Unable to stop seeing her body crushed beneath a pile of rubble, her dead eyes looking up at him, the nightmare vision playing on a loop in his head, he barely registered what she was saying.
‘If it wasn’t for the baby…’ for me,the voice in his head condemned ‘…you wouldn’t even be here today.’ In danger and it was all down to him. He hadn’t been there for her; he had never been there for her.
Just as he’d never been there for Carl.
She flinched as though he had struck her. ‘I am aware of that,’ she said, hugging the crushing hurt to herself. Did he think she needed that pointed out?
‘Things need to change. Your safety is all that matters. You must come first.’
She stood there, knowing he meant the baby, but letting herself imagine for a moment how it might feel if the fierce protective emotion in his dark eyes was really for her, and when the moment passed she felt flat and empty. ‘Some things you can’t change.’ You couldn’t make someone love you and it was about time she started dealing with facts.
‘I have to go.’
‘Of course you do,’ she said flatly.
‘To the airport to say…things I need to say to my brother.’
‘Well, don’t expect me to be here when you get back because I’m going to keep my baby safe and I don’t feel safe here, with you.’ Like arrows, she aimed the words at his broad back.
Did he flinch at the impact? She didn’t know, but she hoped so.
Dante got out of the car in front of the airport terminal and realised he didn’t remember driving there at all. Now that couldn’t be a good thing, could it?
As he strode in he glanced at the departure board. He had just caught his brother. He dodged some airport officials bearing down on him and tried not to notice a group sharing their experiences with a camera crew.
He almost made it.
‘And here we have the Crown Prince himself, who was in the thick of it,’ an enterprising journalist said, shoving a microphone in his face. ‘Would you say this has been a lucky escape, sir?’ He started to trot as it became obvious that Dante was not slowing down. ‘The buildings here are pretty robust.’
‘And the people,’ Dante responded, walking on.
‘The rebuilding,’ the guy called after him.
Rebuilding.Dante’s pace slowed for the first time as the scene with Beatrice flashed before his eyes. He had not rebuilt; he had demolished the progress they had made in a matter of minutes.
Carl, who was scanning a laptop that lay across his knees, looked up when Dante entered, closing the door on his bodyguard who stood outside. He set aside the computer and got up, walking straight across to his brother, wrapping him in a brotherly hug, which Dante returned.
Carl stepped back and, though half a head shorter than his younger brother, retained his grip on Dante’s shoulders.
‘Thank you for this.’
Carl looked bemused by the warm words. ‘For what?’
‘For coming back. And I’m sorry. I should have said it before, but I am truly.’
Carl shook his head. ‘I hate to repeat myself, but for what?’
‘For not being there for you. I should have had your back.’
Carl looked astonished. ‘But you did.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘You were my younger brother. I couldn’t burden you with my problems, with the emphasis on “my”.It took me a long time to get to that point. I was either going to accept the status quo or take that leap of faith, and you know me, I’m not like you. I was never one to put my head over the parapet and risk having it knocked off. I was the “toe the line for a quiet life” son.’
Though Dante looked thoughtful as he listened to this ruthless self-assessment, his expression and emotions were locked firmly in self-condemnation mode.
‘I should have known how unhappy you were.’