Proof of Their Sin

With Lauren, everything was different. Paolo’s inner warrior became defenseless, making him balk at revealing any signs of weakness, but he’d dented her self-confidence tonight. That demanded that he set aside his shields and make things right.

“You want me to say that making love to you was more important than marrying you first, but I can’t,” he admitted gruffly, facing a demon he hadn’t fully confronted until now, when he couldn’t avoid it. “I need you to have my name. I won’t have Mrs. Bradley in my bed again.”

Her jaw slacked and her face paled to white before outraged color flooded in. “That’s disgusting!”

He rushed her, taking her arms. “I’m not proud of this jealousy,” he bit out. “But we’re being honest here.”

“Jea—” She stilled her struggle and lifted her gaze to his, wary. “It’s not just a competition thing?”

“What? No! He’s not even here to see that you’re mine now.”

“Exactly. He’s not here, so how could you feel jealous of a name that I’m not even using?”

Dio! Her naïveté astonished him.

“I’ve always been jealous,” he elaborated.

Lauren’s fingernails hurt. She realized distantly that she had her fists knotted in Paolo’s shirt, her grasp so hard her nails were bending, but even while tension held her in its silent grip, deep inside she unfurled a bit. If he was being honest...

“I don’t have any right to it,” Paolo allowed begrudgingly, “but from the moment he slid into our booth and you barely looked at me again, I have been eaten up with it.”

Lauren forced herself to release him, unnerved by what he was saying. Logically she knew there was nothing particularly reassuring about a man revealing his territorial streak. Jealousy was a sign of distrust, not love, but a nebulous hope tried to take root in her breastbone, painful in its worming to take hold. It seemed like a start.

“Did he know?”

“What do you think?” he retorted flatly, letting his hands drop away from her to find his pockets.

The moments following their kiss at the wedding came back to her, both men crackling with territorial aggression. And then there was that conversation she and Ryan had had in the bridal suite later on, when he’d casually revealed that Paolo had tried to talk him out of going through with the wedding. She’d interpreted it as Paolo trying to save his friend from a woman he deemed unworthy, but now it took on a different connotation as did the way Ryan had watched her so closely as he relayed it.

“Do you...” She rubbed her forehead, trying to ease the tension there. “Do you think he married me just to hurt you?”

Lauren’s question notched higher the suspicion Paolo had been holding off with bone-gripping denial. It wasn’t just the treachery it implied. It was a blow to a woman who was already struggling to recover from infidelity. To learn her husband had never really loved her was too cruel to suggest.

For long seconds he refused to look at her, but was ultimately unable to lie to her. When he finally did take in her anxious pallor, regret cut through him like a broadsword. He had never, ever meant to draw her into what he now feared had always been more feud than friendship.

“He had his own jealousies,” he allowed, holding out a hand that she ignored. “You know what his father was like. Mine was proud and supportive... In Ryan’s eyes I was spoiled, living an easy life.”

“So it’s possible.” Her voice sounded like she’d swallowed broken glass.

#p#????#e#

“At the time I thought he was marrying you because you made him happy.” It was easy enough to believe when he’d coveted her for himself. “If I’d suspected otherwise, I really would have stopped it.”

She shrugged that off, lost in a place that pulled down the corners of her mouth.

“Look at me.” Taking a firm grip of her soft chin, he waited for her shattered gaze to tentatively meet his.

He gentled his touch so he was caressing her downy skin, trying to ease the anguish from her expression while a personal hurt reared inside him. “You walked away from me and went to him more than once. I thought he made you happy, too. That was important to me, that you were happy.”

Her lips quivered and he stilled them with the brush of his thumb.

“I thought you wanted nothing to do with me,” he admitted gruffly. “That’s why it meant everything when you knew it was me you were making love to that night in Charleston.” The floor became quicksand beneath him as he opened himself up this way.