Into her head came a memory from Rome, when she had first arrived there. How glad she had been that Malcolm had never broken her heart. And how she’d known she must make sure that she never fell for a man who did not return her feelings, who did not want to make his life with her.
Yet I’ve done exactly that!
Salvatore had never asked for love, nor offered it, and he would not welcome or want it any more than he would their baby. A real marriage, let alone fatherhood, had never been part of his plan. Just a year of her life, a passionate affair—and nothing more.
She felt tears sting her eyes, heard his name a cry of heartbreak on her lips...a heartbreak that nothing could mend. For there was only one thing that she could do—that must be done. Cost her what it might.
I have to set him free and never tell him why. It’s all that I can do for him.
Her silence must be her gift—the only gift of love she could give him. And he had given her a gift too—a gift he would never know.
Instinctively, protectively, her hand splayed out over her rounding midriff, her eyes welling with tears. She had been given such a gift—the gift of new life, growing within her... But she was paying such a price for it. To have Salvatore’s baby—but not Salvatore.
Her eyes closed in anguish and the pent-up tears seeped down her cheeks.
Unstoppable.
Salvatore stood in Lana’s bedroom at the palazzo. His mother’s room. Stared at the silver tray on the dressing table that had once been his mother’s. Stared at the diamond ring lying on that silver tray, catching the sunlight from the window. The ring he had given the woman he had married. Who had now walked out on him, leaving her betrothal ring behind, just as she had left behind all the couture clothes she’d bought as his wife.
She had just...gone.
Why?
The question burned in him. She’d gone without warning, without explanation—without any reason! His calls to her had gone unanswered, gone to voicemail. She had never returned them, just as she had ignored his texts. There had been nothing—absolutely nothing.
Lana had not just disappeared—she had refused all contact.
Why?
The brutal question slammed again in his head. Why had she told his housekeeper she had decided to fly up to Milan to join him there and then, at Pisa airport, where she had been driven, had vanished into Departures. All contact lost.
He turned on his heel. There were no answers here. He drove to Rome, the devil on his tail, not wanting to be stuck in the middle of Tuscany. Had she returned to London? And if so, why?
When he was in Rome she made contact—but not with him. He got a call from his London lawyer, telling him she was filing for divorce and would not be taking a penny of their prenup agreement. Giving no reason for why she had left him as she had.
Frustration seized him, emotions writhed in him, but he did not know what they were—knew only that they were tormenting him like the biting of venomous snakes. He would fly to London, get answers from her—demand them!
But before he could book his flight he was given his answer. Courtesy of a visitor to his apartment in Rome—the very last person on earth he’d expected to see.
Giavanna.
Lana glanced one more time around the flat, checking everything was neat and tidy for the prospective purchaser about to look it over. She’d put it on the market the day after getting back to London—and already there was interest. She was relieved. She needed to sell as soon as possible, for the best price she could. Then she’d pay off the swingeing mortgage and head out of London with whatever was left.
She’d find somewhere to start over, where she’d stay for the rest of her life. Just her and her baby. The way it had to be. Living her life without Salvatore.
She tried to tell herself that her marriage—her time with Salvatore—would have ended anyway, just as Salvatore had planned. Her discovery that she was pregnant had only ended it sooner, that was all. But however much she told herself that, it made no difference to the pain she felt at losing him.
Yet she knew, with a chill inside her that ate into her bones, that a worse pain might have faced her. A worse destiny.
If I’d told him I was pregnant and he’d felt obliged to keep our marriage going, for then baby’s sake, then—oh, dear God—I’d have ended up like his mother! Married to a man I loved—a man who did not love me...
It would have been worse than anything!
No... She felt her heart clench. This was the only way—selling up, clearing out. Making a new home for herself. A new life. In the time to come, in the long, long years ahead, her baby would be her comfort and her joy.
All that I’ll have of Salvatore—
The sudden sound of the entry phone broke her stricken thoughts. With a start, she went out into the external hallway to admit the estate agent and her prospective buyer.