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Skye didn’t know if he was talking about the baby, or about her, or any of it. She shook her head, staring across at him, the cavern of the room opening before her.
She smiled, a weak smile that was almost impossible to unearth. ‘I don’t belong here. I want to go home.’
‘You’re my wife.’
Skye ignored the statement. He’d said it often enough, and she knew that the words meant nothing. ‘Only until our divorce is processed.’ She swallowed past the pain in her throat. ‘We lost the baby, Teo.’ She said it as though perhaps he hadn’t realised. ‘There is nothing left here.’
He moved quickly, sweeping across the room, dropping the toy as he went. ‘Yes, there is!’ He spoke with urgency. ‘There’s us. You and me.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘I don’t want you to go. I need you...’
Skye swept her eyes shut; her heart was twisting painfully in her chest, despite her certainty that she had no more grief left to feel. ‘Why? Why do you need me?’
‘Why do you need me?’ he pushed, lifting a hand to her chest, feeling her heart beating, feeling her goodness.
Because she loved him.
Because he was a part of her.
She stiffened her spine, mentally holding herself at a distance from him. ‘I don’t.’ And she didn’t want to. ‘I need to start forgetting.’
‘Please, don’t.’ He lifted his hands to cup her face, and she saw all the grief he was feeling. She felt guilt for it. For the baby she’d offered him and then lost. ‘Don’t forget.’
‘Why not?’ She sniffed, focusing on a point over his shoulder. ‘I look at you and I just remember...everything. I don’t want to remember.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t want any payment for the hotel. It should never have been taken from you.’ She reached up and cupped her hand over his, allowing herself to be weak for a moment. She closed her eyes and breathed him in. ‘When it’s finished, I might come back and stay in it for a night.’
It was something she had no intention of doing, though. When she left, she would never again set foot in Italy.
‘This is madness. You are grieving now, we both are, but that doesn’t change anything about our marriage. Even before I knew about the baby I didn’t want you to go. You are my wife and you love me.’
Skye shivered softly. Was there any point in denying it? To him, to herself? She did love him. It was an incontrovertible fact. ‘You don’t love me, though.’ She looked up at him. ‘Do you?’
He stared down at her, and for a moment she thought he was actually going to say it. She wondered how it would sound, to hear those words on his lips and know they were meant for her. But then he turned away from her and scooped the toy up off the floor.
‘You mean more to me than any other woman ever has.’
Skye’s lips twisted at the faint praise. ‘Let’s talk in the dining room,’ she said quietly.
‘A last supper?’ he queried, turning around to pin her with his gaze.
‘It is better that we sort out the logistics now. So that we don’t need...’
‘To speak again?’ He swore under his breath. ‘I don’t want that! I don’t want you to go!’
‘I can’t stay.’ She spun away from him and stalked down the corridor away from him, her heart breaking, her anger rising, her feelings rioting. He was just behind her, reaching for her, pulling at her hand so that she stopped and collided with him.
‘Why not?’ He was right there, his chest moving hard and fast as he sucked in air and expelled it angrily.
‘Because there’s no baby! And no love. This marriage is just a cruel joke.’
‘I know nothing of love,’ he said, the words rasping inside him. ‘The one time I thought I felt it I was so wrong. I know nothing about how hearts are meant to feel. And I am so sick of hearing people talk about a heart as though it is the beginning and end of what a man is supposed to give to a woman! Do I love you? Do you have my heart?’ He stared at her and she held her breath, her eyes clinging to his.
‘No, cara. You have all of me. My blood. My body. My mind. All of me is yours, and has been since the moment I met you. When I tell you I need you, I do not mean it in the way you think. It is not sex that I am referring to. I need you as I need air, and I need water. You are no less important to me and my survival than these things. I thought I married you for the hotel.’ He lifted a finger to her lips, silencing anything she might be going to say. ‘But somewhere in those early days, while you were falling in love with me, I was doing the exact same thing.’
His words ripped through her; they were everything she’d needed to hear a fortnight earlier. Now, they only compounded her grief. ‘Don’t say that! You don’t need to lie to me, Matteo! You can have the hotel. You can let me go. You can get on with your own life...’
‘You are my life! Yes, I wanted the hotel. I spent so much of my life wanting it that I did whatever I could to finally have it. But that changes niente about what I want now.’ He cupped her face, holding her still so that he could stare down at her, his eyes boring into hers.
