Vincenzo’s unease rose. Brandon Steele never asked to see him unless there was some catastrophe brewing.
“We’re alone now so drop the titles, please, Brandon.”
The man inclined his head silently, looking, as always, like a strange cross between a suave celebrity and a linebacker. He had a quietly menacing aura hanging over him like a cloak.
Vincenzo had hired him seven years ago to protect his research and businesses against sabotage and intellectual property theft. The agency Brandon owned and ran, Steele Security, had come highly recommended by Vincenzo’s cousin Eduardo as the most effective undercover agency to handle financial fraud and industrial espionage.
Brandon held a spotless track record, had uncovered dozens of masterful infiltrations and conspiracies, saved Vincenzo and his cousins untold millions and smoothed the course of their rise to the top of their respective fields.
But it was one particular achievement that always made Vincenzo loath to see him, more now than ever.
He’d been the one who’d gotten proof of Glory’s espionage six years ago.
Getting to the point as always, Brandon exhaled. “I don’t know how to say this, Vincenzo, but what were you thinking? You married the woman who once spied on you?”
Was that it? Brandon was here to scold him?
“Things aren’t as simple as they look to you, Brandon.”
Brandon cocked one disbelieving eyebrow. “Aren’t they?”
Vincenzo had no time for skepticism. If not for Brandon’s untimely call, he could have been with Glory right now, resolving everything with her.
Vincenzo exhaled. “Did you detect another leak in my operations? And you jumped to the conclusion that the only new thing in my life is Glory, again, so she must be involved somehow?”
Brandon stared at him as if he’d grown a third eye. “I see you’re not concerned about the prospect of a leak.”
It was strange, but he wasn’t. Or if he was, it was only mentally, for all logical reasons and considerations. But there was no trace of the all-out agitation and anger he’d once experienced, when his work had been the central thing in his life. His priorities
had
changed irrevocably. They all revolved around Glory now.
He sighed. “I thought your security system was now impenetrable.”
Brandon gave a curt nod. “It is. And there is no leak.”
“So you just want to reprimand me for marrying Glory? You don’t know much about who she is now if you’re even worried.”
Brandon gave him a long-suffering look. “It’s my business to know everything about everyone. I know exactly who she is and what she does. The body of work she’s amassed over the past five years is nothing short of phenomenal.”
He exhaled. “Just spit out the ‘but’ you’re here to say.”
“
But
I think this might be a far more elaborate facade than the one she had six years ago.”
He waved the man’s words away. “I don’t care about the past anymore, Brandon.”
“I’m not talking about the past.”
Everything inside Vincenzo hit pause. “You just said there’s been no leak.”
“Not in
your
operations, no. But you are deep in negotiations with multinational interests on behalf of Castaldini. I caught leaks of vital info that only you could know, that could end up costing Castaldini the projects and investments you’re on the verge of securing on its behalf.”
Vincenzo’s temperature started to rise, his muscles turning to stone. “The sides I’m negotiating with are privy to the same info, and the leak could be on their side.”
“It isn’t.”
At the curt final statement, he found himself on his feet, agitation no longer in check. “Why on earth are you suspecting Glory when she had no part in any of this?”
“You mean she isn’t privy to the details of your dealings and the innermost workings of your mind this time around?”
He shook his head, felt his brain clanging against his skull. “No—I mean, I
do
consult with her—you know there’s no one better than her when it comes to negotiations—and she has been advising me, and I’ve used every shred of advice she gave me to my advantage, but that doesn’t mean she—”
Brandon interrupted his ramblings. “
Do
you observe all the security measures I devised in your shared space?”
Vincenzo hadn’t even given security a thought around her. But… “
No.
Stop right there. This isn’t Glory’s doing. I’m certain. Whatever happened in the past, it must have been against her will. She’s worked so hard ever since to make good, to turn her life around. With only the power of her benevolence and perseverance she’s done more for more people than I’ve done with all my power and money. I’m never suspecting her again.”
Brandon gave him the look of a disapproving parent. “May I remind you it wasn’t ‘suspicion’ last time? I gave you proof, proof you yourself verified, from her closest people.”
Vincenzo’s voice rose, no longer under his control. “I
told
you the past has nothing to do with the present. And then it turned out she actually saved me from making the worst mistake of my life.”
“So you should forgive someone because she didn’t succeed in killing you, but inadvertently made you jump and save yourself from falling into a pit? How far are you willing to stretch to make excuses for her, Vincenzo?”
“As far as I need to. When all is said and done, I’m in a much better place now and it is because of what happened.”
“Even if it turns out for the best, a failed attempt at a crime still deserves punishment.”
“And I
did
punish her,” he bellowed. “I passed sentence on her without a trial, without even giving her the chance to defend herself. And what did all that righteousness get me? Six years of hell, without her. Now I have her back, and I’m never losing her again.”
Brandon gaped at him for a long, long moment.
Then he grimaced. “God, this is worse than I thought. You’re totally under her spell.”
“I
love
her.”
“And she betrayed you again. What a mess.”
Vincenzo barely held back from punching him. “Stop saying that and look elsewhere, Brandon. You’re not infallible, remember? You made a mistake with Eduardo’s wife.”
“It wasn’t a mistake. Jade
was
hacking into his system.”
“Under duress,” he gritted out. “And she was doing that in order to fortify it, so no one could infiltrate it again. As I said, everything isn’t always as it seems. You were right, but you were also wrong. You’re wrong again now. I don’t only love Glory, I
know
her.”
Brandon pinned him with a conflicted gaze before he finally squared his shoulders and held out the dossier he had with him. It had the Steele Security insignia on it. Vincenzo knew from experience those were only used for final reports and verified evidence.
Trepidation overwhelmed Vincenzo as he looked at it. He snatched his gaze back to Brandon’s, as if to escape an image that would sear his retinas if he gazed at it a second more.
Brandon looked at him like someone would look at a patient before amputating a limb. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Vincenzo, but this is a compilation of all emails and text messages leaking the info. The originating addresses were expertly hidden, just not expertly enough to hide them from me. Everything was traced back to Glory’s phone and computer.”
Eleven
V
incenzo had no idea what he’d said to Brandon or when the man had left.
He found himself sitting in the bedroom he had only ever used with Glory. He’d bought this place six years ago when she’d consented to be his. He’d left it when he sent her away, but hadn’t been able to sell it off. He’d only come back when he’d decided to have her back in his life.
The life that was falling apart all over again.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again.
And he refused to believe it was. There had to be some explanation other than the obvious, other than what Brandon sanctioned. But Vincenzo couldn’t think what it was. So he wouldn’t even try to think. He’d stop everything, his very heartbeat if need be, until she told him what to think.
He sat there for what might have been hours until he heard her coming into the penthouse. The sense of déjà vu almost overwhelmed him, of that day more than six years ago when he’d waited for her in this room, listening to her advance and feeling that every step was inching toward the end of everything worth living for.
Then she entered the room. For the moment she didn’t notice him as he sat to her far right on the couch by the floor-to-ceiling windows, her expression was subdued, pensive. Suddenly she started, her head jerking around, as if his presence electrified her.
Her uncensored reaction the split second she saw him was a smile that felt like a flare of light and warmth in the cold darkness that was spreading inside him.
Her rush toward him felt as if life itself was rushing back into his veins. Her eagerness flooded him, submerged him as she straddled him on the couch.
He let her deluge him in her sweetness, drink him dry in the desperation of her need.
Her kisses grew wrenching, her gasps labored. “I missed you…missed you, darling…Vincenzo…”
And how he’d missed her. Three days and nights without losing himself in the depths of her and drinking deep of her pleasures had him raving mad with starvation.
Her hands fumbled with his clothes, and he knew. The moment she touched his flesh he’d go up in flames, and he owed it to her to settle this before he let her drag him into their realm of delirium. His hands covered hers, stopping her.
She stiffened. Then slowly, as if afraid something would shatter if she moved too fast, she took her lips away from his neck. After a harsh intake of breath, she turned her head away and her rigidity increased as her gaze fixed on a spot on the couch. The security report file lay close to him. He knew she’d recognize it for what it was. But her gaze was fixed farther away, on the prenup.
She spilled off him, staggering up only to take two steps before slumping down on the opposite armchair. She looked at him as if waiting for a blow.
He had to hear her reasons from her own lips. “Why did you put this on my desk today, Glory?”
“Today?” Her eyes rounded. “I—I put it there over a week ago. I thought you’d long seen it, and when you didn’t mention it I thought…”
“What did you think?”
A spasm seized her face. “I didn’t know what to think.”
“What did you want me to think when I saw it? What were you telling me?”
The pained look deepened; her voice sounded strangled. “I was offering you my answer to what I thought you were telling me, when you… When you…”
“When I what?”
“When you stopped taking me to your functions and started canceling our dates.”
“What did you think I was telling you?”
“What you said when you didn’t come ho…here the past three nights. What you just said very clearly. That this time around it took much less than six months for you to get tired of me.”
Her lips, her chin, shook on the last words. The tethers of his heart shook, almost tearing themselves out.
“But then I expected that from the beginning,” she choked out. “And now that I realize what you think happened in the past, I’m even wondering why you wanted me again at all. This is why I brought you the prenup, since I thought you must have been regretting not taking it, must be worried about repercussions with no provisions in place when you ended it with me again. But it’s a good thing I didn’t let my condo go as you told me to. I’ll move back there tonight.”
“Glory…”
She spoke over his plea, as if hearing his voice hurt her. “I will pretend we’re still together so no one will know anything before you’re ready to announce our split when the year is over. Until then, whenever you need me to make appearances with you, y-you have my number. If I’m not traveling, I’ll play the part I agreed to.”
And he was on his feet, then at hers, his hands going around her beloved head, making her raise her wounded gaze to his. “Every single thing you thought has no basis in fact. I didn’t get tired of you. I would sooner get tired of breathing.”
Redness surged in her eyes, her whole face shaking. “D-don’t say that…don’t say what you don’t mean. Not again.”
“The only time I said what I didn’t mean to you was that day I kicked you out of my life. I did… I
do
love you, I never loved anyone but you, never had anyone since you.”
Her eyes seemed to melt, her cheeks flooding with tears. “Oh, God, Vincenzo…I can’t… I don’t…”
“You have to believe me.” He aborted her headshake, pulling her into a fierce kiss, before drawing away to probe her stunned face. “But you said you now realized what I thought in the past. You mean you now know why I left you?”
Her nod was difficult. “You knew about my family’s crimes—thought me their accomplice?”
“It was much worse than that.”
Her eyes flew wider. “What
could
be worse?”
And he finally confessed. Everything. Everything but the latest blow Brandon had dealt him.
By the time he’d fallen silent, she was frozen. Even her tears had stopped midway down her cheeks. She wasn’t breathing.
It felt like an hour later when she finally choked out, “Your research
was
stolen and my…
mother
told you…told you…”
The rest backlashed in her throat, seeming to go down as if it was broken glass. Anguish so fierce gripped her every feature, radiated from her, buffeting him.
“I now believe that they must have forced you…or something…I just know it wasn’t your fault. Just like I believe this latest security breach can’t be your doing.”
Her wounded eyes widened. “What latest security breach?”
Feeling as if he was spitting razors, he said, “Top secret data in my current negotiations have been leaked. According to this security report I got today, the leak came from your phone and computer.”
She jerked as if he’d shot her.
He grabbed her shoulders, begging. “I can’t think anymore, Glory, and I won’t. I want you to tell me what to think. Trust me, please, tell me everything and I will solve it all. I’m on your side this time, and only on your side, and will always be, no matter what….”
She started shaking her head, her hands gripping it as if to keep it from bursting.
“
Amore, per favore,
please, believe me, let me help….”
Her incoherent cry cut him off as she exploded to her feet. Before another nerve fired, she’d hurtled out of the bedroom and slammed out of the penthouse.
By the time he ran after her, she was gone.
*
Glory stared at the woman she thought loved her beyond life itself. The woman whose betrayal had wrecked her life.
Her mother’s silent tears poured down her cheeks, her eyes pleading.
For what? Glory’s understanding? Her forgiveness? How could she give either when there was nothing left inside her? Everything had been destroyed. Nothing was left but shock and disillusionment. They expanded from her gut, threatening to burst her arteries, her heart. They crashed through her in torrents of decimating agony.
“You have to know the rest, darling,” her mother choked out.
There was more? She couldn’t hear any more. She had to get out of here, hide, disappear.
She escaped her mother’s imploring hands as she ran again. She never wanted to stop running.
She spilled out into the street, ran and ran.
But there was no outrunning the realizations.
Everything was far worse than her worst projections. But one thing was worse than anything else. One realization.
Vincenzo’s cruelty to her perceived betrayal hadn’t been cruel at all. Cruel would have been to have her arrested. Even that would have only been his right, what he should have done. But he hadn’t. That meant one thing.
He
had
loved her.
He’d loved her so much that even getting incontrovertible proof of her betrayal hadn’t made him retaliate. He’d only tried to protect himself, cutting her off. Then, when she wouldn’t let him, he’d pushed her away in a way he’d thought wouldn’t harm her, since he’d believed she’d felt nothing for him, had been manipulating him from day one.
And she’d always thought getting answers would resolve the misery that had consumed six years of her life. In truth, it had dealt her a fatal blow.
Despair and exertion hacked through her lungs as more details and realizations sank their shards into her heart…
“Glory.”
Vincenzo.
His booming desperation shattered everything inside her into shrapnel of grief, of panic. It all burst out into a surge of manic speed.
She couldn’t stop. Couldn’t let him catch her.
Not now that she knew he’d always loved her. Now that she knew it could never be.
*
Vincenzo arrived at the Monaghans’ house just as Glory exited it. It was clear the confrontation with her mother had devastated her.
A man in his right mind would have caught up with her without alerting her. But the mass of desperation that he’d turned into had just bellowed her name the moment he’d seen her, sending her zooming faster, screeching for a cab.
But he could have overtaken a speeding car right now. A woman running in high heels looked stationary compared to his speed. He intercepted her as she opened the cab’s door.
His arms went around her, filling them with his every reason for living. “Glory,
amore,
please, let’s talk.”
She pushed weakly at him. “There’s nothing more to talk about, Vincenzo. Just forget I ever existed. In fact, when your situation allows, just prosecute me and my family.”
Before he could utter another word, she surprised him by ducking out of the circle of his arms and into the cab.
His first instinct was to haul her out, carry her back to their home and tell her he’d never let her go again.
The one thing that stopped him was knowing it would be pointless without performing another imperative step first. Another confrontation with her mother. He had to break whatever hold she had on Glory, once and for all.
After Glory’s cab disappeared, with his every cell rioting, he turned and walked back to the Monaghans’ house.
The woman who opened the door exhibited Glory’s same devastation. He wanted to blast her off the face of the earth for what she’d cost him and Glory, but he couldn’t. She looked so fragile, so desolate, so much like an older version of Glory, that he couldn’t hate her. He even felt a tug of unreasoning affection.
She grabbed at him with weak, shaking hands. “Glory wouldn’t listen to me, but please, Vincenzo, you have to.”
Suddenly, looking into those eyes that could be Glory’s, everything fell into place.
It had never been Glory. It had always been Glenda.
He staggered under the blow of realization. How had he never considered this?
“It was you. In the past, and again now.”
The woman’s tears ran thicker, her whole face working. “I—I did it to save Dermot and Daniel!”
Her sob tore through him, with its agony, its authenticity. So he’d been right, just about the wrong person. Glenda Monaghan had been the one who’d been forced to spy on him.
She was now weeping so hard he feared she might tear something vital inside her.
His arm went around her as she swayed, helping her to the nearest couch. He sat beside her, rubbing her shaking hands soothingly. “Mrs. Monaghan, please, calm down. I’m not angry this time, and I promise, I won’t hurt you or them. Just tell me why you did it, let me help.”
“No one can help,” she wailed.
He forced a tight smile. “You clearly don’t realize what kind of power your son-in-law has. I would turn the whole world upside down for Glory, and by extension for her family.”
“You’re a scientist and a prince. You can’t possibly know how to handle those…those monsters.”
“Who do you mean?”
“The mob!”
And he’d thought nothing could ever surprise him again.
He raised his hands as if to brace against more blows. “Just tell me everything from the beginning.”
She nodded, causing her tears to splash on his hands. It made him hug her tighter, trying to absorb her upheaval.
Then haltingly, tearfully, she began. “Fifteen years ago, I was diagnosed with lymphoma. Dermot panicked because our insurance would pay only for a tiny percentage of my treatments, and we were already in debt. At the time, Dermot and I worked in a huge multinational corporation, him in accounting, me in IT. Our financial troubles were soon common knowledge and a guy from work approached Dermot with a way to make easy, serious money.”
She paused to draw a long, shaky breath.
“Dermot told me and I refused. But I was soon in no condition to work and with only one income and the bills piling up, it was soon untenable. Dermot began to gamble then fix books and was soon so deep in debts and trouble that when the recruiter approached him again, he agreed.
“For a while, I was so tired and drained, I was just relieved we weren’t scrabbling anymore. I bought his stories that he’d entered a partnership in a thriving import/export operation. Then things started getting uglier with his mob bosses asking terrible things of him. And the worst part was they’d also dragged Daniel, who was only nineteen, into their dirty business.
“Unable to go on, Dermot had us pack everything and move across the country. We kept hopping from one place to another in his efforts to escape the mob. During remissions, I worked from home, but my relapses kept draining us. Dermot and Daniel kept trying everything to keep us afloat. But at least the mob was off our back. After seven years, I thought we were home free.