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‘To a place where love has always found me.’
She reached over him, eyes downcast, and refused to recognise the scent of him. She opened the door for him.
‘I’m going home. The adventure is over.’
‘You’re pregnant—’
‘Yes, and we will figure that out as we need to.’
She looked at him then. Watched his world ripple in confusion. But this was the only way she could help him. Make him understand that nothing else mattered but what he was willing to close the door on. What he was willing to sacrifice because of the little boy he once was, who wouldn’t let the man he had become accept love because he didn’t think he deserved it.
Eyes wide, he got out and stared back at her.
She knew he’d have to figure out how to fix this—if he wanted to—all on his own. Trust himself.
She made herself turn. Made herself look away. She was doing the right thing.
She rapped on the privacy glass until the driver opened it. ‘To the airport, please, driver.’
The driver nodded, and the glass once again ascended.
‘Flora, your dress...’
He was reminding her of the passion that only moments ago had torn through them both. She reached for his suit jacket, still on the hook, and put it on. Slid her arms into the silk-lined sleeves, pulled them over the intricate lace covering her arms. The jacket was still warm from his body.
She ignored it. She squared her shoulders. ‘Goodbye, Raffaele.’
Only when she heard the click of the door did she let her shoulders sag. Let herself pant, sucking in the air she’d been denying herself. She twisted on the seat to sit up on her knees, looking out of the rear window. And there was her husband, standing on the gravel drive, letting his wife drive away.
He was letting her go.
She crumpled into a tearful mess on the back seat where she’d made love to her husband.
Because she was leaving him and she didn’t want to.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THEREWASMONEYin the pocket of the suit jacket that Flora has taken. Lots of it. Enough to buy her a first-class round-the-world ticket. She would find it. She’d be fine.
But will you?
It had paralysed him. Watching her, everything he’d chased after—hunted—driving away with his baby in her belly. His family.
Something had torn inside Raffaele with every crunch of the tyres driving over the gravel.
She’d asked him repeatedly to let go, and with his body he had. But she wanted him to let go with his heart. Tolove. And he couldn’t let go with his heart because love had never been inside it. There was nothing inside it for her. For his baby.
Maybe this was the best choice. He would provide them with the protection of his name. Financially he’d give them anything, everything, and he would never deny his child its roots...its story.
Is this how your story ends? Stuck in this house? Prisoner of the past? With your future driving away?
He couldn’t move. Not towards the house behind him, and not towards the car. He was stuck. Breaking inside. Was this his choice? To hold on to fear when Flora—?
She wasn’t afraid, was she? Not of his failings—not even when he’d thrust the truth of his neglect at her. Her innocent eyes had still looked at him with hunger. With warmth. There had been softness in even her most hungry caress. She’d touched him with love.
Pain.It sliced through him. Acute.Searing.
The car had reached the end of the drive. Soon it was going to vanish out of sight, move down the hill on the road he’d had built into the mountain and drive out of his sight, out of his life.
