I can’t even think about. Just as I can’t think of bringing up any child of mine without their mother, because I know just how painful that is.
So no, she’s going nowhere. She’s staying at my side and I will consider all the ways and means to give her as much freedom as I can, but that’s as far as I’ll go. And I’ll make sure that what she said about her own father, about looking into his eyes and seeing only anger and resentment, will never happen to our child. I won’t let it.
The woman next to me slides a hand up my thigh and leans in to whisper in my ear, promising me all kinds of naughty things. But both her hand and her voice leave me cold. I know the woman I really want and she’s not here.
Perhaps I won’t stay in Naples after all. Perhaps I’ll fly back to the villa. There are many ways I can convince my wife that’s she’s better off with me. No one else can give her what I can. No one.
Gently but firmly, I take the woman’s hand off my thigh. I tell her she’s beautiful, but I’m married and I will not be taking her to bed. She pouts a little, then leaves to find another, more receptive man.
I exit the bar, slightly amazed at myself for refusing what she was offering on the grounds that I’m married. Which I am, of course, but I never anticipated that I’d actually be faithful to the wife I kidnapped. And I am.
I don’t want another woman, I realise. I don’t want anyone else but the woman I married. My Caterina. Now, at the thought of her and the pleasure we shared, my body is waking despite how tired and half-drunk I am. It never woke for that other woman. Not even a flicker.
I organise the helicopter and soon I’m flying through the dark night back to Sicily.
I land just as dawn is breaking. I debate the merits of taking some time to sleep before seeing her, but I can’t wait, so I proceed up the stairs to my bedroom—our bedroom—to wake her. But she isn’t there.
Discomforted and unreasonably annoyed by her absence, I cross the hallway to her room and push open the door. But she’s not there either.
A flicker of alarm goes through me. Where is she? Has she managed to escape somehow? But that’s impossible. My security is second-to-none and they would have informed me if she’d somehow left.
I go downstairs and ask one of my guards where my wife is, only to have him inform me that she woke early and wanted to go for a walk on the beach at the base of the cliffs. No, she is not alone. Yes, she has eyes on her.
The relief that sweeps through me is impossible to deny, yet I have no time to think about why that is. Instead, I go quickly to the stone path that zigzags down the steep cliffs to the beach.
