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Her mouth dropped open. “What?”
Diego looked out over the black waters of the Gulf of Lion, his expression darkening. “When you came to Spain, you were so afraid. Every time Lonita and I went out, I remember coming home and seeing you at the top of the stairs, waiting for us.”
Her hands tightened around her champagne glass. She hadn’t realized her aunt and uncle had observed her.
“I was afraid, too.” His words were spoken so softly, she almost didn’t hear them. “But I think I used your fear as an excuse to act more like a dictator than your uncle. We put guidelines and boundaries into place. To make you feel safer.” Diego’s blue gaze landed on her. “But we made it worse.” He reached out, his bearlike hand resting on her shoulder. “I never wanted you to fear another day in your life. But when I saw the photos of you in Rome, then with Antonio, the joy on your face compared to how you grew up around us...” He swallowed hard, his eyes glistening. “I realized how much I’d hurt you.”
Tears stung her eyes, hot and fierce.
“I thought you didn’t trust me,” she finally whispered.
“As much as it pains me to say this, it had little to do with you and everything to do with how I reacted to losing my little sister. The more I took charge, the more in control I felt.”
Her free hand gripped the railing of the ship and she stared out over the darkness of a night-shrouded Mediterranean Sea.
“I felt so lost after Mom and Dad died,” she finally whispered. “Lost, and like I was drowning in fear.” Tears spilled over. “I said goodbye that night, but I didn’t kiss Mom. I was too busy watching a show.” Her hand drifted up, touched her forehead. “But she kissed me. Right here. And then, twenty minutes later, she was just...gone.”
Diego’s hand settled over hers on the railing. “I was happy you and Antonio became friends. He was always a good boy, responsible. And he seemed to do the one thing I couldn’t.” When she glanced up at him, he smiled. “He made you happy.”
Her lips quirked. “Everyone else treated me like glass. Antonio was the only one who didn’t. When we walked out onto the mountain that first time...” Her voice trailed off as memory assailed her. The velvety softness of the lush green grass cradling her bare feet. The breeze carrying the faint scent of earth. A boy holding her hand and tugging her forward, pulling her out of the dark hole she’d tumbled into. “It was like I’d been holding my breath ever since I’d been told about their deaths and I could suddenly breathe again.”
“We were very grateful for him.” She glanced up to see Diego’s eyes glinting in the moonlight, as if he, too, were fighting back tears. “He did what Lonita and I couldn’t.”
“So you...you didn’t think I was too immature? Incapable?”
“No. Just the opposite, Anna. To lose your parents and travel across the world to live with relatives you’d only met a handful of times? I thought you were one of the most resilient and strong, young women I’d ever met. We just didn’t want you to hurt anymore, and horribly enough, we did just that by trying to protect you.”
She nearly dropped her champagne glass as she sagged against the railing. How had they not had this conversation in all these years?
“I’m sorry, Anna.” Her uncle brushed a fatherly kiss against her cheek. “But look at how far you’ve come, despite everything Lonita and I did.”
“With good intention—” she started to say, but Diego cut her off.
“Intentions, at least in this case, don’t absolve us of the sins we committed.”
“Perhaps. But after...” She’d started to sayafter Antonio’s rejection, but she wasn’t quite ready to share that humiliation just yet. “After graduation, those restrictions were safe, a cocoon from the real world. Even my job in Granada had been safe, a way to indulge in my love of fashion without risking rejection.”
He chuckled. “We all do things like that, find ways to not confront the more challenging parts of ourselves. But you broke free, Anna. When you lost your job, I was ready to step in, take care of everything.”
“I know,” she said with a smile. Amazing how just a few minutes of conversation transformed her emotions about the moment she’d told her aunt and uncle “thank you but no,” she was moving to Paris, and seen the twin looks of horror and listened with quiet anger to their warnings of all the bad things that could happen.
“I was scared. But despite my fear, I was proud, too.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “Your mother would be, too.”
Warmth bloomed in her chest She’d taken more risks in the past six months than she had in thirteen years. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined moving to Paris or walking in a professional fashion show in Rome, much less inviting her childhood love to be her first lover.
But she had. And each risk had resulted in something incredible. Her own apartment covered from floor to ceiling inherdesigns. Walking the runway and having her work seen by the public for the first time. A week of the most incredible physical pleasure she’d ever experienced, of loving and being loved by Antonio.
Because she did love him. She probably hadn’t ever stopped loving him, not fully. But the last week had pulled those suppressed emotions back to the surface. Not just the sex, although, she acknowledged with a rueful smile, that had certainly helped.
No, it had been seeing the man Antonio had grown into emerge from beneath the façade he presented to the rest of the world. The pride he took in his work. The way he remembered the names of the construction workers and interior designers scuttling around the hotel, holding them to his standard yet still complimenting their work and remembering that the foreman’s daughter had just started college. How he’d asked questions about her work, shown interest, encouraged her to fully embrace what she loved to design. How he’d finally started to share the ghosts of his past, to trust her once more with his secrets. He still held something back, but she could be patient, wait and support him while he came to terms with whatever had altered his life so drastically. He was worth it.
The boy she’d fallen for had turned into a man she loved very deeply.
Resolve took hold of her. Perhaps it was time to take one more risk. If he rejected her again, the result would be the same as if she kept quiet; Antonio would be out of her life after tomorrow.
She set her glass down on a passing tray and wrapped her arms around Diego’s tall frame.
“I love you, Tío.”
