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Rafael sat back with shock in his chair.
Everything he’d thought was true—was wrong.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, turning to his mother. He put his hand over hers as he felt tears rise unbidden to his eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
His mother smiled through her own open tears. “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the father you deserved,” she whispered. “But you can be that father for Noah. You can give him the family I tried and failed to give to you.”
Family. Rafael sucked in his breath.
Louisa.
All he could suddenly think about was what he’d done to his wife. The woman who tried so hard to love him.
“Does Louisa know?” he said faintly.
His mother nodded. “But she wasn’t going to tell you. She didn’t want to hurt you.”
Rafael stared at her.
Louisa hadn’t wanted to hurt him? Even when he’d done the cruelest thing possible to her, taking their child away, she hadn’t wanted to hurt him. She’d been trying to protect him.
In spite of everything, in spite of knowing his faults so well, Louisa truly loved him. The generosity and loyalty of her love took his breath away.
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And this was how he’d treated her. She’d risked everything to tell him the part of the truth that would not hurt him, and he’d made her pay for it. She’d openly offered him her heart, not once but twice, and he’d wantonly ripped it apart, stomping on the pieces.
He stared blindly across the dark shadows of the exclusive bar.
“She’ll never forgive me,” he said.
He felt his mother’s hand on his shoulder. “She will.”
He looked up, no longer trying to hide the sheen of tears in his eyes. “How can I ever win her back? All this time I’ve thought I couldn’t trust her. The truth is, how can she ever trust me?” He thought of his son crying upstairs. He’d done everything wrong from the start!
What could he do?
How could he ever make it up to her?
Louisa had tried to save his soul, and he’d repaid her by nearly destroying hers.
He loved her, he realized.
He loved her.
He’d been trying to fight it for years. Even as he’d told himself he just wanted her in his bed, or needed her skills in his home, the truth was that he’d loved her for years. Not just what she did for him, but her. Her smile, her gentleness, her feistiness. The way she looked all mussed in the morning. The way her eyes glinted with tenderness when she saw him across the room.
He loved her.
Clenching his hands into fists, he slowly rose to his feet.
He loved her. Even if it made him weak. Even if it made him vulnerable. He loved her, and he would make her love him.
He’d win this fight, or he would die trying.
Chapter Eleven
COLLAPSED on the floor, Louisa lay curled up on the priceless Turkish carpet. She’d run out of tears hours ago. The bodyguard who’d restrained her, Evan Jones, had seemed disgusted with his job that day, but he’d done as his boss had ordered, keeping her a virtual prisoner in the luxury penthouse.
