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As she entered the pretty wildflower meadow she was greeted by the red thumbprints of poppies bobbing and weaving across the tall grasses, reminding her of the finger paintings that her sister would bring back from the children’s ward. Soft smudges of purples and cornflower blue, crested on the waves of gentle colours that called to her and softened her fears.
She lost track of time, just enjoying the simplicity of being here, until she found a rocky outcrop that nudged at her memory. It wasn’t far from the section of land that belonged to Gianni, but she had known it would be there somehow and it unsettled her. She looked around, mentally drawing the boundaries of the land she had traversed, and her pulse began to thud heavily in her heart.
She knew this land.
She had seen it in drawings, and paperwork and a folder that had her father’s name on it. And the realisation horrified her because finally she knew what it meant. Not just for the past, but for her future.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ITWASLATERthan Alessandro had hoped, but finally they were beginning to make headway on the problems that had stalled the Aurora project. Sofia Obeid had been impressive and as dedicated as he had been throughout the tense renegotiation with their contractors. Bitterly, he had to agree with Obeid; it would have been much quicker if they’d had Amelia on board, but he had dismissed the suggestion without excuse. Because how could he tell Sofia why he had cut Amelia out, when he couldn’t even explain it to himself? Still. What was done was done and all he wanted to do was sink into a soft bed, and find that blessed oblivion only Amelia could offer him.
It was dusk by the time he returned to the villa, the sun reluctantly loosening its grip on the day. But Amelia wasn’t in the house. He searched the rooms, not yet worried until she saw that the sliding door to the garden was open.
He marched towards the pool, concern sweeping through him like a wave, images of Amelia fainting again, of being in trouble and out of his reach, flung through his mind like sea spray. He gathered his speed and couldn’t resist the urge to call out. Her name echoed in the vast area of the sprawling estate and something twisted in him at how lonely and desolate it sounded.
He rounded the corner to find her standing at the edge of the wildflower meadow, relief cutting through him to reveal a thread of heated anger, now that fear was edging from his system.
‘Didn’t you hear me calling?’ he demanded as he reached closer to where she stood.
She turned to pin him with a gaze that nearly stopped him in his tracks.
Accusations, hurt and anger simmered there and he felt as if he had stepped back in time, as if they belonged on the face of a woman who wasn’t yet carrying his child. He looked between her and the field and realised that she knew, that somehow she had figured it out.
‘This is the land my father sold you.’
He wanted to curse. He wanted to deny it. He’d known that this moment would come and yet he’d prayed it wouldn’t. Finally he nodded, watching her warily, as if suddenly she had become a great threat to him. And she was. In some ways that was exactly what she was. Ever since Hong Kong, she had changed him, had him thinking things, feeling things, remembering things—none were welcome and none were wanted.Cristo, he should have been able to resolve the issues they’d had on the Aurora project with the click of his fingers, but no, it had taken three days, because of her.
‘You kept it.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, let’s face it. You did more than just keep it,’ she said, her tone heavy with a cynicism he didn’t recognise in her.
He frowned.
‘Really?’ she demanded. ‘You aren’t that clueless, Alessandro. You are self-aware enough to know what you were doing.’
The taunt cut deep. ‘Of course I knew what I was doing. Gianni and I made the decision the moment we could afford to,’ he bit out. ‘We built our homes around that one moment of betrayal so that we would never forget.Never.So that we would know the value of our hard work, and know that the only people we could trust was ourselves.’
She shook her head as if horrified by his words. ‘This is more than my father,’ she said, needling out the truth from him against his will. ‘This is deeper than that.’
He reached for her instinctively—and she pulled away. He fisted the outstretched hand that dropped to his side.
‘I need to know,’ she said, her words barely audible in the gentle buzz and flutter of night-time wildlife. In the dusk he saw her place a hand over where their child grew within her and Alessandro knew she was right.
‘To know what?’
‘If you are capable of forgiveness. If there is even the slightest bit of hope for our future. You wake up every morning and look out atthis,’ she said, gesturing to the field behind her. ‘You force yourself to hold onto that bitterness, to that symbol of betrayal. Is this how you feel about your mother?’ she asked, her words hitting him like bullets in the chest, her eyes shining like diamonds in the darkness, her tears for him hurting more than he could possibly say.
‘She betrayed us.’ He slashed his hand through the air as if cutting off any more conversation. ‘I know she tried the best she could,’ he forced out, his heart and his hurt at war as it always had been. ‘I know that she loves me—and Gianni too. And I love her too. So much that it hurts. But she still betrayed us.’
‘Alessandro,’ Amelia said, shaking her head helplessly, not knowing what to say. ‘What happened to you was devastating. It was so wrong and I am truly sorry,’ she said, hoping that he would hear the sincerity in her words. Her heart broke for him, for the child he had never been allowed to be. But that hurt made her even more sure that what she was doing was right. ‘You have never forgiven her?’ she dared to ask.
His silence was a knife to her heart. And now it was breaking for her, as the flame of hope she’d nurtured in his absence had just been snuffed out.
‘Will you ever forgiveme?’ she asked, refusing to be cowed by the question. Her words rang into the night, clear and true. And she saw it—in his eyes—the past, his pain, his demons, all rising in the shadows around him.
‘Amelia, you are pushing this too far too fast,’ he warned her. And he was right, because shewaspushing this too fast—even as she knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t stop herself from throwing them towards an impossible conclusion. Because if she didn’t, she would only watch him walk away from her again and again and again. She was never going to be enough for him, just as she hadn’t been enough for either of her parents.
