Lilian and the Irresistible Duke by Virginia Heath

Author:Virginia Heath
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-11-08T13:17:46+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Amore mio... Buon Dio!

Things had gone too far! Pietro wrestled with the straps of his saddle in the darkness, his heart racing and his mind whirring. Part of that was to do with the fact she had been lying cuddled against him again for the third night in a row, in his private and sacrosanct bedchamber after a bout of fervent and uncharacteristically emotional lovemaking, but a bigger part was because of what he had said during that lovemaking.

Amore mio.

My love.

Not only had he said it—but he had also apparently meant it, because the words had come out choked of their own volition, tumbling out of his mouth in a rush. Out of necessity. Because in that moment he wanted to tell her what she meant to him because he was feeling vulnerable and raw and he was just so damned relieved she was there with him. When he had gone to bed alone earlier it had been specifically so she would not be there with him.

He should have locked his door.

He had even thought about it as he had slammed into his bedchamber straight after dinner, pleading exhaustion, his hand hovering over the key momentarily before he had retracted it. He knew now he had subconsciously left it unlocked because he had hoped she would come, because he had been in a state since the second he had confessed the truth about Isabetta. A truth he had never uttered to another soul—not even Carlotta—because he meticulously stuck to the official story. The story written in black and white on her death certificate. The one in which she had accidentally taken too high a dose of her prescribed medication when she had long before stopped procuring her opium in controlled batches from the physician.

Not that Pietro had cared. He had taught himself not to care because all the worry in the world, all his pleading and all his interventions achieved nothing. He had told himself Isabetta was beyond help and that she needed to help herself. Washed his hands of her, her vitriol, her self-pity and her addictions, when a decent man, a less selfish man, would have continued to fight.

What sort of monster felt that in the wake of a tragedy? But he had then and still felt the same way now. He had never mourned her because he couldn’t stand her and, the day she died, the constricting chains of marriage which had bound him disappeared and he felt he could breathe again. Restart his life. Blithely follow his own path, blessedly unencumbered by the heavy yoke which came alongside being responsible for someone else. And he had loved that life, that solitary path, never wanting to deviate from it or glance backwards. Only forwards. Except since he had met Lilian his path no longer seemed straight and now he had reached a fork he had never anticipated or wanted to encounter.

Continue on the solitary, safe path he had always wanted or allow his feet to edge along the other one? The one with her on it, too.

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