‘Oh, my God. He lied to me,’ she whispered. ‘You lied to me. About everything.’
‘No.’ The word was raw, gravel-rough. ‘No,’ he repeated. ‘I was gathering facts. I needed to be sure before—’
‘Before you splashed my family’s sordid dirty laundry all over the papers?’
‘That wasn’t my doing. It was Francesco and Stefano. I had no idea they were doing some digging of their own. What you overheard in my office...they were attempting to blackmail me—’
‘And you let them? So you could keep me onside until you got your hands on that precious share?’
His nostrils flared and she knew she’d hit the mark.
‘You did, didn’t you? Your precious company is worth more to you than...than anything else.’ She barely stopped herself from saying than me.
‘To have ultimate control of the company, I need to be a one hundred per cent shareholder. That’s why I can’t get rid of them. And yes, this isn’t how I would’ve gone about dealing with your news. But it’s not the end of the world.’
She laughed—a grating sound that frightened her. ‘It’s easy to say that when you’re the golden child of parents who loved each other and loved you. You have no earthly idea what I feel.’
‘Perhaps not. But that doesn’t mean you should let this define you.’
‘What do you expect me to do? Walk out into the street and own it?’
To her utter shock and dismay, he nodded.
‘Si. Take the power away from them. Turn this into a positive.’
‘God, you’re actually serious! Do you have any idea how this will affect my mother?’ Fresh horror shrouded her. ‘Oh, God. My mother!’
He rose and held out his phone. ‘Call her.’
‘And say what? That I trusted the wrong person with the most devastating thing to happen to her?’
His fingers tightened around the phone. ‘I will not persistently defend myself. If you won’t call your mother, how will you know she’s okay?’
‘How do you think? By going home to her!’
He frowned. ‘What are you saying?’
‘That I’m leaving! Surely you can’t expect me to stay here after this?’
To her chagrin, he looked utterly stunned. She walked towards the door, her feet blocks of concrete.
‘Faye.’
She didn’t stop. She was terrified she would break down if she did. And she refused to leave Maceo with the memory of seeing her completely defeated.
‘Faye, wait. There’s something else.’
Misery drenched her. There couldn’t be. She knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wouldn’t be able to take it. But she couldn’t move. Because even drowning in utter desolation she still held out the hope of something from him. Something that resembled a reciprocal feeling of that precious knot of longing inside her that had somehow survived these devastating revelations.
Something like...hope.
Like love.
She held her breath as he approached. But when he arrived beside her he didn’t arrive with words. Instead, he held out an envelope. One with her name on it.
Confused, she lifted her gaze to his.
‘Carlotta left this for you. It’s from Luigi,’ he said.