“And you?” Emma asked coldly. She was having difficulty absorbing all this. The only thing that seemed clear and evident was Vera Shaw’s mad hatred. “Did
you
take up with him? Did
you
mean anything to him? Or is all of this some fiction you’ve created in your head because you know deep down you never meant anything to Michael Montand, and that you only hold Vanni’s affections because of loyalty to his mother?”
“Laurel
wasn’t
his mother,” Vera shrieked. “Haven’t you been listening? And Michael’s and my relationship was above sex. He seduced women with ease. His conquests meant nothing to him, just like you mean nothing to Vanni. Sleeping with all those women—with that
bitch
Cristina—didn’t earn women the respect Michael gave
me
.”
Emma shook her head, staring at the woman in mounting wariness. She felt nauseated. All she wanted at that moment was to be away from Vera Shaw. She was a twisted, hateful woman who clearly saw Emma as some kind of threat to her ordered but delusional world. She’d somehow morphed Vanni into some bizarre mixture of Michael Montand and the son she’d never had with him—the man she’d desired above all else.
“I’m not really sure why you’re telling me this . . . this
story,
but I think I should be going. You don’t seem—”
Right in the head
, Emma stopped herself from saying at the last minute. “
Well
,” she finished with a glare. She started toward the door.
“I have proof!”
Emma was caught off guard when Vera shoved the piece of paper in front of her chest. She hauled up short and found herself staring at what appeared to be an official document.
It was Vanni’s birth certificate. Vera snapped away the top document, revealing the one beneath it. She shoved both pieces of paper closer to Emma’s face. “And here is Adrian’s birth certificate as well. You see?
Who
does it say Vanni’s mother is? Who does it say is Adrian’s?
Cristina Elizabeth Carboni
!” she spat, spraying some saliva into Emma’s face. “I found these after she died, hidden away at the bottom of one of her shoeboxes when I went through her closet to see what she’d left you! That whore
would
put something so sacred in such a place. That’s how much Adrian and Vanni meant to her. Only after she started to age a little, only when she began to suspect she couldn’t remain the prima donna of the European social circuit forever did she finally listen to Michael. After Laurel died, he begged her again to marry him. He was blind with lust when it came to Cristina. She finally agreed, probably seeing nothing better in her future, and came. You should have seen it!” Vera laughed. “You’ve never seen a woman less suited to be a mother. Vanni
hated
her from the first, and Cristina couldn’t stand the sight of him. What do you think it would do to Vanni to find out
Cristina
was his mother?” Vera shouted.
Emma staggered back as if she’d been shoved, the force of Vera’s vitriolic excitement was so great.
“He hates her with a white-hot passion. Cristina killed Adrian—her own son, Vanni’s twin. He’s never loved anyone like he did his brother. Vanni has never—
will
never—forgive Cristina for that, and yet it’s her cold, selfish blood that runs in his veins! What do you think it would do to him?” she demanded again.
“It would kill him,” Emma gasped, too shocked and set off balance to say anything but the truth.
Vera’s smile was an ugly thing. “Perhaps he deserves to know the truth.”
“No,” Emma said forcefully, anger fortifying her. She stepped toward Vera, meeting her stare in preparation to fight. “You say you care about him. You know very well finding out Cristina was his real mother would . . . unhinge him. Do you really want that for him?”
“No,” Vera said, her chin going up. “Do
you
?”
Emma inhaled slowly, reading the truth in the woman’s glittering eyes. “Just tell me what you’re planning,” she bit out angrily.
“I’ll keep the secret until my grave. If you promise never to see or speak to Vanni again.”
The refrigerator hummed on in the tense, horrible silence that followed.
“You must realize this thing with Vanni won’t last forever,” Vera reasoned. “How long do you have before this affair between the two of you is over? Weeks? Days? All I’m asking—”
“All you’re doing is blackmailing me,” Emma interrupted coldly. A fury started to build in the pit of her belly, melting her icy shock over the bizarre unfolding of events. “You know as well as anyone how much Vanni has suffered. You claim to care about him. Yet you would make him suffer in this way, out of spite toward me?”
“You claim to care about him as well,” Vera challenged, showing her teeth. “Would you make him suffer, just so that you can satisfy your lust for a few more nights? Don’t try to tell me Vanni has promised you more. I know him. He’s unfailingly honest when it comes to what he’ll give a woman. Well . . .
has
he promised you more? Has he professed any other emotion but lust for you?”
Emma refused to answer, but perhaps Vera saw the flash of doubt in her eyes. Vera smiled.
“I didn’t think so,” Vera said in a low, victorious tone. “You’ll have to tell him that you decided to end it now, since you know it’ll end some time soon, anyway. A girl like you, so sweet and fragile . . . it’d pain you too much to keep things going until they inevitably end.”
Emma snarled in a very unfragile manner and lunged toward the disgusting woman. Vera’s eyes widened in momentary alarm.
“How do I know you won’t tell him anyway, even if I agree to this? How do I know you won’t harm him in another way, you crazy bitch?” Emma demanded.
For a few seconds, Vera looked like she was ready to resort to violence, but Emma was ready. She waited. Vera inhaled, regaining her composure.
“He’s like a son to me,” Vera said. “I’ve never done anything to harm him. Has he ever mentioned that I have?”
“No,” Emma said. “He doesn’t
think
about you much at all, let alone talk about you.”
Her arm went up instinctively, blocking Vera’s striking hand. She gripped her wrist tight when Vera tried to jerk it away. Vera’s attempted blow at her face had brought her closer. Emma stared unblinkingly into Vera Shaw’s eyes while her heartbeat roared in her ears. A memory came back to her in that harrowing moment: Niki Dellis staring at her, sadness and concern in his dark eyes as he spoke of Vanni.
Sometimes I think if something else horrible happened to him, it’d end him.
She couldn’t bear the idea of him learning that Cristina was his real mother. Just imagining his pain felt as if it took her breath away.
“Promise me you won’t tell him about Cristina,” Emma grated out. “Promise me you won’t do anything to harm him.”
“I promise it easily,” Vera hissed. “If you promise to walk away now.”
Emma shoved the other woman back with force. Vera stumbled back, looking outraged. She started to lunge toward Emma again, but suddenly came up short when their stares met.
“I know someone who will keep an eye on you,” Emma said fiercely, channeling all of her fury into her gaze. “If I hear you’ve run to Vanni with this information, I’ll find out. I’ll tell Vanni what you did, just in case you convince him that you were only telling him for his own good.”
Vera laughed. “Are you referring to my stupid sister-in-law, Michelle? Or maybe my annoying brother, Dean? Yes. I hear you’ve become quite the darling with them as well. Fine. Check on Vanni’s well-being, if need be. But if you intrude too far into his life again, all bets are off. Do you understand me?”
“Unfortunately, all too well. You’re pitiful,” Emma said, casting a glance of cold disdain over the woman before she walked out of the kitchen.
* * *
Previously, Emma hadn’t allowed herself to imagine too greatly what it would be like when she eventually was forced to walk away from Vanni. Maybe it was best that she was doing it unexpectedly.
When she reached the garage—that place where she’d first spent time with Vanni, peered into the private world of a man who had suffered and lost and was ever so cautiously starting to live again, where she’d first felt her heart pound with boundless passion—what had just occurred in that kitchen suddenly struck her with force.
She stumbled slightly, gasping, and braced herself against the Bentley, her gaze landing on the backseat window. Pain swept through her. The thought of Vanni eventually arriving home and expecting to see her there felt unbearable. She choked on the air she’d just gulped as if her lungs didn’t know how to process it.
Don’t do it. You can’t abandon him!
But the truth was, Vanni wouldn’t feel abandoned. Not really. Her absence would confuse and annoy him. He’d definitely made it clear he didn’t like the idea of things ending on her terms. He wanted and needed her. For now. But
abandoned
?
No. That wasn’t realistic.
Was it?
It didn’t matter, in the end. The thought of him learning that Adrian had died while under the watch of his true mother, that Vanni carried the blood of Cristina in his veins, was an even worse agony for Emma to consider. He
despised
Cristina. He guarded the memory of Laurel Montand above all else. She was a pillar of goodness in his tainted, pain-strewn world.
I wondered if I went far enough, if I’d be taken, too
.
She clamped her eyes shut and gasped at the impact of recalling Vanni telling her about his dangerous, fate-tempting swims. She recalled his tired cynicism and hopelessness when she’d first witnessed him with Astrid. He carried such a heavy emotional burden with him always. The news about Cristina could so
easily
be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
No. She couldn’t allow it.
After taking a moment to compose herself, Emma straightened and slowly walked out of the garage.
She suddenly had an inkling of how Vanni must have felt all of these years, numbing off the heart and taking one difficult, reluctant step at a time into an empty, cold future.
His hand was throbbing with pain, but still, he beat on the door with it. Suddenly, the wood was no longer there and he was beating on air. Amanda Shore was standing inside the threshold, looking panicked and furious.
“I’m about to call the police, Vanni.”
“Is she in there?” Vanni demanded, stepping over the threshold. Amanda stepped in front of him, blocking his way. He looked down and met her stare. He blinked and came to a halt. He realized—reluctantly—that she was a human being and not merely an obstacle to Emma. Amanda’s blue eyes looked fierce, but beneath her anger, he saw her worry.
“You can’t just come bursting in here, Vanni,” Amanda bit out. He took a step back. He’d been about to knock over a woman, for Christ’s sake.
“Why won’t she see me?” he asked. Despite his earlier recognition that he couldn’t force his way past Amanda, he kept his hand on the open door. He wasn’t walking away, damn it. How was it possible that he’d last seen and touched a soft, warm woman who was as eager for his presence as he was for hers, and suddenly be faced with an Emma who was telling him she’d decided not to see him again? It didn’t compute in his short-circuiting brain.
When he’d arrived home at the Breakers an hour later than his scheduled flight, he’d found it empty. He’d immediately tried to call Emma, assuming she hadn’t received the messages he’d left on her voicemail or the one he’d left with Vera that he’d be late. He’d reached her by phone, but what she’d said in her uncharacteristically cold, flat voice was still being rejected by his spirit wholeheartedly.
After France, she’d decided that it was too painful to continue seeing him.
Had she been planning on walking away when they’d kissed good-bye that last time in his bedroom at La Mer?
No. That truth hadn’t been on her lips or tongue or in her warm, supple body pressing against his.
What was
his
truth when it came to Emma? He only knew he didn’t want to let her go. Life without Emma? Could he go back, once he’d known her indescribable warmth, her sweetness and touch?
He suspected he
must
, at some point. He feared it. Needing her was such a horrible, sweet risk. The only thing he knew for certain was that there, in that moment, the thought of losing her was like having his lungs ripped out of his chest.
“What’s happened to her? It doesn’t make any sense,” he told Amanda angrily.
“Really?”
Amanda asked sharply.
He stilled and peered at Emma’s sister. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Amanda crossed her arms at her waist and drew herself up, giving him a very hard look. He’d never been a huge fan of Amanda, given what she and that jerk Colin Atwater had done to Emma, but at that moment, he saw a resemblance between Amanda and her sister.
“Emma told me what you proposed: an affair of a purely sexual nature. She told me all about it.” He felt himself withering a little under Amanda’s condemning, disgusted gaze, but he didn’t flinch. “You proposed something like
that
? To a woman like
Emma
?”
“That’s only how it started out,” he bit out.
“You’re right. That’s how it started out, but it’s not how it ended. Not for
Emma.
She’s not built like that. Surely, despite your . . .
cold-blooded
plans for her, you must have realized she’s not cut out for this kind of thing.”
“That’s rich,” he said with quiet, building, helpless fury. “
You
preaching to me about not being sensitive enough to Emma.”
Amanda paled. Regret and helplessness swept through him in equal measure. “Damn it, Amanda, just let me see her. I know I can clear this up.”
“How? By professing your undying love for her? By promising her you’ll always be there for her?” He met her stare, a snarl shaping his lips. In his unguarded state, her pointed words had felt like piercing missiles. Amanda’s eyes closed for a moment. “I’m sorry, Vanni. I know that you care about her, in your way.” She opened her eyes. “A person would have to be a complete robot not to care about Emma, right? But I saw when she came home tonight. She was . . . beyond belief. I’ve never see her like that before.”
Her trembling voice still ringing in his ears, Vanni started to walk past her again, intent only on one thing: seeing Emma.
Amanda was suddenly in front of him, looking royally pissed. “She’s not even here!”
He came to another halt, helplessness and fury now boiling inside him. “I pleaded your case to her before, Vanni, when you called me while you were in France. That was before I knew what you proposed to her. That was before I understood that you aren’t capable of offering her more. Unless you’re prepared to say you’ve completely changed your tune about that, unless you can give more of yourself to her than that selfish crap you dribbled out to her, I want you to turn around and go!”
The silence was deafening.
“Because that’s what Emma realized tonight,” Amanda continued shakily after a few seconds. “That she can’t be with a man who has so little to offer. Do the right thing, Vanni. Think of Emma, not yourself.”
For once.
Amanda hadn’t said the words, but they pulsed in his blood and his brain as if she had.
Do the right thing
for once.
He inhaled, the air scalding his lungs, and walked out of the apartment.
* * *
Emma listened through the pounding of her heart. She heard the door slam. A few seconds later, Amanda walked down the hallway to where she stood, leaning against the wall. She’d needed the support, listening to Vanni out there. For a few seconds, they just stared at each other.
“You heard it all?” Amanda asked in a hushed tone.
Emma nodded. She felt sick to her stomach. “He left,” she whispered. “I . . . I didn’t think—”
Amanda was suddenly pulling her off the wall and walking her down the hallway, her arm around her.
“He left,” Emma repeated again dazedly when Amanda urged her to sit on the edge of her bed and sat down next to her.
“I know,” Amanda said, looking miserable. “But I thought . . . I mean, after everything you told me earlier about how he proposed this no-strings-attached affair with you, did you really expect he wouldn’t?”
Emma just stared at her sister, her mouth gaping open. The truth hit her full force.
No. I didn’t really believe he’d walk away, in the end. I still held out hope. I’m such an idiot.
“Oh, Emma,” Amanda said miserably, obviously seeing the truth displayed on her face . . . the crushed hope. She hugged her tightly.
When Emma had arrived home earlier after that toxic encounter with Vera Shaw, Amanda immediately knew something terrible had happened. Emma had only to open her mouth and a partial explanation came spilling out, her agreement to an affair with Vanni, her caveat of a specific time limit to keep her safe, and her tearful admission that it hadn’t worked. She was far from safe. She’d fallen in love. Deeply and irrevocably. Emma hadn’t told Amanda about Vera Shaw, though, or any of the specifics about Vera’s threats or Cristina. That all seemed like too tender a topic to expose.
In truth, it’d shocked her to the core that Vanni had listened to Amanda’s reasoning. She was willing to do her part to make sure that Vera didn’t spill that poison truth to him about Cristina, but she hadn’t thought he would walk away so easily.
Here it was: firsthand proof that his feelings for her hadn’t altered since he’d first suggested a sexual affair. Or if they had changed, Emma realized with a wave of dizziness, they hadn’t altered enough to make him fight for her. His suffering and his fear of letting another person get close had triumphed. It left her stunned, her entire being vibrating with shock.
Emma was not used to letting doubt and fear triumph. But it had. That victory was not sitting well with her. It was constricting her spirit. . . dimming it.
“Maybe it’s best,” Emma said after a moment through numb lips. The pain would have come sometime. She knew that now for a fact. Whether Vera Shaw had made her ultimatum or not, Emma would have eventually sat here, bereft and empty. She now knew firsthand that he wouldn’t have fought for her, because his fear of losing another was too great.
There was nothing to act as a stopgap. Loss crashed into the vacuum that had opened inside her with tidal wave force, stealing her breath.
* * *
For the next several days, Vanni went through his waking hours like an automaton. The feeling wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him. He’d gone through a good part of his adult life on automatic mode, after all. He hardly slept, but he was alert and he responded when people spoke to him. When a few crucial issues came up associated with work, he’d responded decisively and coolly.
On the inside, however, some sharp kernel grated, causing the ice inside him to splinter. Finally the pressure grew too great, and he felt the cracking of his brittle control.
He rose from his bed one night about an hour before dawn and walked down to the beach, naked.
He stood at the edge of the lake as the waves lapped around his bare feet. The water stretched out before him, as black and eternal as the night sky. The contrast between the thick, suffocating darkness of this shore and the warmth and brilliance of the beach at La Mer struck him . . . Emma standing on the beach, naked and beautiful, waiting for him . . .
He plunged into the frigid water. It hit him like a slap, ruthless and stinging. The farther away from shore that he swam, the clearer his brain got. Ever since he’d heard Emma’s flat voice on the phone so many days ago, he’d been fogged. Now shards of memory cut through his awareness like slicing glass.
Emma’s deadened voice on the phone:
I thought I could do this, Vanni, but I can’t.
Amanda
: Because that’s what Emma realized tonight. That she can’t be with a man who has so little to offer.
Cristina’s dying words:
No child should have been left to feel so much. No man forced to feel so little.
A man who has so little to offer.
Those words taunted him most of all. He cut through the black water angrily now, swimming farther from shore. When he sensed he was just past the breakers, he paused, lifting his head. Water surged up and hit him in the face.
The memory of Adrian’s pale, frightened face leapt like a lion into his consciousness.
Help . . . Van . . . I can’t . . .
And then Adrian was sinking beneath the slate-blue, churning water, and so was Vanni, pulled under by the strength of his hold on Adrian’s hand, sucked beneath by the force of his love for his twin. Adrian and he were one there. Under the waves, it’d been shockingly peaceful.
He hadn’t been afraid.
Vanni never understood what had happened next or how. He hadn’t let go . . . but suddenly he’d broken the surface, oxygen burning his lungs as he gulped it greedily.
And they were two.
He gasped and sputtered in the present, the lights of the Breakers sparkling on the distant horizon. He had a crystal-clear image of Emma with the Mediterranean sparkling behind her, an ocean of compassion in her dark eyes.
Adrian may have died, but part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni
.
And then . . .
When the time came, he wasn’t afraid. Please believe me. I’m sure enough for both of us.
He remembered Adrian’s hand letting go . . . releasing him. For the first time, Vanni realized it hadn’t been a weakening gesture, but a firm, decisive one. He’d grasped for Adrian desperately, but only water filled his hand, and he was rising to the surface like a buoy.
Why hadn’t he recalled that until now?
Vanni realized he could make out the outline of the bluffs and his house now. Dawn was breaking behind him. He took a shuddering gasp and plunged into the water again, swimming toward shore.
* * *
He walked back into the Breakers, soaking wet and naked. His mind was clear, though. He’d find Emma. He’d make her understand. It was different now than it had been when he’d tried to see her and Amanda stopped him several nights ago.
He
was different.
He was shivering when he stepped into the kitchen to make himself some tea for fortification. It was Emma’s drink, and just that thought warmed him.
What if I can’t convince her that I really can offer her more?
You’ll do it. One step at a time.
He took heart from that steady, patient voice in his head. It was new, and yet it was achingly familiar.
Part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni.
He opened the refrigerator to get some milk while the kettle heated on the stove. His gaze landed on the bottle of champagne on the shelf. He withdrew it and just stared at the label for several seconds, his brow furrowed.
A moment later, he flipped off the burner on the stove and strode out of the kitchen determinedly.
* * *
Realizing it was too early to go to Emma’s yet, he stopped at a coffee shop in Evanston. He dialed Vera’s number as he sat at a booth.
“Vanni?” his aunt answered on the second ring.
“Did you see Emma? Last Tuesday night?” he asked without a greeting. “Did you talk to her at the Breakers before I got home from France?”
There was a long, pregnant pause. “Why?” Vera asked finally. “What did she say to you?”
“I asked you the question, Vera. Did you see Emma or not?”
“Yes. We spoke briefly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you on Wednesday? You claimed you hadn’t spoken to her at all, that she’d never arrived there to your knowledge. What did you say to her?” he seethed.
“Only the truth, Vanni.”
“What particular brand of the truth are you referring to?” he bit out, vaguely aware that the waitress cast a concerned glance his way. Anger was making him inappropriately loud.
“I told her I didn’t think things would work out between you two. Emma seemed to agree, after she’d given it some thought.”
He froze.
“
You
told her . . .
you
didn’t think things would work out?” he finally got out in disbelieving fury.