be temporary, his absence had plunged her into a nightmarish déjà vu. Though he still came home, still made love to her—not like before when he’d cut her off suddenly—it still made her feel this was the beginning of the end. She tried to tell herself that the “honeymoon” was over, that it happened with everyone, that there was no way he could have sustained that level of intensity. It didn’t mean anything was wrong.
Tell that to her glued-back-together heart.
But all her upheaval had one origin. The missing piece that could explain how the noble man she was now certain Vincenzo was could have been so cruel to her.
Her eyes fell on the prenup he’d left on her entrance cabinet what felt like ages ago, and something turned in her head, clicked.
Her eyes jerked up, slamming into their reflection in the mirror above as that missing piece crashed into place.
Her family.
God, how hadn’t it occurred to her before? This had to be the explanation. He’d said her father and Daniel had been perpetrating crimes for a long time. What if it had been as far back as six years, and he’d discovered it when he’d been investigating them during his espionage crisis?
Then another idea whacked her like an uppercut.
Even if he’d found it out of the question to be involved with someone with a family of criminals, there had been no reason to be vicious with her over her family’s crimes. That meant one thing. He’d thought she’d been involved in those crimes. Or worse, he’d thought she’d embezzle or defraud him, too, and had thought to preempt her, cut her off before she had the chance.
Gasping as suspicions solidified into conviction, she staggered to the nearest horizontal surface, sitting heavily.
Then another realization pushed aside the debris of shame and anguish.
He’d believed her an accomplice to her family, a danger to him, and he’d simply walked away. He’d turned vicious only when she’d cornered him. That meant one thing—he had felt something for her. Something strong enough that it stopped him from prosecuting her even when he’d thought she deserved it.
Following that same rationalization, the way he was with her now, even with his new evidence of her family’s crimes, meant that he believed she couldn’t be party to those. As for what she’d been seeing in his eyes, the way he said amore mio, this could mean…
In the next moment her trembling hope was shot down like a bird before it could spread its wings.
Even if he didn’t think she was involved in illegal activities now, he would never think her worth more than a fleeting place in his life. And who could blame him?
She couldn’t.
Her aching eyes panned around her condo. She’d come here to empty it, to end its lease. Vincenzo had asked her to do so a couple of weeks ago. She’d felt alarmed at what that implied and had groped for a reason to dismiss his request, arguing she needed a place to entertain family and friends away from their own private quarters. But he’d already thought of that, producing a lease to another condo, far more lavish, and a minute’s walk from his building. It looked as if he was thinking of her all the time, going out of his way to provide her with anything that would make her life easier, fuller.
But she couldn’t count on anything from him, or with him. She wouldn’t do this to herself again. She had to live with the expectation that this would end, and after last week, it appeared that the end would be sooner rather than later. She had to be ready to fade back into her own life once he pulled away completely. But to do that, she had to make sure she had a life to fade back to.
She rose, headed back to the suitcases she’d packed, opened them and started putting everything back in its place.
An hour later, on her way out, she stopped by the entrance cabinet. After a long moment of staring at the prenup, she picked it up.
*
Vincenzo whistled an upbeat tune as he exited the shower.
He caught his eyes in the steamed-up mirror and grinned widely at himself. He felt like whistling all the time now. Or singing. He’d been struggling not to do either in all those stuffy meetings and negotiations he’d been attending. He’d had the most important one so far today, what he’d been working toward since he’d gone back to New York with Glory