‘Because since that night only one woman—only one!—has had any meaning for me at all.’
He drew in a breath, a rasp. His hands tightened on the arms of the wheelchair.
‘You, Ariana. The woman I did not want to want. The woman I could no morenotwant,notdesire, than I could not breathe, could not see or hear or taste! The woman who fills the world for me.’
‘You said I was the last woman you would want...’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘I lied. I lied to save my own sorry skin. I lied to make the lie a truth. A truth that had died the first time I set eyes on you.’ He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them. ‘Oh, God, Ariana, I have been the world’s fool! You gave yourself to me in passion and in flame and I threw you away! I lied to myself, and to you, over and over again. Told myself I was glad—dear God—gladthat you had proved my fears of you right, that you had acted out of jealous rage at your innocent cousin!’ His voice changed. ‘I told myself that the only reason I took you to Milan was because of the baby. That that was the only reason we were together.’
‘But there is no baby, Luca. Not any more.’ Her voice was sad.
She looked out to sea. The sun was setting now in a golden orb. Memory came of how she had stood watching the sun over Lake Como when Luca had first taken her to the villa. It seemed a lifetime ago.
‘No. But there is us, Ariana.’
Her gaze came back to him. He was looking at her with something in his face she had never seen before, something that stopped the breath in her lungs.
His voice as he spoke again was low and strained. ‘I’ve screwed up with you from the very first to the very last,’ he said. ‘I have neither hope nor expectation.’ His mouth twisted in a simulacrum of bitter humour. ‘I haven’t even a sound body to offer you.’ Something changed in his eyes. ‘And yet all the same whatever I have, I offer you, Ariana. If any of it should by any chance be of any use or worth or value to you, then it is yours.’
She looked at him as if she had never seen him before. Because the man she saw now had never existed before. The man within the man. The man who had, in a single moment, said the most precious words to her. Precious beyond all measure—because she had never hoped for them. Never dared to hope for them.
Emotion welled within her, rising like a tide long stopped, long held at bay. Now no longer.
‘There is us.’
She felt her throat constrict...her heart crushed within her. The world stopped. She walked up to him, reached out her hand. But not to take his.
‘There is only one part of you that is of any use or worth or value to me,’ she said. ‘And it is this.’
Slowly, carefully, she placed her hand on his chest, where the beat of his heart could be felt. And she felt it now, strong and quickening. Felt his hand lift from the arm of the wheelchair, flash out and close around hers. Her legs buckled and she went down on her knees on the deck, her other hand lifting to his face, cupping his haggard cheek, then dropping away.
Words came, halting and painful, confessing and self-castigating. ‘You kept rejecting me, Luca. Always rejecting me! From that first hideous morning in New York, after the most incredible night of my life. You had swept me off my feet and into your bed, to fall asleep in your arms and dream that in the morning would begin the greatest romance of my life, with a man who was like no other in the world, the one man for me! And then—’ Her voice cracked. ‘To wake and realise you were gone...just gone. You walked out on me, discarded me. And then—oh, God—worse still was what you threw at me. That you had slept with meknowingyou were going back to Italy to marry...’
The words were choking her, but she had to say them—hadto. Because they were gutting her, eviscerating her...
‘And after I stopped your wedding that hatred in you for me, that deadly rage... You did all that you could to have your revenge on me, to destroy me. And you did. And then that nightmare night in Lucca, when I wanted to hit back at you in the only way I could, to rejectyouas you had rejected me...but I couldn’t... I just couldn’t—’
His voice cut across hers. Harsh—but not at her. Never harsh at her any more. ‘Nor could I reject you—though I loathed myself for my weakness!’
She gave a cry that was half a sob, felt tears starting to burn in the backs of her eyes. ‘And you loathed me, too! And you went on and on rejecting me—even when you were forcing yourself to marry me you were telling me that I was the last woman on earth you would ever want! Always rejecting me—always!’
She bowed her head.
‘And I didn’t know why it hurt so much! I’d been rejected so often in my life—by my mother, my father, my grandfather. I was used to it! Your rejection should not have hurt me as it did—so why did it?Why?’
She screwed her eyes shut so tight the tears on her lashes scalded her cheeks.
‘I’ve faced it now—faced what I never wanted to face! That you could only hurt me, Luca, because...’ she swallowed, and it was agony to do so ‘...because I loved you.’ Her voice dropped. ‘Though I cursed myself for it.’
‘And you cursed the day you met me.’ Luca’s voice was heavy. He took a ragged breath, his hand tightening on hers. ‘When you said that to me it was like a knife going into me—though I did not know why. Not then. But now—’
He broke off. Took her other hand, curled defensively in her lap, folded them within his, protectively...cherishingly. She heard the catch in his voice as he spoke again.
‘Be mine. Be mine, Ariana of my heart. As I am yours, loving you as I now know I do—fool that I have been. Be mine as I am yours. Bemine.’ His voice was choked now, and her tears flowed faster yet. ‘And when we conceive in love and joy, in passion and desire, the childwillcome—for the sake of the baby we lost...’
She clutched his hands more tightly, her face uplifted to his. ‘It seemed such a dreadful sign,’ she said, weeping still for so much...for the child that had not been. ‘It seemed like a sign of what had created it in the first place—a sign that it should never have existed, nevercouldexist between us...so toxic, so poisoned...’
He silenced her—silenced her with a kiss so gentle it was like a breath of air, no more. A kiss such as had never been between them till now.