“You hate what I did,” he responded with a small smile. “As do I. But you do not hate me.”
Didn’t she? Kate wasn’t sure anymore. Her feelings were a tidal wave of confusion.
“Will you come with me? This one last time? And if you say, afterwards, that you want nothing to do with me, I will respect your wishes, as much as that pains me.”
She swallowed down her objection. She swallowed past the desire to tell him to get lost. Curiosity and something else, something a lot like love, were knotting in her chest. “Fine,” she said. “Against my better judgement.”
He turned so she wouldn’t see his smile.
When they emerged on the street below, she realised his motorbike was parked right by the door. How had she failed to notice it minutes earlier?
He handed her the helmet and she took it, weighing it carefully in her hands. “Like the first night we met.”
He nodded, a muscle twisting in his jaw. “I wish it were,” he said seriously. “I would do it all so differently.”
Kate looked away as she clicked the helmet into place. When she took her seat on the bike, she avoided looking at him, and touched him the minimal amount.
It took her a long time to realize where he was taking her. But eventually, the village near his father’s townhouse came into view. He zoomed past it, and before long, pulled the bike through the entrance to the farmhouse.
Her heart throbbed painfully.
He stopped the bike out the front and kicked down the support. She climbed off quickly, stepping several paces away from the bike.
“Why are we here?” She whispered, the helmet suffocating her now. She reached up to unhook it, but her eyes clung to the whitewashed buildings and the garden that had housed the poppies earlier in the year.
“You told me that you never wanted to leave,” he said simply, his eyes locking to hers. “So stay here.”
She swallowed, her heart turning over in her chest. “I can’t.”
“Come.” He put a hand out, and she put hers in it thoughtfully. Sparks of fierce electricity burned through her.
The moment they stepped inside, she could appreciate the differences. Subtle renovations had been undertaken in every room. Fresh paint, new light switches that indicated re-wiring, and in the last room they looked in, a state of the art office had been set up, with several monitors, phones, and a big desk in the middle with six chairs around it.
“I will have my team flown in for meetings,” he said. “Occasionally I may have to travel to Rome. But I will work here, and you will love here.”
Her smile was wistful. “And we’ll make jam with our children?” She murmured with a hint of disbelief, for the dream seemed so far away.
“Jam, and memories,” he said seriously.
Kate wanted, so badly, to reach out for what he was promising. But how could she? “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I told you,” he slid his hands behind her back and pulled her against him. He hugged her kindly, gently; he hugged her with compassion, not sensuality, because he wanted to reassure her. How easy it would have been to overwhelm her with the desire that had been the hallmark of their union.
“Just give me a chance.” Slowly he brought a hand to her stomach and felt the slight roundness there. “From the minute you left me, I knew I would fight for you, for us, Kate. I didn’t dare believe I deserved you, but I don’t want to lose you. I have had the farmhouse fixed, to make it comfortable for you, and I have dealt with Augustine so that you may live – with or without me – in safety and out of hiding.”
Kate’s enormous blue eyes blinked up at him, shimmering with tears.
“I do not expect you to live in my room, to come to my bed. Just move in with me. So that we can have dinner together every night. So that we can talk and laugh, as we did. So that we can share stories of our day. I will make whatever you wish work, Kate, just please tell me there is room for me somewhere in your life.”
Kate had been afraid for so many years.
She stared at Benedetto Arnaud, and felt that she was on a tightrope with her head on one side and her heart on the other. Just like he’d said. One tiny thing would tip her to the ground.
“Ti amo, cara, per sempre.”
And Kate found her lips forming a real smile. A smile that she could not suppress. A smile that spoke of trust and love and a future that she had never dared hopefor.
“Is that a yes?” He murmured, squeezing her around the middle.
