One Christmas Night in Venice

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“You said my mother made the arrangements?”

His voice continued to grow harsher, and she swallowed with difficulty, unnerved by this new harsh Domenico. “Apparently. To be honest, I don’t remember the flight or the first surgeries,” she answered, forcing a note of calm into her voice. “Or much of the rehab. It’s all a blur.”

“Apparently,” he mocked.

Tears scalded the backs of her eyes and she had to look away, concentrate very hard on the enormous gold-framed oil painting on the far wall. This Domenico harbored a beast.

“Perhaps you misunderstood her,” he added bitterly.

Her head snapped around to face him. “You think I’d imagine my mother-in-law telling me that my husband and child were dead? You think I’d create grief for the pleasure of it?”

Her voice rose, and she wanted to rise, too. Wanted to march across the room to hit him. Slap him. Shake him. Love him. But her cane was missing, and she wasn’t strong enough to get to her feet from the low sofa without it.

“No. But perhaps in translation her explanation, your interpretation …”

His voice drifted off and she hated him then. Hated him and his dark, haunted eyes and his scarred noble face and his wealth and privilege. Because he hadn’t died. And he wasn’t alone. He’d lived, and he’d been here in the bosom of his beloved family while she’d struggled on her own. But of course they’d taken him back. He wasn’t the problem. She was. And she was gone.

Her chin lifted a notch. “I’m fluent in Italian and your mother was fairly fluent in English. I can’t imagine how we could misunderstand each other so completely. She did, after all, come and see me. You, on the other hand, did not.”

Domenico’s expression darkened. “My mother was afraid to fly.”

“But not enough to stop her bringing me my settlement.” Her lips curved faintly, mockingly, pain making her heart pound and her pulse race. “According to your mother you were in debt at the time you died and unable to leave me anything. Your mother, however, scraped together twenty thousand dollars to help me start my new life, perhaps put a down payment on a condo somewhere. She also promised to pay the bulk of my medical bills. It was the least she could do, she said. It was in your memory. She said you’d want her to do it.”

He stared at her, his dark eyes shuttered, his expression inscrutable.

“I don’t have my cane, so I’ll need my costume staff,” she added, with as much dignity as she could muster.

His dark head inclined. “I’ll send for it.”

“Thank you.”

He crossed to the table behind her and pressed a hidden button. Moments later the butler appeared. Domenico relayed his request but the butler had already retrieved it. “I have it here,” he said, reaching for the wooden staff propped outside the door. He carried it into the room and presented it to Diane with a bow. “For the Contessa.”

The Contessa.

Diane’s lower lip trembled. And just like that she was the Contessa again.

Impossible. Improbable. The dead did not come to life. Tragedies did not reverse themselves. Nightmares do not have happy-ever-afters.

Hand shaking, she reached for the staff. “Thank you, Signor d’Franco.” Her voice came out low, hoarse.

“You remembered!” the butler exclaimed.

“I remember everything,” she said thickly, and the tears she’d been fighting returned. And when the tears wouldn’t be held off she covered her face rather than have either man see her cry.

CHAPTER THREE

DOMENICO knew Diane was crying, and he wanted to go to her, comfort her, but he had no words of comfort to give. Couldn’t even imagine what would soothe her given the circumstances.

His mother had lied.

It’d been his mother who’d done this to them. Lied to both of them. Incredible to think that she’d tell both of them the other had died.

Diane’s gone, Domenico. You have to face the facts, understand her injuries were too serious. She won’t be coming back.

Only his mother hadn’t understood that her news had shattered him. He would have rather died a hundred times over than hurt a hair on Diane’s head.

He hadn’t wanted to live without her.

And it was his mistake that had killed her. His carelessness, his lack of control.

He’d internalized that lesson all too well. Control was everything. Life and death. Black and white. Even the briefest loss of control could be fatal.

Now his mother’s despicable actions compounded his own.

“I am sorry,” he said harshly, not so much angry with her as he was with his mother and himself. They’d hurt Diane terribly. And her pain wasn’t over yet. She still didn’t know the whole truth.

Didn’t know her baby wasn’t dead.

Didn’t know her baby had survived and been raised by him and members of his family these past five years.

Domenico drew a deep breath, and then another as he imagined breaking the stunning news. Because it would floor her. Crush her. She’d missed the first five years of her son’s life, and if she hadn’t shown up tonight she might have missed the rest of his life.

Diane should hate him.

He already hated himself.

And helplessly he watched her cry, her small shoulders shaking with silent sobs. His fingers bunched into fists and his stomach rolled. To have her back only to cause her more pain. How was it fair? How could he ever be forgiven?

“I am sorry,” he repeated. “I’ve no excuse. And my mother isn’t even here to be held accountable for her actions. She died two years ago from cancer.”

“How convenient,” Diane choked, lifting her head to stare up at him. “And cruel.”

But his mother hadn’t just been cruel. She’d been diabolical. She’d known she was dying and yet she’d taken her secret to the grave with her. That made her sins even worse. She’d never liked Diane, never approved of her as his wife—not when there were aristocratic Italian women far more suitable—but to tear them apart when they were the most vulnerable.

Unthinkable.

Unforgivable.

“We need to talk,” he said, battling with the black emotions filling him, darkening his mind. “Allow me to send for your things so we can change out of these ridiculous costumes.”

“I don’t need to change,” she answered dully. “I just want to go. If Signor d’Franco could call a water taxi for me?”

“You can’t leave.”

“I won’t stay.” Her chin jerked up and her eyes, liquid with tears, blazed up at him. “I’m on a morning flight back to the United States and I need to be on the plane. I will be on that plane.”

She’d never been more beautiful, he thought, than now. Her high, prominent cheekbones. The heart-shaped face. Those eyes … “We’re not finished here, Diane. There’s more I have to tell you—”

“Well, I don’t want to hear it. I’ve heard enough. You’ve clearly moved on. I wish you and Valeria—I think that is her name—a long, happy marriage since it was denied us.” Determinedly she pushed herself to her feet with the aid of the staff and headed for the door.

Domenico intercepted her before she’d traveled halfway across the room, blocking her path with his powerful body. “It’s not that simple, my love. You can’t just walk in and walk out and expect everything to be the same. Nothing’s the same. You are here. And you are alive. And you are my wife.”

“Was your wife,” she answered fiercely, head tipped back to look at him. “Was, as in past tense. Because if you recall there was a funeral. According to Valeria, my ashes are somewhere in your chapel. I’m dead to you and I’d prefer to remain that way.”

“I can’t let you.”

“Why?” she practically shouted. “You’ve done just fine without me. You’re in love and engaged and ready to make another woman your wife—”

His hands clamped down on her shoulders as he dragged her up against him. “You’re wrong,” he retorted, his deep voice thundering in her head. “I didn’t do fine without you. I couldn’t live without you.” The words were torn from him, and they weren’t gentle. They were rough, tortured, like glass scratching metal, because his heart was made of metal. His heart was worth nothing at all. “And maybe I’m not who I was, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to let you walk out that door.”

Her eyes, still that arresting blue-green, shimmered with liquid. She’d always had the most beautiful eyes. The most beautiful heart. Tender. Loyal. Loving. “You don’t have a choice,” she whispered, the first tear falling. “Now, let me go.”

He stared into her beautiful face, studying the new faint lines at her mesmerizing eyes, the set of her full mouth, wanting to take her in, memorize every detail. He’d never known anyone like Diane when they’d met at the university in Florence. She’d been pursuing an advanced degree in Italian Renaissance Art. He’d been touring the recently restored university library—a restoration made possible through the generosity of the Coducci family, his family.

She’d been one of the two docents conducting the tour, and he’d been enchanted by her eyes, the shape of her face, her accent, her passion for Renaissance art. She’d been so real, so fresh, so expressive. He’d never enjoyed a tour quite as much as that one, and had watched her as she’d talked rather than look at the friezes, the arches, the canvases covering the enormous walls. He’d grown up in a palace, surrounded by relics and ruins, and his tastes ran to the modern. New. Bold. Controversial.

Like his apartment in Rome.

Like his choice of her for his bride.

The Coduccis were a rich, ancient, noble line, and Domenico was to have selected a wife from a suitably rich, ancient, noble line. But instead he’d chosen Diane. Diane from Chicago. Diane from a working-class family.

He’d always suspected that his mother would have overlooked Diane’s lack of ancestry if she’d been rich. But Diane’s sin had been that she was poor.

And thus he’d been cast off, isolated from his family. But Dom hadn’t cared. It was his life. His choice.

And now the past was back.

“I can’t,” he answered, trying to ignore the grief in her eyes and how her knuckles shone whitely where she gripped the staff.

“Why not?”

“The baby—” He broke off, took a deep raw breath. “He didn’t die.” Domenico’s eyes searched hers waiting for the news to register. “He lived. He’s alive. He’s here—with me.”

He’d expected a scream, a cry—something. But she stood utterly still, her enormous eyes locked on his.

“Diane, you’re a mother,” he pressed on, not understanding why she didn’t respond. “The baby didn’t die. You have a son.”

And then she did the strangest thing.

She laughed.

Laughed. Even as her eyes welled with fresh tears.

But her laugh wasn’t a happy laugh. No, it reminded him of ice cracking. Cold. Brittle. Fragile. “I don’t believe you. You lie.”

Diane tipped her head back and looked into the face of the man she’d loved with all her heart and mind and soul. The man who’d had everything. She’d never understood why he’d wanted her. Needed her. But he’d said he did.

He’d said.

And now he said their baby hadn’t died. Their baby was here. Alive.

Alive.

She shivered, shuddered, her blood freezing in her veins. There was no child. Her child had died. Her baby hadn’t survived. Domenico’s mother couldn’t have been so cruel. “I don’t want any part of this … deception … play … masquerade … whatever it is. Let me go. I must go.”

“Don’t be scared. It’s going to be okay. We’ll make it okay—”

She silenced him with a furious slap across his face, hitting him hard, as hard as she could. She could hear the slap echo shockingly loud in the chamber. Worse, the blow stung her hand, making her palm ache.