An Inheritance of Shame

chapter TWELVE



ANGELO GAZED MOODILY out the window of his private jet at a grimly cloud-laden sky. The weather had turned grey and cool and after the argument with Lucia last night it suited his mood perfectly. Although if the weather truly suited his mood, a storm would surely be raging, just as anger surged inside him.

Who the hell did she think she was, telling him all that psychobabble? Insisting he wanted the Correttis’ love? It was absurd, pathetic. Yes, maybe he’d dreamt of such things once upon a time, when he’d been a foolish boy—but now?

Now he wanted revenge. He wanted justice. Didn’t she see that? Why couldn’t she understand this integral part of himself? And how could she even pretend to love him, when she wouldn’t accept this?

Restlessly Angelo settled into his seat. The obvious answer was she didn’t love him, never had, just as he’d first thought. She’d convinced herself, perhaps, that she loved him, the him she’d plucked from her own head. He hadn’t lived up to that sappy fairy-tale prince, so here he was, flying back to Sicily alone, about to take over more of the Corretti holdings. This morning, after Lucia had left, he’d arranged several private meetings with the shareholders he thought most likely to cave. He could have control of Corretti Designs by this evening. Lucia’s leaving had just made him more determined to dominate Corretti Enterprises.

I’ll show her.

He stilled in his thoughts, felt his insides curl in something like shame. He sounded like a little boy. He was acting like a little boy…like the little boy she’d claimed he still was, looking for love.

And she gave it to you. She’d asked him to let it be enough, and he’d told her it wasn’t. She wasn’t.

Resolutely Angelo set his jaw and stared out the window. Lucia had asked too much. He couldn’t give up this. He couldn’t imagine what life would look like if he did. She wanted to talk about emptiness? He’d be a damn void if he let go of this. Of revenge, of proving himself, of finally, finally—

Finally what?

Would acquiring one more Corretti company—or two, or a dozen—really make a difference? Would he feel satisfied then, complete? Happy?

He sat back in his seat, his jaw bunched so tight his teeth hurt. He knew he wouldn’t. And yet even so he could not imagine giving up, letting go—because that thought was still more terrifying than the emptiness he lived with every day.

Lucia gazed around at the tiny bedroom in the hostel near the Gare du Nord where she’d gone after leaving Angelo that morning. It was a far cry from the palatial suite at the Georges Cinq, but it would have to do. It was within her budget, at least.

Angelo, she knew, had been shocked that she had insisted on leaving right then. He’d thought she was making some grand gesture, but it had been simpler, and more awful, than that. She was simply preserving her sanity. She couldn’t spend another moment in his company, never mind return to Sicily in his private jet, and not break down. Beg for him to take her back, just as her mother had her father.

How many times had she curled up into a ball in her bed while she heard her mother’s noisy sobs from downstairs, her father’s gruff replies? And then the slamming of the door, and her father disappeared for a week, a month, however long his money lasted until he was back, to her mother’s shaming joy, for more. And then he’d left for good…just as Angelo had.

Except you were the one to leave. You walked away before he could.

A ripple of unease shivered through her, and she tried to shrug it off. She’d made the right decision; she knew she had. As long as Angelo was bent on proving himself in this awful, twisted revenge there was no way a relationship would work. She knew that, had felt it.

And yet—

Did you have to push him so hard? So far? So quickly?

Restlessly Lucia rose from her narrow bed and opened the door. The hallway of the hostel reeked of sweat and boiled vegetables, and she felt as far from home as she ever had. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back quickly as she strode towards the front door. Too late for regrets.

She spent the next few hours wandering around Paris, lost in a haze of her own misery and doubt. She could not shake the feeling that she’d made a terrible, terrible mistake.

But what choice had she really had? To go back to Sicily and watch as Angelo ruined the entire Corretti family or died trying? Watch him become more bitter, more determined—and emptier all the while? The end would have happened, sooner or later. She’d just hurried it along.

That’s why you pushed him. You were still protecting yourself.

Trust was a choice, and she hadn’t trusted. She’d pushed Angelo towards an impossible ultimatum because she was still afraid he was going to walk away. So afraid—and so she’d made him.

She might have told him she was acting out of love, but she hadn’t been, not really. She’d been acting out of fear. She’d always been acting out of fear.

Gazing blindly at the Eiffel Tower in the distance, Lucia let out a choked sob. She had made a terrible mistake—and she didn’t know how or if she could fix it.

The last of the sun’s rays were streaking the sky, and just as before, the moment they’d faded the lights switched on, and the Eiffel Tower shone jewel-bright. She remembered how only last night Angelo had shown her, his eyes warm and bright with love. I’m so glad I saw it with you.

Why hadn’t she believed in that boy? Why hadn’t she given him the time, space and support to make the decision she knew he was capable of? Instead she’d pushed. She’d pushed him away.

And now she needed to get him back.

‘It’s not that we don’t trust Luca Corretti—’

‘Of course not. This is simply a good business decision.’ Angelo smiled coolly at the banker from Milan who would help to orchestrate his insider’s coup. With him he could convince the other shareholders to depose Luca as CEO and put him in his place. Corretti Designs would be his. Yet all he could think as he looked at the man’s paunchy face was traitor.

And all he could feel was emptiness.

He didn’t care about Corretti Designs. He knew adding another company to his portfolio wouldn’t appease any of the restless emotions inside him, the anger and the hurt and the need.

Only Lucia had done that. Only loving Lucia could do that now.

‘Signor…Corretti?’ The man stumbled slightly over his name. Angelo lifted his gaze, gave him another cool smile.

‘I have the document right here. We need six signatures—half of the board—on it before I can act accordingly.’

‘Of course.’

Resolutely Angelo pushed the paper over to the man. He watched him take out his fountain pen, scan the document that would give him control. He thought of Luca’s steely authority, the grudging admiration he’d felt for his cousin.

It’s not business. Not for you.

No, this had never been about business. Never about money or power or even revenge. It had been, he knew, just as Lucia had told him, about love. About wanting to be loved, accepted—and knowing that the Correttis never would.

But Lucia had. Lucia always had.

‘Don’t sign.’

The banker looked up in surprise. ‘Scusi?’

‘Don’t sign.’ Angelo smiled grimly. ‘I’ve changed my mind.’

The man’s jaw slackened. ‘But…the company—’

‘Luca Corretti is perfectly capable of turning his company around if need be,’ Angelo said. ‘I don’t need to do it.’ He reached for the document and tore it neatly in half. ‘I don’t need to do any of this.’

With the man still staring at him in slack-jawed amazement Angelo rose from the table. ‘And now I’m afraid I must take my leave of you. I have a plane to catch.’

It had taken her the better part of a night and day to get back to Sicily. She didn’t have enough money for the airfare, and so she’d taken a train to Milan, another to Genoa and then a twenty-hour ferry to Palermo. By the time she arrived at the hotel she was exhausted, dirty and in desperate need of a bath and a hot meal. She pushed all of it aside in search of the one thing that truly mattered. Angelo.

The bellhops stepped back as she entered, eyes widening in surprise. Perhaps they didn’t recognise her as one of the chambermaids, and she certainly didn’t look like a guest.

The concierge came hurrying forward. ‘Scusi, signorina.’ Her eyes were flinty, her smile perfunctory. ‘May I help you?’

‘I’m looking for Angelo Corretti.’

‘I’m afraid he’s not available—’

‘I’ll just go see for myself.’ She strode past the woman who, she could see, was already calling security on a pager. Great. She’d get kicked out of the hotel and fired from her job. So be it. This was more important than any of those things.

She pressed the button for the lift, prayed it would come before security escorted her out. She saw two uniformed men heading towards her just as the doors pinged open—and Angelo stepped out.

The look of incredulous amazement on his face mirrored, she was sure, her own.

‘Lucia—’

‘Scusi, Signor Corretti.’ One of the security guards grabbed her arm. ‘She just came in—this way, please, signorina.…’

‘Unhand her now.’ Angelo’s voice was low and deadly and the guards immediately stepped back. ‘This woman is not only an employee of this hotel, but my special guest.’ He glanced back at her, and his gaze roved hungrily over her face. Lucia felt the first wonderful flare of hope. ‘Lucia,’ he said softly, urgently, and she swallowed hard.

‘Can we…can we go somewhere to talk?’

He nodded, and Lucia started forward. Then he shook his head. ‘No, what I need to say to you, I can say here, in front of everyone.’

That didn’t sound good. ‘But—’

‘You were right, Lucia. You were right about everything.’

‘Oh, Angelo, I wasn’t—’

‘I went in pursuit of what I told myself was my dream and I felt only emptier. Lonelier. You’re the one who fills me, Lucia. The one who loves me, and I threw the most important thing in my life away with both hands and for what? Just more emptiness. More bitterness.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I’m done with it. Done with revenge, done with buying up businesses as a way to change the past or myself or the way others think of me. I’m done with all of it, Lucia.’

‘Oh, Angelo.’ Tears slipped down her cheeks as she reached for his hands. ‘I came here to tell you that I was wrong for pushing you so hard. Forcing you to choose when you weren’t ready, when everything between us was still so new. I did it because I was afraid, because even then I was bracing myself for you to walk away from me. If I made you do it, it would be better somehow—but of course it wasn’t. It was awful. It was the worst thing in the world.’

‘I’m not walking away now,’ he told her in a low voice. ‘I’ll never walk away from you, Lucia. I was a fool to have let you walk away from me. I love you, and I want to live the rest of my life with you, to grow old with you and have more children if you’re willing.’

‘Yes.’ Her throat was so tight she could barely get the word out. ‘Yes, I want all of that, more than anything.’

‘So do I.’ Angelo smiled, his own eyes bright. ‘So do I.’

And there, in the middle of the marble lobby of the Corretti Hotel, he sank to one knee, his hand clasped with hers as he looked up at her with love-filled eyes. ‘Lucia Anturri, I love you more than life itself. Will you marry me?’

Wordlessly Lucia nodded. Her throat ached too much and her heart was too full to speak. ‘Get up,’ she finally managed with a tearful laugh. She pulled him to his feet. ‘Get up so I can kiss you.’

‘I think I can manage that.’ Smiling, Angelo drew her into his arms and kissed her soundly, as around them the staff and guests of the Corretti Hotel began to cheer.