‘I wasn’t expecting to see you in the war rooms. It shook me.’
‘Me too.’
‘Might we at least be friends again? I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’ve missed you, Riva. I’ve missed you like hell.’
She sighed. ‘Why did you leave without telling me? That’s what hurt the most.’
‘It was cowardice. Plain and simple.’
‘And your mother. It was her plan for you?’
He nodded, looking glum.
‘How is she?’
‘Oh, you know.’
Riva nodded. ‘And children? Do you have children?’
He shook his head. ‘Look, I didn’t do right by you, or by my wife. I couldn’t love her. I cared for her, looked after when she was ill, but I couldn’t love her. It’s always been you, Riva. I—’
‘Stop, Bobby. Stop. I really don’t want to hear this.’
He gazed at her. ‘I have to say it. Leaving you was the biggest mistake of my life.’
She swallowed rapidly and her voice came out more bitterly than she’d intended. ‘But in leaving me, you solved your financial problems, so that’s just fine, isn’t it?’
‘Riva, please.’
She shook her head.
‘This … it’s eating me up. I’m begging you to forgive me.’
‘I …’ She paused and then realised something.
‘What?’
‘It isn’tmyforgiveness you need. It’s your own.’
He stared at the ground and for a while neither of them spoke.
‘Life is short,’ he eventually said. ‘Especially now. You know that. Riva, is there any chance we could begin again?’
And suddenly all the years had come full circle. She’dstruggled to accept what had happened but now time suddenly concertinaed, and it was as if the intervening years, the anguish, the grief, the anger had simply faded.
‘Maybe,’ she said.
He hugged her to him so tightly she couldn’t breathe.
‘Let go,’ she finally managed to say.
‘I will never let go of you, not until my dying breath.’
They had precious little free time but over the next few weeks, they began to spend any moments they had off duty together, mainly in Mdina, away from curious eyes. It was only a few hours they had and apart from Addison, who beamed to see them so happy, they kept themselves to themselves. This now was different, a less bright, less sparkly, more muted shade of love. Love that had been marked by experience, by betrayal, and now by forgiveness. They were meant to be together because look, despite everything, here they were. Again. She’d thought she’d understood what their love had been the first time round. She had understood nothing. It had been fuelled by desire, passion, excitement, and longing. An addiction. Drunk on love, they’d been frenzied, subsumed into each other, and almost destroyed by it.
And yet there had been joy, something ineffable, never spoken of, never identified, never needing to be identified, but now gone for ever. The kind of love that could be felt only by the young. A young Riva, a young Bobby. So, this now. What was this? A deeper love, the connection between them yet again beyond words? Did that mean the love would change in another ten years’ time, intwenty, in thirty? Was she too old to still carry a child? Did it matter? He had found her again. She had found him. And it was as if they knew each other intimately and at the same time not at all.
CHAPTER 43
