The housekeeper puffed herself up like a broody hen. ‘What if something happens to her over there?’ she asked. ‘What if she gets some horrible tropical disease?’
He gave her a bored look before turning back to his papers. ‘They do have doctors over there, you know.’
Mrs Baker’s voice choked up. ‘What if she decides to stay there?’ she asked. ‘What if she never comes back?’
Edoardo drew in a short breath and glowered at her. ‘Why should that be of any concern to me?’ he asked. ‘I’m glad to see the back of her.’ Liar, he thought. You miss her so much, you’re almost sick with it.
‘You’re not,’ Mrs Baker said, speaking his thoughts out loud. ‘You’re miserable. You’re like a bear with a sore head. You’re not the same man since she was down here with you. Even Fergus is off his food.’
Edoardo picked up his pen again and started clicking it for something to do with his hands. He wasn’t sure he liked being that transparent. Next thing, he would be made a fool of in the press for being heartbroken over his failed relationship with Bella. That would be the last straw. He was not going to be painted as a lovesick fool, not if he could help it. ‘That’s because Fergus is old,’ he said.
‘Yes, well, one day you’ll be old too,’ Mrs Baker said. ‘And what will you have to show for your life? A fancy house and more money than you can poke a stick at, but no one to mop your brow when you have one of your headaches, no one to smile at you and tell you they love you more than life itself. A blind man could see Bella isn’t capable of spilling her guts to the press. She’s open with people, but that’s what’s so loveable about her. She wears her heart on her sleeve. No, that leak to the press was the work of her mother.’ She slapped the paper on his desk. ‘You can read all about Claudia Alvarez’s exclusive interview on her daughter’s charity efforts on page twenty.’
Edoardo frowned as he looked at the paper lying on his desk. He had already considered the possibility that Bella wasn’t responsible for that leak to the press. He knew what journalists were like. And, yes, Mrs Baker was right; Bella was like an open book when it came to her feelings.
But it didn’t change a thing.
He didn’t want to expose himself to the pain of loving someone, especially someone like Bella. She was flighty and impulsive. How long would it be before she fell in love with someone else? He would feel abandoned all over again. He couldn’t bear to feel that wretched feeling of having no one—no one at all.
He was fine on his own. He was used to it.
He would get used to it again.
Sure, it had been miserably lonely around here without her. The house seemed too big for him now; the empty rooms mocked him as he wandered past. His bedroom was the worst. He could barely stand to be in there with the lingering trace of Bella’s perfume haunting him. The long, wide corridors echoed with his solitary footsteps. It even felt colder in spite of him cranking up the heating. Even Fergus kept looking up at him with a hangdog look on his face, reminding him that all the colour and joy had gone out of his life. He had sent it out of his life. He had sent Bella away when the one thing he wanted was to have her close.
He raised his gaze back to the housekeeper’s. ‘Don’t you have work to do?’ he asked.
Mrs Baker pursed her lips. ‘That girl loves you,’ she said. ‘And you love her but you’re too darned stubborn to tell her. You’re even too stubborn to admit it to yourself.’
‘Will that be all?’ he asked with an arched brow.
‘She’s probably crying herself to sleep every night,’ she said. ‘Her father would be spinning in his grave; I’m sure of it. He thought you would do the right thing by her. But you’ve abandoned her when she needed you the most.’
He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘I don’t want to listen to this.’ I know I’ve been a stupid fool. I don’t need my housekeeper to tell me. I need time to think how I’m going to dig my way out of this and win Bella back. Is there a way to win her back? Isn’t it already too late?
Mrs Baker’s eyes watered up. ‘This is her home,’ she said. ‘She belongs here.’
‘I know,’ he said as he expelled a long, uneven breath. ‘That’s why I’m sending her the deeds. The lawyers are sorting it out as we speak.’
Mrs Baker’s eyes rounded. ‘You’re not going to live here any more?’