“Did Gio ask you here?” Fury flared in her gaze at the thought. “Christ, I told him never again. I told him he wasn’t to breathe a word to you and he swore…”
Raphael pulled her roughly into his arms, his heart beating so hard he could hear it in his ears. “Dio mio, calm yourself. Gio didn’t ask me. I came of my own accord. I came to ask him about you. I came because I couldn’t…” He drank her in. “Pia, are you sure you’re not ill?”
“Stop saying that. You don’t have to make me feel worse than I already do. I know I look a fright…”
“Get over yourself, will you? You are beautiful to me. Always. But it’s true that you look like you’ll break apart if I press hard.”
Some of his panic must have come across because she sighed. A wariness entered her eyes. Still, she stepped back from him. “I’m not ill. Just…” A shrug and she looked away. “What are you doing here? Please Raphael, just for once, respect me enough to leave me alone.” Sudden tears filled her eyes. “Seeing you like this…you have no idea how hard it is for me. I have some things to think through, some decisions to make. Then we can talk, si?”
He inclined his head. A lead weight sat on his chest. “But I have something to say to you. Will you hear me out?”
“Si. As long as you give your word that you won’t touch me.”
He swallowed the punch it was to his chest and nodded. “Bene.”
Taking her hands in his, he pulled her to a sofa, then released them. Then went on his knees in front of her. The tears she had valiantly tried to hold back fell over onto her cheeks. And she sniffled.
“Please, bella. Do not cry. That I did this to you…” Even his throat was burning now. “Pia, I adore you from the bottom of my heart.”
She shook her head and he said, “Just one chance, Pia. Let me finish. I…yes, it was Gio who…maneuvered me into this. You were right. He dangled everything I wanted in front of me. I resisted as long as I could and it was hell for me. But the night of his heart attack, I just couldn’t deny it anymore. You were right. I felt the inevitable weight of your responsibility on my shoulders. With Gio looking like he did… I couldn’t walk away anymore.
“Everything you said about it is true. But Pia, even if he hadn’t, there was a connection between us from the first moment. Not just attraction, cara mia. Something that went deeper than that. Even with my jaded view of the world, I knew how incredible you were, how giving. Giovanni was right when he said I needed you in my life, just not the other way around. Only I didn’t want to acknowledge the connection. I didn’t want to see anything deeper at that time. How could I? I have never known a connection like that before.
“Given enough time, I would like to believe that I’d have come around to the same idea. I have to believe that I would have recognized how precious you are. Seen how much happiness, how much peace you brought into my life. Your love humbles me, cara mia, reminds me of what is important in life. Strips everything from me and leaves the core of me stronger. And I would spend the entirety of our lives, an eternity, making you happy, if you would give me another chance.”
Breaking his word, he kissed her knuckles. He buried his face in her chest. Her heart thudded near his mouth, the scent of her settling deep in his pores. With Pia, he was home. “I love everything about you, cara mia. Every inch of you. Every smile of yours.”
“I want to believe you, Raphael. I missed you so much too.”
It was as if a weight lifted from his chest. He pressed kisses from her wrists to her shoulders and then across her neck, joy filling him to the brim. “Then marry me, Pia. Marry me because I can’t go another day without seeing you, without holding you, without kissing you. Marry me because I want to be yours. Pia’s Raphael—when I’m with you, I’m the best of myself.”
When her tears gave way to sobs and she fell into his arms, Raphael held her tight and uttered useless phrases for he could not bear her pain.
“You made me doubt myself. You made me hate myself. Love should not do that,” she whispered, between hiccups.