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She swallowed. Her voice was painful. ‘She could have waited another day, then. It would have saved her a journey.’
A frown darkened his brow. Carefully he set Benji down again, and while the little boy fell with glee upon a gleaming shell he straightened and demanded, ‘Non capisco? What do you mean?’
Her voice didn’t work properly, but she made the words come.
‘You’d already warned me—that morning—that…that you were going to send me back.’
He stared. ‘What is this you are saying?’
He seemed angry. She wondered why. ‘You said…you said we would have to talk. I…I knew what you meant.’
There was nothing in his face. Nothing at all. Then, very carefully, he spoke.
‘And what, cara, did I mean? Tell me.’
Her hands clenched in her pockets.
‘Rafaello, please. I knew—I knew, I promise you. I knew that you were only being kind to me—that you had waved a magic wand over me and…and decided to be kind, let me have my little dream. I knew that was all it was—that it was not supposed to be more than that. I understood. I did—truly.’ She swallowed, then went on. ‘You gave me fair warning—that day in Florence. You warned me then that you would not want me to pine for you. I understood then.’
He looked at her. There was something strange about his face. She could not read it—but then all she wanted to do was gaze and drink him in. For this was heaven, a tiny, minuscule sliver of heaven, beamed down to her by special delivery to make another, final memory for her to keep and treasure all her days. One last joy.
She was drinking him in as a thirsty man would drink water in the desert. Drinking in his dark, beautiful eyes, his silken rain-wet hair, the beads of water on his lashes, the strong column of his nose, the planes of his face, the sculpted beauty of his mouth.
‘You understood?’ His voice was flat. Benji patted his knee, proffering the shell. Absently he took it, murmuring something to the child. She watched him turn the shell over in his fingers. His eyes went back to hers.
‘You understood?’ he said again. Then, with a savage movement he hurled the shell far out into the sea. Benji stared, open-mouthed with admiration at such might, and tried to follow suit with a pebble.
His audience were not watching.
They were kissing.
Heaven. Heaven had swept over her again, drowning her. As the shell had left his fist Rafaello had reached for her and crushed her to him.
‘Then understand this!’ he rasped, and closed his mouth over hers.
Magda’s eyes fluttered shut. She was not standing on a sodden English beach, lashed with rain. She was standing beneath the Tuscan stars, with the scent of flowers all around her, the sweet Italian air in her lungs, the warm Italian night embracing her—and Rafaello—Rafaello kissing her.
She clung to him. Clung to him in desperation, in delirium, because it must be a figment of her imagination. It must be. There was no reason for him to kiss her. No reason for him to crush her so close against his lean, hard body that she felt herself fuse to him. No reason for his hands to cup her rain-wet head as if it were precious alabaster. No reason for him to speak into her mouth words she could not believe—must not believe.
He let her go.
‘Now do you understand?’ His eyes blazed down at her.
‘No,’ she said faintly.
‘Per Dio! Then come—come home with me, and I will spend all my life trying to make you understand. I love you so much.’
She heard, but could not believe. He saw it in her face.
‘Your doubt shames me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I thought I had made it so clear to you—every night we were together. But then…’ His voice dropped even lower and he took her hands in his. ‘Even I did not realise what name to give my feelings for you. They were so new to me—I could not recognise them. They confused me, made me question everything. But they grew in me and grew in me until I saw them for what they were—and realised I must turn a dream into reality. That is why I said I wouldn’t want you to pine for me—because there would never be a reason for you to do so. I would turn the dream into reality for us both. That is why I was so solemn that last morning—I knew we must make our marriage a real one and that I would have to tell my father so. Tell him that even if he never spoke to me again—severed all ties, sold the company to the first passing stranger—you would stay my wife for ever—because I had fallen in love with you and could not live another day without you.’
She felt faint again, but it was bliss running through her, taking the breath from her body.
