Tatiana Rostova’s POV

I froze in the doorway. My brain refused to translate what my eyes had been telling me. It can’t be happening, I told myself repeatedly. My stepsister, Sabrina, whom I loved more than a real sister, is not in the bed ***** with the man that I loved with all my heart...my fiancé, is it?

He just resembles the man I adored. His twin, maybe? But the ***** shock on the face of the two people lying in the cabin bed mirrored mine, it was like we were some figurines displayed on the shelf.

“What the hell is the meaning of this?” I asked to the stark silence.

It seemed that the two of them finally recovered from their surprise and realized that they were showing their full glory to my innocent eyes. They struggled to cover themselves with the white sheet that was rumpled on the bed.

“Tatiana,” Paolo, my lying fiancé, started looking around desperately for his discarded boxers on the floor. “Let me explain.”

Until that moment I was praying that my Paolo had a twin that he’d forgotten to mention to me. The headache I had been experiencing during the dinner was nowhere near to the pain in my heart right now. The reason I came to Sabrina’s room was to ask for some medicine when I found them together in the bed!

“Explain?” I repeated coldly. “Explain what? That you’ve been enjoying in bed with my sister while your fiancée was in the other room suffering from headache?”

“Tati.”

For the first time, my mendacious stepsister joined the conversation. I tried not to cry out loud and demand an answer from her. I treated her like the sister I never had and she did this to me? I mentally blocked the image I had seen earlier from my brain...Sabrina sobbing my fiancé’s name as he pleasured her.

What an idiot I have been. I should have known from the start that a gorgeous Italian would never fall in love with a woman like me. 

A wallflower...

A woman who always faded into the background in social gatherings, a woman who is so socially awkward that she couldn’t even carry a proper conversation in the parties. A woman who preferred baggy clothes to flashy ones that accentuated her figure.

Paolo Ranaldi belonged to someone like my stepsister, who was often dubbed as the ‘darling of the Manhattan society’. With her blond hair and pretty big blue-eyes she was New York City’s most celebrated socialite.

That’s why I felt like Cinderella when Paolo swept me off my feet. But I should have known that there’s no such thing as real life fairytale. The handsome prince would always belong to the beautiful sister...not the ugly one.

“Tatiana. Please, let me explain to you.” Paolo said reaching for his pants. I looked away while he put on his pants.

Despite the fact that we will be marrying in months’ time, Paolo and I had never shared a bed even once. I stupidly thought that he just valued my innocence to patiently wait for our wedding night. It never occurred to me that he’d been enjoying my stepsister’s bed to even bother seducing his ugly fianceé.

At the thought of them having an affair behind my back, God only knows since when, I wanted to do something violent.

“Don’t bother,” I smiled at them, I felt like my jaw would crack in effort. “You don’t have to explain things to me. I will spare the two of you from the lies you’ll try to spin.” I removed the engagement ring laid on my fourth finger in my left hand and tossed it to Paolo not caring how much that blasted ring had cost. “I am happy to tell you that the engagement is off.”

With every ounce of dignity left in me I walked out of that cursed room without a backward glance. I may be a timid woman but I still have the pride of the Rostovs in my veins, I will not shed even a single tear for their betrayal.

“Tatiana,” My just now became ex-fiancé called after me, walking out of the room only with his jeans on. “Let me talk to you first.”

I hastened my pace. “Leave me alone, Paolo. I have nothing to say to you. As far as I’m concerned you and Sabrina are dead to me.”

I gasped. Did I just say that? Apparently...judging from the stunned reaction of Paolo.

I walked away. He persistently followed me. I headed to the deck to clear my head. It should have been a happy vacation with the two people I loved with all my heart in the beautiful Amalfi Coast in my family’s hundred and fifty-foot yacht. But the idle vacation had just turned into my worst nightmare.

“Tatiana,” Paolo grabbed my arm. “Please. Talk to me, per favore.”

I removed my arm from his grip. I already hated his touch. “We have nothing to say to each other. By tomorrow the New York tabloids will know that I broke our engagement.”

“Cara mia,” He cajoled, holding my hands with his, once I used melt when he would utter that endearment, now all I could feel was disgust. “Please...”

I struggled to be free from his touch when I noticed that Sabrina had also come on the deck. Great, now they will try to feed me with lies.

“Let me go, Paolo!” I struggled hard. I didn’t want him touching me with those hands. “We’re through. Done! It’s over!”

Then the unexpected thing happened, he suddenly released me and I lost my balance making me fall into the cold sea below. I gulped some salty water as I tried to keep myself afloat which is hard when you don’t know how to swim.

“Help me!” I called out. They knew I can't swim. “Help!”

“Dio!” Paolo exclaimed, looking down at me. “Tatiana!”

“Don’t save her.” Had Sabrina just really said that? She wants me to die here? “This is a good opportunity, right? She’ll be out of our lives forever and the Rostov billions would be ours.”

“But Rina...”

“You don’t intend to marry her for real, do you?” Sabrina said brutally. “You’re just after her money, right?”

How many more home truths was I blind to see before? If finding them in bed together broke my heart, this information shattered my broken heart into pieces.

So the real reason why Paolo had courted me was because he was just after the Rostov fortune? He was not really in love with me?

I was praying that my Paolo would deny it fiercely. I will forgive him for his affair with my stepsister if he just tells Sabrina that he had loved me even once. Seeing his silence Sabrina pounced again. “Let’s go and leave her here to die. By tomorrow the news about the death of the Rostov heiress would be in the international media, we’ll claim that she accidentally fell off the deck.”

The stepsister I trusted with my life, was she really capable of such a cold-blooded murder? It’s like she’s an entirely different person. I helplessly watched her drag the only man I had ever loved away from the deck. 

They’re dead set on killing me!

“No!” I cried frantically, struggling to stay afloat in the water. But as I tried to open my mouth I gulped more salty water.

I heard the yacht engine start and slowly move away from me. I can’t die here, not yet, not until I have avenged the people who had played me for a fool.

If only...

I started getting tired of paddling and keeping my head above the water when I glimpsed a light...is that the light from heaven above?

I don’t want to die here. Swallowing plenty of water I gradually surrender to the darkness, muttering to myself. “I will come back for my revenge.” 

Tatiana Rostova's POV

“Hmm...” I mumbled. Where was I...in heaven? I could smell the fragrant smell of the fresh flowers and hear the sea outside through the open windows.

I wanted to open my eyes but they were too damned heavy at the moment. I heard people murmuring softly but I was too dazed to understand what they were talking about.

“Lei andrà bene.” A male voice assured in a low whisper.

So where was I?

“Hmm...” I mumbled again, shifting on the soft bed on my back. This time I summoned my heavy eyes to open.

The first thing I noticed was the high ceiling and cream walls with expensive paintings hanging around. I looked around slowly and noticed that two men were also present in the luxuriously decorated room.

The first one stared at the endless ocean outside on the French windows with his hands tucked in each pocket of his expensive Italian trousers and the other one stared at the man with his gray head bowed slightly.

“Sua Eccellenza...” The second man said, as he noticed that I was already fully awake staring at them with confusion in my eyes.

The man facing the sea turned around and I felt like my breath had been knocked out of my lungs as a pair of silver eyes stared at me.

“Ci lasciano.” The man with smoky eyes said with undisguised authority and the other man bowed again before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.

Italians?

So I was still in Italy...not in heaven then.

The man with the pair of striking gray eyes moved closer to the bed and stared at me. “Come stai—”

I shook my head. I was good in speaking fluent English, Russian and French but I was hopeless in Italian. I will have a big problem if my savior didn't understand English. But he surprised me when he switched to flawless English. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” I tried to sit on the bed but I felt a little woozy in the process, large hands suddenly shot out to support me. I smiled sheepishly. “But a little dizzy, I think. Where am...”

“You are at my villa here in Amalfi,” The good-looking stranger said, staring deep into my eyes. “You were lucky that my yacht was passing by when I saw you struggling to stay afloat in the water nearly drowning, signorina.”

So it was the light from his yacht that I saw before I lost my consciousness, not the light from heaven?

I closed my eyes remembering the night before and how the people I thought would be the last to see me hurt were the same people who laughed behind my back for my naivety.

“...signorina?” I stared at the man who had saved me from my death, a frown marked between his strong eyebrows.

“Forgive me.” I replied weakly. “My mind is somewhere else. I haven’t thanked you yet for saving me last night, Signore...?”

“Cavelli.” He supplied with smile in the depth of those silver eyes. He extended his hand. “Lucca Cavelli.”

I shook the offered hand briefly but it was enough to send electricity into my body which I didn’t understand. It seemed that my body was aware of the very masculine aura of this man. “Tatiana Rostova.”

“Russian?”

“Yes. My father.”

“Pleased to meet you, Signorina Rostova.”

I nodded coolly. “Likewise.”

Lucca Cavelli’s POV

The woman I saved last night from the brink of her death was now awake. I had been checking her from time-to-time but she was unconscious though out the night. The doctor had assured me that she had just swallowed a lot of sea water but she will be fine once she wakes up and recovers.

What happened to her when I found her floating in the middle of the dark sea?

I was stunned momentarily when my gaze was held by a pair of violet eyes. Those beautiful eyes showed profound pain and betrayal as she held my gaze. Whatever had happened to her last night, she’d been badly hurt in that.

She wasn’t classically beautiful with her pale skin and jet black hair that was out of style. She could be considered as ‘plain’ but when you stared at her uncanny amethyst eyes you could set her apart in the crowd as if she has been transformed into someone else.

Right now, those violet eyes were hidden from my view as she lowered her eyes. “Are you okay, signorina?”

“Forgive me,” She said weakly, her voice was soft and melodic...and all American. “My mind is somewhere else.”

I bet my fortune that she’s remembering the events from the last night and how she ended up in the sea almost drowning and dying.

“I haven’t thanked you yet for saving me last night, signore...?”

I bit back my smile. Did she seriously not know me? Maybe she was still in a state of shock that she didn’t recognize me. “Cavelli.” I completed for her, extending my hand. “Lucca Cavelli.”

There’s no need to brag my title...yet. Taking my offered hand she shook it briefly, just as I thought her hands were as delicate as the rest of her, she withdrew her hands giving me her name totally unaware of my thoughts. “Tatiana Rostova.”

I was perplexed for a moment. I didn’t see that one coming. “Russian?”

“Yes. My father.”

“Please to meet you, Signorina Rostova.”

She nodded coolly. The woman is icy cold. “Likewise.”

A discreet knock on the door disturbed me from the fascinating lavender fields that were her eyes I was busy admiring. “Come in.” I said in Italian.

A maid entered with trays of breakfast for me and my guest, Tatiana Rostova. She silently placed the fresh fruits, smoked hams, cheese and bread with a pot of hot tea and a local newspaper on the terrace table overlooking the blue sea before taking her leave.

“Breakfast is ready, signorina.”

She shook her head, standing from the bed. “Thank you. But I need to go. I have a plane to catch for New York.” She looked down and noticed that she’s only wearing my silk pajama top showing her white creamy legs, which in my opinion were really sexy. “If you could just ask for my clothes from your servants, I will be really grateful to you.”

I shook my head in return. I was not going to let her go without knowing that she's truly fine. “You are not leaving without having breakfast. You should eat first and then we’ll call your family to assure them that you are safe here in my villa.”

The amethyst eyes turned cold as the arctic region. “I don’t have a family to worry about me anymore.”

I frowned at her answer. “But, someone who knows you might be going crazy looking for you right now.”

“No one would be anxious if I am missing, signore.”

The woman was damned stubborn. “I’m sure...”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re so annoying?” She snapped, her violet eyes spitting fire.

“No.” I answered honestly. No one would dare.

“Well, you are!”

I smiled privately. She was the first person and probably the last who dared to tell me in the face that I was annoying and bravely defied my wishes. I admired her for that. “You know what? Why don’t we discuss my annoying attitude and why no one would be concerned if you are missing, over the breakfast?”

“I’m not hungry.” Tatiana Rostova said persistently, which I, of course, know that is not true.

“Indeed,” I mocked. “Still, why not sit in the terrace with me and watch me eat. After all, I love the company of the people who are annoyed with me.”