Her phone buzzed. She turned it off without looking at it. It would be one of her family. Unable to face them, she’d messaged her sister and given her Gennaro’s version of whyshe was leaving. In many ways, it was the truth, except in the real version she wasn’t leaving to give them time to cool down. She was leaving because Gennaro would rather be lonely and miserable than take a chance on love.
She was such a fool. She’d given the whole of herself and her heart to a man she’d known could never return her feelings. She’d let him breach her defences; defences she’d only put up to protect herself from exactly what she was feeling now, and now she had to navigate the rest of her life without him.
There was a long beep from the car behind them. It barely penetrated her misery.
She couldn’t go back to Florence. She’d have to go to her parents or check into a hotel. Yes. A hotel. Somewhere she could spend a few days without any memories of Gennaro in it and grieve the future she’d barely realised she’d spent all her life longing for before it had been snatched away from her.
The horn of the car overtaking them made a series of beeps.
She closed her eyes and wiped away more tears that were immediately replaced with fresh ones. Only when she opened them again did she realise the driver had turned off the road they’d been travelling and was pulling into a layby.
She pressed the buzzer and croaked through her raw throat into the microphone, “Why are we stopping?”
The driver didn’t answer. About to repeat the question, her body jumped when her door flew open and then her heart jumped when Gennaro appeared.
She gazed at him as if he were a mirage. “What are you doing here?” she whispered.
His gorgeous features contorted. “Don’t go.”
“What?”
He held out a hand to her. “Don’t go. Please, Luisa, don’t go.”
She continued gazing at him and dumbly said, “But youtoldme to go.”
“And now I’m telling you – begging you – not to.”
Feeling like she was in some kind of dream, she gripped the hand extended to her and let him help her out of the car. The hand felt real. The scent of his cologne smelt real.
But her legs felt shaky.Everythingfelt shaky. She was so wrung out she could barely comprehend what was happening, and she yanked her hand out of his and pressed her back to the side of the car to keep herself upright.
With cars streaming past them, he quietly said, “Please, come back with me. Come back and see out this farce of a wedding and then we can fly anywhere in the world you want to go and retake our vows with the meaning we should have given them when we first made them.”
Helookedserious, she thought dazedly.
“You want us to have a proper marriage?” she whispered, needing to be concrete in her certainty of what he was saying.
“With all my heart….”
Her feet had leapt from the ground before he’d finished speaking as she launched herself at him, pummelling his chest with her fists as she screamed at him, “You absolute fucking bastard! I would rather sleep on the streets than go back with you. Ihateyou.”
Strong arms wrapped around her, pinning her to the chest she was so desperately trying to pummel.
“I know you hate me,” he whispered, pressing his mouth into the top of her head. “I deserve your hate. I have treated you terribly and if I could wind back time to the day I made my proposal to your parents, I would. I have so many regrets but using their terrible situation to my own advantage is second only to how I’ve spent our marriage treating you.” There was a crack in his voice. “You were the first person other than my brother to ever touch my heart and nowyou’ve grown into the woman who owns it. I love you, Luisa. I think I’ve loved you since you walked into your parents’ living room and agreed to marry me with such contempt in your eyes. I deserved that contempt. I was a selfish bastard acting in my own self-interests while you were acting out of love.”
She stopped struggling against him and held her breath.
He pressed another tight kiss to her head and quietly said, “I think you’vesaved my soul, Luisa. I know you deserve so much better than me, but I beg you, please give me the chance to be that man. I swear I will do everything I can….”
His voice tailed off as he sucked in a deep breath of air.
“Say it,” she dredged.
“I want to be the man and husband you deserve but I don’t know how to be.”
It was the starkness in his voice that cut through the last of her desolation and anger and allowed her heart to pump with hope.
Disentangling herself from his tight hold, she lifted herself onto her toes and cupped his face. His eyes were closed. “Look at me,” she ordered quietly.