Dante's Wedding Deception (9 page)

She indicated the basket she carried. “I thought he’d enjoy some lunch.”

Primo’s gnarled fingers brushed the honeysuckle blossom decorating the handle. “And what have you brought him?” He listened intently while she listed the eclectic jumble of flavors. “It would seem you know my grandson’s tastes quite well. And for yourself? Have you put nothing of your own in here? Or is all this for Nicolò’s benefit alone?”

She looked momentarily abashed. “Tapioca pudding,” she admitted. She couldn’t help laughing at herself. “Who’d have figured I’d develop such a taste for it?”

He chuckled. “You may find it interesting to discover what things appeal when you permit yourself to give them a try without a history to influence your choices.”

“Or what things no longer appeal?” she asked.

His gaze grew even more shrewd. “Excellent observation.” He gestured toward the bank of elevators toward the rear of the foyer. “Shall I escort you?”

“Thank you. I’d appreciate that.”

Primo used a key to access a private car. “You are recovered from your accident?” he asked politely.

“Physically, yes.” A slight frown tugged at her brow as they entered the elevator. “I still haven’t regained my memory. Although…”

“Although?”

She hesitated, for some reason tempted to confess something to Primo that she hadn’t even told her husband. “I might have remembered something yesterday.” She detailed her near-miss from the day before. “Right before I thought the SUV would hit us I had a flash of memory.”

“And what was this flash?”

“I suspect it was from that first accident.”

Primo gave a slow nod. “That would make sense. The similarity between the two incidents might prompt a return of your memory.”

She turned to face him, staring up at a compassionate face lined with a wealth of experience, both good and ill. “And yet, my memory didn’t come back, even though for a split second I recalled…something. Pain. Fear. And…”

“And?” he prompted. “What are you afraid to see, Kiley O’Dell?”

“Dante,” she corrected. “I know I wasn’t certain I wanted to take the name when Nicolò and I first married. But I think it’s like tapioca pudding. Things that might not have been to my taste before, are now.”

“You are avoiding my question.”

She grinned. “You’re right, I am.” Her smile faded. “I was afraid of whatever I saw. I guess of the accident, of the pain it caused me.”

“Or maybe you were afraid of that other life. Maybe when you had the choice to remember or forget, you chose to forget.”

His words caused her heart to kick up a beat, possibly because they held the weight of truth. “You think I don’t want to remember?”

Primo shrugged. “The mind is a strange thing. Perhaps it is protecting you. Perhaps when you no longer need its protection, you will remember.” Before she could reply, the door slid open and he gestured for her to precede him. “You will find Nicolò’s office at the end of the corridor to the left. Tell him it is time for you to meet the family. Tell him it is past time, yes?”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed.

He leaned down and kissed her cheeks again, then headed in the opposite direction. Taking a deep breath, she followed Primo’s directions, pausing outside a door with Nicolò’s name on it. Some jokester had added a shiny gold label beneath his name that read Chief Troublemaker. Her lips twitched and she lifted her fist to knock, hesitating at the last instant.

Was it possible? she couldn’t help but wonder. Was she resisting remembering because she wanted to escape those memories? Could it all be tied in with the fight she’d had with Nicolò? Maybe if he told her what had happened it would cause her memory to return. Because despite how their marriage had functioned before her accident, they’d fully bonded since. And that meant they could find a way to work through whatever had divided them. She was convinced of it.

No matter what secret Nicolò kept from her, one thing was certain. The time had come for the two of them to be totally honest with one another, regardless of how painful the process. That decided, she rapped on the door, then turned the knob and walked in.

To her dismay, she found the room crowded with people. Three men stood in a pile, arguing at full throttle. None were Nicolò, though based on the fact that the three shared a physical similarity to her husband, and two of them were twins, they had to be his brothers. Off to one side sat a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a flushed complexion who silently seethed while he listened to the argument. He was flanked by yet another man, this one notable for the very fact that he looked so nondescript.

Finally, she located her husband, leaning against his desk, a grim expression darkening his face. At her entrance, his head jerked in her direction, and if anything, his expression turned blacker still.

He slowly straightened. “What are you doing here, Kiley?” he demanded in an undertone.

The salt-and-pepper-haired man glanced her way and leapt to his feet, pointing an accusing finger straight at her. “That’s her! My God, you found the little bitch.” He lunged toward her, his forward momentum stopped by the quick action of the three men Kiley had pegged as Nicolò’s brothers. “Get out of my way,” he roared. “I’ve waited a long time for this. Just give me five minutes of uninterrupted time alone with her and you can keep the money she owes me.”

Kiley stumbled backward, relieved to find Nicolò planted in front of her, his stance clearly protective. “You shouldn’t be here.” He threw the comment over his shoulder. “Why did you come?”

“I—I brought you lunch. I wanted to surprise you.” She swallowed, struggling to control the fear and tension tearing at her. “Surprise.”

“Your timing couldn’t have been worse.”

“Who is that man? How does he know me? Why is he so angry?”

“The man—Jack Ferrell—has leveled some accusations against you. My brothers—” he confirmed her guess by indicating the trio of men who’d been arguing when she’d first entered “—and the private investigator I hired, Rufio, were trying to get to the bottom of the allegations when you arrived.”

She stepped out from behind her husband, determined to face the accusations aimed at her head-on. The Dantes and Rufio continued to restrain Ferrell while he ranted in undisguised fury. “What does he say I’ve done?”

Nicolò hesitated, then reluctantly explained, “He’s accused you of scamming him out of a rather substantial sum of money.”

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s not possible. I may not remember the past, but I do know myself. I wouldn’t do anything so dishonest.”

He turned to face her. “Kiley—”

“Oh, God.” The lunch basket slipped from her fingers and hit the carpet, spilling its contents. The can of pistachios landed square on the honeysuckle, crushing the fragile blossoms. The sweet scent drifted up between them, sharp as a bee sting. “You believe him, don’t you?”

T
o Kiley’s horror, Nicolò didn’t deny the accusation.

“Ferrell has proof, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Granted, it’s a bit on the sketchy side, but he insists you ran a con on him involving a fire diamond necklace, one you supposedly inherited from your grandfather.”

“Fire diamonds?” For a split second she saw Francesca and Nicolò staring intently at her as she studied the fire diamonds at Dantes Exclusive, waiting…Waiting for what? For her to remember something about this necklace Ferrell referred to? Had they known about the accusations even then? “I don’t understand any of this. What necklace does he mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s something we’ll have to figure out together.” She closed her eyes at his use of the word together. He must have understood how much it meant to her, because he traced his thumb along the curve of her cheek. “Until then, you need to go home.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Jack Ferrell protested. “I want my money. And I want her to pay for what she did to me. I insist you call the police and have her arrested.”

Nicolò spun to face the man. “You signed a binding agreement, Ferrell. One that allows us to settle this matter quietly. It also requires you prove your claims. So far, all we have are accusations.”

“She offered to sell me her grandfather’s necklace. I put half the money down. But when I went to complete the transaction, she’d disappeared, along with my money and the necklace.” He glared at Kiley. “You were slick, I’ll give you that. But you won’t get away this time.”

Kiley shook her head, attempting to reason with the man. “I wouldn’t do something like that. You must have me mixed up with someone else.”

His lips pulled back in a snarl. “Not a chance in hell. You have a birthmark on your hip. It’s shaped like a flower.”

She felt every scrap of color drain from her face. Wordlessly, she shook her head.

“No? Come on, gorgeous. Strip down and show us the birthmark. Prove me wrong.”

“Get out of here, Kiley,” Nicolò interrupted. “I’ll be home as soon as I resolve this.”

“No. I’m not going anywhere. Not until the two of us discuss this.” She spared a brief glance toward the other men. “Privately.”

“Think you can sweet-talk your way around him?” Ferrell interrupted. “You’re wasting your time. He’s not the fool I was. With all the information his P.I. has assembled, I’ll bet he sees right through you. No way are you slipping out from under this one. Not this time.”

Nicolò spun to face his brothers. “Shut him up, will you? I’ll be right back.” Without another word, he cupped Kiley’s elbow and drew her from the room. “I can spare five minutes. We’ll hash out the rest of it when I get home.”

One look at his expression and everything went numb inside. This man wasn’t her husband, wasn’t the man who’d taken her with such crazed desperation on his foyer floor. This was the suspicious stranger from those first hours and days after her accident.

She remained silent while he ushered her into a small conference room. Like everything else she’d seen of Dantes so far, it was a lovely room, but one clearly designed for business. Is that what she’d become? Business? Based on his current attitude, she might as well be.

She fought to gather her self-control, to focus her confusion into some semblance of order, so that at least she’d know what questions to ask. She opened with the first one to come to mind. “Why did you hire a P.I.?”

“I hired Rufio after your accident.”

“That doesn’t quite answer my question,” she pointed out. “But let’s start there. Did you hire Rufio because of my accident…or because of our fight?”

“Does it matter?”

“Is what that man was saying—” She gestured in the general direction of Nicolò’s office. “The necklace and the money I supposedly took from him. Is that what our fight was about? The one before my accident?”

“Indirectly.”

Anger ripped through her. “Stop it, Nicolò. Just stop all the cagey responses and give it to me straight. I’ll believe whatever you tell me.” She laughed, a hard, painful sound. “After all, I don’t have any other choice. Since I don’t remember, I have to accept your version of events.”

“The truth?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Your grandfather and your great-uncle jointly owned a fire diamond mine, a mine they sold to my grandfather, Primo. When we first met it was to discuss the legality of that sale. You claimed there was a problem with the transfer of title, that you still owned a portion of the mine.”

“So we didn’t meet over a game of Frisbee?”

“No.”

She shook her head in bewilderment. “Why would you invent that other story? What difference does it make how or when we met?”

“It mattered.”

Frustration ripped through her. “Why?”

He rubbed a spot between his brows where tension had formed a deep crease. “I didn’t want to bring it up after your accident because I needed time to find out whether your claim on the mine was genuine. I needed time for Rufio to unearth the truth while you recovered from your injuries. Time for us to get to know one another, to deal with The Inferno, without the mine coming between us.”

She frowned in confusion. “I still don’t understand. What has the sale of the mine got to do with this necklace Ferrell is going on about?”

“I have no idea. If there’s a connection, I haven’t found it, yet. Rufio met Ferrell while investigating you and your claims regarding the mine.”

“This man, Ferrell, he’s convinced I’ve scammed him, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And you? What do you believe?”

“We’re still looking into it, Kiley.”

“But it’s possible he’s right?” She could see the answer in Nicolò’s expression and something infinitely precious died inside. It took a moment before she could form her next question, one almost too painful to ask. “Do you believe I was trying to scam you about the diamond mine?”

“Don’t do this, Kiley. Not now.”

“Answer me, Nicolò. When we first met, did you think I was some sort of con artist?”

He hesitated, before reluctantly nodding. “I suspected you might be.”

“Why?” It was a cry from the heart.

He lifted his shoulder in a shrug, his expression one of extreme weariness. “Nothing definitive. Just a feeling I had.”

She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and reassure him that it would all work out. But she couldn’t. Too much divided them right now, a chasm of doubt and suspicion that she had no clue how to bridge. “If you suspected me of being that sort of person, why did you decide to date me? How did we end up falling in love? How did we end up married?”

He lifted his hand, palm out. “It would seem The Inferno doesn’t worry about such minor details as—”

“As moral character?” she cut in.

“Kiley—”

She glanced toward the door, realizing that she was poised to run, to escape an untenable situation. The urge nearly overwhelmed her. Was it gut instinct, or a pattern so much a part of her that it didn’t require memory? She fought it with every ounce of strength she possessed. “Is it true? What Ferrell accused me of…Did I do those things? Is that who I really am?”

“I don’t know.” She could hear the frustration ripping apart his words. “I don’t want to believe it, Kiley.”

“Then don’t.” She dared to approach, dared to splay her hands across his chest and gather that steady, life-affirming heartbeat in her palm. “I need you to believe in me, Nicolò. I need you to fight for me. Maybe everything Ferrell says is true. Maybe I am a horrible person.”

“No.” The word escaped without thought or hesitation and it gave her the first glimmer of hope.

“Okay, was. Maybe I was a horrible person. But what if it’s all a mistake? Since I can’t remember, I can’t defend myself. I have to believe there’s some other explanation, if we can only find it.” She stared up at him, no longer interested in running, but determined to fight. “Please, Nicolò. I need to discover the truth.”

“And if the truth isn’t what you want to hear?”

“At least it’ll be the truth.”

She shouldn’t kiss him, shouldn’t put any more pressure on him. But she couldn’t help herself. Just for a moment or two she needed her husband, needed to coax him out from under his troubleshooter persona.

She slid her arms around his neck and covered his mouth with hers, practically consuming him. She felt his momentary resistance, understood it even as it caused her unfathomable pain. And then she felt the give, the gentle slide from reluctance into acceptance, before it transformed into something desperate and greedy and urgent. The flutter of hope gained in strength. He hadn’t given up on her. Not yet.

She snatched another kiss, a final one. “I need you to promise me something else,” she said.

She could see the shutters slam back into place. “If I can.”

“Promise me you’ll tell me the truth from now on. When you’re done here, we’ll put all the cards on the table.”

He gave a brief nod. “That’s one promise I can make. Until then, go home and I’ll join you there as soon as I’m able.”

His eyes were dark with pain and haunted by secrets. He lowered his head and kissed her again. There was an unmistakable finality in the way he embraced her, as though acknowledging on some level that their relationship would never be the same again. This time when he released her, he took a step backward, distancing himself physically, as well as emotionally.

“Fair warning, Kiley. You won’t like some of those cards I’m going to show you. They may very well end things between us.”

There was nothing she could say to that, no way to reassure him or calm her own fears. He opened the conference room door for her and she sleepwalked through it. She headed for the elevators, but found herself continuing past them, unable to convince herself to leave. She never knew how long she wandered the corridors before Primo found her and gathered her up.

Murmuring in soothing Italian, he escorted her to a generous-sized office. He installed her in a large, deep-cushioned chair before crossing to a wet bar. Pouring her a drink, he handed it to her. She cupped her hands around the balloon of the snifter and inhaled the potent brandy before taking a generous swallow.

Primo didn’t say anything to her, but resumed his seat at his desk and occupied himself with paperwork. She sat and sipped the brandy, losing track of time. It could have been minutes…or hours. Time flowed in a confusing haze. But at long last she looked up.

“Lunch didn’t go well,” she announced in a low voice.

Primo set aside his papers and capped his pen. “I assumed as much.”

“It’s funny. For the past few weeks I’ve been enjoying so many new experiences. Until today.” She pushed out an unsteady smile. “Today…not so much.”

“Sometimes we learn more from the bad experiences than the good.”

She curled deeper in the chair. “I’m not sure I like that idea.”

He cocked a head to one side in a gesture endearingly reminiscent of Nicolò. “Perhaps you have learned what you now must fix. Would that not allow some good to come from the bad?”

“I can fix being a con artist?”

His gaze sharpened. “So. You believe this man, Ferrell.”

It shouldn’t surprise her that he’d heard about what had happened in Nicolò’s office. The Dantes were a tight-knit family. “Ferrell knows things about me. Things he shouldn’t—” Her voice broke and she struggled to control it. “What if he’s right? What if I really am a scam artist?”

“Are you?” He paused a beat. “Or were you?”

Tears filled her eyes. “Is there a difference?”

“Very much so. One exists in a past you cannot recall. The other may be created in a future yet to come.”

His words struck hard, restored the hope that had been so badly shaken. “Thank you, Primo.” She uncurled from her chair and crossed the room to plant a kiss on his cheek. “I’m glad we finally met.”

He stood and enfolded her in a tight embrace. “As am I.”

Nicolò had told her to go home, but she couldn’t bear the idea of returning there without him. Instead, she retraced her path to his office, hoping he’d now be available to leave with her. To her disappointment, the door stood open and the room deserted. She entered, intent on scribbling him a brief note. Crossing to his desk, she saw a folder bearing her name on the wooden surface. Curiosity got the better of her and she flipped it open.

And her world collapsed around her.

Nicolò had to be home, waiting for her, Kiley decided as she left Dantes. And when she arrived, she’d have him explain all that she’d found in that damning file, a file currently tucked beneath her arm. There had to be an explanation, other than the obvious one. She couldn’t be the person detailed between those pages. It wasn’t possible.

To Kiley’s disappointment, she arrived to find an empty house, empty except for Brutus, who seemed to sense her despair. He trailed behind her, whining softly, as she wandered from room to room, struggling to come to terms with all she’d learned. From deep within the house, she heard the doorbell ring and for a split second her heart leaped. Nicolò. He was home. Then common sense prevailed. Her husband would have used his key.

Leaving Brutus in the den, she crossed to the front door and opened it, surprised to discover a woman standing there, impatiently tapping her foot.

“About time,” the woman announced, before sweeping inside. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to track you down? I finally tricked your address out of the hospital, though what the hell you were doing there, they wouldn’t say.”

“Who—” Kiley hesitated, taking a second, longer look.

The woman, a striking blonde, appeared to be in her late thirties, though something about the hardness around her carefully made up eyes and mouth hinted at a handful of years more than that. She matched Kiley’s stature, or lack thereof, the only difference between them the extra few inches the older woman carried in the bust line and around the hips. She wore her hair in a short cap of curls that emphasized both her striking bone structure, as well as a pair of vivid blue eyes.

A possibility occurred to Kiley, one she could only pray was true. “I know this is going to sound like an odd question, but…Are you my mother?” she asked, fighting to control a wild surge of emotion.