RACHEL LOOKED AT herself in the floor-length mirror. Her figure-hugging wedding gown was made of white lace, and the lace hugged her curves before billowing out just above the knees. The lace sleeves were long, reaching the back of her hand, and the fitted lace collar high. Her veil, made of the same lace, covered her from head to toe.
She’d been dressed as if she was still the virgin bride, although she was far from virginal now.
As she put on one of the diamond earrings Gio had given her for an early wedding gift, she told herself she was happy. She was marrying someone whom she was compatible with. Indeed, with him she experienced incredible pleasure. She hadn’t even imagined that she could feel so much, never mind the sizzling, dazzling heat that burned in her veins and hummed in her body making her reckless with need.
Of course she wished Gio loved her. She wished he felt for her even half of what she felt for him.
Maybe that’s why the sex was so good. It wasn’t just sex for her. It was love. When she gave herself to him each night—and morning—she gave herself completely, not just her body, but her soul and heart.
She was lucky to have a good partner, someone to help her raise Michael, someone who would treat Michael as his own son, but still—still—it would have been even better, it would have been perfect, if that someone loved her.
Earrings in place, she turned away from the mirror and was preparing to leave when a knock sounded at the door, and then her bedroom door opened, and it was Gio.
“What are you doing here?” she said, unable to hide herself. “It’s bad luck for a groom to see the bride on the wedding day.”
“I have something for you,” he said, entering her room with a large leather box.
“You’ve already given me these gorgeous earrings.”
“This is different.”
That’s when she saw his expression. Something was wrong. Gio wasn’t smiling. He looked somber and hard and impossibly remote. Her heart did a painful little beat.
“What is that box?” she asked. The dark box was the size of a loaf of bread, and the polished surface gleamed, the exterior made of inlaid wood, the wood carved into an intricate design of flowers and fruits and musical instruments. It looked old, hundreds of years old, and valuable. Rachel suspected it’d been designed to hold jewelry or a dagger or something else of value.
“You need to have a look at what’s inside.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Will it take long? We’re supposed to be getting married soon.”
He carried the box to her bed and placed it on the white coverlet. “I want you to see this before we do. I think it’s important...for you. For us.”
It was in that moment, when he sounded so distant and grave, that she realized how much she loved him, and how much she wanted to be his wife, and how very much she wanted a happy future with him.
She realized in that moment that she could lose everything, and didn’t want to lose everything. Gio didn’t love her, but he was good to her, and kind. Fearless and strong.
Deep down she hoped—believed—she could get him to love her one day. That one day they would both be happy, together.
“Why do this now?” she whispered. “You must have a reason.”
“I do.”
“It can’t be good. From your expression, it’s not good.”
“I just need you to know what I know. And then we will marry, and we will raise Michael together, and all will be well.”
But he didn’t believe it, she thought. And that was what terrified her.
“Please,” Gio said, tapping the box.
Rachel crossed the room and sat down on the bed. As she lifted the box, Gio moved away, going to stand at the windows. She glanced at his rigid back, and then opened the box. The lid was hinged and when lifted, she saw the interior was filled with envelopes and papers.
Rachel carefully lifted the paperwork out and scanned the envelopes and printed emails, shivering as she recognized her sister Juliet’s handwriting. The letters and cards and emails were all from Juliet to Antonio.
She took the top envelope. The date on the postmark was December 31. She looked behind that one. The postmark was December 25. The envelope behind that one was postmarked December 18.
The letters went all the way back to May 19, the day Antonio died.
Pulse racing, insides churning, Rachel reached for the letter at the very bottom, the one postmarked May 19, and opened the letter and began to read.
My dearest Antonio,
How dare you leave me? How dare you go? I need you so much. I don’t know how to do this without you. I love you too much. I have always loved you too much. We both know it.
It frightens me that I love you more than life itself. And now you’re gone without even a last goodbye and it’s not fair. You’ve never been fair. You swept me off my feet and made me believe in love and miracles. You seemed like a miracle.
You allowed me to dream and hope and believe, and now you tell me that you’re sick, and dying, and you should have told me first. You should have told me before I gave you my heart and soul.
Rachel’s hands were shaking so hard she couldn’t see the next line and she paused, glancing blindly up. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“You will,” Gio said.
Gulping a breath, Rachel returned to the letter.
I don’t know how to raise this baby without you. I didn’t want to be a mother. I wanted to be your wife, your woman, your lover. And now I’ve a child but not you.
You have broken my heart.
You have broken me.
Yours forever and ever,
Juliet
Rachel’s hands shook as she folded the letter back up and slid it into the envelope. A tear fell and she knocked it away as she returned the envelope to the bottom of the pile. She couldn’t bring herself to read more.
“Why did you bring these to me?” she choked.
“They are all like that.” Giovanni spoke from across the room.
Rachel drew a deep raw breath and then another. “You’ve read them all?”
“Not all. Maybe a quarter, if that. It didn’t feel right to continue reading when they were not meant for me.”
“When did you read these? Have you had these all this time?” Rachel struggled to stop the tears but they kept falling.
“Mrs. Fabbro brought the box with her when his Florence home was closed. She used to work for him in Florence, and when the letters arrived from Juliet, she’d put them in this box. She gave me the box several days ago, and I finally had a chance to go through the letters last night.” He hesitated. “I couldn’t sleep afterward.”
“You should have woken me.”
“But then you wouldn’t be able to sleep, either.”
Her eyes continued to burn. She blinked. “She really loved him.”
“Yes. I didn’t believe her, but I do now.”
“She wasn’t as shallow as you thought.”
Gio was silent. “There is something I haven’t told you. I need to tell you.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, expression grim. “Antonio loved your sister, too. He didn’t leave her because he didn’t care. He left her because he didn’t want her to see him die. He left her to protect her from the ugliness of his death.”
“How do you know?”
“He left her his entire estate. His homes, his assets, his stock in Marcello SpA. All of it.”
“What?”
“He didn’t leave her penniless. He left her a very wealthy woman, setting her up so that she could raise his son properly, wanting his woman and his child provided for.”
Rachel wanted to move but her legs wouldn’t stand. She sat, hands clasping the box, heart on fire. “I don’t understand. But she received nothing. She didn’t know—”
“She was never told.”
“How? Why not?”
“I took legal action when his will was revealed, petitioning our courts to investigate the legality of the document.” Gio stood before her, handsome in his tuxedo, but utterly unrepentant. “He had an inoperable tumor in his brain. He was dying. His behavior had become increasingly erratic. I was concerned he was being played, or coerced, and so I asked the courts to intervene—”
“Causing my sister’s death,” she interrupted hoarsely.
“Your sister didn’t want his money, she wanted him.”
“How do you know?”
“She refused it. She rejected every bank wire he sent her. Finally, near the end of his life, he simply changed his will.”
“And you knew all of this, the entire time?”
“I’ve learned bits and pieces over time, but yes, I’ve known since his will was read last June that he left her virtually his entire estate.”
Rachel rose, legs and body trembling. She was shaking from her head to the tips of her white silk high-heeled shoes. “You’ve known since Michael’s birth that Antonio wanted to provide for his child, and indeed, tried to provide but you interfered. You withheld support, and not just support, but love.”
“I did what I thought was right,” he answered tersely.
“But it wasn’t right, and you...you don’t know the first thing about love. You have no idea what love means, or you wouldn’t have worried more about your Marcello stock and investments than your late brother’s child!”
“I was wrong, Rachel.”
“You....you...” She shook her head, eyes burning, chest so tight she couldn’t breathe. “You’re not just wrong. You’re not even the man I thought you were, Giovanni. You’re not at all the man—” She turned away to cover her face with her hands. She pressed her fists against her eyes, holding back the scalding tears, and the grief, and the pain.
Gio had lied to her. Lied. Nothing about their relationship was true. He was false, and selfish, and incapable of caring for anyone but himself. Incapable of loving.
“Thank God you told me now,” she said, choking on a muffled sob. “Thank God I found out before it was too late.”
“We’re still going to marry, Rachel. We still need to protect Michael.”
She nearly lost it then. “You’re the last one I’d trust to protect Michael! You’ve done everything in your power to punish him—”
“I had to be cautious.”
“Of course you’d see it that way. I don’t. But what I do see is the light, and the truth, and the exit, because I want out. I’m not going to do this. I don’t have to do this with you, not anymore. You see, Gio, I don’t benefit from marrying you. I don’t win anything. I just lose. I lose out on the opportunity to be cherished and loved. And it’s not worth it—”
“What about Michael?”
“I love Michael, and will always love him, but we don’t need you. We don’t need your help. I don’t want anything to do with you. Keep your precious Marcello stock. Keep your Marcello name.” She glanced down at the huge yellow diamond weighting her hand. She’d thought it absolutely beautiful when he’d put it on her finger but now it symbolized all that she hated. Rachel tugged the ring off and dropped it on the bed, next to the antique wood box. “And your Marcello jewels.”
“You don’t mean that, cara.”
“Oh, but I do.” Hands shaking, Rachel took off one earring and then the next and tossed them onto the bed, too. “I’ll take Michael back to Seattle with me, and I shall raise Michael myself, and he’ll be a Bern, and he’ll be loved and we might struggle, but at least we’ll struggle with love, away from your contempt, and condemnation, and judgment.”
Gio crossed the room and caught her by the arm, pulling her toward him. “I understand why you’re upset. I was upset last night, too—”
“For different reasons, I imagine.”
“No, for the same reasons. My brother loved your sister, and they had a tragic love story, and a tragic ending, but we are not going to continue the tragedy. It ends here. It ends now. Michael was a true love child, and he shall be brought up with love, not fear or shame.”
She yanked away and, taking several steps back, began unpinning the veil, not caring that it was tearing at her elegant chignon. “I would never shame him! You’re the one that withheld support because you doubted the legitimacy of your brother’s love.”
“My brother was not himself at the end. The tumor was impacting critical thinking, and he made a number of rash decisions. After his death I was inundated with crises, all requiring my attention as well as that of Marcello’s legal team. I wasn’t even aware of Michael’s existence until my private investigators informed me just before Christmas that your sister had given birth in September and had put my brother’s name on the birth certificate.”
“So why didn’t you reach out to my sister then?” she demanded fiercely.
Gio didn’t answer and she swallowed around the lump filling her throat. Her voice was hoarse when she added, “Because you thought she was a gold digger and you were not going to reward her.”
“You admit your sister’s history was problematic, and I wanted to have a DNA test done to see if the baby was truly my brother’s—”
“That was December,” she said, balling the long lavish lace veil and throwing it at him. It fell short, though, fluttering to the ground. “This is March. DNA tests do not take three months. And the drag...the excessive amount of time wasn’t due to the investigation, it’s due to your own blindness because you were duped by a gold digger, and so you assume every woman is a gold digger. This isn’t even about Juliet and Antonio...it’s about you!”
“Not true.”
“Oh, it is true, absolutely.”
“Rachel, your sister was not the only one to claim to have borne my brother a child. Your sister was one of dozens.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Over the years many women have claimed to be pregnant, demanding financial support, or worse, a wedding ring. All were eventually proven false. Until Juliet.” He drew a breath, features taut. “Money makes people do stupid things.”
“Yes, it does,” she shot back, growing angrier, not calmer. “And it’s made you selfish and cynical and hard. You think the worst of people, not the best. But once you knew the truth about Juliet, you owed it to her to reach out and do what was right. You owed it to her and Antonio to make amends.”
“I would have eventually,” he answered quietly.
“Eventually,” she repeated, voice strangled. “Eventually killed her, Gio.”
“Money wouldn’t have changed her mental state, Rachel. Clearly, she wasn’t well if you—who were there—couldn’t help her. How could I?”
“You accept no blame, do you?”
“My job was to protect my family, including the business, a business that employs thousands of people. To give a quarter of a billion-dollar company to a young woman halfway across the world without doing due diligence, could have meant the end of Marcello Enterprises—”
“It’s always about the business, isn’t it?”
“I was raised from birth to put the family business first.”
“I think you mean from birth you were raised to put the business first. Family appears to be a very distant second.”
“I won’t apologize for being skeptical. I thought your sister took advantage of a dying man, and I wasn’t about to see his estate go to someone who hadn’t loved him, but rather saw an opportunity to grow rich at someone else’s expense. I will apologize for the lengthiness of the investigation. I insisted it be thorough, but I realize now that my legal team was perhaps too meticulous—”
“You can’t even apologize without adding in disqualifiers.”
“I’m sorry your sister is dead, but my brother is gone, too.” His voice was deep and granite hard, and yet his accent softened the words, taking the truth and pain in them and searing them into her heart. “They’re both gone,” he added, “but they’re not lost to us. They’ve left us their love child.”
“Stop. You don’t love, and you don’t believe in love.”
“That’s not true. I love you—”
“Now you say it? Now, when it’s all over? When it’s too late? My goodness, you’re desperate—”
He moved while she was speaking, reaching for her, bringing her hard against him. He cupped her face and kissed her, a kiss that was unlike any of the kisses before. This one wasn’t hard and fierce, nor was it scalding, blistering with bone-melting desire. This kiss was dark and intense, layered with emotion and raw, undeniable need. He didn’t just want her lips and touch. She felt as if he wanted to reach into her and steal her very heart.
“You can’t have me,” she whispered against his mouth, as tears stung her eyes and filled the back of her throat. “You Marcellos have taken enough.” She wrenched away and nearly tripped over her full lace skirt in her need for distance. “It’s over, Gio. We’re through—”
“Not by half,” he ground out. “We have a family.”
“You’re not part of it anymore.”
“It doesn’t work that way. You can’t cut me out. Your sister didn’t leave a will. She didn’t indicate that she wanted you to be Michael’s guardian. You have no more legal right to him than I do.”
“But I want him more.”
“That’s not true. I want him very much. He’s all I have left of my brother, which makes him infinitely dear. Unlike you and Juliet, I didn’t have a complicated relationship with Antonio. There was no guilt or anger, no envy or resentment. From the time he was born, he was my brother and best friend. I sat with him as he died, and it killed me watching him suffer and fade. His death wasn’t quick, either. It took him weeks to go, and even as great as his suffering was, I grieved terribly when he was gone. I still miss him profoundly.”
His words came at her, one after the other, and it was overwhelming his passion and love—love he’d never shown her. She shouldn’t be jealous, but she was. Rachel had wanted Gio to love her that much, but he never did.
“No, I didn’t rush to Seattle with open arms when I learned of Michael,” Gio added. “But I had to be cautious about this claim that he had a son there. A dozen different women claimed they’d had his son or daughter. A dozen different claims to process. A dozen different women who wanted a piece of Antonio’s wealth. It was bad enough to lose my brother, but then to deal with all of this desperation and greed?”
Rachel flinched, aware of how desperate she’d been when she’d arrived in Venice on Gio’s doorstep. “Desperation doesn’t make a person bad!”
“No, but it does make one suspect.”
“You should have told me this right away. You should have sat me down on that first day in your mother’s favorite salon and laid out the facts—”
“Buon Dio, Rachel! You had called the paparazzi. You invited the media to my doorstep. How was I to trust you?”
She shook her head, thoughts muddled, hating that he could tangle her up, make her question everything all over again.
Gio closed the distance, hands settling on her shoulder, his skin so warm through the thin lace of her gown. “We have both made our share of mistakes, but we won’t make another one today. We will marry, and we will be a family for Michael. You may feel hurt, and you might be angry with me, but you can’t allow your anger to hurt Michael. Our baby.”
Our baby. The words rippled through her, and she exhaled at the truth in the words. Gio somehow always cut straight to the heart. Maybe it was his engineering mind, or maybe it was his way of problem solving, but it felt as if he’d taken a lance to her, cutting away the garbage and nonsense and revealing what was essential and true.
Michael was theirs. He wasn’t Juliet’s any longer, nor was he Antonio’s.
They were both gone. They would never return.
“We will love him and protect him,” Gio said, one hand slipping up over her neck, his fingers spreading across her jawbone, cradling her face as if a jewel or flower. Every place he touched tingled, her skin flushed and sensitive. “We will not be destructive or selfish. We will put aside our differences and do right by our son.”
She stared up into Gio’s brilliant blue eyes, seeing him, all of him, not just his dark good looks, but his heart. His fierce, hard heart. He was brutal and relentless and he’d smashed her hopes and dreams. “I loved you,” she said numbly. “And I gave you my heart, but I’ve taken it back. It’s not yours. It will never be yours again.”
His thumb stroked her cheek as it met the edge of her mouth. “We can work through this. And we will, after the wedding.”
Her lips quivered at the caress. He stroked down again, lingering at the curve of her mouth. She didn’t know where to look. She certainly couldn’t look into his eyes, not anymore, and so she stared at his mouth and chin, her chest filled with rage and pain. Why had she ever come to Italy? Why had she thought that Giovanni would be the help she needed? She closed her eyes to keep tears from forming. “I won’t forgive you.”
“It’s not as bad as that, il mio amore.”
“It is as bad as that,” she corrected, trying to pull away.
He didn’t let her. He held her, and then he pressed a kiss to her forehead, the kiss careful, gentle, far too kind. “Our guests are waiting. I will help you put your veil back on, and then let’s go finish what we have begun.”