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responsibility, but she was part of my life for a long time and I felt
that I had to help her,' Rio stated harshly.
'So what did you do with her?'
'I took her to the foundation hospital and contacted her family. Two
days after that Christabel signed herself into a rehabilitation clinic.
She's still there.'
Recalling all the nasty thoughts she had had about the other woman,
Holly felt sincerely ashamed. Christabel had genuine problems that she
needed help to cope with and Rio had done the right thing in giving her
his support.
'Did she go off the rails because you ditched her?' Holly mumbled uneasily.
'No. Her sister, Gwen, was able to tell me that her drug and alcohol
abuse had begun well before she met me.' His darkly handsome features
serious, Rio released his breath slowly. 'I did think she drank too much
sometimes but I'm afraid I didn't recognise it as a problem and she
didn't confide in me. However, her sister was very frank...'
'Did she blame you for Christabel's problems?'
'No, far from it. Apparently, Christabel was confused about her sexual
orientation when she was a teenager. More recently, she was terrified
that she was losing her looks and
struggling to keep an increasingly heavy drug habit hidden,' Rio revealed.
'So where did you fit into her life?'
'According to Gwen, Christabel saw me as a financial security blanket
for her future.' Rio grimaced at that tag. 'My defection faced her with
realities she had refused to deal with and now she's having to deal with
them. Her sister's a psychologist and she says that's much more
healthy.'
'I heard that she had recently lost out on some big modelling contract
as well,' Holly remarked uncomfortably.
'Gwen mentioned that too. Said there'd been rumours about Christabel's
lifestyle. Naturally. People talk.'
Holly stood there several feet from him, struggling to
face her own reality, but it was a daunting one. She had
fudged Rio without even giving him the chance to defend
himself and she was ashamed that she had had so little faith
in him.
'I'm sorry...I'm so sorry I just walked out the way I did,' Holly
muttered shakily. 'I was really jealous of Christabel and what I thought
you must've had with her. I felt like second-best, and then when I met
her down at the Priory-'
'I wish you'd told me about that encounter-'
'She said she wanted you back and that I'd come between you, and that
really upset me-'
'Of course it did because you don't think enough of yourself,' Rio
breathed not quite steadily, reaching out for her hands and drawing her
closer. 'And that's my fault-'
'No, it's not,' Holly sighed, her hands quivering in his. 'If I'd
mentioned Christabel's threats then maybe you would've understood why I
was so sensitive about her-'
'There was never any chance of a reconciliation. But if I'd been more
honest with you you'd have found that easier
176
to accept.' Brilliant dark eyes scanning her troubled face his hands
tightened their grip on hers. "The truth is,, I didn't know what hit me
when I met you. I couldn't think of anything else but you and I told
myself I was unsettled after what had happened with Christabel-'
'Naturally you were...I mean, that's OK,' Holly hastened to reassure him
because she was so grateful he was holding her hands and still talking
to her after the manner in which she had left their home.
'No, it wasn't OK, cara. I wasn't giving you what you deserved. I don't
know when or how I fell in love with you but I was in deep very fast.
You must've noticed that I couldn't let you out of my sight...did you
think that was normal?'
'Normal? I felt the same way.' And all the time her mind was reaching
back to what he had said just before that. 'I fell in love with you'.
Had he really said that or had she imagined that he had said that?
'There was the most explosive attraction between us right from the start
and the lust I could handle,' Rio asserted wryly. 'But I couldn't
acknowledge that I was seriously involved because that would've meant
admitting that I was this pretty stupid and potentially shallow guy who
almost married a woman he didn't really love-'
'You didn't really love Christabel?'
'I believed I loved her but we were never close, not the way you and I
are, but I didn't know what that closeness was until I found it with
you, cara.'' Rio confessed, dark golden eyes troubled. 'I got over
Christabel too quickly. And it might seem strange to you but I was
ashamed of that...and it made me very wary about what I was feeling for
you.'
'Yeah...you told me you liked me-'
'But the cool-guy act went out the window when you
disappeared,' Rio broke in feelingly. 'I was tearing my hair out. I was
desperate. I couldn't work. I couldn't sleep. I was haunting homeless
shelters...you just have no idea what I went through the first two weeks
you were missing!' But, gazing up into the over-bright shimmer of those
speaking dark eyes resting with such loving intensity on her face, she
did have an idea and she ached for him even as the first stirrings of
joy began to wing through her.
'Dio mio...I went to hell and back. I was worried sick. I thought I
might never find you or Timothy again-'
'Eventually I would've gone to see a solicitor, but doing that and
talking about a divorce...it would have been so final and I couldn't
face it yet,' Holly confided chokily, her voice breaking up on her as
she realised how near she had come to losing everything she cared about.
Rio wrapped his arms tightly round her and held her so close that she
could hardly breathe, but at that instant it was what she needed more
than anything else. 'I'd have fought a divorce. There's nothing I
wouldn't have done to get you and Timothy back,' he swore above her
head. 'I'd have begged you to come home. Don't you realise how happy
I've been with you? Couldn't you feel that...see it?' And she had felt
it, seen it so often, she recognised with a shamed stirring of regret.
He had been so caring, so tender and romantic, but without the words of
love she had been afraid to simply trust in his behaviour. 'You said you
liked me...and that bit about getting fond of me,' she reminded him. It
was so unemotional and it was like you saying that you could never, ever
fall in love with someone like me.' Rio winced and looked down at her
with more than a hint of embarrassment. 'I just didn't know what else to
say to you. It wasn't meant the way you took it. I was very wary of that
word "love" that soon after breaking up with Christabel--'
178
'And you deliberately misled me about that-'
'Yes, because I sensed you'd say no otherwise. Didn't you start
wondering what planet I was from when I asked you to marry me only a few
days after I had met you?' Rio muttered with rueful self-mockery. 'I
jumped on the first excuse I got to hang on to you and Timothy. Where is
he, by the way?
'
'In bed...you can see him if you want.' Holly looked up at him, her
heart in her eyes, for she was so happy with what he was telling her
about his feelings. He wasn't trying to hide anything now. He was
admitting that he had been confused and acting out of character but
letting her know that his most driving motivation had been to keep her
in his life. 'I love you so much.'
'I love you too, tesoro mio.'
Holly took him upstairs to see Timothy, who was still awake. His lashes
lifted on sleepy eyes and he stared at them. Then her son sat up and
with sudden startling energy tried to claw his way up the side of the
cot into standing position. What was more, what he had often tried but
never yet succeeded at, actually worked on this occasion.
