Leandro exploded to his feet. “No. I can’t lose her, Ernesto. I came to my senses without needing proof. I was mad to suspect her, and it will never happen again. I would die in atonement, I would die anyway for her, without hesitation, but I’d rather live for her, spend every minute of my life making her happy and fulfilled.”
Ernesto looked at him as if he was giving him a total mind and psyche scan. Just as Leandro felt as if he’d start destroying the place in a fit of helplessness and frustration, Ernesto nodded, as if coming to a decision. Then he said a clipped, “You may deserve another chance.”
The bark that exploded from Leandro’s depth felt as if it cut a sac of bitterness open inside him. “Grazie. As if your opinion matters. It’s hers, and only hers, that does.”
To Leandro’s shock, a wicked smile spread across Ernesto’s lips. “Oh, but my opinion does matter. If you’d failed to change it, I would never have told you where to find her.”
Sixteen
L eandro stood at the end of the driveway of the delightful one-level detached house that Phoebe now called home. She wouldn’t call it that one more day. Even if it killed him.
Suddenly his senses flickered.
The emanations were unmistakable. Hers.
He swung around. And there she was. In white slacks, a loose turquoise top and ponytail, she was so unbearably precious, so brutally missed, a convulsion of emotion ripped through him. Her face was frozen with the same look of horror and devastation he’d last seen on it.
He whispered, “Forgive me, mi galia amore.”
After their long sessions in the whispering gallery, they no longer needed its medium. He knew she’d heard him.
And she ran. Tried to escape into her house.
He wouldn’t let her lock him out, his heart splintering for having to exert any force against her.
She suddenly backed away from the door, let him charge in under his unopposed pressure.
As soon as he closed it she hissed at him. “What do you want? More games? Sex? You decided you don’t want to get married immediately, so you’ll toy with me again until you do?”
“No…no…per Dio, Phoebe…no.”
“You don’t want sex? You’ve found a new nympho? Or is your harem already full of them?”
“Li imploro…I beg you…I only want to beg your forgiveness—”
“Why? You think maybe I didn’t deserve having you tread on me like you did? That you should have been a tad less brutal? You’re having conscience pangs? Do you even have a conscience, Leandro?”
“I don’t have anything, without you.”
She lurched as if he’d backhanded her. “You…bastard. Why are you doing this? What reminded you of me again, all of a sudden?”
“I’ve been looking for you, to beg your forgiveness, your return, since the day you walked away.”
“Liar. Every word you said, every smile, every touch, every moment, you lied. And you’re still lying. You showed me your real face that day. A monster’s. If you think I’ll ever forget it…”
“Did it look like the face of a monster or a madman, Phoebe?”
“I don’t care. It wasn’t the face of the man I thought I knew, the man I loved. It was the cruel, warped, sick…”
She choked on emotion and he urged her on. “Yes, Phoebe. Call me names, scream at me, shred me with your rage.”
She swayed away from him, escaping his begging hands. “Get out. And I don’t care if you are a crown prince or the most powerful man in the world. Come near me again and I’ll make you sorry.”
“No, Phoebe, you must give me another chance—”
“Get out, Leandro. If you don’t want to spend your time at the dentist implanting teeth from now till your coronation.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Ever again. So do it. Hit me, Phoebe, vent your outrage. I misjudged you and mistreated you and tormented you. I took from you and never gave anything back. I made you feel like nothing, like less than nothing with the way I hid you in the past, and the way I flaunted our intimacy in the present. I gave other women my public respect, showed you you’re only good for providing entertainment, then when you gave me all of yourself, I took it all and told you that you meant nothing to me, that when I chose a wife I’d choose a woman of good reputation and high social standing, that you had neither—”
A lash cracked.
He barely felt the blow fall on his cheek. He was too numb with pain and dread already.
Her chest heaved, her paleness evaporating in a tide of crimson. “Can’t you leave me with something to look back on as clean and beautiful…Can’t you leave me…Just leave!”
“I’m never leaving you. Hit me again, Phoebe. Harder. Do some real damage. It doesn’t matter that none of what I just said is true, that I didn’t mean to make you feel any of it. What matters is that I did.”
“Yeah, and I’m not giving you the chance to ever make me feel any of that again, unintentionally or otherwise. And no, I won’t hit you again. I only did that to stop your rant.”
“Nothing will ever stop me from proving to you that the only lies I ever told you were that madness I struck you with. I’ll spend my life atoning, reminding you of the magic we shared, reviving it until you believe that you are my life. Take it, mi tesoro hebbi, it’s yours to do with as you please.”
The horror on her face only mounted as tears became a thick cascade drenching her trembling lips. “God…you know, don’t you? That’s what this is all about!”
The sight of her anguish made him stagger. “Know what?”
She started sobbing until he could barely understand her. “How did you find out? It has to be your armies of informers and investigators. It can’t be one of my family who told you.”
“Per Dio, Phoebe…what are you talking about?”
“I can’t bear to see you. I never want you near me again…and I’m damned…if I’m letting you near…my baby. It’s mine, do you hear me? It has nothing to do with you.”
Baby?
Agony clamped him with the force of a heart attack.
He reached for her, ignoring the pain. Only defusing hers mattered, defending her. Healing her was the one thing he’d do before he died. “I swear, offering my life has nothing to do with…Dio santo, I didn’t…hebbi preziosa…I didn’t even know…you were…were…”