An Inheritance of Shame

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘You could accept my apology, to start.’

‘Why should I?’

Angelo’s jaw dropped, which would have made her laugh save for the leaden weight of her heart. ‘What?’

‘Just because you’ve finally deigned to say sorry doesn’t make me ready to accept it.’ Or act like all that was needed was a carelessly given, barely meant apology. She wanted more than that. She deserved more than that.

Except, of course, Angelo had nothing more to give. And whether or not he said sorry for the past made no real difference to either of their futures. Why had he brought her up here? Looking at him now, his face taut with annoyance or maybe even anger, Lucia thought she could hazard a guess.

She was no more than an item to be ticked off on his to-do list. Come back to Sicily, buy a hotel, deal with Lucia. Get any messy emotional business out of the way so he could move on to more important things. She supposed she should be grateful she’d warranted any consideration at all.

She took a deep breath. ‘So you’ve said it, Angelo, you’ve ticked me off your list, and you can go on happily now with your big business deals and fancy living. And I can get back to work.’

And stop acting out this charade that she didn’t care, that she’d only been angry or even annoyed. She couldn’t understand how Angelo could believe it, yet he obviously did, for he was annoyed too, by her stubbornness. He still had no idea how much he’d hurt her.

‘It’s been seven years, Lucia,’ he said, an edge to his voice, and she met his gaze as evenly as she could.

‘Exactly.’

‘I haven’t even been in Sicily since that night.’

‘Like I said before, there’s the phone. Email. We live in the twenty-first century, Angelo. If you’d wanted to be in touch, I think you just might have found a way.’ He bunched his jaw and she shook her head. ‘Don’t make excuses. I don’t need them. I know that one night was exactly that to you—one night. I’m not delusional.’ Not any more.

‘So you didn’t even expect me to call? Or write?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Even though part of her had stubbornly, stupidly hoped. ‘But expecting and wanting are two different things.’

He stared at her for a long, hard moment. ‘What did you want?’ he asked quietly, and Lucia didn’t answer. She would not articulate all the things she had wanted, had hoped for despite the odds, the obviousness of Angelo’s abandonment. She would not give Angelo the satisfaction of knowing, and so she lifted one shoulder in something like a shrug. ‘A goodbye would have been something.’

‘That’s all? A farewell?’

‘I said it would have been something.’ She tore her gaze from his, forced all that emotion down so it caught in her chest, a pressure so intense it felt like all her breath was being sucked from her body. ‘It’s irrelevant anyway,’ she continued, each word so very painful to say. ‘If you brought me up here to say sorry, then you’ve said it. Thank you for that much, at least.’

‘But you don’t accept my apology,’ Angelo observed. His gaze swept her from head to foot like a laser, searching her, revealing her.

She closed her eyes briefly, tried to summon strength. ‘Does it really matter?’

His gaze narrowed, his lips compressed. ‘Why do you ask that?’

‘Because you’ve managed to go seven years without saying sorry or speaking to me at all, Angelo. How can I help but think my opinions—my feelings—matter very little to you?’ He frowned and she shook her head. ‘I’m not accusing you. I’m not angry about it any more.’

‘You still seem angry.’

Seem, Lucia thought, being the operative word. If only it was as simple as that; if only she felt angry that he’d been so thoughtless as to leave her bed without a word. If only she felt clean, strong anger instead of this endless ache of grief. ‘I suppose seeing you again has brought it back, a bit, that’s all,’ she finally said. She couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘Why do you care anyway?’

‘I suppose…the same.’ Angelo sounded guarded. ‘Seeing you again has made me…want to make amends.’

Make amends? As if a two-word reluctant redress made up for years of emptiness, heartache, agony? Did he really think that was an equal exchange?

But he didn’t know. He couldn’t know how much she’d endured, the gossip and shame, the loss and heartbreak. He had no idea of the hell she’d been through, and she wouldn’t weaken and shame herself by telling him now.

‘Well, then,’ she said, and her voice sounded flat, lifeless. ‘I suppose that’s all there is to say.’

Angelo nodded, the movement no more than a terse jerk of his head. ‘I suppose so.’

She made herself look at him then, for surely this was goodbye. The goodbye they’d never had. They lived in different worlds now; she was a maid, he was a billionaire. And while she cherished the memory of who he’d once been, she knew she didn’t even recognise this haughty man with his hostile gaze and designer suit. He was so different from the tousle-haired boy with the sad eyes and the sudden smile, the boy who had hated her to see him vulnerable and yet had sought her out in the sweetest, most unexpected moments. What had happened to that boy?

Staring at Angelo’s hard countenance, Lucia knew he was long gone. And the unyielding man in front of her was no more than a wealthy stranger. She felt a sudden sweep of sorrow at the thought, too overwhelming to ignore, and she closed her eyes. She missed that boy. She missed the girl she’d been with him, full of irrepressible hope and happiness. The girl and boy they’d been were gone now, changed forever by circumstance and suffering.

She opened her eyes to see Angelo staring at her, a crease between his brows, a frown compressing his mouth. He had a beautiful mouth, full, sculpted lips that had felt so amazingly soft against hers. Ridiculous that she would recall the feel of them now.

‘So may I go?’ she asked when the silence between them had stretched on for several minutes. ‘Or is there anything else you’d like to say? You might as well say it now, because if you summon me to your office twice the gossip will really start flying.’

Angelo’s frown deepened into a near scowl. ‘Gossip?’

Lucia just shook her head. She shouldn’t have said that. Angelo didn’t know how difficult those months after he’d left had been for her, how in their stifling village community she’d been labelled another Corretti whore…just like his mother had. She didn’t want him to know. ‘It looks a little suspicious, that’s all. Most maids never see the CEO’s office.’

‘I see.’ He paused, glanced down at some papers that lay scattered across his desk. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you.’

‘Never mind. May I go now?’

Angelo stared at her for a long moment, and she saw that glimpse of bleakness in his eyes again, and that ache inside her opened right up, consumed her with sudden, desperate need. She wanted to take him in her arms and smooth away the crease that furrowed his forehead. She wanted to kiss him and tell him none of it mattered, because she loved him. She’d always loved him.

Pathetic. Stupid. What kind of woman loved a man who had treated her the way Angelo had treated her?

Her mother, for one. And look how she had ended up.

‘Yes,’ Angelo finally said, and he sounded distant, distracted. He was probably already thinking of his next business deal. He turned away, to face the window. ‘Yes, of course you can go.’

And so she did, slipping silently through the heavy oak doors even as that ache inside her opened up so she felt as if she had nothing left, was nothing but need and emptiness. She walked quickly past the receptionist and felt tears sting her eyes.

Alone in the lift she pressed her fists against her eyes and willed it all back, all down. She would not cry. She would not cry for Angelo Corretti, who had broken her heart too many times already so she’d had to keep fitting it back together, jagged pieces that no longer made a healthy whole. Still she’d done it; she’d thought she’d succeeded.

Alone in the lift with the tears starting in her eyes and threatening to slip down her cheeks, she knew she hadn’t.

Angelo stared blindly out the window, his mind spinning with what Lucia had said. And what she hadn’t said.

His first reaction had been, predictably, affront. Anger, even. What kind of person didn’t accept an apology? He’d had no need to call her up here. He could have ignored her completely.

Yet even as he felt anger flare he’d known it was unreasonable. Unjust. He’d treated her badly, very badly considering their childhood friendship, their history. He’d always known that even if he tried not to think of it. Tried not to remember that one tender night.

Seeing her last night had raked up all those old memories and feelings, and he knew he couldn’t be distracted from his purpose here. So she’d been right; his apology had been, in a sense, an item on his to-do list.

Deal with Lucia and then move on.

Except as he stood there and silently fumed, staring out the window without taking in the view, he knew he wasn’t moving on at all. Seeing Lucia had mired him right back in the past, remembering how he’d been with her. Who he’d been. She’d seen him at his most vulnerable and needy, at his most shaming and pathetic. The thought made his fists clench.