One Reckless Decision

Bethany’s head snapped up and she found Leo standing at the foot of the great stair, his brown eyes fathomless as he watched her approach.

“I had anticipated you would ignore what I told you and force me to come and deliver you to the table myself,” he continued, and she knew there was a part of him that wished she had done just that. Because there was a part of her that wished it too.

“As I keep attempting to explain to you,” she said, forcing a smile that seemed to scrape along all the places she was raw, “You do not know me any longer.”

“I am sure that is true,” he said, but there was an undercurrent in his rich voice that made her wonder what he did not say.

It was so unfair that he was who he was, she thought in a kind of despair as she continued to walk toward him, step by stone step.

The walls were covered with heavy tapestries and magnificent portraits of the Di Marco family from across the ages. Every step she took was an opportunity to note the well-documented provenance of the thrust of Leo’s haughty cheekbones, the fullness of his lips, the flashing, dark richness of his gaze, all laid out for her in an inexorable march through the generations. His height, his rangy male beauty, his thick and lustrous hair: all of this was as much his legacy as the castle they both stood in.

And he was not only the product of this elegant, aristocratic line—he was its masterpiece. Tonight he wore a dark suit she had no doubt he had had made to his specifications in one of Milan’s foremost ateliers, so that the charcoal-hued fabric clung to his every movement. He was a dream made flesh, every inch of him a prince and every part of him devastatingly attractive. It was hardwired into his very DNA.

How could she explain to this man what it was to feel isolated? He was never alone; he had servants, aides, dependants, villagers, employees. Failing that, he had some eight centuries of well-documented family history to keep him company. He was always surrounded by people in one way or another.

Bethany had only had her father since she’d been tiny, and then she’d had only Leo. But soon she had lost him too, and it had broken her in ways she knew that he—who had never had no one, who could not conceive of such a thing—would never, ever understand. She only knew that she could not allow it to happen a second time or she was afraid she would disappear altogether.

“Why do you frown?” he asked quietly, his gaze disconcertingly warm, incisive—dangerous.

“Am I?” Bethany tried to smooth her features into something more appropriate as she finally came to a stop on the step just above him—something more uninviting, more appropriate for a divorcing couple. “I was thinking of all these portraits,” she said, which was not untrue, and waved a hand at the walls. “I was wondering when yours will grace the walls.”

“On my fortieth birthday,” he replied at once, his brows arching. He smirked slightly, and his tone turned sardonic. “Do you have an artist in mind? Perhaps your lover is a painter. What a delightful commission that would be.”

Bethany pulled in a long breath, determined not to react to him as he obviously wished her to do. Determined not to feel slapped down, somehow—after all, she was the one who had introduced the concept of a lover into this mess. She was lucky Leo preferred to make sardonic remarks and was not altogether more angry, as she’d expected him to be. She was somewhat mystified he was not.

She forced another smile, hiding the sharp edges she did not wish to feel, pretending they did not exist.

“I only wondered how odd it must be to grow up under the gaze of so many men who look so much like you,” she said. “You must never have spent even a moment imagining who you might be when you grew up. You already knew exactly what was in store for you.”

She looked at the nearest painting, a well-known Giotto portrait of one of the earliest Di Marco princes, who looked like a shorter, rounder, eccentrically clad version of the man in front of her.

“I am my family’s history,” he said matter-of-factly, yet not without a certain resolute pride. She could feel the current of it in him, around him. “I am unintelligible without it.”

He spoke in an even sort of tone, as if he expected her to fight him about it. Had she done that before? she wondered suddenly. Had she argued simply for the sake of arguing? Or had she simply been too young then to understand how any history could shape and mold whomever it touched? She wondered if some day she would think about their complicated history without the attendant surge of anger and the darker current of grief.

“I can see that living here would make you think so,” she agreed and turned her attention back to him in time to see a curious expression move through his eyes, as if he felt the same currents, then disappear.