“And she was supposed to…do what? Just know? Trust you?”
“Yes.” This was bellowed.
“I never thought you had unreasonableness in your makeup, not even when you were knowingly going against everything Castaldini stood for. You had every right then, according to your set of beliefs. But to demand that she trust you based on intentions you never declared, that goes beyond perverse.”
“What’s perverse about expecting the woman who trusted me with her heart and body—Maledizione, her life, when she came to me with no one knowing—to trust me to be a man of honor?”
“But that was probably why she believed she didn’t have any place in your heart or life—because she believed you are one. A man of honor who wasn’t honor-bound by the promises he hadn’t made. A man of honor who had a momentous destiny, one that from every possible indication, didn’t include her.”
Leandro’s heart stampeded. His skull seemed to squeeze his brain until he felt it would crush it. He couldn’t…He never…He didn’t…
“And when you saw how her desertion devastated me, you still didn’t realize how much she meant to me?”
“How could I have known you weren’t devastated over the other catastrophes that had taken place at that time? How could I have guessed, when you seemed to remember her only four months later, sent me to fetch her without a word, and two hours later she ran out, begging me to take her back? I never saw anyone more miserable.”
And he howled. “Dio…how can this be? How can I have behaved in such a way that I misguided you both, the man I value most, the woman who means everything to me, so totally about my emotions and intentions?”
“You were always the best at everything except the one thing you had no practice in. Relationships. But I understand now. A man of your capacity for commitment and passion, in love for the first time, at the most trying time of his life. You had tunnel vision, leading to your goal, couldn’t perceive anything from anybody else’s perspective. And both Phoebe and I were guilty of perpetuating that problem, catering to your every whim and accommodating your every demand, giving you the impression that all was well.”
“But even if I was a fool who gave her no indication of my feelings, that was before I was exiled. When I brought her to New York…Dio, I told her I needed her.”
“As what? And why only then? And how do you think she should have handled that out-of-the-blue admission? It might have been a precedent for you to admit you needed anyone, but to her it could have meant something very different. That you needed her as the ever-faithful, ever-accommodating lover who would provide a convenient outlet for your tumultuous emotions at the time. How could she have done anything but refuse to be that, to walk away before you destroyed her?”
“Dio…Dio…she couldn’t have believed that…. She would have had to think I was unscrupulous, heartless…a monster to believe that.”
“Not really. Just a man who’d suffered a grave injury and was looking for the best salve for his wounds. It still didn’t mean you wanted her forever.”
“What about the time I sent you to her again? That was five years after she walked out on me. What did that action signify to you, if not my continued commitment?”
“The day I arrived and learned she’d announced her engagement, I thought you were dangling yourself again to get her to break it off with Armando.”
“You thought I was being a spiteful son-of-a-bitch? A dog in the manger? Don’t you know me at all, Ernesto?”
“I did think of other reasons, but after a five-year silence, none of them was in your favor. I saw her whenever I could, and it always broke my heart to feel her still hoping for a word from you. A word I could never deliver. You were busy playing the martyr, it seems, in your own version of reality.”
“She did accuse me of living in a universe starring me…” He dropped his head into his fists, pressing with all his strength against his temples, to stop it from exploding.
Ernesto went on. “But that was then. What did you do differently this time? Besides desire, what emotions did you confess?”
“Everything. I showed her in every way the depth of my involvement, which is a hundred times stronger than my past love.”
“You probably only think you gave sufficient proof of your emotions. You believed the same in the past, and you were totally wrong. Is it any wonder she left you again?”
“That’s not—not what happened…Dio, Ernesto, everything was beyond perfect and I believed in her again, would have never believed any evidence against her, but when the evidence was her own words…Dio…I heard her, Ernesto.”
Ernesto’s frown was spectacular. “You heard her? Saying what? In what context? And to whom?”
“She was gloating about her total power over me, to Stella—”
“Stella?” The name was an explosion of disdain and revulsion.
Leandro understood too well. After his exile, he’d discovered what a vile creature she was. “Dio, si…anything she said to Stella had to have been provoked, no doubt a defense against the acid that drips from that witch’s tongue. But I—I think I lost my mind. All I could think was that my worst nightmares were true, that she’d been manipulating me from day one, never wanted me for myself and I—I told her I’d choose a wife, but never her…and more…and by the time I regained my senses, she was gone.”
He stopped, retched at the memory of the vile things he’d said, at realizing the enormity of his crime against her yet again. At the look in Ernesto’s eyes.
“I struck you only once, Leandro.”
Leandro shoved a fist against his heart, wanting to punch through his rib cage and snatch it out. Maybe then it would stop battering his insides to a pulp. “I might have been only eleven then, but if you think I can ever forget the slap that sent me hurtling to the ground, think again.”
“In case you’ve rewritten history in that intractable mind of yours, let me refresh your memory. You accused a servant of stealing and he was punished, only for me to discover later that you built your case against him based on nothing more than that it ‘made sense’ to you. You’ve used that same kind of senseless sense again on Phoebe. And not only have you accused her, you’ve condemned and punished her. And you dare to seek her now? You think no one can ever look beyond your assets to want you for yourself, so you keep superimposing your suspicions on everyone’s actions. I think you’ve gone too far this time. And you’ve lost the woman you failed to deserve.”