‘Because of her? Because she hurt you so very badly?’ Lily guessed, cupping his face in her hands and kissing him tenderly. ‘I knew there must have been something—someone who had made you want to lock away your feelings.’
Marco removed one of her hands from his face and slowly kissed each finger.
‘It wasn’t Olivia’s fault—not really. My parents were caring, but of the old school. Physical intimacy wasn’t something they encouraged. Such behaviour wasn’t something they considered princely. When my governess took me down from the nursery to see them before I went to bed I had to bow to my mother and shake hands with my father.’
Lily’s soft, compassionate, ‘Oh, you poor little boy!’ was all the balm that childhood ache needed.
‘My governess and my school taught me that emotions were something that had to be controlled, not given in to. As a future prince I must be in control of them, not the other way around. I learned that emotions were dangerous. They certainly made me feel awkward, and contemptuous of the weakness of that awkwardness whilst I was growing up. Looking back now, knowing how I feel about you, I can see so much more clearly why Olivia might have wanted to rebel against that upbringing—and hers was much the same as mine. I should have been kinder to her—more understanding. What made it worse was that the woman in charge of the model agency that had hired her pretended to be on my side. She assured me that Olivia would be safe, and because of what I believed to be my right to having my opinions treated as important I was stupid and arrogant enough not to even question that she might be lying to me—which she was.’
That still galled him, Lily could tell. And why not? It would gall any man of pride. Marco was a proud man, and in her opinion he had a right to that pride, she decided lovingly. There was more than injured pride in his voice, though—much more. There was also pain and regret and guilt, and it made Lily’s heart ache for him.
‘She procured young models for men under the guise of finding them work.’
‘And that was why you thought what you did about me?’
‘Yes,’ Marco admitted. ‘I told myself that you were two of a kind and kept on telling myself that—even when deep inside I knew you were nothing like her. But by then, of course, I had another and far more personal reason for not wanting to trust you. So I punished you for my mistakes and my own weakness. I misjudged you in so many different ways—over Pietro, over Anton—because I wanted and needed to misjudge you. It was easier and safer than acknowledging what I really felt about you. I thought I was being strong, but in reality I was being weak.’
‘Not weak, Marco. You could never be weak. You were doing what you had taught yourself to do. What loving Olivia and losing her in such a terrible way had taught you to do,’ Lily told him sympathetically.
Marco shook his head.
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t love her. At least not in the way that you mean. She was more like a sister to me than a future wife. I have only loved and will only love one woman, Lily, and that woman is you.’
He meant it, Lily could see.
‘I was so afraid of loving you,’ she admitted. ‘I was afraid of being like my mother and loving a man who would only hurt me. And when you were so contemptuous of me, when you wouldn’t believe me …’
‘I hurt you,’ Marco groaned, kissing her again. ‘I hurt you because I was locked in a world where my emotions weren’t allowed to exist. But you aroused them, and when you did I had to reject what you were making me feel. I had to tell myself that I couldn’t trust you because I knew I couldn’t trust myself to resist you.’
‘But you saved me from Anton even though you didn’t trust me.’
‘You were so afraid. I couldn’t turn my back on you.’
‘And that is the man you really are, Marco. A man who can’t turn his back on those in need even when he believes he has very good reason to reject them.’
‘You give me credit where I don’t deserve it.’
‘No. You don’t give yourself credit here, and you do deserve it.’