The other guests clustered around Lilley glanced between them, suddenly uneasy at his tone of voice. Looking bewildered, she answered, “Lilley Caetani.”
“No.” He set his jaw, hating her soft, deceptive beauty that had lured him into trusting her. And more. “Tell me your name.”
More guests fell silent, turning to look. The Irish rock music abruptly stopped. Suddenly, amid hundreds of people, it was quiet.
His wife swallowed, looking to the right and left. Then with a deep breath, she whispered, “Lilley Smith.”
“Tell me!” He thundered. “Your name!”
She suddenly looked as if she was going to cry. “Alessandro, I was going to tell you.”
“When?” he bit out. “After you’d stolen my company for Hainsbury and your cousin to pick through?”
“No!” she gasped. “I tried to tell you before our wedding. You said you already knew. You always know so much. I believed you!”
“You believed I would actually marry you, knowing that? You lied from the start, even about your name!”
She flinched. He saw the tremble of her eyelashes. “I changed my name three years ago, when my father divorced my mother while she was dying. I didn’t want to be a Hainsbury anymore. So I took her maiden name—”
“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.”