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“After your brothers went to school I talked to yourabuela. Whenever I saw you with her you seemed so happy that I convinced myself you were better off with her. When she died...” She smiled through her tears. “I couldn’t have asked for a better mother-in-law. I missed her so much. But I realized it was my opportunity to make things right.”
“Which is when you started trying?”
Isabella nodded. “I should have talked to you. But it took me years, and recently a lot of counseling, to even fully realize myself what had happened. And then I felt shame, knowing how much I’d hurt you... Every time you tried to talk to me I was so cowardly that I ran. And I just kept hurting you—until, I imagine, you stopped letting yourself feel. Not just for me, but for anyone.”
Her analysis was all too accurate. He stood and walked to the French doors that opened onto his balcony. “I don’t trust myself.”
“I know. I didn’t trust myself either.”
He heard Isabella come up behind him. She settled a hand on his shoulder and, instead of shrugging it off or moving away as he would have in the past, he accepted his mother’s offer of comfort.
“But what I’ve seen between you and Everleigh...the love you share...is worth taking the risk.”
Love.
“Everleigh told me how she felt, but there’s no way I could...”
In less than four weeks he’d come to...what? Lust after Everleigh? Care about her? “Care” didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the depths of his feelings for her. The ache in his heart when he woke up in the morning to an empty bed. The agony every time he relived turning away from her in the chapel and leaving her alone.
He’d told himself it was for the best—that he couldn’t return the love she offered. But walking away had still been a cruel, cowardly move she hadn’t deserved. Sometimes at night, when the house was quiet and a breeze whistled down from the mountains, he could almost imagine he heard her sobbing...just like he’d heard her cries the day he’d walked away from her.
Memories of the past month whipped through his mind—mental snapshots of all their moments together. Listening to her at the restaurant, trying to conceal how impressed he was. The level of trust she’d placed in him when she’d shared the true depths of her pain right before he’d taken her to bed. How he’d felt when he’d made love her—not just the desire that sent fire coursing through his veins, but the need to feel her, to sink into her, to never let her go.
The day of her interview, when he’d followed her out to the vineyard and she’d turned to look at him, he’d known. But the thought of what that meant—whatlovemeant—terrified him almost as much as, if not more than, the possibility of making another mistake.
“It’s only been four weeks.”
“Your father and I fell in love in one night.”
Isabella reached up, her hand hanging in the air for a moment before she tentatively settled her fingers on his cheek. His eyes grew hot.
“Mi hijo, please don’t make the same mistake I did and let the past keep you from the present. I know we have a long road ahead of us. But if you’ll let me, Adrian, I’d like to be the mother you deserve.”
After all this time, was it worth it? To let his mother in would be taking a terrible risk...forgiving the woman who had dealt him so much pain over the years.
Yet as he replayed her words in his head he saw the horrible irony. He had sworn not to let someone else in, not to risk pain and heartache. And in doing so he had done exactly what his mother had done all those years ago. He’d shut people out, closed himself off—not out of strength and self-protection, but out of fear.
And he had rejected Everleigh as his mother had rejected him.
Rejected the woman who had seen past his pain and loved him—all of him.
He swallowed hard. “I would like that.”
Her smile lit up her face, chasing away some of the fragility that still clung to her. “Thank you, Adrian. Now you need to eat. You look likemierda.”
As Isabella called Diego and rattled off a list of breakfast items to be brought up Adrian stood frozen in place.
Dear God, what had he done?
Everleigh had brought out the best in him...made him want to be a better man. He’d found himself talking to his employees more over the past weeks, remembering the little details that made them human instead of just ID numbers on the payroll. And would the old Adrian have paid attention to Richard Bradford’s condition and reached out to Dr. Pratt in New York?
Failure was not an option. He’d hurt Everleigh—he knew that—but she was his. The possibility that she might find someone else one day filled him with a jealous fury unlike any he’d ever known. If she moved on without him it would kill him.
Isabella waited until Diego had delivered a plate of eggs, lightly buttered toast and a chopped banana before she spoke again. “So now what?”
Adrian forced a bite of egg down his throat. “First I eat. Then I get her back.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
