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‘I can never make up to you all the wrongs I have committed,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
For a few moments she said nothing, and he imagined that any time now she would pull her hands from his, thank him for his explanation and justifiably remove herself from his life once again. This time for good.
But her hands somehow remained in his. And then came her tentative question. ‘Why did you need to drive me away so very badly?’
He looked into her eyes, those amber pools that he had come to love, along with their owner. ‘Because otherwise I would have had to admit the truth. That I love you, Valentina. And I know you will not want to hear this from me—not after all that has happened—all that I have subjected you to. But I had to come and see you. I had to ask if there was any way you could ever forgive me.’
She looked up at him incredulously. ‘You love me?’
He wasn’t surprised she didn’t believe him. It was a miracle she hadn’t slapped him again for saying it. ‘I do. I’m an idiot and a fool and every type of bastard for the things I’ve said to you and done to you, but I love you, Valentina, and I cannot bear the thought of you not being part of my life. When you left Venice, you took my heart with you. But I know I am clutching at straws. That you are too good for someone like me. That you deserve better. Much better.’
‘You might be right,’ she said, fresh tears springing from her eyes, and his freshly opened heart fell to his feet. ‘Maybe I do deserve better. But damn you, Luca Barbarigo, it’s you who I love. It’s you I want to be with.’
Could a man die of happiness? he wondered as he cradled her face in his hands, letting her words seep through his consciousness, all the way through the layers of doubts and impossibilities, all the way through to his heart. ‘Valentina,’ he whispered, because there was nothing better he could think of to say, not when her lips were calling.
He loved her.
Tina could see it in his eyes, could feel it in his gentle touch. Could feel it in the shimmer of sea salt air between them and in the connection of his heart to hers.
Their lips meshed, the salt of their tears blending with the salt of the sea, and she tasted their shared loss and the heated promise of life and love.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Oh God, it’s taken too long to realise it, but I love you, Valentina. I know I don’t deserve to ask this, but will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’
His words, his rich voice, vibrated through her senses and her bones and found a joyful answer in her heart, her tears a rapturous celebration. ‘Oh, Luca, yes! Yes, I will be your wife.’
He gathered her up and held her tight, so tight as he spun her around in the boom and spray from another crashing wave, that she felt part of him. She was part of him.
And when he put her down on her feet again, it was to look seriously into her eyes. ‘Perhaps, after we are married, if you like, then maybe we could try again. For another child. A brother or sister for Leo.’
She shuddered in his arms. ‘But what if...’ He looked down at her with such an air of hope that it magnified her fear tenfold. ‘I’m afraid, Luca,’ she said, looking up the hill towards the plot where their one child already lay. ‘Nobody knows why it happened and I don’t think I could bear it if it happened again. I don’t think I could come back from that.’
‘No.’ He rocked her then, wanting to soothe away her fears. ‘No. It won’t happen again.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t. I wish to God I could promise you that it won’t happen again, but I can’t. But what I can promise you is this, that if it did happen again, if life chose to be so cruel again, that this time you would not be alone, that I will be there alongside you, holding your hand. And this time your loss would be my loss. Your tears would be my tears. I will never let you go through something like that alone again.’
The sheer power of his words gave her the confidence to believe him. The emotion behind his words gave her the courage to want to try.
‘Perhaps,’ she said plaintively, lifting her face to his, ‘when we are married...’
And he growled at the courage of this woman and he pulled her close and kissed her again and held her tight, against the wind tugging at their clothing and the spray from the crashing waves—against the worst that life could throw at them.
And knew that whatever came their way, their love would endure for ever.
