Innocent of His Claim by Janette Kenny

mother would pay the ultimate price. Again.
    Even so she wove through the restaurant on shaky legs, mumbling excuses as she went, heart thundering in her chest. She had to speak with Marco one more time. She had to makehim believe she’d had no part in her father’s latest scheme. That she was as much a victim as anyone else.
    “Marco!” she cried out as she pushed past the doorman and stumbled onto the sidewalk, her teary gaze frantically searching for him.
    He stopped in the arc of light but didn’t face her.
    Heart in her throat, she gulped a sob and raced to him. Her trembling fingers banded his arm and he stiffened even more.
    “I don’t know how he found out about your grandmother but I was ignorant of his plan. I played no part in his corporate schemes,” she said. “You have to believe me.”
    He looked at her then with an expression so cold she shivered. “No, I do not have to believe you.”
    She batted at a tear that leaked from her gritty eyes only to do the same with another. And another. She gave up the effort to stay them and looked at him through a veil of tears.
    “I’ve never told a soul since primary school, but you have to know the truth. Father is abusive,” she said.
    His brows snapped together. “To you?”
    She shook her head and gulped in great drafts of air. “To Mother. He’s always abused her, though he was careful her bruises didn’t show.” Until that last time …
    Her fingers inched up his rigid forearm. “I can’t leave her. He’ll—” She shook her head again, fingers digging into his muscled arm. “I don’t know what depths he will sink to this time if I defy him again.”
    “You’re telling the truth?” he asked, his frown fierce.
    “Yes,” she whispered past dry lips.
    “You need to escape his grasp. Come with me to Italy.”
    When he’d asked her before, in the heat of passion, she’d refused because, while he’d told her he wanted her, he’d never professed his love. He always held back something she couldn’t define, she’d just sensed the wall going up. That kept her from totally trusting him as she longed to do.
    But now he was giving her a real chance to escape herhellish life. To be with the man she loved, the man with the wounded heart that she still believed her love could heal. She wanted to go but wouldn’t unless specific conditions were met.
    “Yes, I’ll go with you but not without my mother. I can’t leave her to suffer.” The guilt of doing so once still plagued her. “Please. I love you, Marco. I need your help. I need you.”
    Marco jerked his head aside, his rigid posture concealing anything he was feeling. And she’d prayed he believed her. Prayed that he would help her and her mother.
    “Go back to your father but say nothing about telling me this,” he said. “I’ll go to your house now and speak with your mother. Trust me to arrange everything. It will be all right.”
    She’d swallowed hard. Trust was asking so much, especially with so much at stake. Especially when she was leery of putting her heart and soul into his hands. But she loved him. She wanted to believe he would never hurt her but she needed time—time she simply didn’t have.
    “Okay,” she said. “When will I see you?”
    “Soon.”
    He stood there a moment longer, staring into her eyes before his gaze fixed on her mouth.
Kiss me
, she thought.
Hold me. Convince me everything will be fine. Perfect. Make the fear go away
.
    But he did none of that.
    In a blink he disappeared into the darkness, leaving her with the unpleasant task of trudging back into the restaurant and facing her father.
    “Did you change your mind about leaving with the Italian or did he reject you?” her father asked the moment she eased onto the chair across from him.
    She damned the heat flooding her cheeks and averted her eyes so he wouldn’t read the truth in them. “He was already gone by the time I got outside.”
    “Hmm,” her father said, cradling his port in one