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CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALMOST TWO MONTHS LATER, Stefan was in the midst of a meeting in his Hong Kong office when his laptop pinged. Still listening to his main accountant drone on and on about their Asian holdings, he looked at the screen and stilled.
The email was from Zayed’s wife, the Sheikha of Gazbiyaa. Wondering what it was that Nadia, the deceptively strong woman his friend had married, would send him, Stefan clicked on it.
His heart pounding so hard in his chest as he viewed the thumbnail, he clicked the attachment open.
It was a shot of him and Clio the morning of Zayed’s wedding that someone must have clicked unknown to them.
They were standing at one of the turreted balconies in the Gazbiyan palace, the morning sun behind them. He remembered the moment instantly.
Rocco and Olivia, Christian and Alessandra, he and Clio, and Zayed had just finished breakfast. Clio had wandered to the balcony, and as if pulled forward like a string, he had instantly joined her there.
Had covered her bare arms with his and shuddered as the scent and warmth of her had stolen into him. Had pushed the thick fall of her hair away so that he could see the delicate crook of her neck. Had loved tracing her slender hips with his hands, had loved how naturally she had fit against him.
An instant surge of yawningly desperate need claimed him and he closed his eyes.
Dio, how she would respond when he pressed his mouth at that crook...how her long fingers would rake over his skin, marking him, owning him as he pushed into her, how boldly she had looked at him that last time, binding him to her... Drenched in the memories of her, which were at the same time so vivid and yet so distant, Stefan almost reached out for her.
She hadn’t flinched or pulled back that morning. Burrowing into his body, she had looked up at him and smiled.
He opened his eyes and stared greedily at the shot again.
And the shot had captured that smile.
There had been no hesitation, no artifice, no shadows in it. Everything she felt for him—it was in that smile.
It spoke of love, courage and the thing that stuck in his chest like an ice pick, open joy. It said so much about their intimacy, about how gloriously perfect that moment had been in his life.
Life with Clio would be full of such indescribable moments—of love and happiness.
In that stunning moment between powerlessness and need, it struck him how much he loved her. How he would do anything if it ensured she would always smile like that.
It was like a lightning bolt, washing away the poison that had festered in him for so long, opening the hurt inside him like an avalanche.
And that smile, that love that shone so beautifully in her eyes, that was what he had gambled away.
The voices around him sounded as if they were coming from far off. The view from the fortieth floor faded as he struggled to breathe past the tightness in his chest.
The ache in his heart, the fear in his gut, was so visceral that he rose to his feet jerkily. That moment brought all the yawning emptiness he’d felt over the past couple of months to the fore.
She had banished him from her life with such ruthless will that even he was impressed. In two months, he had had only heard from her once—one paltry email that had stripped him of even hope.
Do not come back to New York, please. This is my home. If you ever valued me for even a minute, leave this city for me. Leave me be, Stefan.
And so he had. Against his very nature, he had left her to face the media. Left their marriage in a limbo.
Because his business empire was spread out all over the world, it had been easy to stay away.
He didn’t know if she wanted a divorce. He didn’t care.
He had snarled at Christian when the latter had visited him in Hong Kong, told Zayed to leave him the hell alone and had thrown himself into work. Nothing could fill the increasing chasm of his lonely days blending into endless nights, nothing could touch him past the morass of his guilt and grief and emptiness.
He had spent fifty-six days in a hell of his own making, dying to hear her voice, craving her smile, wondering if he would ever kiss her mouth again, listening to little tidbits about her from Olivia, who, he had a feeling, would love to see if he would bleed.
She was flourishing in her new position at the charity.
She had been called in connection to the SEC’s case against Jackson.
She was looking good.
Every day, he broke a little more inside until there was nothing. But he couldn’t be this coward anymore, he couldn’t bear another day without seeing her, without holding her in his arms.
