Lost now for ever like the fantasy he had only ever been, conjured up by the man who was not her uncle after all.
She felt the lift plummet down, leaving her stomach behind—and also an organ even more vital.
The lift stopped moving. There was the slightest pause, and then the doors were opening.
On robotic legs, she stepped out into the lobby.
Two hands fastened around her upper arms like vises.
‘Where thehell,’ demanded Luca, ‘do you think you’re going?’
* * *
He thrust her back into the elevator, jabbing at the control button for his floor. How he’d reached the lobby before she did, he didn’t know. How he’d yanked on the barest minimum of clothing to make him even fractionally decent—just his trousers—he didn’t know either.
He knew only one thing.
Bianca was trying to leave him.
He pressed her back against the wall of the car as it soared back up. She struggled against his grip, but he would have none of it. He was breaking every rule in the MeToo handbook, but he didn’t give a damn. He kissed her instead, crushing her to him. Kissing her and kissing her till she was breathless, boneless, helpless…
‘Don’t leave me!’ he said. ‘Don’teverleave me!’
The lift was stopping, the doors sliding open. He pulled her out, hustled her back into his room. He hadn’t shut the door—there’d been no time. But once inside he kicked it shut with his bare foot, crushing her against him.
‘No more leaving, Bianca! No more leaving ever! Not you—not me—not either of us! Do you understand me?Doyou?’
He broke into Italian. It was the only language that would do. The only one that could be spoken fast enough, vehemently enough, passionately enough.
Lovingly enough.
As the torrent poured from him he cradled her face in his hands, tilting it up so she would look at him. Tears were shimmering in her eyes. With an oath he broke off, pressed passionate kisses on her eyelids, which fluttered closed.
‘No tears! No crying! No weeping! And no leaving! Because why would you want to leave?Why?Six years it’s taken us—six years!—to be back together again! To make it right between us!’
Her face contorted. Words spilled from her.
‘We’re only together because you thought I was someone worthy of you now! Because you thought me Matteo Fiarante’s niece! But I’m not! I’m not his niece! I’m exactly the same as I was six years ago—when you said I wasn’t good enough for you.’
Italian broke from him again. Crude this time, and full of expletives. But he didn’t care.
‘Then shame on me!’ The hands cupping her face gentled, his voice too. He poured his eyes into hers. ‘Bianca, six years ago I said what I should never have said. I said it because I thought you wanted too much of me—more than I wanted. But now…now I want everything.Everything.Everything that you are.’
He took a breath, his expression changing, his voice changing.
‘As for what you’ve told me—yes, I’m sad. How could I not be? I am sad that you are not Matteo’s niece…that he is not your uncle. Sad simply because it meant so much to you and to him. Of course I’m sad. But that’sallI am, Bianca.’
He let his hands slip from her face, rest on her shoulders instead. Tears were still shimmering in her eyes and he wanted them gone. Wanted that haunted look in her face gone.
He wanted only one look in her face…her eyes. The one that echoed his.
‘Forgive me,’ he said simply, plainly, so that there could be no doubt, no misunderstanding—not ever again. ‘Forgive me if I gave you cause to think it would make a difference to me. Because how could it? How could it change you for me? How could it changeme? I am what I am, Bianca.’ His eyes held hers, and then he said to her the most important thing he would ever say in his life. ‘And what I am, what I will always be, is the man who loves you.’
Softly, gently and infinitely carefully, he lowered his lips to hers, in a fleeting touch whose echo would last for ever. All his life—and hers.
And as he lifted his mouth away he saw the tears in her eyes well up and spill, then pour down her cheeks.
It was all he needed to see.