He made a low noise, something too close to a growl. “I don’t understand how you could put up with a husband who treats you as I do. What does that say about you?”
But she laughed. That silky brown hair spilled all around her, and she laughed.
“It says that I’m in love with an idiot,” she replied, still coming closer to him, so that he had to worry that he might not keep his hands to himself. That he might give in to that fire in him all over again. “And I’ve been waiting him out.”
He wanted to order her to keep her distance, but he couldn’t do it.
And he had brought this upon himself. He should never have allowed her to convince him that they should bring sex back into their marriage. He’d known better.
But the truth was, he had spent three gruesome weeks alone in Shanghai and had been weak with longing. Weak for her.
Always and only for her.
And at first, Ranieri had been confident he could keep himself under control. Treating sex between them like it was no more than scratching an itch couldn’t last. He’d expected that she would object. It would be too much for her. He was certain she would break down one of these nights and demand more. Demand better.
But he’d been the one who’d broken last night. He’d happened upon her in the kitchen, rosy from the hot tub’s heat, wrapped in nothing but a soft robe, like a fantasy he hadn’t known he’d had. He had kept her in his bed, making love to her again and again. Until this morning, when he’d realized there was no part of him that wanted to leave her in that bed.
There was no part of him that wanted to leave her at all.
That was when he’d understood, in the starkest possible terms, the magnitude of his mistake.
There had only been one possible thing left to do. Only one out, and he’d taken it. And had then spent the day in crisis talks with the Schuyler Corporation’s Board of Directors.
And yet the only thing he could seem to think about was Annika.
Who’d been waiting him out all this time.
“I love you, Ranieri,” she said again, her voice that much fiercer now that she was closer. Her green eyes ablaze.
And she didn’t stop when she reached him. She kept right on going until she rested her palms on his chest.
He reached up to pull her hands away from him, because touching led nowhere manageable. He’d tried that. But he found himself holding her hands instead. Cradled in his, as if this was a proposal instead of him ending what should never have been started.
Not that Annika seemed to be getting the message.
“I think I’ve loved you as long as I’ve known you,” she told him, her words seeming to collide with all the places hehurtinside. “It’s not an accident that you’re the only man I’ve been with. Youarethe only man, Ranieri. The only man I ever thought about in all my life, so how could it ever have been anyone but you?”
And even now, when he should know better, there was that current of deep male satisfaction deep inside him. Because he couldn’t help liking that she thought such things.
But surely that proved that he was exactly who he thought he was. Just another Furlan. Full of himself and unworthy of anyone else’s love and regard.
Fear and awe in the corporate world had sustained him this long. Surely he should need nothing more.
“You deserve far better than me,” he managed to grit out.
“And you deserve to believe that you are capable of loving another person without destroying them,” she said, her voice intense, her green eyes steady. “Because Ranieri. Listen to me.You are.”
He felt something move through him, like a deep shudder. As if he was breaking into pieces when he knew he wasn’t. Because she was holding him—with that gaze, with her hands in his.
She was holding him, and because of that, he was whole.
Even when he didn’t feel as if he ought to have been.
“You visited my father every single day you were in this city,” Annika continued, her voice low and fierce. “He was in a coma. There was no possible advantage to be gained from visiting him. No corporate reason that would explain it. I suspect you loved him. Because you went and sat with him. Every day you could, Ranieri. For five years.”
He had done that. And had explained it away a thousand different times. He’d spoken of respect. Of proper behavior.
He would never have called it love. He had no experience with love, in any case.