‘How the bloody hell do you expect me to believe that?’ Gianni roared at the younger man in savage interruption. ‘You are one sick bastard! Per meraviglia, you came to me that night in tears, sobbing out your penitence, telling me how you couldn’t resist her, insinuating that she had led you on. It wasn’t enough that you had assaulted a pregnant woman; you then chose to destroy our relationship to save your own useless hide!’
Stefano stumbled back against the desk for support. ‘I didn’t know she was pregnant then, Gianni. I’d never, ever have touched her if I’d known that! Dio mio…I pulled a crazy stunt and I frightened her, but I honestly didn’t mean to!’
Milly studied the younger man with unconcealed scorn. ‘I might be impressed by that defence if you’d thought better of your lies once you’d had time to appreciate what you’d done. But even weeks after that night in New York, you were still determined to keep on lying!’
Gianni’s winged brows pleated. ‘Are you saying that you saw Stefano after that night?’ Gianni looked dazed.
‘Gianni, once you asked me what I was doing in Cornwall three years ago. I’ll tell you now. I went there to confront Stefano,’ Milly stated crisply. ‘I took a lot of trouble to find him. In the end I had to contact his girlfriend’s mother and pretend to be a friend of hers to find out where they were staying.’
Stefano was now staring fixedly at the rug.
‘You went to Cornwall to see him? Why?’ Gianni’s open bewilderment told her that shock had deprived him of his usual ability to add two and two.
‘Milly wanted me to tell you the truth.’ Stefano spoke up again in a sudden rush. ‘She tried to shame me into it by telling me that she was pregnant, but I already knew that by then because you’d told me. I was furious she had tracked me down. I didn’t want anything to do with her in case you found out. You might’ve started doubting my story, maybe thinking that we’d been having an affair…’
‘Per amor di Dio…’ Gianni gazed with incredulous dark eyes at his trembling kid brother, and then he simply turned his back.
‘When I arrived at the cottage, Stefano had been drowning his sorrows again,’ Milly revealed ruefully. ‘He’d had a row with his girlfriend and she’d taken their hire car and driven back to London to fly home, leaving him stranded.’
‘It was too late to tell the truth! I was in too deep by then. There was nothing else to do but face it out!’ Stefano protested weakly.
Gianni’s dark, haunted eyes were fixed to Milly. ‘Tell me that the night you’re referring to was not the same night that you were hit by that car!’ he urged, almost pleadingly.
‘It was that night.’ Milly shrugged fatalistically. ‘I’d gone to the cottage in a taxi and then let it go.’
As Gianni rounded on Stefano, the younger man backed away, looking sick as a dog. ‘Until I read about the hit-and-run in the papers last week, I didn’t know what had happened to Milly that night! How could I have known? She just walked out on me. For all I knew she had a car parked further up the road—’
‘You didn’t give a damn either way,’ Milly condemned helplessly. ‘In a twisted way, you had started to blame me for the mess you were in with Gianni!’
‘I called a cab the next morning and flew back to New York,’ Stefano continued woodenly, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I had no idea that Milly had been injured after leaving the cottage.’
‘But within days you were well aware that I was frantically trying to find her.’ Gianni’s tone was one of savage disbelief. ‘Yet not one word did you breathe! You could have told me you’d seen her in Cornwall but you didn’t. I spent months searching France for her. By then she had been wrongly identified as another woman.’
‘I knew nothing about any of that,’ Stefano reiterated, perspiration beading his strained face. ‘And if I’m here now, it’s because I couldn’t stand all this on my conscience any more.’
‘No, you’re here now because Milly’s my wife,’ Gianni delivered with chillingly soft exactitude. ‘Because you assumed I might already know all this, and the idea of confessing all and throwing yourself on my mercy seemed like the only option you had left.’
‘That’s not how it was, Gianni.’ Stefano had turned a ghastly colour.
‘Your conscience got to you too late. You hurt Milly not once, but twice. You also cost me the first years of my son’s life,’ Gianni condemned with lethal menace. ‘But what I can never, ever forgive is my own mistake, Stefano. I put family loyalty first. And here you are, our father all over again. Weak, dishonest, unscrupulous. It’s a just reward for my stupidity, isn’t it?’
Looking at Gianni, Stefano seemed to crumple entirely. ‘I’m
not like that. I’m not. I’ve changed a whole lot since then. I had to lie… I was so scared—’
Gianni said something cold in Italian.
Stefano was openly begging now. ‘How was I supposed to admit the truth, knowing that you’d kill me? Do you think I didn’t realise that she came first with you when I saw how you reacted at the apartment? It was her or me…you’ve got to see that!’
Milly did not feel sorry for Stefano, but she was squirming for him. His best quality had always been the depth of his attachment to Gianni. He had always been measuring himself up against Gianni. He had probably developed a crush on her for the same reason. But alcohol, arrogance and sheer stupidity had combined to tear Stefano’s privileged little world apart. He had been terrified that night in New York after Gianni had walked out on them both, terrified that Gianni, who had been more father than brother to him, would disown him.
‘Go home, Stefano,’ Milly suggested wearily.
Gianni said nothing. It was as if Stefano had become invisible. His brother slung him one last pleading glance and then hurried out of the room.
A hollow laugh that startled Milly was wrenched from Gianni then. ‘Porca miseria! To think I was jealous of that pathetic little punk!’
‘Jealous?’ Milly parroted in astonishment. ‘Of Stefano?’