He raked his fingers through his hair and something bright fluttered to the ground. She barely noticed. She was transfixed by his expression, as tortured as she felt.
‘I love you, Stella.’
Her throat constricted so it felt like glass shards shredding her throat. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t lie, Gio.’
She’d thought the pain couldn’t get worse but to hear him lie made a mockery of everything they’d shared. She’d told herself while he didn’t love her, he was honest, caring in his own way. To have him play on her emotions…
‘Don’t look at me like that, Stella. It’s true. I should have realised long ago but it’s hard to move past things you’ve believed most of your life. I didn’t think I could feel love, but I do.’
He held his arms out towards her, palms up in a gesture of openness. ‘I can’t imagine life without you, Stella. I want to be by your side for the rest of our lives, raising a family—’
‘Stop!’ She lifted her hand when he would have stepped closer. ‘There’s no need to pretend to a convenient change of heart. If you seriously want to be involved in our child’s life, I won’t stand in the way. But no more acting.’
She couldn’t bear it. He couldn’t know she was in love with him. He wouldn’t treat her so cruelly if he knew. All she had to do was get out of here before she betrayed herself.
Gio surveyed her with haunted eyes, his mouth a flat line, and it was tempting to read her own emotions in his taut features.
But she’d spent too long hoping for a miracle. For the man whose emotional growth had been so damaged to move beyond old grief and love her. Their time together had been wonderful and she’d drawn closer to him with every passing day, her feelings intensifying and her need too. But while Gio was attentive, charming and passionate, he’d never hinted that his feelings had changed. Until now.
‘It’s not an act and there’s nothing convenient about this.’
His voice was strained as if he really were upset but Stella couldn’t listen to any more. Heart hammering, she stepped around him, only to pull up sharply.
‘What’s that?’
Stella frowned at the ground, toeing the object with her sandal.
‘Please believe me, Stella. I mean what I say…’
The rest was lost as a loud static buzz filled her ears. It couldn’t be. It was preposterous. Yet she felt emotion well, turning pain and disbelief into something new.
‘Gio?’ She pointed at the crumpled item near her foot.
For several heartbeats there was silence, then they bent at the same time, heads almost colliding as they reached for it. Stella got it first, Gio’s fingers brushing hers as she cupped it tenderly in one trembling hand.
Her eyes bulged and her poor, overworked lungs battled to draw in air.
She couldn’t believe it. But when she straightened and looked up into deep, grey eyes, what she saw told her there was no mistake. The tremble became a quiver so profound she almost dropped what she held.
Her voice wasn’t her own as she said, ‘Why do you have this?’ She watched the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed. ‘It’s the one I made, isn’t it?’
‘It is.’
Wonderingly Stella looked at the item in her hand. A crushed but still identifiable waterlily made of red paper. She’d created it from a table napkin the day they ventured out from his Amalfi estate to a clifftop restaurant, then left swiftly because their desire for each other was stronger than their hunger for food. She’d been in seventh heaven that day.
The crumpled origami flower fell from nerveless fingers but Gio caught it, cupping it gently in his big palm as if it were infinitely precious.
She raised dazed eyes to his and met a blast of pure longing. ‘Why?’
‘On a whim. It was fascinating, watching you. When we left I scooped it up and put it in my pocket.’
‘All this time you didn’t know you had it?’
‘I knew. When I thought you were working for your father I meant to throw it away. Somehow I never did.’ Gio’s lips curved wryly. ‘For the last month it’s been in my desk drawer.’
Stella gaped. ‘But why?’
He moved until there was no space between them. His body warmed her, his breath caressing her face.
