A Night of Living Dangerously (18 page)

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“I was invited.” Her lips curled up on the edges, reminding him of a cat, although that seemed disrespectful to cats. “By your
wife.
”

She spoke the word as if it left her mouth with a foul taste. He set his jaw, glaring at her. “Lilley is too generous.”

“Of course she is generous,” Olivia’s smile widened. “She can afford to be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She’s rich.”

Alessandro snorted. “Lilley doesn’t come from money. That’s one of the things that makes her so trustworthy. So different from you,” he said pointedly.

She gave a tinkling little laugh. “Oh, this is delicious. Do you truly not know?” She walked slowly around him, running one red-painted fingertip along the shoulder of his tuxedo jacket. Her thin face was smug as she leaned forward to whisper, “She’s Walton Hainsbury’s daughter.”

Alessandro stared at her. As if from a distance, he heard the lilting rock music, heard the laughter and low conversation of the Italian guests around him, the crème de la crème of Roman society. Then the marble floor seemed to move beneath his feet.

Walton Hainsbury’s daughter.
The man who owned the huge discount jewelry chain that had tried to seize control of Caetani Worldwide in a hostile takeover last spring. He shook his head fiercely.

“You’re insane,” Alessandro said. “Lilley comes from a little town in the midwest.”

Olivia threw back her head and laughed. “You mean Minneapolis? Oh, darling.” She made a show of wiping her eyes. “It’s a large city. The headquarters of many international corporations.” She lifted a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Including …”

Including Hainsbury Corporation, he remembered with a sickening twist of his gut. And Walton Hainsbury lived nearby. An icy chill went down his spine. He lifted his chin. “Lilley is not his daughter.”

“Not just a daughter, but his only child. His heir.”

My father threatened to disinherit me,
her voice whirled through Alessandro’s brain,
if I didn’t come back to Minnesota and marry one of his managers.

She’d had that platinum Hainsbury watch, which her mother had had especially made. How? How had she done that?

My father’s a businessman.

He owns a restaurant? Perhaps a laundromat?

Um. Something like that.

Alessandro ignored the sudden pounding of his heart. He wouldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. “When we met, Lilley was working in my file room. My
file room,
Olivia.”

She looked down at her finely sharpened red fingernails. “What better place for a corporate spy?”

A strangled noise escaped Alessandro’s throat. He remembered finding Lilley alone in his private office that first night.
I just wanted to work for a few hours in peace and quiet. Without anyone bothering me,
she’d said.

His throat closed. And most damning of all. She’d known. She’d known about his plans for the Joyería deal. She could have given that information to Théo St. Raphaël.

Impossible, he told himself harshly. Lilley had no connection to the French count. Perhaps she’d had a motive to hate Alessandro back then, after he’d seduced and abandoned her in Sonoma. But she’d had no opportunity to …

“I’m surprised your company even hired her,” Olivia said thoughtfully. “Considering her last employer.”

Alessandro tried to remember the job Lilley had mentioned, the most recent one, which for some reason she’d left off her résumé. It all seemed like a million years ago. “She worked as a maid. In Minneapolis. And she worked for a relative …”

She looked at him in disbelief. “I’ve never seen you so stupid and slow. Until six months ago, she was Théo St. Raphaël’s housekeeper in the South of France. He’s her cousin, you know. She left his employ just days before she started working for you.”

It felt like getting hit in the face. Alessandro staggered back. “Théo St. Raphaël?” he said faintly. “The Count of Castelnau is Lilley’s cousin?”

“She’s lied to you all along.” Olivia regarded him. “But you expected that, didn’t you? You always expect women to lie to you. Surely you had her background checked before you married her?”

His heart hammered in his chest, so hard and fast he thought it might break through his ribs. “No.”

“Prenup?”

The ballroom, the noise of the guests, seemed to be spinning around him. The crowds parted, and he saw Lilley’s face. She smiled at him across the room, her face shining, as honest and bright and beautiful as ever. He turned his head away, feeling sick. “No.”

“Clever girl,” Olivia murmured. “I wonder what else she’s lied to you about.” She gave him a sideways glance. “How well do you really know her?”

His jaw was tight. “I know she’s pregnant with my child.”

“Do you?” Her eyes were steady and cold. “Do you really?”

It felt like an ice pick through Alessandro’s brain. He heard the echo of Heather’s voice from long ago.
The baby’s not yours. I lied.

He tightened his hands to fists. “Of course the baby is mine,” he ground out. “Lilley wouldn’t lie about that.”

“You know how conniving and ruthless people can be.”

“I know how conniving
you
can be,” he said harshly.

“Me? I’m an amateur.” Olivia laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. “All this time you believed her to be some small-town innocent, didn’t you? And she probably planned this from the start. Perhaps her goal is full control of Caetani Worldwide, split equally between her father and her cousin.”

He stared at her. “I don’t believe you,” he choked out.

But that was a lie. He did believe her. That was the problem.

Olivia’s eyes met his. “So ask her.”

With a low curse, Alessandro pushed past her. Shoving through the crowd, Alessandro stalked towards his wife. Just moments before, he’d felt such reckless joy, a strange breathless certainty about Lilley. Now, that feeling had evaporated as if it had never existed. All that was left was cold despair.

And fury. As he walked towards her, blood started to pound through his body, boiling hot, thawing him out limb by limb. He welcomed the anger. Stoked it.

He’d given Lilley everything, and she’d made a fool out of him. She’d lied to him from the beginning. Faked her name. Her résumé. And perhaps even—

No. He cut off the thought savagely, his hands clenching at his sides. Guests saw his face and backed away, the crowd parting for him like magic.

Lilley was laughing as she talked to Vladimir Xendzov, and the man’s eyes caressed her face with admiration. Was Lilley flirting with him? Toying with him? Using him, as she’d used Alessandro?

Lilley looked over Xendzov’s shoulder and blanched when she saw Alessandro. “What’s happened?” she breathed. “What’s wrong?”

“Tell me your name,” Alessandro said in a low voice.

The other guests clustered around Lilley glanced between them, suddenly uneasy at his tone of voice. Looking bewildered, she answered, “Lilley Caetani.”

“No.” He set his jaw, hating her soft, deceptive beauty that had lured him into trusting her. And more. “Tell me your
name.
”

More guests fell silent, turning to look. The Irish rock music abruptly stopped. Suddenly, amid hundreds of people, it was quiet.

His wife swallowed, looking to the right and left. Then with a deep breath, she whispered, “Lilley Smith.”

“Tell me!” He thundered. “Your
name!
”

She suddenly looked as if she was going to cry. “Alessandro, I was going to tell you.”

“When?” he bit out. “After you’d stolen my company for Hainsbury and your cousin to pick through?”

“No!” she gasped. “I tried to tell you before our wedding. You said you already knew. You always know so much. I believed you!”

“You believed I would actually marry you, knowing that? You lied from the start, even about your name!”

She flinched. He saw the tremble of her eyelashes. “I changed my name three years ago, when my father divorced my mother while she was dying. I didn’t want to be a Hainsbury anymore. So I took her maiden name—”

“You knew Caetani Worldwide would never hire you with either Hainsbury or Théo St. Raphaël’s name on your résumé.”

“Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.

“You came as a spy.”

“No! I was just desperate for a job while I tried to start my business!” She shook her head tearfully. “I went to San Francisco to follow my dream—”

“Bull,” he said brutally. “You went to San Francisco to seduce Jeremy Wakefield into giving you information about Preziosi designs, so your father could have them copied in China in advance. Until I took you to the Preziosi ball and you realized a greater prize was possible for you.” He gave a hard laugh. “You decided to become my mistress, so you could funnel information to your family.”

“I would never betray you!” she said with a sob. “I was going to tell you everything! I swore it to myself, when I finally realized you didn’t know about my family. All this time, I thought you did, until the day I first told you I loved you.”

Her voice trembled, but her tears weren’t going to work on him, not this time. “That was weeks ago.” He grabbed her by the shoulders, looking fiercely into her weepy eyes. “All this time, I thought I could trust you. And you were waiting to stab me in the back. What was your goal? How are they going to work against me? Are your father and cousin planning a hostile takeover of my company?”

“You know me better than that!” She hiccupped, and her eyes became huge as she looked up at him. Unchecked tears streaked her rosy cheeks as she whispered, “Don’t you?”

“I wish to God I’d never met you.” Alessandro’s pulse hammered in his ears, and he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even think. “There’s just one last thing I need to know.”

“What?”

He gently touched her full bottom lip, the lip he’d once thought could only speak the truth. “How deep do your lies go?”

Her lips parted beneath his touch. His hand slowly traced down her neck, skimming over the breasts and corset to the bright pink-and-purple skirts that covered her swollen belly. “Is the baby mine?”

Her eyes widened as she gasped.

“Tell me the truth, Lilley,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “Did you sleep with another man?”

A sob came from the back of her throat. As he stared down at Lilley’s beautiful, tortured face, Alessandro suddenly forgot about the crowded ballroom, forgot Caetani Worldwide, forgot Olivia behind him. All he could think was that he’d loved Lilley. That had been the feeling swelling in his heart moments before. That had been what he’d wanted to tell her.
He loved her.

But now he knew the woman he’d loved was a lie. Lilley had deceived him from the beginning. He’d asked for a paternity test, and she’d talked him out of it. She’d lured him into loving her, so she could rip out his heart. Just like all the rest.

Unwilling memories rushed through him. Lilley’s teasing smile as she tried to get him to play. Lilley naked in the pool in Sardinia. Lilley defending everyone, even people who didn’t deserve it. Lilley clinging to him for comfort and strength. Lilley’s deep, loving eyes that promised eternity. All a lie.

She stood in front of him now, swaying on her feet, looking as if she might faint. “You really think I would do that?” she whispered. “That I’d sleep with another man, then marry you and spend the rest of my life lying to you? How can you think that? I love you!”

“Nice,” he murmured. Touching her cheek, he tilted her face towards the light of the chandelier. “The tears in your eyes, the catch in your voice.” He dropped his hand and said acidly, “You’d almost have me believe that you cared.”

“I do care!” she choked out. “I love you—”

“Stop saying that,” he said harshly, then set his jaw, glaring at her with hatred. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I wouldn’t believe a word you said anyway.”

Lilley clasped her hands together, looking pale and small in her vivid ball gown, flowers tumbling from her long brown hair. Then she glanced at Olivia behind him.

“She did this, didn’t she? She took my white lie and twisted it into evidence of a black heart.” A tremble filled her voice as she looked back at him. Tears were streaking her face. “And you believed her. You never thought I was good enough to be your wife. You never wanted to love me. And this is your easy way out.”

“I despise you,” he said coldly.

She gave a sob, and Vladimir Xendzov placed a hand on his shoulder. “Enough. You’ve made your point.”

Alessandro twisted out of the man’s grasp, barely restraining himself from punching his face. “Stay out of this.” He suddenly hated Xendzov, Olivia and every other vulture in his colorful, festive ballroom. Setting his jaw, he looked around the ballroom and shouted, “All of you—get the hell out!”

“No,” Lilley said behind him. “Stop it, Alessandro.”

Her voice was harder and colder than he’d ever heard from her lips before. Surprised, he turned back to face her.

Lilley’s eyes were still grief-stricken but her shoulders were straight, her body rigid. “Our guests haven’t done anything to deserve your abuse. And neither have I.” She squared her shoulders and said, “Either tell me,
right now,
that you know this baby is yours, or I will leave you. And never come back.”

An ultimatum.
He stiffened. “I’m just supposed to trust your word, am I?”

Lilley’s face turned pale, almost gray. “I’m not going to stay in a marriage you don’t know how to fight for.” She glanced back at Olivia bitterly. “She’s the one you always wanted. A woman as perfect and heartless as you.”

In a swirl of purple-and-pink skirts, Lilley turned away.

Alessandro grabbed her shoulder. “You can’t leave,” he ground out. “Not without a paternity test.”

She looked at him, and he could have drowned in the deep grief of her brown eyes. “I’m done trying to make you love me,” she whispered. “Done.”

Alessandro couldn’t show weakness. Couldn’t let her know how close she’d come to breaking him entirely. “You’ll stay in Rome,” he said harshly. “Until I allow you to leave.”