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‘May I come in?’ he asked, promising that if she said no, he’d respect it. But also knowing that he’d come back every single day until she did let him in. Because he knew that he had hurt her. He knew that he didn’t even deserve a second chance, but he desperately hoped for one.
She looked at him for the longest time and just when he thought she was about to refuse him, she frowned.
‘What happened to your mouth?’ she asked, shocked.
He put his thumb to the corner of his mouth where Seb had caught him and smiled ruefully. ‘Nothing I didn’t deserve.’
‘My brother did that to you?’ she demanded furiously before disappearing into the dark hallway of the villa, muttering curses and dire promises of punishment.
‘Maria?’ he asked as he rounded the corner to find her stabbing at her phone in fury.
‘Hold on.’
He frowned in confusion. This wasn’t exactly how he’d planned this to be.
‘Maria...’
Her name on his lips felt like a balm and if she gave him the chance, he’d say it a million times a day.
‘What?’ she said, as he stalked over and gently prised the phone from her hands.
‘I don’t want to talk about Sebastian or anything else right now. I came here to...’
She cocked her head to one side, looking, for just a moment, the way she had that first night in Iondorra. But somehow even more. She just looked and felt so much more he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t explode from it. But she was still distracted by the phone, by Seb, clearly searching for anything that would buy her time, or postpone it, he couldn’t tell. This wasn’t what he’d wanted at all. He turned and stalked back down the corridor.
‘Where are you—?’ her voice came from behind him.
He bent to unhook the front shutters from where she had pinned them back and pulled one closed, before stepping out into the sunshine.
‘We’re starting this again. Because it’s important. I’m going to get this right,’ he said determinedly, pulling the second shutter too and taking a deep breath. He waited, took another. Composed himself and knocked on the door again.
When she pulled open the shutters there was an odd look on her face, part humour, part sadness and a large part confusion.
‘May I come in, Maria?’
This time she seemed to take the time to consider it. And in that moment, his heart nearly stopped in his chest. Because in the long shadows pouring from either side of the hallway, he could see how much bigger their baby had become. And everything in him wanted to drop to his feet, place his hands and head on her bump and beg and plead for her forgiveness.
She moved aside before he had the chance to actually do it and gestured for him to come in.
This time he followed her down the hallway, uncaring of the villa around them, and back out into the sunlight of the most glorious courtyard he’d ever seen. Huge swathes of white and purple flowers created a canopy hanging low above their heads and the sweet smell of honeysuckle rained down upon his senses. He marvelled because this was uniquely Maria. Warm, colourful, sweet...perfect. It was everything that he’d missed the moment he had thrust her from his life.
And he shook his head at the sea of thoughts crashing against his mind. He didn’t know where to start—and feared that it might all come out in a jumbled mess. He had thought this through. Had tried and tested the words over in his mind on his way here. But now, with Maria standing before him...
‘Pull up a pew?’ she asked. It was an olive branch and it was a chance. To start over. To get things right. But that would mean ignoring everything that had happened between them. Everything that she’d helped him see about himself, all that he’d been forced to realise was wrong within himself.
‘I’ll stand, but thank you.’ He let out a sigh, his gaze for a moment on the stunning riotous fields of sunflowers surrounding them, while he picked his words. ‘Maria, I cannot ask you to forgive me for that night. Leaving you at the restaurant was unforgivable.’ Finally finding the courage, he sneaked a glance back at Maria—terrified of seeing her agreement, not even thinking for a moment he would receive clemency for it. Instead, he saw patience—a patience he did not deserve, but would take with open arms. ‘You were right. About everything. I had not told you about the nightmares, or the fire, because, in truth, I didn’t want you to help me see through them. Because that would have meant that I would have had to face the fact that...the fact that you had become so precious to me that I could lose you and, having lost my family, knowing the very real pain of that, I honestly didn’t think that I would survive losing you or our child. And instead, I pushed you away, and lost you, all the while promising myself it would hurt less now, rather than more later.
‘And it was my fear of that, the genuine terror of just how much you mean to me, just how much I have come to love you, that made me cruel. On your birthday, I took your love for me and turned it against you and that is unforgivable. So no matter what happens after today, I want you to know that no amount of time apart will change the way I feel about you. If you choose never to see me again, that is absolutely your decision. But I will always love you. You brought light to a life I didn’t realise was dark. You brought truth to my soul when I didn’t realise it was shrouded in secrets and guilt. And love to my empty heart. I love that I can now accept and embrace and that...that will go to you and our child always.
‘The pain of the past is still there, but it is somehow...less. Honouring that pain, remembering it hasn’t taken away what happened, but bringing it into the light has allowed both the hurt and the joy, the love to become a part of me, not separate or isolated, but present, and it has made me realise how much more I am with love in my life.’
This time, when he looked at hi
s wife, he could see tears in her eyes, the slow roll down her cheek, that made him reach up and brush one away.
Maria’s gaze snagged on the glint of silver that had caught her eye when he reached for her cheek. He was wearing the bracelet that had meant so much to her when she had made it. And when her gaze turned from that to her husband, all she could see was the man she loved staring back at her, glorious and proud, exulting in his feelings, and it was a marvel.
‘When you first gave me this,’ he said, ‘all I could see was the past, was the pain, the guilt and shame that this represented to me. But, talking to Malcolm, remembering that night myself, allowing myself to remember more... You’ve given me back a part of me I thought long since gone and I am awed by it, by the incredible generosity of such a thing, and the beauty of what you brought me. And now I can have this with me every single day, wherever I go.
