It hadn’t been anything truly special, she couldn’t help reflecting, remembering the way she had been thinking in the church when Raoul had suddenly reappeared in her life. Was it really just two days before? It felt as though she had lived through several different lifetimes since then—one of them as Adnan’s fiancée, another as the bride jilted almost at the altar. Or wouldn’t everyone really think that she had jilted Adnan when he had found her in flagrante with Raoul? And now…
What was she now? Who was she now? What sort of life was she to go forward into when everything she had hoped and dreamed of had been blasted apart, shattered into tiny, irreparable fragments? She had seen the hope of marriage to Adnan, the joining of their two families, the restoration of the Blacklands stud’s fortunes, the hope of a child to ease the non-stop nag of loss ever since she’d miscarried Raoul’s baby, as a way to give herself the prospect of a future. A future that would help heal the wounds that Raoul Cardini had inflicted on her vulnerable heart.
But now that future had been closed off to her, the darkness of the bleak tomorrow she faced closing in around her. Once again, it seemed that Raoul Cardini was the darkness at the centre of the storm surrounding her that had ruined every chance of happiness. Even knowing that, when she heard him speak with quiet consideration after a day of so much anger, disappointment and upset, it was almost more than she could take.
She couldn’t let herself rely on him—on anything about him. Not just for today but for any sort of future. The weakness in her heart because he had been there for her during such a difficult day was just that—a weakness she couldn’t afford to indulge. She’d been here before and had paid a terrible price for her naïve trust.
‘Then share it with me.’
His smile was what did it. She needed that smile, needed some company—even his company.
No, Imogen admitted as she moved to sit opposite him on the other side of the huge inglenook fireplace: especially his company. He had only been back in her life for what? Three days? And once again she was back in the feeling that had overwhelmed her from the first day of their meeting two years before. The feeling that he was as vital to her as breathing, essential to life itself. He kept her heart beating. It couldn’t be for long but she would take whatever she could and be grateful for that.
She was no longer the naïve young girl who had met him in a bar in Corsica. She had much more experience of life. She had known love and loss—too much loss. She had been a mother, if only for a few weeks. She’d lost the love of her life.
There, she could finally admit that to herself as she looked into his face, the burn of the setting sun casting deep shadows across his carved features. Did she need any more evidence of what she’d known already? The loss of the wedding she’d planned with Adnan, the hopes she’d had for a future, had all but knocked her flat. But with Raoul at her side, for today at least, she’d been able to cope. His quiet strength had seen her through the day, bringing her through the rough waters of shock and distress to this quiet mooring where at least she had a moment to breathe, to let her shoulders down and to think about which way to turn next.
The idea of any time, any space, with Raoul being considered quiet or calm was such a shock that Imogen found her hand shook as she held out her glass for him to pour the wine. Since the moment he had walked back into her life just days ago, she had been in turmoil. How could she feel peace when he was the cause of all the upheaval and destruction from the start?
But she’d take it, such as it was; it was what she needed right now. And if by midnight she found that, like Cinderella, all the magic of the moment vanished and her fantasy handsome prince had turned back into a rat, then at least she would have had tonight.
‘Have you heard from Ciara?’ he was asking now, and only someone as attuned to everything about him would have noticed the tiny hesitation before the name. The one that revealed he had actually meant to ask had she heard from Adnan, but had held back. Was that because, like her, he wanted to enjoy the moment of truce between them, even if it was temporary?