They were alone. Even the bees seemed to have drifted away, and Dulcie could hear the nearness of him beating in her blood.
She cleared her throat. ‘What are you doing here?’
He met her gaze, and a cold shiver scraped down her spine, and yet it burned. ‘I find being outside calms me.’
Her pulse stumbled. ‘I meant in England. In Cambridge.’ Her face tensed and she covered her mouth with her hands. ‘It is Edoardo. Is he—?’
Ettore took a step forward, his forehead creasing. ‘No, he’s fine. Or he was when I spoke to him an hour ago when I landed.’ His face tightened. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.’
‘I thought something had happened to him.’
Her shock and panic had morphed into an anger that was audible in her voice and for a moment she thought it would spark a similar anger in Ettore. But he didn’t react. Instead, he stared past her to a clump of pale pink asphodels. The same asphodels that grew in the gardens of his castle where he had kissed her to the point of helpless oblivion.
‘Something did happen,’ he said finally, and her heart thudded as his eyes found hers, his gaze reaching into her, holding her still.
‘To be more accurate it was someone, not something.Youhappened to him. You wrote my father a letter and because of that letter he and I had a conversation about the past and Edo and my mother. And it helped. It helped me, a lot.’
She breathed in sharply. ‘I’m glad.’ And she was. Even though it had ended between them, she wanted him to be happy.
‘I’m glad too.’ His eyes were hard and intense, and there was a tension in his spine as if he was fighting to stay in control.
‘But not as glad as I am to see you,’ he said then, and maybe it was the simplicity of his words or the softness in his voice but the tears she had been holding back filled her throat and she stumbled backwards, holding up her hand.
‘No. You can’t do this again. I can’t do this again. I’ve changed, and besides we said everything there was to say in Paris.’
He held up his hands like a soldier signalling his desire not to fight.
‘I know we talked in Paris, and everything you said then was true. I lied to you. I let you think that my only reason for wanting to stay married to you was to comfort my father.’
His face stiffened, and he breathed out shakily.
‘But I also lied to myself. Because I wasn’t there for my father. I wasn’t there for the castle or the title or the money. I was there for you.’
Gazing down into Dulcie’s small, still face, Ettore felt breathless with the utter relief of seeing her again, and finally telling her the truth, and nothing but the truth.
He was still wearing the same clothes he’d worn as he walked into Edoardo’s bedroom, because after speaking to his father, he had got back in the SUV and been driven straight back to the private airfield and flown to a different private airfield near Cambridge. And then another car had driven him to the botanical gardens, and he had collared the first person he saw who appeared to be working there.
It had all been so easy up until that point.
This was proving harder. But he was here to fight for Dulcie. To fight for their future.
‘I could have got my lawyers to contact you. But I came to England, to Cambridge, because it was always about you,’ he repeated slowly. ‘The chance to see you, to be with you again. And that’s why I’m here now. Everything else I can live without, but I can’t live without you. I didn’t make that clear in Paris.’
Dulcie was staring at him, her blue eyes wide.
‘What are you saying? That you’re going to give up your job and your castle and your jet and your aristocratic lifestyle to move to England?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
She took a step towards him and even though her face was flushed and there was a smudge of pollen on her cheek, he thought she had never looked more beautiful.
‘You can’t do that. You need to run the estate.’
‘I can do it, and I will. I’ve spoken to my father. Gianni is a very capable manager.’
‘But he’s not you. You understand the finances. You have vision and imagination. And you care about the estate in a different way because it belongs to your family, and it’s your home.’
‘Not without you. It’s just a building and some fields.’
