Bracing herself, she flashed an angry stare into his eyes. ‘I don’t have any problems. I’m expecting a baby. Oh, wait. I do have a problem—the baby’s father, who speaks every thought in his head without thinking about the hurt he causes.’
‘Hurt?’ Raffa was clearly taken aback. ‘Marriage to me is the perfect solution for you.’
‘Because I don’t have your means?’ Rose challenged. ‘I can find a good doctor all by myself, and I’m not afraid of hard work, remember. I was born practical.’
‘But you deserve to be loved.’
Everything crumbled inside her. He couldn’t have said anything worse. Yes, she deserved to be loved, but he wasn’t offering to love her, was he? He was offering a logical solution to her problem. Now she felt like a charity case, with the great Raffa Acosta offering her marriage as a convenient way out. ‘I deserve to love too,’ she fired back. ‘And I will be loved.’ As she spoke she instinctively cradled her stomach. Her baby would love her, and she would love it, fiercely.
‘You should be thinking about the baby, and what’s best for our child.’
‘I think about nothing else. I’ll provide for our child, and I’ll keep you informed—’
‘But I love you, Rose.’
She stopped dead. ‘What did you say?’
‘I love you,’ Raffa repeated, meeting her gaze. ‘I want to be part of your life. You’re the other half of me, the half that completes me. I love you,’ he said again. ‘My life is empty without you, Rose. If I don’t have you to share everything with, it means nothing to me. Wasn’t it you who said we’re the same? Well, you’re right. We’re both fighting a past that haunts us—not all at once, we stumble sometimes, and get things wrong, but each time we fall back, you and I, we get up again, and march forward.’
These were the words she’d longed to hear. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ she breathed hopefully.
‘Never more so,’ Raffa assured her fiercely. ‘I love you with all my heart, and I’m begging you to be my wife. With you in my life, it will have meaning and love, and hope and dreams for our future. You won’t deny me that, will you?’
‘You are the most exasperating man,’ Rose replied lovingly.
‘And you’re the most impossible woman on the face of this earth. A good match, I’d say. So, stop asking yourself, can I trust this man? Can I trust what’s happening? Those doubts belong in the past. Look forward and know you can trust me, Rose.’
Rose didn’t even know why she was crying. This should be the happiest day of her life. When Raffa took her in his arms,heknew. ‘Did you ever cry for your mother, Rose? Are you thinking right now how much you wish you could tell her your news?’
Her chin shot up. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I know you. I’ve taken the time to get to know you, so I understand how well you’ve learned to hide your feelings, just like I knew, as you know about me, that one day those feelings would have to come out.’
‘It isn’t easy...’
He huffed a short laugh. ‘Don’t I know it?Dios, Rose, it’s such a gift to be able to tell you how much I love you.’
She exhaled shakily. ‘You’re right.’
‘Always,’ Raffa teased. ‘Your mother would be so proud of you,’ he added softly. ‘She’ll be singing at our wedding.’
That broke the dam. Rose cried, and not in a pretty way. Raffa had unlocked something inside her that she had been unable to do for herself. Longing for things she couldn’t have, like her mother’s comforting arms around her shoulders one last time—to hear that gentle voice advising her to be strong, almost as if her mother had known what lay ahead. While she sobbed, Raffa held her, and he waited until she was quiet before producing a familiar red bandana from the back pocket of his jeans.
‘Better now?’ he asked as he mopped her face.
‘You won’t be able to wear that again.’ It was a weak attempt at humour, but it was something.
‘I have plenty more,’ he reassured her.
Lifting her face to his, she confronted him with what she knew could only be bright, red-ringed eyes. ‘And you?’ she challenged softly. ‘Can you be as open and honest with me as I’ve been with you?’
Open and honest? Honour was everything to an Acosta, but he knew what Rose was getting at. Giving way to grief was never the easy option. It took strength to reveal sadness and regret as Rose had. Revealing more of himself had been impossible before Rose arrived in his life, because his task had always been to inspire confidence in others. His staff deserved the best of him, and the vast youth following that fame had brought him demanded nothing less.
‘You’ve been as bottled up as I have, but we’re both changing for the better, and we’ll change faster with a baby coming. If you can’t express your feelings, what use are they to anyone?’ Rose’s question pierced the armour he’d spent a lifetime building, but her next words stripped it clean away. ‘I love you completely and utterly, Raffa Acosta. I have since Sofia’s wedding when you came out with your outrageous suggestion that we go to bed. I believe you and I have something really special to offer a child, and that’s honesty when it comes to feelings and deeds.’
‘You’re always thinking about other people, Rose. It’s time you thought about yourself. I’ve been heavy-handed in the past, but all I care about is you and this baby. Forgive me?’
‘There’s nothing to forgive,’ she said with the warmth that made Rose so special. ‘You blame yourself as I do for things that happened in the past, but could we have done more for our parents? I doubt it. You were a youth, thrilled to be taking them to the airstrip. When that unspeakable tragedy unfolded in front of you, it was bound to leave its mark, but you weren’t in a position to instruct your parents what to do, any more than I could stop my father drinking. Hindsight is a great thing, but you can’t blame the young man you were, any more than I can be afraid of risking my heart, because I witnessed such a sad version of love at home. We’re different people now, you and I.’
