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‘Yes.’ The ache in her throat became a powerful throb. ‘He does.’
She sat back on her heels. She could weep right now. For the son she had lost. For the strong, proud man sitting beside her. For the future for which she had dared to hope.
Instead she climbed to her feet and looked down on Leo’s bowed head. ‘I’m tired, and cold. I think I’ll grab a shower before bed.’ She hovered a moment, but his focus remained on the photo in his hand. ‘Will you...be coming to bed?’
As she waited for his answer, her muscles tense, her body shivery from tiredness, she realised how much she wanted him to say yes. How badly she needed his arms around her tonight. How desperately she ached for his warmth, his touch, his love.
‘Soon,’ he said, and his eyes, when he glanced up, revealed nothing.
But when Leo finally came to bed, over two hours later, he didn’t put his arms around her. He didn’t touch her. He didn’t even turn in her direction. And though it was only a matter of inches that separated their bodies, the gap might as well have been a chasm. A chasm Helena feared was too wide, too dark and too deep for either of them to bridge.
* * *
Leo stood at the French doors and watched lightning fork across the night sky, the jagged streaks of white light searing his retinas.
Or was it the tears making his eyes burn?
Dammit.
He hadn’t cried since the night of Marietta’s accident, but that box had been his undoing. Unravelling him in ways he hadn’t thought possible. Flaying his emotions until his insides felt raw. And yet his pain must be nothing compared to what Helena had suffered. Helena had borne her loss alone, grieved for their son without him because she had been too afraid to tell him she was carrying their child. Too afraid because the last words he’d spoken to her—shouted through a closed hotel door, no less—had been hard, unforgiving words, fired without a care for how deeply they’d wound.
Thunder boomed, closer now, and he stepped back from the glass. Idiota, standing here watching the storm. Inviting memories of the night his mother had died.
As a child he’d thought thunder was a sign of God’s anger. Had thought losing his mother was his punishment for boyhood sins: avoiding homework, skipping chores, cornering the big bully who’d pulled Marietta’s hair and punching him in the nose—twice.
Since then he’d hated thunderstorms. Hated the idea of something so powerful and beyond his control.
Maybe God was punishing him now?
For his pride. His anger. His failure to forgive.
He had targeted one man with single-minded purpose and spared not a thought for collateral damage. Now a woman lay in hospital. Another in his bed.
And what of her? his conscience demanded. Would Helena, too, become collateral damage when all this was over? Or would the only damage where she was concerned be to his heart?
‘Leo?’
He started, the soft voice behind him catching him by surprise. When he had thrown off the sheets and padded, naked, through to the lounge he had thought Helena asleep—undisturbed, it seemed, by the storm.
‘What are you doing?’ she said, drowsy. ‘It’s three a.m.’
He didn’t turn. Didn’t know what to say to her. What could he say? I’m sorry? No. Useless. Mere words couldn’t express his regret for his behaviour today. His behaviour seven years ago.
He’d stormed back to Italy like an angry bear, licking his wounds when he should have been here looking after her, sharing the burden of responsibility.
Of loss.
He glanced over his shoulder. Her form was a willowy outline in the glow of the single lamp he’d switched on in the corner of the room.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said.
‘The storm?’
‘I don’t like them.’ The words just spilled out. He didn’t know why. He didn’t make a habit of highlighting his weaknesses to people. But then, Helena wasn’t people. She was... Hell, she was so many things—none of which he was in any mood to contemplate.
‘Why?’ She was right behind him now.
He shrugged. ‘Bad memories.’
