The Italian Billionaire’s Nubian Queen

Chapter 9

Alyssa stood in her kitchen, holding her phone. There was a photo open on it.

It showed a very lovely couple. A ring—a very big and very expensive diamond engagement ring—winked and sparkled on the blonde beauty’s ring finger. At least, she assumed it did, alive with light and promised. It was just a steady glow in the photo.

That was definitely Matteo beside her, though, with his arm around her. There was no doubt about that. That was an engagement photo.

Martina Totti was as unlike Alyssa as it was possible to be. She was petite, blonde, blue-eyed and absolutely gorgeous, so perfectly groomed that she could have stepped into a fashion magazine shoot without a second thought. They made a lovely couple indeed.

Four years—they’d been engaged for four years, according to Brianna. Four years, and an arrangement.

So now she was part of the arrangement, she supposed. What else could she imagine?

“Alyssa?”

Matteo came into the kitchen, wearing an old pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt that had once belonged to Liam. Liam, had chipped away at her heart for about three years. She’d loved him, hadn’t she?

She had. She’d hoped to spend her life with him. There had been so many evenings of drowning her feelings in ice cream and wine because he’d chipped away at her heart a little more every time, and every time, she’d gone back to him. He’d been wiped clean from her mind when she’d seen Matteo.

But now there Matteo was, having broken her heart, too. He’d done it all at once. No chipping away slowly for him.

That was when she realized that she’d fallen in love with him.

Not just a strange obsession. Not something weird she couldn’t explain, a passing fancy that might heat her up, burn her up, but would burn out.

She’d fallen in love with him.

How odd that she needed heartbreak to see it!

Well, there was no point beating around the bush. She’d blamed Brianna for not being honest with her husband, hadn’t she? She would practice what she preached, at least.

She took a deep breath, and let go.

“Are you engaged?”

“What?”

But she knew the answer from how he looked at her. She saw the guilt in his face, in his eyes. There were no words that could make up for how he looked at her when she said the words.

“Are you engaged, Matteo?”

“Alyssa…”

“Please. That is not the kind of answer that needs an explanation, is it? There can’t be a middle of the road answer for that. It’s either yes or it’s no. Either you’re engaged or you’re not. Which is it?”

“It’s not how it looks,” began Matteo, and Alyssa’s heart broke a little more.

Maybe he was right. Maybe they’d been fated to be together. But even fate couldn’t do much in the face of a betrayal like that. Even fate couldn’t do much in the face of lies.

Fate couldn’t mend a broken heart, either.

“It looks like you’re engaged to Martina Totti. Look, it’s pretty obvious. Four years ago—this was taken four years ago, right after you got engaged to her, according to this. Are you still engaged to her?”

“Alyssa, it wasn’t like that. Four years ago, I needed to do it.”

“Why?”

“I needed to let it be known that Colombo would have an heir.”

She shook her head.

“What? That makes no sense.”

“My father… It was stipulated. In his will. Gabriel would get it all if I didn’t get legally betrothed by my twenty-sixth birthday.”

“What else was there, that you’re not telling me?”

“And be legally married and with an heir within ten years to that date.”

Alyssa looked at Matteo like he was from another world.

“That makes no sense at all.”

“It was his will. I had to honor it.”

“So you’re still engaged to Martina.”

“It’s not like that. I’m not saying that there was never anything between her and me but we realized quickly we weren’t suited. Officially, we’re still betrothed, but I’m sure I can work around that. There’s nothing in the language that specifies that I must marry my betrothed. It’s a strange loophole, I know, but I thought about it. It’s good enough. It’ll be enough. I will have fulfilled the conditions to the letter if I was betrothed to one woman, and marry and make an heir with another. I can marry you, and we can have a child, and everything will be fine.”

Alyssa could hardly believe her years. Could any man possibly be that obtuse? Surely nobody could be like that. Surely nobody could think that any of that would be acceptable.

“Did you talk about that loophole with Martina?”

“I… It’s not necessary.”

“So she still believes that she will, at some point in the next few years, marry you.”

“I’m sure Martina knows better.”

“You’re sure she knows better? You have a legal betrothal contract, like something from the Regency era or something of the sort! And you think she doesn’t think it matters? Why wouldn’t it matter to her? It’s far more binding than just a ring on her finger, isn’t it?”

“Alyssa, listen to me. It doesn’t matter. None of that matters. Don’t you see that? This is for us. You and I, we belong together. We can make the rest of it work. Marry me. Marry me, come back to Italy with me, and we’ll make a life together. We can have it all. We can have everything.”

Alyssa stood there, stunned, for a long moment before slowly shaking her head.

“You’re crazy. I think you are crazy. We’ve known each other for about two weeks. We’ve had maybe four conversations. Just because we had s*x, it doesn’t mean that we’re fated, or that it makes the slightest bit of sense to talk about getting married. Especially because you’re engaged to another woman. No, don’t tell me stories about why it doesn’t matter. It does matter. It matters whichever way you’re engaged to her. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe any of this is happening.”

She half expected thunder and lightning, but there was none. There was just the steady patter of rain that had started up again. It was depressing. It suited the mood just fine.

The skies cried with her, thought Alyssa, and she recognized that she was becoming melodramatic. She’d bought into some strange narrative about fate and magic, and now she was paying the price because her heart was broken. She could have guarded it, but she hadn’t. She’d let her guard down, she’d let him in, and now he’d let her down.