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She had spent nights aching with the anticipation of how this moment might feel. She had imagined pain—a harsh, intense pain—but in that she had been wrong, because she felt numb. As if nothing could touch her. Please let me stay this way, she prayed, let me be strong when we say our goodbyes.
At least the scenery was spectacular enough to take her breath away as they drove up through the narrow, tortuous bends of the mountain roads. She saw forbidding rows of terracotta-roofed villages which seemed to hang in the air, and she shivered.
‘They were built up there to keep out invaders from long ago,’ mused Giovanni as he shot a glance at her frozen profile.
Kate thought that their very isolation and aloofness must be successful at discouraging modern-day tourists, too.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘To Lake di Pergusa,’ he said, and paused. ‘The very spot where Persephone was abducted, all those years ago.’
Memories of the famous Sicilian myth came drifting back to her as he skirted the lake which was, rather disappointingly, skirted by a motor speedway. And the lake itself was noisy with waterskiers and motorboats.
He switched off the ignition, and they sat there for a moment or two in silence, while Kate’s heart thudded with dread.
‘So what do you think of my island, Kate?’ he asked softly, wishing that she would look at him instead of presenting him with that unfathomable profile.
She tried hard not to imagine what this would be like if it was the beginning and not the end, but it took some doing. Resolutely, she kept her eyes fixed on the lake and tried to think what the old Kate would have said.
‘Well, the circumstances of how I came to be here wouldn’t have been my first choice,’ she managed drily.
He recognised just what it must have cost her to say that, and his heart turned over. ‘And are you recovered now?’ he murmured. ‘At least a little?’
Until she recovers. Like a bad dream, the words came back to haunt her, but her heartbreak was her burden to carry, not his.
She nodded. ‘More than a little. You see—I barely had time to realise I was pregnant, before…’ Her voice wobbled, and she took a deep breath before she spoke again. ‘Maybe that helped a bit.’
He felt the knife-twist of bitter regret. ‘I wish I could undo the past, Kate.’
She turned to him then and her green eyes were huge in her face. Her words came out on a tremble. ‘What, all of it?’ Was he saying that he wished he had never met her, was that it?
He shook his head. Had she misunderstood him so badly, or had his actions caused her to do so? ‘The bad bits—the times when I was angry, when I spoke so harshly to you.’ His eyes imprisoned hers with their blue fire.
Something akin to hope flared in her heart, and, no matter how hard she tried to quash it, it stubbornly refused to die. ‘And the good bits?’ she asked tremulously. ‘What of those?’
He had spent a lifetime keeping his feelings hidden, locked away inside his secret Sicilian nature, but suddenly he found himself wanting to tell her—needing to tell her. ‘I would relive them over and over and over again,’ he said softly. ‘The very first time I saw you, what I felt for you—’
‘Lust,’ she forced herself to say, and bit her lip.
He saw the uncertainty on her face and shook his head. ‘Passion,’ he corrected gently. ‘Not lust, cara, but passion. Something which had never entered my life before I met you.’
‘Not even with Anna?’ The words were out before she could stop them.
‘Not even with Anna.’ He sighed, knowing that he owed her everything, but the most important thing of all was the truth. Even if she did not want him, he owed her that.
‘Anna and I had all the right ingredients for a relationship. We had mutual liking and respect, and we both wanted a perfect marriage, I guess.’ He shrugged. ‘But life doesn’t always conform to the ideals you set yourself. The moment I met you, my subconscious must have been telling me that there are emotions which go beyond reason, beyond understanding, even.’
Her heart began to thud. ‘And what emotions are they?’ she questioned painfully.
There was a long pause, and his blue eyes were luminous as he looked at her. ‘Why, love, of course, cara mia.
Just love.’ Just love? Just love? She stared at him, her heart not daring to believe the words he had just said to her.
‘I love you, Kate. Ti vogghiu beni. I want you and I need you…by my side, and in my heart. Forever.’
‘Oh, Giovanni.’ Words she had longed for, prayed for. Tears began to slide down her cheeks. ‘Giovanni,’ she said brokenly.
‘Don’t cry, cara mia,’ he beseeched. ‘Why are you crying?’
