The Bride's Awakening - By Kate Hewitt Page 0,66

didn’t even surprise him, this new-found love; it simply felt too right. He felt completed, whole, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d been missing—in and of himself—until he knew that sense of fulfilment, of rightness, caused by loving Ana.

He knew she loved him. He knew it, he’d seen it in her eyes and felt it in her body, yet it still filled him with wonder and incredulous joy. How could he have been so blind to think he didn’t want this, didn’t need it? Now he could not imagine life without it, without Ana. The very thought left him cold and despairing. But now he didn’t despair; now he felt hope. Wonderful, miraculous hope. And he couldn’t wait to tell Ana.

The castle was quiet as he entered; it was four o’clock in the afternoon and he had no doubt Ana was at her own office. He thought of surprising her there; he’d make love to her right on her own desk. His mouth widened into a grin at the thought of it. First, he would check in at the Cazlevara office and then…Ana. He could hardly wait.

He was just sorting through the post left by his secretary when his vineyard manager knocked on the door.

Vittorio barely glanced up. ‘Yes, Antonio? Everything went well while I was gone?’ He tossed another letter aside, only to pause when he realized his manager had not spoken. He glanced up, saw the man twisting his hands together, looking uncertain. Afraid, even. Vittorio’s eyes narrowed. ‘Antonio? Has something happened?’

‘It’s Bernardo, Lord Ralfino…Bernardo and the Contessa.’

Vittorio stilled. He felt as if his blood had turned to ice water; the sense of coldness gave him a chilling clarity, a freezing resolve. He’d been expecting this, he realized. He wasn’t surprised. ‘Has my mother been plotting again?’ he asked levelly. ‘Now that I am married, she seeks to disinherit and discredit me once more?’

Antonio shook his head, looking wretched. ‘Not the Dowager Contessa, my lord. Your wife.’

For a moment Vittorio couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. The words made no sense. What his manager was saying was impossible, ridiculous—

Vittorio drew a breath. ‘Are you saying my wife is acting with Bernardo?’

‘She told me not to ring you,’ Antonio confessed unhappily.

‘What?’ Vittorio could barely process it. His wife had been attempting to deceive him? To scheme against him? The shock left him senseless, reeling, nearly gasping in pain.

‘I know you do not wish Bernardo to—well, I knew you’d want this approved,’ Antonio continued, ‘but since she said—and you’d given her authority—’

Vittorio laid one hand flat on his desk, bracing himself. He would not jump to conclusions. He would not. He kept the rage and fear down, suppressing it, even though it fermented and bubbled, threatened to boil over and burn them all. He would not let it. He would listen to Antonio, he would hear Ana’s side of the story. He would be fair. ‘What has happened, Antonio?’

‘Bernardo went to Milan,’ the manager confessed. ‘He is marketing his own label. I didn’t know of it until yesterday, but the Contessa approved it, arranged the meeting—’

‘His own label?’ Vittorio repeated blankly. Was his brother actually trying to take over the family winery, to make it his own? And Ana was helping him? Had they been planning this—this takeover—together while he was gone? Or even before? He could hardly make sense of it, his heart cried out its innate, desperate rejection of such lies, even as his mind coolly reminded him that this was exactly how he’d felt returning from his father’s funeral, hoping—desperately hoping—that now his father was dead his mother might turn to him, if not with open arms, then at least with a smile.

She’d turned her back instead. Something had died in Vittorio then, that last frail hope he’d never realized he’d still clung to. The desire for love. The hope it would find him. He’d lost it then, or thought he had, only to find the desire and the hope—the need for love—inside him, latent, and with Ana it had begun to grow, young and fragile, seeking her healing light.

Now he felt as if it had been felled at its tender root. His heart had become a barren wasteland, frozen and unyielding. He turned back to Antonio. ‘Thank you for telling me. I will deal with it now.’

‘I would have rung you, but since the Contessa was meant to be in charge—’

‘I completely understand. Do not think of it again.’ Vittorio dismissed the man with a nod, then