She pressed her lips against his throat. A peace filled her—a peace she had never known.
‘I love you,’ she told him. And knew it was the truth. The only truth.
His arm tightened around her.
‘After all I did to you?’
‘It’s gone now. Over. Washed away.’ She lifted her head to look down at him. ‘I understand now the demons that haunted you. Made you think me like that woman. And I’m not proud of what I did—but I didn’t do it for myself. I swear to you I did it for my brother’s sake. That’s why I paid you that money—to buy back my self-respect.’
Her eyes clouded.
‘I thought you worthless. Spoilt, arrogant, selfish. And I hated you. But I hated myself more—because I had fallen in love with you despite everything you had done to me. So I knew…’ Her breath caught painfully. ‘I knew I had to change my life completely. When I saw that photo in the charity leaflet, of the boy sleeping rough in a doorway, something about him caught at me so powerfully. And I knew then that this was what I must do. That it was the only way I could heal, find some meaning to my existence from then on. But I never dreamt—how could I?—that you could have been such a boy. I never dreamt, that I would find you here—the real you.’
A troubled look crossed his face.
‘I am everything you thought me, Portia. Spoilt, arrogant and selfish. I am guilty of everything you accused me of. I wanted you—and I wanted you on my terms and for my purposes. I wanted—just as you said—one more fleeting affair, one more sexual indulgence of the kind I had filled my life with. But justice found me, Portia. Found me, punished me, and mocked me.’
He paused.
‘I denied what was happening to me. Denied that I felt anything more for you than some kind of endless craving. But however much I had you, I wanted more, and still more. And I finally realised just how dangerous you were to me. Because I thought you a woman to despise—a woman like Mercedes de Carvello. So—so I ended it.’
His arm tightened around her shoulder, betraying his tension.
‘I thought I’d ended it—but it hadn’t finished with me. You went on echoing in me. I could not silence you. I reached for other women, but I could not touch them. I wanted only you. A woman who’d sold herself to me.’
He took a heavy, ragged breath.
‘But I didn’t care. I didn’t care—I just wanted you. And I knew it was bad inside me—very bad—the day you came, throwing your cheque in my face. I had just smashed my fist into the face of a man who had insulted you. I knew then just how much danger I was in. Loving a woman who hated me.’
His eyes gazed unseeing at the low ceiling.
‘Then you came calling, and held up to me a mirror that made me realise I had damned myself—and lost all hope of you. Lost all hope of everything. My life was as empty, as worthless as a dried husk. Then…’ He paused. ‘Then Father Tomaso got in touch, as he always does twice a year, to try and get me to come back her
e. I never had. Never. Not since the day I threw Mercedes de Carvello from my hotel room. But this time…this time I came back.’
She pressed her cheek against his chest, just holding him.
‘You came home, Diego,’ she said softly. ‘And I was here, waiting for you—but I did not know it. Waiting for the real Diego Saez—not just the boy who slept rough in doorways, but the man now, who gives back so much of his wealth to those who still need it.’
He scooped her tight against him.
‘They can have my wealth—but you—you, my Portia—you have my heart.’
‘It’s all I want,’ she answered.
Salton lay bathed in sunlight. The honey stone was warm, with sunshine dazzling from the myriad windows.
Portia stood on the south lawn, Diego’s arm around her. She leant into him, tilting her head so that her wide brimmed hat was not crushed. A happiness so profound that she could not measure it filled her completely.
There was no marquee. The late-summer weather was too fine. The wedding breakfast was laid out on tables in the dappled shade of the oak trees. She took a sip of champagne from the flute in her hand.
A vision in sunshine-yellow was making a beeline for her, champagne glass waving precariously.
‘You see—I told you, didn’t I?’ an exuberant, if slightly inebriated Susie Winterton cried volubly as she came up to them. ‘Didn’t I just tell you that he was exactly what you needed?’ She beamed up at Diego, standing so close to Portia. ‘I told her, you know—straight after the opera! I told her you were just what the doctor had ordered—and I told her you’d marry her and whisk her away to your fantastic polo ranch in Argentina!’
She sighed romantically.
‘It’s Maragua, Susie. And it’s in Central America, not South America,’ said Portia.