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When he had first arrived at the apartment, and she had tried to apologise, he had been ungracious. His head had been filled with memories of the hurt and anger he had felt when she’d walked into her room at Villa Aphrodite and made a mockery of his gift. But now it was different, now they were both calmer…and the least he owed her was a chance to explain. He held her gaze, willing her to go on.
‘The flowers were special, Tino, very special, and so was the thought behind them. I can’t believe I didn’t realise they were your gift to me.’
The way she was looking at him now, with her eyes so wide and troubled, touched something deep inside him, and feelings welled up from some hidden place so that he wanted to go to her and hold her in his arms.
‘I couldn’t believe you would do something like that for me, that anyone would.’
She made a helpless gesture, as if she was hunting for the right words with the same lack of success he had run up against when he had first arrived. ‘Won’t you sit down with me?’ he suggested gently.
She came to then, and stared at him with sharper focus. ‘No—I’d better not. And, Tino, that toast we made—’ She frowned as she looked at her glass. ‘When I said, ‘‘to us’’, of course I meant ‘‘to us’’ independently.’
‘Of course.’ He kept his expression neutral. ‘Us. Independently,’ he added dryly.
This awkwardness between them was new. They could rage at each other, or deal analytically with each other across a boardroom table quite comfortably, but this tiptoeing around each other was like starting over, working through something very carefully to find out if it could be safe…
‘I can’t bear to be hurt, Tino.’
The frank confession made him doubly alert. She was looking at him, totally oblivious to the fact that she had her arms wrapped around her waist in a defensive gesture.
‘I have to protect myself.’
‘From me?’
She looked away.
‘Lisa, please believe me… I do know what you’re trying to say. Trust doesn’t come in a rush, it grows slowly with time…and that’s the same for everyone, not just you and me.’
She flinched at that. ‘There is no you and me, Tino. There never can be. We’re no good for each other. Surely you must know that. You need someone strong.’
‘How do you know what I need?’
‘I heard you cry out in the night, Tino. I may not know much about you, but that night proved to me that you’re not the product of an ordinary childhood.’
‘An ordinary childhood?’ he repeated her words softly. ‘Whatever that might be.’
‘I don’t pretend to know what happened to you, Tino. I only know what I see in front of me now, and what I heard that night when you cried out in terror like a little boy who was very frightened.’
He looked at her searchingly. ‘No one has ever told me I do that before.’
‘Maybe you’ve never done it before.’
‘Maybe I’ve never felt safe enough to do it before.’ He stopped. He’d gone too far and automatically pulled back. ‘Truce?’ Now it was his turn to feel awkward.
‘Truce,’ Lisa agreed softly, ‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered, as if that was all he had on his mind, ‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘I never thought that you would.’
He reached out, and then stopped himself, clenching his hands to prevent himself from weakening. After another period of silence had elapsed and the tension between them had subsided, he tried again. ‘You say we’re no good for each other? I think you’re wrong.’
‘You would think that, but then you always believe you’re right.’
He was relieved to see that as she made the comment it almost brought a smile to her lips.
Neither of them moved for a while, but then she surprised him, coming to sit down as he had hoped she would on the sofa at his side. For a moment he thought she had opened her heart to the possibility that there was another way than to live without love, but he was soon disillusioned. She had only come close to him to drive her point home…
Clenching both her fists, she pressed them into her chest so hard her knuckles turned white. ‘There’s nothing in here, Tino.’
He couldn’t bear to see the look on her face. ‘No!’ Was that voice his? Without thinking, he dragged her to him.
