CHAPTER SIX
FORTWODAYS, she ignored him. Two long days and nights. Every now and again he’d catch a glimpse of her, moving through the boat, going to get a book, or watch a movie, or to swim, but she never looked in his direction, even though she must have known he was there. It was as though she was going out of her way to avoid the briefest eye contact. She ate in her room—an unnecessary precaution because, having realised she wanted to avoid him, he would have given her the space necessary to do just that regardless.
After they’d slept together, he’d returned to his office to see a message from Anton on the screen.
You have no idea how relieved we are. I knew I could trust you with this.
The words had hit him in the chest like a grenade.
He’d agreed to help his friend without a moment’s hesitation. Of course he had. Having heard only one side of the story, and never having met Amelia, he hadn’t given her a second thought. His mind had filled out the facts necessary to make his peace with the whole concept and he’d set things in motion.
But she was under his skin now, a living, breathing, feeling human who had made it perfectly clear over and over again that she didn’t want to return to her family.
He didn’t agree with that choice. Regardless of Anton’s request, he still believed it was better to face things head-on, particularly with people you loved. Knowing how he’d loved Sasha, understanding that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, he recognised the pain Amelia’s parents were feeling. He’d wanted to help.
But what authority did he have to control Amelia’s life?
She was right.
He didn’t know anything about her circumstances. He had no idea what had motivated her to leave in the first instance. Forcing her home might make things ten times worse.
And if it did? Was it enough to be with her? Could he stand by her side as she faced whatever it was she feared? Could he offer her that at least? Was it a way of assuaging his conscience, just as she’d accused him of? And would she accept?
With a sense of determination that spurred him to take a step he’d never thought possible, he reached across his desk, picked up the photograph and moved through the ship, in search of Amelia and, he hoped, some form of redemption.
‘Do you have a moment?’
Amelia startled, the sound of being spoken to directly after days of silence making her jump out of her skin.
The sight of Benedetto, whom she’d been forcing herself to avoid so much as looking in the direction of, made her skin flush and her heart race as a whole host of memories slammed into her. She blinked away quickly, staring instead at the dusk-lit ocean.
‘There’s something I want to explain to you.’
It was childish, but she still didn’t speak. Partly because she didn’t trust herself to. Her voice was hoarse from disuse anyway, but emotions were also crowding in around her.
She stood her ground though, jaw set mutinously, eyes focused ahead, and he remained standing at her side for several long seconds, then expelled a sigh, placing something down beside her. Despite herself, Amelia’s eyes shifted, and she recognised the photograph from his desk, though she’d seen only the back.
Now that it was pointed towards her, she saw a smiling little girl looking back at her with dimples in her cheeks and eyes that seemed to sparkle with life and vivacity, so Amelia couldn’t help smiling back. This child was, she suspected, the kind of girl who had that effect on everyone, even when rendered as a two-dimensional image.
‘That’s Sasha. Sash.’ He cleared his throat. ‘My daughter.’
She startled, jerking her gaze to his face. ‘You have a daughter.’
‘She died. Six years ago. After eighteen months of illness, treatments, the longest, slowest goodbye, and in the end, she was in so much pain that it was almost a relief when she—for her sake—but I was destroyed by it, Amelia.’
Amelia’s eyes filled with tears and every shred of anger and rage and rightful indignation dropped away completely.
She stood up, wringing her hands in front of her.
‘I’m not telling you for sympathy,’ he responded gruffly, forestalling any effort she might make on that score, as if it would have been unwelcome anyway. ‘I’m telling you because you need to understand. When she got sick, helping her became my sole focus. I pushed everyone away. I neglected my business. Lost most of my money, assets; it didn’t matter. All I cared about was Sasha, and finding the right doctor, the best doctor, the treatment that would prove to be the miracle we needed.’
Silence surrounded them; the air pulsed with emotion.
Amelia stared at him, lost for words, full of feelings.
‘And everyone left me.’
Her heart shattered.
‘No one wanted to be near me; they didn’t know what to say, what to do.’ His voice was gruff, factual. Slow to form, the words dredged from the depths of his soul. ‘Except your brother. Anton visited. Brought Sash toys. Came to stay with me at the end. Comforted me when she left. And afterwards, when I would have drunk myself into an early grave, he was the one who kept me tethered—just enough—to this world to fight back when I was ready. He was the hand reaching out for me, pulling me some of the way out of the worst grief I can describe, guiding me back to myself, my business. I owe him...everything.’
Pride and love for her older brother filled Amelia’s heart, but there was also such hurt for Benedetto. She moved closer, picked up the photograph, looked at it. ‘She has the most beautiful smile.’
‘Yes.’
Benedetto’s jaw was clenched, as though he was grinding his teeth, trying to control his emotions.
‘So when he asked you for help, you agreed without hesitation.’
‘I said I’d bring you home, whatever it took. I couldn’t fail him. I can’t.’
Amelia nodded slowly, wistfully, replacing the photo on the tabletop before pressing a hand lightly to Benedetto’s chest.
‘I had no idea—’ his voice was gruff ‘—when I agreed to help, that it would cause you so much pain. You’re nothing like what I thought you’d be.’
‘Spoiled, selfish, thoughtless?’ she prompted, because he’d made his assumptions abundantly clear.
‘Maybe I wanted to think that, to make it easier to go through with this.’
‘You’re still going through with it though,’ she said, gesturing to the ocean that surrounded them. ‘Because of what you feel you owe Anton.’
He closed his eyes a moment. ‘I want to help you too.’
‘Oh?’
‘I don’t know what happened in Catarno to cause you to leave. You clearly don’t want to tell me, and that’s fine. I don’t know what you’re running from, but, if it helps, I can be there with you, when we arrive. I’ll stand with you as you face your family. Whatever will make this easier, I’ll do. I owe you that much, at least.’
A great big ball of feeling exploded in Amelia’s chest. Sadness, relief, happiness, something else she couldn’t identify—affection and gratitude and something shimmery that made her whole body feel as though it were tingling.
‘Excuse me, Millie?’ She was jolted from the wonder of those feelings by Cassidy’s voice, from just a small distance away. ‘Will you be eating in your room or do you want to sit out here? It’s a gorgeous night.’
Amelia blinked, slow to compute.
Benedetto reached out, laced their fingers together. ‘Have dinner with me.’ But even as he said it, she felt the doubts in his voice, the hesitation, the unwillingness to surrender. Their attraction was something they hadn’t foreshadowed, and it complicated everything, but that was worse for him.
Having heard what Anton meant to him, and why, she could well imagine Benedetto not wanting to sabotage their friendship by getting in a relationship with Anton’s younger sister. And yet here he was, holding her hand, asking her to trust him.
Her heart stretched and thumped.
How could she?
How could she ever trust anyone again?
But this was just a meal. Dinner. It wasn’t a lifetime commitment. And she didn’t have to bare her soul to him just because he’d shared something so personal with her. Confident she could control this, Amelia turned to Cassidy. ‘I’ll eat out here.’
The ocean created the backdrop audio, a gentle lapping against the sides of the boat, rhythmic and seductive, soothing. When they were alone again, Benedetto gestured to the leather lounge that was at the top of the infinity pool, which was lit with stunning underwater lights, giving it a magical appearance.
Amelia allowed him to guide her to the seat, to pull her down beside him to rest back against him and listen to—and feel—the steady thrum of his heart, the intake of his breath, the good, solid, dependable movements of his body, his offer so exactly what she’d wanted from almost the first moment she’d met him.
‘So you want to be my executioner and saviour,’ she murmured, tracing invisible patterns on his knee.
‘No one is going to want to execute you,’ he said gruffly, pausing for a moment, and Amelia was quiet, waiting.
‘When Sash was younger, before she got sick, she wanted to take a day off school. I can’t remember why. She was fighting with a friend over something silly. She was only seven or eight.’
Amelia was still, listening, glad that he was speaking to her about his daughter, glad to hear about the beautiful child whose life had been extinguished far too young.
‘Eight,’ he said, snapping his fingers. ‘Because her teacher was Mrs Fauci. I let her stay home. She had a nanny, a nice old lady who loved her like a grandmother, and I thought that was appropriate—the least I could do, really, as she had no one else to fill that role.’
‘What about her mother?’ Amelia asked softly. ‘And her mother’s family?’
‘Her mother, Monique, was a woman I’d known for about three nights, when I was nineteen. She didn’t tell me she was pregnant. The first I knew about Sash was when they turned up on my doorstep, Monique handing the baby to me telling me she didn’t want anything to do with her.’
Amelia’s stomach twisted.
‘I didn’t want a kid,’ he said on a gruff laugh. ‘Hell, my business was taking off, I felt like I was king of the world. And suddenly, I had to get a nursery ready, hire a nanny, work out how to fit a child into my life. And what if I turned out to be like him?’ His voice sobered. Amelia turned a little, so she could see Benedetto better, rearranging herself so that instead of leaning back against him she was facing him, legs over his. He turned to look at her, a haunted expression in his eyes. ‘It was my greatest fear. How could I know, until I had her in my life, that I wouldn’t be just like my father? That I wouldn’t lose it at the slightest provocation? That I wouldn’t say things to her I couldn’t take back?’
‘You’re not like him.’
‘No, I’m not,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t know how relieved I am to be able to say that. I raised my voice at Sasha only once in her entire life, and it was when she was two years old and was reaching for a pan that was filled with boiling water. She couldn’t see above the stove, but if she’d got hold of it, if it had fallen on her—’
‘That’s a perfectly reasonable reaction,’ Amelia responded.
‘She turned to look at me with such surprise, and then giggled and ran into my arms. She was all that was good in this world.’
‘She sounds amazing.’
He didn’t reply at first, simply stared out at the ocean, one hand on Amelia’s thigh. It was a balmy night, the kind Amelia loved. She’d always adored the heat, preferring it when she could sleep in just her underwear with a light sheet.
‘So when she was eight, she stayed home from school,’ he said, disorienting Amelia with his segue back to a conversation she’d forgotten about. ‘Her nanny—Mary—told me later that they’d played Uno all day, Sasha had eaten well. She was happy that night when I tucked her into bed. But the next morning, she didn’t want to go to school again. I insisted she go, she refused. It was rare for her to dig in her heels. Sasha was always happy and obliging and easy-going, so for her to get so worked up, I didn’t know what to do. I let her stay home again. Mary told me they had another great day together. I don’t know who enjoyed it more, honestly.’
Amelia smiled softly, pulling her hair over one shoulder as a gentle breeze rustled past them.
‘The same thing, the next day. She just wouldn’t go back. She wouldn’t tell me why.’ His eyes flicked to Amelia’s. ‘After a full week of this, we had a normal weekend, and then Monday morning came around. I was determined to get her to school. Again, she refused. I had no idea what was going on, so finally I called her teacher to see if there was something more at play.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing significant,’ he said, lifting one hand palm up into the air. ‘But then she explained how staying away from school can make even the smallest things seem like a huge deal. That our minds can build it up to be a bigger problem, that the longer we stay away, the harder it gets to go back. Mrs Fauci said the only solution was to bring her to school, even if she was in floods of tears. That within an hour she’d be over it.’ He turned to look at Amelia, eyes scanning her face. ‘She was right. On the Tuesday morning, I drove her to school myself, walked her to class. She was furious with me, glared at me, refused to give me a hug—completely unlike her—and I spent all day worrying that I was the worst parent in the world, that she would hate me for ever. She came home, smiling, with a story she’d written on bright green paper, and a card all her friends had made because they’d missed her so much.’
Amelia smiled, and her heart hurt too. ‘You’re a great dad.’ She didn’t know why, but she used the present tense, perhaps because she figured it wasn’t a position you could lose. Even though Sasha had passed away, he was still her father and always would be.
‘I got good advice from Mrs Fauci,’ he replied. ‘And was quaking in my boots going through with it.’
Amelia laughed. ‘You?’
‘Oh, sì, absolutely. It was so unusual for Sasha to be angry with me, I was sure I was messing everything up monumentally.’ He squeezed Amelia’s thigh. Across the deck, there was movement—Cassidy was setting the table.
‘I don’t know why you left Catarno, but I wonder if the longer you stay away, the harder it’s going to be to go back.’
She bit into her lip, surprised at how the comparison didn’t reassure her. ‘It’s different.’
‘Sure, the circumstances are, but what about the psychology? You’ve been gone over two years. Isn’t that a part of it?’
On some level, he was probably right, but it wasn’t so simple. ‘I never planned to go back.’
‘Never?’
I couldn’t.She was so tempted to tell him the truth, but it was too awful, too shameful. Not just the truth of her parentage, but her idiocy in having shared her discovery with Daniel, putting herself in a position to be blackmailed. She couldn’t allow history to repeat itself. She gulped, physically quashing that temptation, knowing she needed to take control of what was happening between them.
‘I think we should talk about this,’ she said, biting into her lower lip.
‘This?’
‘Us.’
She felt him stiffen and it was all the confirmation she needed that the conversation was imperative.
‘You told me you don’t do relationships.’
‘Sì.’
‘Well, I’m definitely not looking for a relationship either.’ As soon as she said it, she felt the world tilt. It was so important to cling to that, to remind herself of what had happened with Daniel and why she’d been so careful ever since. ‘I don’t want this to get out of hand.’
‘It won’t.’
Her smile was wistful. ‘You sound so confident.’
‘Believe me, cara, as incredible as I find you, I will have no problems walking away from you after the wedding.’
She shivered inwardly. ‘Because you don’t do relationships?’
‘Correct.’
‘How come?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
Amelia inhaled quickly. ‘I...’ She hesitated, aware that she was getting dangerously close to confiding in him. But surely she could offer a partial explanation, nothing to do with her mother’s affair, but just a little insight into what had happened with Daniel? ‘I suppose I learned my lesson,’ she said haltingly. His eyes probed her face as he waited for more. Amelia sought the right words. ‘I was dating a guy. I really cared for him; I thought we were in love,’ she said with a lift of one shoulder, tilting her face to study the moon as it brightened in the sky. ‘But he was just using me.’
‘Why do you say that?’ His question was calm and measured, as though drawing the information from her to assess its validity.
‘It became apparent, when we broke up. He—’ she broke off a moment ‘—betrayed my trust, in the worst possible way. It made me doubt everything I knew about everyone. If I could be wrong about Daniel, who was I right about? I thought I knew him,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I was an idiot.’
‘No,’ Benedetto contradicted. ‘You just trusted the wrong person.’
She grimaced. He made it sound so simple, but it was a mistake that she would have to live with for the rest of her life. She’d never stop worrying about what she’d told Daniel. The power she’d given him to hurt her, and her family, would never go away.
‘I won’t make that mistake again,’ she muttered.
‘So it’s easier to trust no one?’
She turned to face him, eyes unknowingly blanked of emotion, and nodded slowly. ‘It’s easier not to rely on anyone,’ she amended. ‘Whatever this is—’ she gestured from her chest to his ‘—I want us both to be clear: it doesn’t mean anything. It’s not real, and neither of us owes the other anything. Okay?’