Free Wife By Force: International Billionaires II: The Italians by Caro LaFever Page B

words in the cathedral played inside his mind. Relief, mixed with ironic cynicism. No grief over a lost love. No sadness. No desperate wish for her dead husband to come back from the grave.
    Thank God .
    Dante watched Lara as she raced up the stone steps of his villa. As if she could race away from what she’d revealed to him. As if he would let her run away from what she’d given him. Only a tiny slip really. Any other person might have missed the slight inflection in her voice or the way she tilted her head in relief. Or the tight edge to the two words that said so much.
    To him.
    “ Signore Casartelli?” The limo door opened wider and his devoted driver peered in, a look of shocked concern on his face.
    Why wouldn’t he be shocked? No woman had ever rushed from the Casartelli limo in obvious distress. At no time had his driver ever seen The Casartelli sitting silently, staring blankly at the tinted window in front of him.
    “Everything is fine, Aberto.”
    Stepping out of the limo, Dante grimaced. Everything was not fine, of course. Far from it. Lara had now become a riddle. A riddle he needed to solve before he could ever approach achieving his goal. A riddle that increasingly grew more incomprehensible and complicated every time he saw her. The dozens of million euro deals he’d negotiated over the last eleven years paled in comparison to what he faced in trying to figure her out. Obviously, he had to figure her out before he could ever hope to win her. Win not only her body and her mind, but her heart.
    A heart clearly damaged by her past marriage.
    A thick fire of pure rage flashed in his gut. All those pictures, those videos, those reports he’d been sent over the years. How had his family’s security team missed the fact that something was wrong? Wrong with the marriage. Wrong with her.
    How had he missed it?
    The thought made him grit his teeth. He stomped up the villa steps, the solid smack of his handmade leather shoes on the marble stone acting like a slap on his conscience. Twelve years ago, when he’d convinced Hugo Derrick that sending his daughter to England would be a good move, he sealed the deal when he promised his security team would keep an eye on her. He’d given his word. He’d promised on his honor she would be protected.
    The double doors of the villa, with the distinctive Casartelli crest, loomed in front of him.
    Onore soprattutto .
    The gilded scroll swept over the crown, the castle, the cross. Mocking him.
    Honor above all .
    His ancestor, the founder of the family, stared at him from the middle of the crest. The wooden eyes gleamed black with paint, the long nose pointed high in the air, the hardness of the jaw clenched. In disgust. At him.
    He had failed. When all these years, he thought he’d done the right thing.
    Dante closed his eyes for a moment, only a moment, and when he opened them it was his housekeeper staring at him from the doorway, holding the heavy stone door ajar. She looked just as concerned as his loyal driver had.
    “ Signore ?” She frowned in puzzlement.
    Why shouldn’t she be puzzled? This was not like him to stare at the door of his own home. Or stand here doing nothing. Or not have any words to soothe the worries his staff, his family, his business associates might have.
    The purr of a dozen limos came from behind him.
    “ Signore ?” she said again, her eyes filling with anxiety as she glanced at the stream of cars circling the driveway and coming to a stop. “ È successo qualcosa? ”
    Si. Something has happened. He’d found out. Found out he’d failed Lara. Found out he’d broken his promise to her father. All these years, he’d congratulated himself for honoring her marriage vows by staying away. He’d foolishly thought he’d done the right thing when he stepped back. He’d even assured Hugo Derrick he would continue to provide her security in England on the off chance her stable, secure ass of a husband failed in his duty.
    During those