“You’re kidding.” I try to keep my voice level, but it’s impossible to keep my rage out of it. “What are you, a spy? Are you that damaged that you need to do background checks on the men you sleep with?”

“No,” she says, stepping toward me. I hold up one hand. I don’t want her any closer.

I want her much closer. I want her in my arms, relatively innocent and hot for me and falling more in love with me every second. I want her mouth on mine, kissing me like there’s no tomorrow.

It feels like that right now, but if she comes any closer, I’m going to fracture into a million pieces.

“Then what?” I throw the envelope onto the couch, the papers spilling out.

Carolyn holds up both hands for a moment, then drops them to her sides. “I run a website.”

I raise my eyebrows. That doesn’t explain anything.

“I run a website called Rainflower Blue. It’s very exclusive, and very secret, and it’s basically a closed gossip site for New York’s wealthiest people.”

My stomach turns over. This is what sweet, kind, compassionate Carolyn does in her spare time? I shake my head, letting my disgust show on my face. “Let me guess. They’ve been talking about me. And my time in Italy.”

“Yes,” she says, her cheeks turning a deep red.

“Why the hell would you believe any of it?”

“Because—” She looks away, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “It’s not that I believed them, Ace. I wanted to be able to deny them so that we could move on.”

“Oh, yeah? That’s why you asked me about it outright?”

“You didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”

“Of course I didn’t want to talk about it,” I spit. “It’s my personal business. The internet doesn’t need to know. You don’t even need to know.”

“I want to know,” she says softly. “I didn’t want to be—to be caught off guard by another man.”

“Right,” I say, my mouth curling into a sneer. I hate this version of myself. “You probably have a reason for everything.”

She looks down at the floor, and I’m so angry I could die right here.

“You want to know what happened in Italy? Fine. I’ll tell you.” I take a deep breath and brace for the pain of what happened with Elisa. “I went over there for business, and while I was living in Rome, I met a girl. Her name was Elisa, and she was everything I wanted at the time. Fun. Carefree. Beautiful. I thought it was the real thing.” I want to spit on the ground at this memory. “We were together six months before she dropped the bomb.”

Carolyn’s mouth opens, like she wants to interrupt, to ask a question, but she closes it again. Wise.

“She was the daughter of a man who led one of Italy’s biggest crime rings. He did most of his work underground, and he wanted her to have a clean source of money. So he sent her to seduce me. And she did.”

Carolyn shakes her head, her shoulders slumping.

“Except it turned into the real thing. We had real feelings for each other. So I started planning to get us out of Italy. That bastard had people everywhere. Still does. So it wasn’t going to be simple, even though I had more than enough money to pay for a private flight out.”

My jaw tightens. “It didn’t matter. Before we could leave, she got diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer. It only took her six weeks to die.”

Carolyn gasps, then covers her mouth with her hands, tears beginning to well up in her eyes.

“You can imagine that her mob boss father wasn’t pleased with that, and in his grief, he got the Italian authorities involved. He ran a smear campaign against me, trying to get me tagged for murder—even though it was clear she’d died from cancer—and everything went to hell.”

I look at her until she’s looking me straight in the eye. “I came back to New York because I knew I’d never be able to get out from under his thumb in Italy. Not unless I wanted to be wrapped up in the process for the rest of my life. Who was going to trust me? I was married to the daughter of a wanted criminal.”

“Ace, I—”

“That’s what happened. You still think I’m a murderer, go ahead and think that. I can’t change your mind.”

“I don’t think you’re a murderer. I wanted to know the truth.” Her voice is on the verge of pleading, and for a split second I consider going over to her, taking her face in my hands, and kissing her until all this is in the distant past.

But my fury rages.

I can’t do it.

“Then you should have asked me,” he snarls.

“It seemed more complicated than that.”

“You know what?” I say, and her eyes widen a little. Is that a flicker of hope that I see there? “You’re like all the other gossip-hungry bitches in New York City.” I can feel my mouth curling into another sneer, and I force it to stop because it’s an ugly expression to wear, and I don’t want anyone, ever again, to have the satisfaction of causing it. “You’re as bad as the rest of them. This was another set-up, wasn’t it? You wanted up-close-and-personal content for your little website.”

She shakes her head harder, emphatically. “No. That’s not what I wanted. I didn’t—I heard about you coming back to New York, but I didn’t know about any of the other rumors until later.” She takes in a shuddering breath. “I always thought you were cute in high school. You caught my eye. I wanted to be sure that—”

“I would be in jail right now if I’d killed my wife!”

She presses her lips together, her chin quivering.

“You’re one of them. That’s all you are.” I head for the door, going past her on the way out, leaning the other way so I don’t touch her.

I turn back once I’ve opened the door, gesturing to the air between us. “This is over.”

Then I’m gone.