The rational, protective part of her had been terrified of Luca discovering them.
Her irrational heart had ached for him.
‘What if I were to tell you I couldn’t paint because being without you made me so miserable, the creative part of me died?’ Reaching him, she leaned against his desk and took one of his trembling hands. ‘What if,’ she continued, turning it palm up and pressing a kiss to it, ‘what if I were to ask you to start again, somewhere new? Would you do it? Would you be prepared to move and run the estate from a different country if it meant we could be together as a family?’
He reached out to palm her cheek with his free hand, gazing intently into her eyes. The groove on his forehead had vanished. ‘Mio Dio, you’re serious.’
The tears she had been holding back spilled over. She wiped them away. Right at that moment tears were a nuisance; she didn’t want to cry when she was about to say the most important words of her life. ‘You’re right. I don’t belong here but I do belong with you. I’ve told you about my childhood and what it was like—I was wanted and loved but I never felt that, that...’ She struggled to find the right words. ‘I guess I always felt separate from my parents. I have never felt separate from you, even when we were apart—you were with me for every second of it. I love you, Luca, and I don’t think I could bear to be parted from you again.’
He had her on his lap and wrapped in his arms so quickly she had no time to even blink.
Her head pressed against his chest, he held her tightly, breathing deeply into her hair. ‘Dio, I never thought I would ever hear you say that again.’
‘Nor did I.’ She tilted her head and raised a hand to stroke his cheek. ‘I love you.’
‘I don’t deserve your love.’
Another tear rolled down her cheek and she gave an impish smile. ‘I know. But what can you do?’ She straightened so she was face to face with him. ‘And you can’t put everything on yourself.’
The furrow on his forehead reappeared. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m your wife. I knew something was wrong and I should have pushed harder to make you talk to me.’
‘Grace, it would have made no difference. I couldn’t confide in you. Not then. I was in too deep and too frightened of losing you to think straight.’
‘I should have at least tried. But I was too scared.’
Consternation crossed his face. ‘Of me? I would never raise a—’
‘No!’ She cut him off sharply. ‘I know you would never so much as lift a finger against me. No. I was scared to confront the truth. I was scared that if my suspicions were proven correct then I would have to ask you to choose between me and your association with Francesco. I could never have condoned what you two were doing, whatever the reasoning behind it. I couldn’t have lived with it—I just couldn’t.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I didn’t believe you would choose me.’
She had trusted his love but she hadn’t trusted that it was strong enough to put her first. She could see that now. She had spent her entire life feeling that her parents’ love for her was secondary to their lives. To her, that kind of love had been normal.
‘Ah, amore,’ he groaned before pressing his head against hers and breathing in deeply. ‘I would never choose anyone or anything over you.’
‘And maybe if I’d believed that, I would have forced you to confide in me as soon as the warning signs were there that something was wrong. We don’t know if things would have turned out differently, and that’s what I mean when I say you can’t put it all on yourself.’
Luca expelled a breath slowly, the warm air from his lungs tickling her hair.
Grace took her own deep breath. ‘So what would you say? If I asked you to abandon your life here and come with us, would you?’
He kissed her forehead almost reverentially. ‘I would follow you to the ends of the earth if I thought that was what you wanted.’
She closed her eyes at the suffusion of warmth his words provided.
‘But is it what you want?’ Doubts suddenly crowded her as she thought of what she was really asking of him—to give up the only life he had ever known.
‘All I want is you and Lily. Being without you...Grace, I cannot begin to tell you how lost I felt. And you’re right. This life here is no kind of life. Not for you.’
‘It’s your life though.’ Now she thought about it, she could see the total abandonment of Sicily would never work. ‘There’s so much to think about.’ She sighed. ‘Too much of your life and business is tied up here.’