‘More than you can know adore. More than I can ever say.”
‘But Annemarie… ”
‘It was as a thought an attempt at a smoke screen of my feelings.”
‘But I didn’t know what you felt”
‘I lied lot for you, for myself. I lied to myself and convinced mlyself what we had was merely physical but I paid a price.”
‘The baby.”
‘And you. I lost my child and my woman in one fell swoop of my pride in doing things in the wrong Way.”
She struggled into a sitting position needing to touch him. He allowed her to put her arms around him, but he remained distant.
She kissed his hairy, muscular chest, reveling in the scent of his skin and the warmth of it against her lips.
‘I care about you. I need you.”
‘How can you after all I have done?” His voice was hoarse with emotion. ‘Last night you cried so much.” The torment in his voice tore at her heart.
‘Last night… ” She paused unsure how to go on.
‘lt was more than just what you thought about me last summer. It was as if a dam had burst and all the hurt I’d tried to ignore after losing the baby came out.” She drew on the strength of having his warmth surrounding her and spoke a truth that had devastated her. 661 didn’t cry after the baby. There was no one to grieve with.”
‘I would have grieved with you.”
Finally, she believed that was true and it healed wounds that had been gouged by his supposed indifference.
‘I couldn’t forgive you. Not then.” She sighed, wishing he would put his arms around her, and nuzzled his chest some more. ‘And last night everything got all jumbled together.”
His big body shuddered and then two strong arms locked around her in a hold that said he would never let her go.
‘I am glad you finally grieved but I pray God you never know such pain again. It unmans me ” She shifted slightly and felt a growing hardness against her. you don’t feel unmanned.”
‘Do not tease. We have serious things to discuss.”
‘Like what?” she asked, all innocence.
He pulled back and glowered at her. ‘like whether my love is returned, you little torment.”
‘I could never stop loving you, Salvatore.”
‘you tried ”
‘We had it all backwards.”
‘Si. The honeymoon before the courtship.”
She nodded .
‘We have to fix this, to put it right.”
She didn’t know what he meant but she soon learned. Salvatore spent the next week courting her in every way a man could court a woman. He escorted her to the auction treating her like a date leaving the security to his father, who had flown in to attend the sale of the crown jewels.
There were no problems and later she learned the men who had tried to rob Adamo Jewelers had not been fanatics at all. Just regular jewel thieves who’d had a tip-off on the early transport of the crown jewels. They had been caught in a net set by Salvatore’s firm and were now facing long sentences in an Italian prison.
In the meantime Salvatore brought her flowers bought her beautiful jewelry, wrote her poetry that was terrible, but she would never tell him so, and refused to share their bed until after the wedding.