CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
M ARI CLOSED THE door and leant her back against it, the action a trigger for her tears. She was exhausted, emotionally wrung out, first with the funeral and saying goodbye to Eric. Secondly by saying goodbye to Dom, the man she loved but who didn’t love her.
Oh, he wanted her, but as the mother of his twins, not as the woman he loved. She couldn’t bear having him within reach and yet not having him. It would kill her. It would eat her away inside until it destroyed her. Loving a man who didn’t want her had destroyed her before. Better to have him safely on the other side of the world or flying around the globe doing his deals. Better to have him as far away as possible.
They’d work something out about the babies. She was barely seven weeks pregnant. It wasn’t as if there was any rush.
She took a deep breath and pushed herself away from the door, throwing her keys on the table where her recently reclaimed peace lily sat, looking healthier than it had for months. Mari allowed herself a mocking smile. Maybe she should sign a contract to marry a billionaire more often.
* * *
Dom was halfway to the airport. There was no point staying any longer in Melbourne. His team had the Cooper Industries acquisition under control, and he was needed in Brazil, to finalise matters there. He tried to focus on the latest emails he’d received from his team there, tried to get his head back in the game, but something else kept on intruding, those few words that Helen Cooper had uttered that had snagged in his mind. That phrase— for the best —still grated.
More than grated. It wormed its way into Dom’s psyche, slicing into his memories, conversations tumbling and tumbling over each other until he recognised the words he’d voiced himself, opening the floodgates to everything he’d said—thinking he was doing right, when all he’d done was wrong. Time and again he’d done wrong.
Starting with that ill thought out, ill-timed phone call twenty years ago, when he’d decided it was unfair to keep stringing Marianne along month after month and that it was probably for the best that they called off their relationship. Being adult, he’d thought. Grown up.
Stupid.
He’d destroyed Marianne with that thoughtless call. She’d already lost her twins, and then he’d taken away her hope.
And then, yesterday at the cemetery, at the grave where their tiny babies were buried, he’d done it again. He’d told her that they shouldn’t divorce, that they should stay married because she was expecting their twins, that the babies needed them both, that it would be for the best.
And Marianne hadn’t just looked appalled, she’d looked stricken. She’d withdrawn into herself, like a tortoise retreating into its shell, leaving nothing but hard defences, impossible to breach, impossible to reason with.
Why couldn’t he have admitted to himself what was plain all along?
Why else would he not have posted the divorce papers or sent them by courier? For weeks they’d burned a hole in his desk. For those weeks they’d been the elephant in the room, glanced at only to ignore, another day, another week. Why had he felt the compulsion to deliver them in person when there was no earthly need? She wouldn’t have been offended by their arrival, she would have been expecting them. She would have signed them and got them back to him by return mail.
And there, in a nutshell, was why he hadn’t had them couriered over to her.
Because he didn’t want her to sign them.
He didn’t want to divorce her.
Because he loved her.
Dios! Why the hell had it taken him so long to realise? As a twenty-two-year-old he’d had no problem telling Marianne that he loved her. When had the word disappeared from his lexicon? When had he forgotten how to say the word?
When he’d learned that women wanted him for his fortune and not for himself? Or because he’d always been looking for another Marianne? Someone who might take the place of the woman he’d loved and abandoned, only to lose her to somebody else.
The papers.
He turned his head, searching for the envelope, spying it on the parcel shelf, remembering that he’d tossed it there when Marianne had threatened to sign them then and there on the way to the clinic.
And he knew what he had to do.
* * *
Mari tied up her hair and treated herself to a bath, trying to relax her body if not her mind. Sadness seemed to infuse her every cell, the sadness of farewelling a loved one, the sadness of losing another one—one who was destined never to be hers.
It was only early evening, but Mari donned her nightgown and sheepskin boots and wrapped herself in a cosy dressing gown, ready for a night in front of the television. It didn’t matter what was on, it wouldn’t register. She just wanted something inane to blot out the gaping hole in her heart.
The knock on the door was as unwelcome as it was unexpected. She settled in deeper to her sofa. She wasn’t about to open the door to some stranger while wearing her pyjamas. Not a chance.
The knock came again, more insistent this time. More reason to ignore it. Mari crossed her arms over her chest and tried to blot out the interruption.
Whoever was at the door wasn’t taking no for an answer, and this time there was another sound, something that sounded like ‘ Marianne…’
Nobody called her Marianne, nobody but… She sat up.
‘Marianne, it’s Dom.’
A shudder skittered down her spine. He was back? But why? She could keep pretending that she wasn’t home. But something about the urgency of his pounding and the sound of his voice made her curious.
She pulled the sides of her robe closer around her and tightened the belt around her waist, her hand hesitating on the door handle. She pulled it open and Dom was standing there, his arms spread wide, resting against the doorframe. His eyes looked tortured, his features drawn, an expression that transformed immediately when she pulled open the door. Because suddenly she saw hope.
He smiled. ‘Marianne,’ he said.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I found these in the car,’ he said, pulling down his hands from the doorframe. He was holding an envelope in one. She recognised it. The divorce papers.
‘Oh.’ Of course he’d want to mop up the details of their deal, now that he knew that she didn’t want him in her life. She held out one hand. ‘I’ll sign them now.’
But he didn’t hand them over. ‘I have a better idea,’ he said, taking the envelope between both hands and tearing it in half, and then in half again, and again and again, before he threw the scraps in the air. They fluttered on the breeze, scattering to the ground.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We don’t need divorce papers. You don’t want to be divorced.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I finally worked it out. I worked out what I’d said that was wrong, the words that hurt you so much yesterday in the cemetery. Then I worked out what it was that I hadn’t said, and that was even more important.’
Marianne started to protest.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I know that I hurt you. I saw it. I felt the defences go up when you didn’t get what you needed. Because you weren’t looking for someone who wanted to stay married to you because you were pregnant. You wanted someone to stay married to you because they loved you.
‘And as it happens,’ he added, ‘I love you.’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Why should I believe you? It’s just another attempt to keep me close. To keep our babies close.’
‘Marianne, listen to me. Why do you think I delivered those divorce papers myself instead of couriering them? I could have posted them if I didn’t give a damn. I would have. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want you to sign them.’
She started to protest and he cut her off. ‘And that was before I knew about the babies. I couldn’t bear the idea of being without you. It’s you I came back for. It’s you I want to be with. It’s you that I love.’
* * *
Mari searched his eyes. She so desperately wanted to believe him. ‘How can I believe you?’
His expression softened. ‘Maybe, if you let me show you?’
‘How?’
He reached a gentle hand to her chin, lifting it and dipping his face to her lips. ‘Like this,’ he said. He pressed his lips to hers, so gently, so poignantly that it almost broke her heart at the same time it was tearing down her defences.
He drew back. ‘I love you,’ he said, and that was when she saw the tears in his eyes. Tears that mirrored her own. ‘I’m sorry it took me so long to realise the truth. I’m sorry I caused you so much pain and sorrow. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.’
She blinked away the moisture sheening her eyes as she crumpled his shirt in her fist and pulled him through the door, shutting it behind him as she led him to her bed. ‘You know I’m going to hold you to that?’
‘I want you to.’
* * *
He was naked in her bed, the sheet covering his loins, his beautiful chest exposed. He’d made love to her so tenderly that he’d plucked her heartstrings like he’d been playing a harp, and now she lay panting and satiated in his arms.
‘It’s a miracle,’ he said, ‘finding you again.’
It had to be some kind of miracle. Luck or happenstance didn’t come close.
‘Serendipity,’ Mari said, thinking of the word that had appealed so much to Rosaria, the thought followed by instant regret. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘for making out that I didn’t want to stay for your mother’s funeral. Every time we made love, I knew that I was falling deeper for you. Every time, I realised I loved you and I couldn’t stay, knowing that the longer I stayed, it would only get harder to leave you.’
He looked down at her, his dark brows furrowed. ‘That’s why you were in such a hurry to get away? Because you’d discovered you loved me?’
She nodded. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I dare not tell you. Because I feared that history would repeat itself, because you didn’t want a wife, and I’d end up alone and broken again.’
He dropped his head, pressing his lips to her shoulder. ‘I thought things had changed between us too. I thought things might be different. But I was too stupid to realise what I had. I’d buried my feelings so deep inside me that I didn’t recognise it for what it was. I’m so sorry.’
He rested a hand on the slightest curve of her lower belly, where their babies lay nestled deep below. ‘And here we have history repeating itself, but only the good bits, and you’ll never be alone again.’ He leaned down to kiss her nose, her mouth, her chin, and then he leaned down to kiss the almost imperceptible swell of her belly before lifting his face to hers again. ‘I love you, Mari. I’ve wasted twenty years. I promise never to waste another moment.’
Mari smiled up at him, at this man she’d loved in another life, this man who loved her now, and she believed him. ‘I love you,’ she said, ‘so very much.’
Her heart soared. And it was so liberating to be able to put voice to her emotions. It was so liberating to be able to admit it to the man she loved.
He looked at her, his eyes wide. ‘That’s the first time you’ve actually said the words to me.’
She wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘I know. I promise it won’t be the last.’
‘I love you, Senora Estefan. I love you, Mari.’
She smiled under his beautiful mouth. ‘Marianne.’