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He looked away, at the floor, and she felt the rawness of his vulnerability.
He raised his head, his face an emotionless mask of beauty. ‘But she knew who my father was.’
‘So it’s true?’ she asked, eyes wide. ‘Your father’s an Italian count?’
‘He is—was,’ he corrected. ‘My father is dead.’
‘When did he die?’
‘Six months ago.’
‘And your mum?’
‘Three months ago.’
‘Oh...so much death...’
Her throat constricted. And yet they might have made life in all the grief.
She swallowed. Shook herself. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I didn’t know my father.’ He blinked slowly. ‘I didn’t grieve for him. I didn’tneedmy father, or his name. But I deserved it. And you deserve to knowmyname, Flora.’
Her name on his lips was too real. It brought their night together, their future, to the real world of names and consequences. Actions and reactions. Negatives and positives.
‘I am Ra—’
‘No!’ she pleaded, palms forward. ‘I’m not ready. Please, don’t tell me your name.’
Nostrils flaring, he asked, ‘Why not?’
‘If—’ Her tongue grappled with words, refusing to organise them inside her mouth. ‘If you tell me your name you become real,’ she said, trying to explain. ‘Thisbecomes real,’ she concluded, her hands splayed in front of her chest.
‘Thisisreal.’ His eyes probed her face but he didn’t move. Not a muscle. ‘I’mreal.’
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? He was being honest about his life and so was she—for the first time. There she sat in a helicopter, in the middle of a field, with a man she’d never been supposed to see again.
But none of it would matter if she wasn’t pregnant. This intensity, this sense of being overwhelmed, this influx of emotion that so terrified her would be temporary.
She opened her eyes. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said, deciding to be honest. Because why not after all he’d shared with her about his mother? His illegitimacy? ‘Under one condition.’
‘What is it?’
‘That you don’t tell me your name unless I’m pregnant. Because if I’m not pregnant, none of this will matter.’
He nodded. ‘I will remain a stranger to you until we become something else,’ he promised, the pulse flickering wildly in his cheek.
‘If,’she corrected. ‘If we become something else.’
His eyes flashed and her stomach flipped, and the‘we’lingered in the air.
And then, just as he had that night, he offered her his hand.
A rush of excitement—or was it fear, perhaps?—pulsed through her veins in waves.
Tentatively she slid her fingers between his and he claimed her hand, lifting her out of the helicopter to pull her into step beside him. He opened the door to the flight deck, nodded towards the co-pilot’s seat.
Flora climbed inside. His hands were on her waist, guiding her. He buckled her in and then climbed in himself, buckled himself into the pilot’s seat.
