The Last Heir of Monterrato

‘Look...’ Making a visible effort now, Rafael lowered his tone, inched towards her as if dealing with one of his feral horses. ‘I don’t know what this is all about, but maybe if you were to just calm down...’

He stretched out an arm towards her but she batted it away furiously, the jacket sliding off her shoulders.

‘It’s about the fact that I mean nothing to you— nothing! I am no more than a surrogate—worse than a surrogate. Because you can’t just pay me off and forget about me. Instead you have to lock me away in some far-flung corner of the palazzo. But I am your last, your only chance of providing an heir for Monterrato and you hate me for it. Don’t even try and deny it.’

Her voice was reaching a harridan screech as it picked up speed, denying Rafael any sort of reply.

‘If it hadn’t been for your accident you would have been rid of me for good. You would have carried on living your self-indulgent bachelor lifestyle for as long as you liked, eventually choosing a suitable mother for your precious children when the fancy took you from any number of painted, perfect, pouting women like the ones who were fawning all over you last night.’

A cold quiet descended as Lottie gulped in a shuddering, juddering breath that racked through her whole body.

Rafael just stared at her.

‘So is that what this is about? This ridiculous behaviour?’ Realisation coloured his words. ‘Some petty rivalry with the women at the dinner last night? Perhaps you should be careful, Lottie.’ His eyes glittered coldly, his voice suddenly terrifyingly soft. ‘We wouldn’t want to misinterpret this little outburst as a fit of jealousy, would we? Fool ourselves into thinking that you actually care. We both know better than that. Perhaps I need to remind you that who I see, who I take to my bed—’

‘Stop!’ With a piercing scream Lottie covered her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’

‘Is none of your business.’ His rapier tongue hadn’t finished with her yet. ‘You left me...remember?’

His words floated across the stillness of their daughter’s grave. Across the great chasm of misunderstanding and pain that had blighted their lives.

‘It’s not something I am likely to forget.’ Washed with grief, Lottie’s words were barely audible.

That lie—that terrible lie. ‘I don’t love you Rafael, and I never have.’ Delivered in a moment of tortured panic and accepted, just like that, as brutal, irrevocable fact.

‘Well, that makes two of us.’ He gave a derisive snort. ‘You had me fooled, Lottie, I’ll give you that. I had no idea—no idea at all—that that was coming. Idiot that I was, I thought we were for ever—imagine that? And all the time I meant nothing to you—you were desperate to be rid of me. When you finally came out with the fact that you had never loved me, well...’ He stopped, his throat moving as if he had swallowed something sharp. ‘If you want the truth, I will tell you. It crucified me, Lottie, totally crucified me.’

This was more than Lottie could bear. Her own pain she could cope with. She had to cope with. But seeing the suffering that twisted the muscles of Rafael’s beautiful face made something snap inside her.

‘I lied.’

‘Chiedo scusa? I beg your pardon?’

‘I lied, Rafe. When I said I didn’t love you.’ Her voice was very small.

‘Sì, right—of course you did. I was there, Lottie, I heard you say the words, saw the look in your eyes as you spoke them.’

‘I lied because I had to—because I knew it was the only way you would let me go.’

‘Che diavolo?’ Rafael snarled at her. ‘If this is some misguided way of trying to make me feel better then don’t bother.’

‘You were talking about telling the truth—well, this is my truth. When I said what I said it was for your benefit, so you would be free of me.’

‘How very kind.’ The sarcasm in his voice was chilling. ‘And why exactly would I want to be free of you?’

‘Because our marriage was a mess—nothing but endless trips to fertility clinics and failed IVF attempts. Because I saw no reason for Seraphina’s death to ruin both our lives.’ Lottie gulped in a breath of cold air. ‘I thought if I left I could take the pain of Seraphina’s death away with me. That you would be better off without me.’

Fury contorted Rafael’s face. ‘Don’t you dare bring Seraphina into this. You have never had the sole rights to that pain, no matter what you might think. She was my daughter, my little girl, every bit as much as she was yours, and I felt the pain of her loss—still feel the pain of her loss—every bit as deeply as you. More so, in fact, as I shoulder the guilt for her death.’