AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’d told everyone that his bride had taken ill unexpectedly and that the wedding would have to be postponed.
He would naturally cancel everything once the fuss had died down.
The first thing he’d done on arriving back was to see where Leonie was. He’d given orders that she was to be granted anything she wanted, and he’d expected that she’d probably have holed herself up in one of thecastillo’s other guest rooms.
But what he hadn’t expected was to find that she had gone and no one knew where she was. She’d come back from the chapel, disappeared into the bedroom to change and then had apparently vanished into thin air.
When he found out he stormed upstairs to the bedroom, to see if she’d taken anything with her, and was disturbed to find that she hadn’t. Not even the new handbag and purse he’d bought her, with all the new bank cards he’d had set up for her.
In fact, she hadn’t taken anything at all.
She’d simply...gone.
He got his staff to check every inch of the castle, and then the grounds, and then, when it was clear she wasn’t anywhere on the estate, he called his staff to start searching the entire damn country.
He wanted her found and he wouldn’t rest until she was.
Why? She’s gone and that’s how you wanted it. You threw her heart back in her face. Did you really expect her to stick around?
Something tore in his chest, a jagged pain filling him.
He could still feel the imprint of her skin on his fingertips as he’d taken her wrist in his, still see the pain in her eyes and the tears on her cheeks. See her courage as she’d lifted her chin and told him that it didn’t matter if he didn’t love her. That she loved him anyway.
Dios, she was brave. It wasn’t her fault he didn’t deserve that love and never would. That he never wanted anything to do with love and the pain it brought, the destruction it wreaked, not ever again.
It’s not her fault you’re a coward and ended up hurting her anyway.
The tearing pain deepened, widened, winding around his soul.
He shoved himself out of his uncomfortable chair and paced the length of his study, his fingers curled tight around his phone, ready to answer it the second someone called, telling him they’d found her.
He didn’t want to think about what she’d said. He only wanted to think about whether or not she was safe. And she would be, surely? She could look after herself. After all, she had for years before he’d taken her from the streets, so why wouldn’t she be safe now?
Yet he couldn’t relax. Couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t escape the pain inside him or the cold feeling sitting in his gut.
It’s too late. Too late not to love her.
He stopped in the middle of his study, staring out at the darkness beyond the window as the cold reached into his heart.
Because he knew this feeling. It was familiar. He’d felt it once for Anna and for his son. Fear and pain, and longing. An all-consuming rage. An endless well of need that no one could ever fill.
She can. She did.
Cristiano froze, unable to breathe.
Leonie, her face alight with passion as she took his face between her small hands...
Leonie, touching him gently, as if he was precious to her...
Leonie, filling hiscastillowith sunshine and warmth, with her smile and her laughter.
Leonie, whose love wasn’t destructive or bitter, despite the long years she’d spent on the streets. Whose love was open and generous and honest, with nothing held back or hidden.
Leonie, who loved him.
She’s what you need. What you’ve always needed.
Everything hurt. It was as if every nerve he had had been unsheathed, sensitive even to the movement of air on his skin.
