She was right. Before, everything had always seemed so fixed, so definite—his failings, his relationship with his father and Ciro—so that for years he’d just been blindly following the script. But already he knew that he had changed, and was still changing.
Leaning forward, he tilted her face up to his and kissed her softly. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you, Imma. You’re a remarkable woman, and I am so very sorry for how I hurt you.’
Her eyes were bright. ‘I know. But I meant what I said. I really have forgiven you.’ She hesitated, her fingers trembling against his arms. ‘And that’s why I want you to have the business now. I don’t want to wait a year. When we get back to the villa I’ll sign it over to you.’
He stared at her in stunned silence. It was the reason he had married her. He had turned his life upside down to pursue this very moment. Only now that it was here he realised he no longer cared about it.
‘I don’t want it.’
As the words left his mouth his body loosened, his shoulders lifted free of some invisible burden. Ciro could rage all he liked. He was done with revenge.
Now it was her turn to stare. ‘I don’t understand.’
He pulled her closer. ‘Getting even was never really my thing, cara. And anyway, I’m too good-looking to be the bad guy.’
Watching her mouth curve into a smile, he felt a rush of relief. He’d hurt her, and he couldn’t change the past. But if he let her keep the business then he could at least look her in the eye.
Only what did that mean for their ‘arrangement’?
His pulse slowed. Theoretically, there was no reason for them to stay married. Or rather for him to stay married. But the thought of not waking up next to her made something tighten in his chest for one very obvious reason.
He hadn’t finished with her, and he knew from the pulse beating in her throat that she felt the same way.
His eyes locked with hers. ‘But I still want you to have this year. Actually, I want us both to have this year. We can work on ourselves.’ He smiled. ‘Or, better still, each other.’
And at the end of the year she would leave and, having had his fill, he would go back to the life he loved. That, after all, was what he wanted—wasn’t it?
Reaching into the back seat, he grabbed a bottle of water.
‘I’m going to top up the radiator—and then I think we should probably go and see my mother.’
* * *
Following his uncle Carlo through the beautiful fifteenth-century apartment, Vicè felt his heartbeat speed up. Carlo had reassured him that Audenzia was doing well, but after what had happened with his father he wanted to see her with his own eyes.
‘This way.’
Carlo pulled open a door, stepping aside as a uniformed maid scurried past, blushing as she caught sight of Vicè.
‘They’re in the salon, and I should warn you that emotions are running high,’ he said dryly to Imma. ‘They both dote on Vicè—’
Vicè grinned. ‘Understandably...’
‘Inexplicably was the word I was seeking.’ Carlo winked at Imma. ‘But when you walk in the room, mia cara, I fear that things could get quite out of hand.’
‘It’s what always happens to me,’ Vicè said softly, pretending to wince as Imma punched him on the arm.
He glanced sideways into her beautiful face. He still couldn’t quite believe he’d had that conversation with her in the car. He had never talked about his relationship with his father to anyone. Never admitted his worst fears. Not even to Ciro or his mother.
Especially not to Ciro or his mother.
But talking to Imma had been so easy. She had listened and she hadn’t judged. She had talked gently and calmly, almost as if he’d been in some kind of accident.
He certainly felt as if he’d been in one—except there were no physical injuries...just the pain of grief and the ache of loss.
But now he felt lighter. She had helped reconcile the past for him, and for the first time in months he could think about his father without a suffocating rush of guilt or rage or misery.
‘Vicenzu, my darling boy. And Imma too—this is so wonderful!’