He had sent his picture. He had taken the revenge he’d desperately craved for years. Knowledge that Benedetto had slept with Katherine would undoubtedly tormentAugustine, as he’d intended. He should, therefore, have made an excuse and ended things. There was no longer a purpose to their time together. And yet he felt an invisible tug towards her, like he was bound to her by a force beyond explanation.
“In what way?”
She stared, midway through emptying coffee into a mug. He tried not to grimace at the fact it was instant. Coffee was coffee.
“Huh?”
“In what way were you not living your truth, as you put it?”
She lifted the pot and was about to tip boiling water into the mug when he made a sound and took it from her gently. “Allow me.”
He lifted the mug over the sink and half filled it with the water before placing it on the bench. “Yours?”
Wordlessly she held her teacup to him and he repeated the action with the water.
She thanked him and poured a splash of milk into it before cradling it in her hands. “It’s cool this morning. You can tell Autumn is on its way.”
He nodded. “It’s always earlier here, too.” He nodded towards the terrace and she followed him silently.
The doors were swollen; again he had to nudge it with his shoulder. The terrace was overgrown, like the rest of the house. “It’s like Narnia,” she said softly then turned to look up at him with eyes that sparkled with magic. “Or the cottage in Hansel and Gretel. Everything all overgrown and whispering secrets of their own. Don’t you feel a bit like an invader? Like the house and the garden have their own little life and we don’t belong?”
He nodded. “It has always been like that. My parents lived here when they were first married. They had no running water. No electricity. It was exactly as it had been for centuries.”
“That must have been so romantic,” she sighed, settling herself into a cane chair and crossing her legs. She sipped her tea and stared out at the view. Perfect clouds drifted slowly before her, their edges rimmed in gold, their faces splashed with peach.
“Perhaps.”
“What happened to your parents?”
He took the seat beside her and sipped his coffee. He turned his head away soshe wouldn’t see the way his features contorted in disgust at the taste. “My mother died when I was born. Here. In this house.” He turned his head to look inside the windows. “Labour was sudden. They had no phone. My father could not even get her into the car in time. I was born, and she bled to death in the garden.”
“Oh my God.” Kate stood up and crossed to sit on his lap. She wrapped an arm around his neck and buried her head in his neck. “I am so, so sorry. That’s awful.”
“Yes,” he agreed grimly. “Though romantic, this house and its remoteness, led to her death.”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeated, for lack of anything else to say.
He nodded. “There is no reason to think she would have survived if she’d been in town. In any event, my father modernised the home afterwards. It was painstaking.”
“I’m surprised he stayed, in a way. It must have been hard to be here without her.”
“Yes. Incredibly.” He sighed. “But it was where they’d been their happiest. He was … he met my mother and wanted to change his life completely. He grew up in the south of Italy, and moved here for her.”
“A new life together,” she smiled. “That’s so beautiful. They must have loved one another very much.”
“Yes,” he said simply. “I believe they did.”
“What was your mother’s name?”
“Helena,” he tilted his head to see her face. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Because. It seems weird to be in her home and not know her name. Don’t you think?”
His heart turned over at the simple sentiment. “I think you have the habit of saying what I least expect.”
She laughed unsteadily. “Yes. I’m a bit weird.”
“No, not weird,” he assured her. “Unique. Beautiful.”Perfect. That word again breathed through his mind.
