The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,56

source of all the pain, but she did know her marriage had no chance if Vittorio was going to remain mired in his painful past.

‘Tell me what went wrong,’ she said quietly.

Vittorio must not have been expecting that, for he bowed his head suddenly, his fingers clenched around his whisky glass.

‘Everything,’ he finally said in a low voice. ‘Everything went wrong.’

Cautiously Ana approached him, laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Oh, Vittorio—’

He jerked away. ‘Don’t pity me. I could not stand that.’

‘I just want to understand—’

‘It’s simple, Ana.’ He turned to face her, his expression hard and implacable once more. ‘My mother didn’t love me. What a sad story, eh? Pathetic, no? A thirty-seven-year-old man whingeing on about his mean mamma.’

‘There’s more to it than that,’ Ana said quietly.

‘Oh, a few trite details.’ He gave a negligent shrug and drained his glass. ‘You see, my parents hated each other. Perhaps there was once love or at least affection, but not so I could remember. By the time Bernardo came along, the battle lines were drawn. I belonged to my father and Bernardo was my mother’s.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Simple. My father had no time or patience for Bernardo, and my mother had none for me. They used us like weapons. And my father was a good man, he trained me well—’

‘But he was a hard man,’ Ana interjected, remembering.

Vittorio glanced at her sharply. ‘Who told you that?’

‘My father. He said Arturo was a good man, but without mercy.’

Vittorio let out a little breath of sound; Ana wasn’t sure if it was a laugh or something else. Perhaps even a sob. ‘Perhaps that is true. But he knew I was to inherit, and he wanted to train me up for the role—’

Ana could just imagine what that must have felt like, especially if Bernardo was not receiving the same harsh treatment. ‘And Bernardo?’ she asked softly.

‘My mother lavished all her love on him. He was like a spoilt poodle.’

Ana flinched at the contempt in his voice. Surely being spoiled was just as bad as being disciplined, just in a different way. ‘It sounds like both of you had difficult childhoods.’

‘Both of us?’ Vittorio repeated in disbelief, then shrugged. ‘Maybe.’ He sounded bored, and Ana clung to her belief that it was merely a cover for the true, deeper emotions he was too afraid to expose.

She knew all about being vulnerable. Physically and emotionally. Even wearing this dress—opening herself to scorn—made her feel exposed, as exposed as Vittorio did raking through his unhappy childhood. No one liked to talk about such dark memories, admit how they hurt.

‘What happened when your father died?’ Ana asked.

‘My mother did what she’d undoubtedly been planning to do ever since Bernardo was born. She went to court to have his will overturned—and Bernardo made heir.’

Ana gasped. Even though she’d suspected as much, it still surprised her. Why would Constantia do such a vindictive thing? Yet, even as she asked the question, Ana thought she knew the answer. Hadn’t Constantia explained it herself? You would be amazed to know the things you can be driven to…when you feel like that. And then, her words tonight: You’re just like your father. Had she transferred all the bitterness and anger she’d felt towards her husband to her son? It seemed perfectly possible, and unbearably sad.

‘Oh, Vittorio,’ Ana whispered. ‘I am sorry.’

‘Well, don’t be,’ he replied, his voice turning harsh again. ‘She didn’t have a prayer of succeeding. My father was too smart for that. Perhaps he suspected what she was up to, what she could be capable of. His will remained intact, and Bernardo didn’t inherit a single lira.’

Ana gasped again. ‘Not…anything?’

‘No, and rightly so. He would have squandered it all.’

‘But then,’ Ana said slowly, realization dawning, ‘he lives here only on your sufferance. Doesn’t he work at the winery?’

Vittorio shrugged. ‘I let him work as the assistant manager.’

‘You let him,’ Ana repeated. ‘As an assistant.’

‘Are you saying it is not enough?’ Vittorio demanded raggedly. ‘This brother who would have taken everything from me? Do you think he would have been so merciful?’

Ana shook her head. ‘But if your mother attempted all this with the will when your father died, you were only—’

‘Fourteen.’

‘And Bernardo was a child—nine or ten at the most—’

‘Ten,’ Vittorio confirmed flatly. Anger sparked in his eyes; his face had become hard again, a stranger’s. ‘Are you taking his side, Ana? Don’t you remember what I told you, what I warned you about?’

His tone was so dangerous, so