‘You’re right,’ Gabriel said huskily in a low, barely audible voice. ‘I don’t want a clean break. I don’t want any break at all. I just...want you.’
‘Too bad!’ She spun round on her heels and half-raced out of the cabana. It was still scorching hot at a little after four and a combination of a need to flee and pure instinct drove her to run through the trees, brushing past the foliage that was in the process of being trimmed back, out past the main hotel and down towards the beach, which was empty.
He would follow her. She knew he would. She wanted it so badly, wantedhimdespite everything, and yet she was desperate to escape his stranglehold.
She didn’t want him to talk her into doing anything her head would saynoto and she feared her own weakness when it came to him.
She stopped dead to stare at the open ocean for a few seconds, to feel the soothing caress of the sea breeze cooling her down. Then she sat on the sand, drew up her knees to her chin and continued to look out at the deep-blue water with its white lacy spume where the waves rose and broke in a jagged pattern.
She felt his presence, saw his shadow over her and tensed up as he sat next to her, staring out, his body language mirroring hers.
‘I didn’t...use you,’ he said haltingly, not looking at her. ‘I just wasn’t open. You talked, I listened and, instead of telling you how much you were doing to help me do the best for my daughter, I kept silent, because silence has always been my best friend. Rosa took to you, confided in you. I’d always promised that I would never put her in the middle, never make her feel as though she was taking sides in a situation not of her making. But she chatted to you and, instead of being honest with you, I wasn’t. I should have trusted you. I should have communicated better but I just didn’t have those skills. At least, I didn’t think I did.’
‘I hate you,’ Izzy whispered. She brushed a tear off her cheek and was barely aware of doing so.
‘This is who I am,’ he said huskily. ‘I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks and it was ingrained in me that my strength was my ability to remain focused. I think...’ He sighed. ‘I think when my marriage fell apart I woke up to the reality that love, and everything else that went with it, wasn’t something I was capable of experiencing. Those were things sacrificed somewhere along the line. It was a sacrifice I accepted. I had my daughter. It was enough. And then you came along.’
‘Don’t do this. Don’t lie to me.’
‘I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.’ He paused and Izzy sneaked a glance at him to find that he was staring off in the distance, as thoughtful as she had ever seen him.
‘I slept with you that very first time, and if only I’d known just how much the foundations of my life would change afterwards... No, scratch that. Imetyou that very first time—so different from anyone I’d ever known. God, I told myself that you were just another privileged kid, that underneath the sweet and innocent veneer lay someone who would be accustomed to getting just want she wanted. On every count, I was wrong.’
He turned to her and looked at her gravely. ‘That’s why I couldn’t use you although, yes, for better or for worse, I did use the information that came my way. I never asked you to confide in me...but you did, and I was grateful because, in a strange way, you gave me my daughter. I don’t want you to feel you have to forgive me, Izzy. I just want you to know that I fell in love with you and, if I hurt you, then from now to the end of time you have my apologies.’
He didn’t touch her but their eyes met and the breath hitched in her throat.
Was he leading her up the garden path? This was a man who had just admitted that he was more than capable of using someone, that he had considered using her. Was this a ruse, something introduced to get her off-guard? Was there something else he wanted from her?
She didn’t want to trust him but she could feel a singing in her veins.
‘You’re not in love with me,’ she said, confused.
‘I am. It’s not something I ever expected, and I guess that’s why I didn’t recognise the signs. You shared my bed and I couldn’t conceive of anything else. I trusted you with Rosa...let you open my eyes to what it felt like to stop being a businessman and instead to be just a dad. But trust was something that was so alien to me that I couldn’t easily believe in it.’
‘You never said before... You never let me know...’
‘It crept up on me, Izzy. Like I said, I showed all the symptoms but chose to ignore them.’ He reached to stroke the side of her face with his finger. She shivered and closed her eyes briefly.
‘I don’t want to believe you,’ she said honestly and he smiled.
‘Why not?’
‘Because then I might wake up and realise that this has all been a dream.’ She knew what it felt like to be giddy with happiness. ‘I fell in love with you and I was so scared that it would all fall apart. I trusted Jefferson and that was a train crash. Did I dare trust you? Trust myself? If only I’d known how you felt then I might have been brave enough to tell you howIfelt...’
‘Or,’ he said with wry honesty, ‘you might have hit a brick wall. I closed myself off after Bianca and that detachment became my default position when it came to women. I figured it worked for me, gave me the uncluttered life I wanted. I didn’t stop to ask myself what was lost in the process, but in the end you showed me.’
‘I love you so much...’ Her eyes shone. Nothing else mattered. This very moment was something to be held close and treasured, no more questions asked.
‘I came here, Izzy, to ask you to marry me. I wanted to bring a ring...wanted to do something dramatic...but I was scared stiff that you’d turn me down. And if you turn me down, I’m not sure what I’ll do. The truth is that it’s more than love—it’s need as well. I’ve spent my life insulating myself against the background I came from. I equated power and money with freedom and self-determination, and between those opposite poles there was nothing. Life, before you came along, was black and white. You turned it to Technicolor and that’s why I want you by my side for ever. So will you, Izzy? Will you marry me?’
Izzy smiled and said two words to last a lifetime. ‘I will.’