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‘You should have told me. I should have been there. You should not have been alone.’
She gave a laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. ‘Because you would have so welcomed that call, to tell you I was pregnant, that you would have rushed to be by my side.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’
And he hated her words but he knew what she said was true.
‘No,’ she continued, ‘I would have told you. Once the baby was born. But my parents married because of me, and look how that turned out, and I didn’t want to be forced into something I didn’t want, and I didn’t want you to think you were being forced into something you didn’t want.’
‘You said that,’ he said, remembering that night in Venice when she had so vehemently stated that a baby was no reason for marriage. ‘So you waited.’
She nodded and swallowed, her chin kicking high into the stiff wind. ‘Well, maybe...maybe also in part because I was in no hurry to see you again anyway after the way we had parted. But I knew I would have to tell you once he was born.’ She stopped and breathed deep as she looked down at the tiny grave framed in iron lace. ‘But when he came too early...when Leo died...I thought that would be the end of it. That there was no point...’
She shook her head, the ends of her hair whipped like a halo around her head as she looked across at him, the pain of loss etched deep in her amber eyes. ‘But it wasn’t. And I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m so sorry. Everything I’ve done seems to have turned out badly.’
‘No,’ he said with a sigh, gazing down at her while another set of waves crashed into the rocks behind, almost drowning his voice in the roar. ‘I believe that’s my territory.’
She blinked over watery eyes, confusion warring with the pain of loss.
‘Come,’ he said, tugging her by her hand to her feet. ‘Come and walk with me a while. I need to talk to you and I’m not sure Leo would want to hear it.’
With the merest nod of her head, she let him lead her down through the cemetery, to where the cliff walk widened into a viewing platform that clung to the edge of the world and where the teeming surf smashed against the rocks with a booming roar.
She blinked into the wind, half wondering if she was dreaming, if she’d imagined him here with the power of her grief, but no, just a glance sideways confirmed it was no dream. He stood solid alongside her, his face so stern as he gazed over the edge of the continent, it could have been carved out of the stone wall of the cliffs.
It was good to see him again.
It was good he’d come to meet his son.
It hurt that he hadn’t said he’d come to see her but it was good he had come. One final chance to clear the air surrounding their baby’s brief existence.
Maybe now they could both move on.
Maybe.
They stood together in a silence of their own thoughts all framed by the roar and crash of water while Luca wondered where to begin. There was so much he had to explain, so much to make up for. The spray was refreshing against his skin, salty like his tears, but cleansing too. Strange he should think that, when he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.
And with a crunching of gears inside his boarded up heart, he did.
When the news had come of his parents’ deaths that foggy night when their water taxi had crashed into a craft with a broken light.
So many years ago and yet the pain felt so raw, unleashed by whatever had unlocked his heart.
Whoever had unlocked his heart.
Valentina.
He watched the waves roll in, in endless repetition. Only to be smashed to pieces against a wall of rock so hard the sea seemed to be fighting a losing battle.
Except it wasn’t. Here and there boulders had fallen free, or whole sections of cliff had collapsed into the sea, undercut, worn away and otherwise toppled by the relentless force of the water.
Today he felt like that cliff, the seemingly indestructible stone no match for the constant work of time and tide. No match for a greater force.
He turned to that greater force now, a force that had been able to come back from holding her dying child in her arms to confront that child’s father and seemingly accede to his demands, all the time working away on him while he crumbled before her.
And suddenly he knew what he had to say. ‘Valentina,’ he said, taking her hands in his, cold hands he wanted to hold and warm for ever, ‘I have wronged you in so many ways.’
She smiled and he, who deserved no smile and certainly none from this woman, thought his newly exposed heart would break. ‘I’m glad you came to see Leo.’ He noted that she didn’t dispute the fact that he’d wronged her. But there was no disputing it. He knew that now.
