LITMIR.BIZ

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      “You knew Caetani Worldwide would never hire you with either Hainsbury or Théo St. Raphaël’s name on your résumé.”

      “Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.

      “You came as a spy.”

      “No! I was just desperate for a job while I tried to start my business!” She shook her head tearfully. “I went to San Francisco to follow my dream—”

      “Bull,” he said brutally. “You went to San Francisco to seduce Jeremy Wakefield into giving you information about Preziosi designs, so your father could have them copied in China in advance. Until I took you to the Preziosi ball and you realized a greater prize was possible for you.” He gave a hard laugh. “You decided to become my mistress, so you could funnel information to your family.”

      “I would never betray you!” she said with a sob. “I was going to tell you everything! I swore it to myself, when I finally realized you didn’t know about my family. All this time, I thought you did, until the day I first told you I loved you.”

      Her voice trembled, but her tears weren’t going to work on him, not this time. “That was weeks ago.” He grabbed her by the shoulders, looking fiercely into her weepy eyes. “All this time, I thought I could trust you. And you were waiting to stab me in the back. What was your goal? How are they going to work against me? Are your father and cousin planning a hostile takeover of my company?”

      “You know me better than that!” She hiccupped, and her eyes became huge as she looked up at him. Unchecked tears streaked her rosy cheeks as she whispered, “Don’t you?”

      “I wish to God I’d never met you.” Alessandro’s pulse hammered in his ears, and he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even think. “There’s just one last thing I need to know.”

      “What?”

      He gently touched her full bottom lip, the lip he’d once thought could only speak the truth. “How deep do your lies go?”

      Her lips parted beneath his touch. His hand slowly traced down her neck, skimming over the breasts and corset to the bright pink-and-purple skirts that covered her swollen belly. “Is the baby mine?”

      Her eyes widened as she gasped.

      “Tell me the truth, Lilley,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “Did you sleep with another man?”

      A sob came from the back of her throat. As he stared down at Lilley’s beautiful, tortured face, Alessandro suddenly forgot about the crowded ballroom, forgot Caetani Worldwide, forgot Olivia behind him. All he could think was that he’d loved Lilley. That had been the feeling swelling in his heart moments before. That had been what he’d wanted to tell her. He loved her.

      But now he knew the woman he’d loved was a lie. Lilley had deceived him from the beginning. He’d asked for a paternity test, and she’d talked him out of it. She’d lured him into loving her, so she could rip out his heart. Just like all the rest.

      Unwilling memories rushed through him. Lilley’s teasing smile as she tried to get him to play. Lilley naked in the pool in Sardinia. Lilley defending everyone, even people who didn’t deserve it. Lilley clinging to him for comfort and strength. Lilley’s deep, loving eyes that promised eternity. All a lie.

      She stood in front of him now, swaying on her feet, looking as if she might faint. “You really think I would do that?” she whispered. “That I’d sleep with another man, then marry you and spend the rest of my life lying to you? How can you think that? I love you!”

      “Nice,” he murmured. Touching her cheek, he tilted her face towards the light of the chandelier. “The tears in your eyes, the catch in your voice.” He dropped his hand and said acidly, “You’d almost have me believe that you cared.”

      “I do care!” she choked out. “I love you—”

      “Stop saying that,” he said harshly, then set his jaw, glaring at her with hatred. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I wouldn’t believe a word you said anyway.”

      Lilley clasped her hands together, looking pale and small in her vivid ball gown, flowers tumbling from her long brown hair. Then she glanced at Olivia behind him.

      “She did this, didn’t she? She took my white lie and twisted it into evidence of a black heart.” A tremble filled her voice as she looked back at him. Tears were streaking her face. “And you believed her. You never thought I was good enough to be your wife. You never wanted to love me. And this is your easy way out.”

      “I despise you,” he said coldly.

      She gave a sob, and Vladimir Xendzov placed a hand on his shoulder. “Enough. You’ve made your point.”

      Alessandro twisted out of the man’s grasp, barely restraining himself from punching his face. “Stay out of this.” He suddenly hated Xendzov, Olivia and every other vulture in his colorful, festive ballroom. Setting his jaw, he looked around the ballroom and shouted, “All of you—get the hell out!”

      “No,” Lilley said behind him. “Stop it, Alessandro.”

      Her voice was harder and colder than he’d ever heard from her lips before. Surprised, he turned back to face her.

      Lilley’s eyes were still grief-stricken but her shoulders were straight, her body rigid. “Our guests haven’t done anything to deserve your abuse. And neither have I.” She squared her shoulders and said, “Either tell me, right now, that you know this baby is yours, or I will leave you. And never come back.”

      An ultimatum. He stiffened. “I’m just supposed to trust your word, am I?”

      Lilley’s face turned pale, almost gray. “I’m not going to stay in a marriage you don’t know how to fight for.” She glanced back at Olivia bitterly. “She’s the one you always wanted. A woman as perfect and heartless as you.”

      In a swirl of purple-and-pink skirts, Lilley turned away.

      Alessandro grabbed her shoulder. “You can’t leave,” he ground out. “Not without a paternity test.”

      She looked at him, and he could have drowned in the deep grief of her brown eyes. “I’m done trying to make you love me,” she whispered. “Done.”

      Alessandro couldn’t show weakness. Couldn’t let her know how close she’d come to breaking him entirely. “You’ll stay in Rome,” he said harshly. “Until I allow you to leave.”

      Her eyes glittered.

      “No,” she said. “I won’t.”

      Her face looked strange, her eyes half-wild as she took a deep breath.

      “I slept with a different man, just like you said.” Blinking back tears as she looked up at him, she choked out with a sob, “And I loved him.”

      Her words were like a serrated blade across Alessandro’s heart. He staggered back, stricken. “And the baby,” he breathed, searching her eyes. “What about the baby?”

      Lilley’s brown eyes were dark as a winter storm. Tears streamed down her face like rain. For answer, she pulled her canary-yellow diamond ring off her left hand and wordlessly held it out to him.

      Numbly, he reached for it. Lilley turned away, pushing through the crowds, not looking back.

      And this time, he didn’t try to stop her. Gripping the ten-carat diamond ring tightly against his palm, Alessandro closed his eyes, leaning his head against his fist as he felt the first spasms of grief course through his body.

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