Chapter 16
HIS WORDS RAN through her like tangled cord. She tried to untangle them, to make them make sense, but no matter what, she failed.
“You want me to come to Italy with you,” she said, finally, flattening her lips.
His eyes glittered like onyx. “You belong there, and you know it.”
She did know it. That was part of the heavy grief she carried. She’d come back to America, ostensibly to her ‘home’, and nothing had felt right. The light had landed differently, the people, the accents, the food. Everything had felt like an approximation of life; she had felt out of step.
But a place was just that—a place. She didn’t want to go to Italy because of its beauty and how right it had felt. She wanted to be wherever Luca was, but only if he loved her like she loved him.
She swallowed convulsively. “What are you offering? A new deal?”
“Is that what you want?”
She blanked her expression. “No.”
“Because I have thought about that.”
Her eyes shifted to his.
“Every reason for our marriage dissolved that morning, and yet I wanted you to stay.”
“Yes, I remember,” she said, pulling out of his hands and putting much needed space between them, glad to have the reminder of that morning so she could focus on her anger. “You wanted us to have a chance to get over this infatuation.”
His features tightened and a muscle jerked in his jaw. “I was wrong.”
She stood where she was, but crossed her arms over her chest protectively.
She had been hurt so badly, she couldn’t cope with any more.
Even when a part of her wanted to cling to his statement and let it breathe hope into her, a protective mechanism refused to allow that. There was no hope here, only pain.
“This is not infatuation.”
Hope shifted regardless, just a small flicker, deep down inside of her.
“This is—you are—the very essence of who I am. You are, all of a sudden, and without me understanding when it happened, my life force. I have realised, these last two months, that I am nothing without you. Niente. Just a shell of a person, going through the motions, with no true purpose or joy. You are not just my wife, Allegra, you are my life. My whole life.”
She could only stare at him. His words were so perfect, so utterly perfect, that she was sure this was one of her dreams, conjured in the depths of the night to torment her with what would never be possible.
“I came here today to plead with you to forget about the divorce a while. I simply came to ask you to give me a second chance. To go on a date with me, so we could sit across a candlelit table from one another and talk. That’s it.
No grand plans.” She now realised that the emotion she kept glimpsing in his face and struggling to interpret was anguish.
He was tormented by what he was saying; by the fear that she would reject him.
Her lips parted in surprise. Luca was afraid?
“But then I saw you, and the idea of just dating you, my wife, my beloved, beautiful wife, felt so insufficient I could have cried.”
She gasped.
“Yet if that is what you are more comfortable with, if you would prefer to start with something small, then we will, we can. All I ask is that you forget the divorce, for a while.”
Hope was no longer just a flicker, but a flame, a big, golden flame inside of her, but she stayed very still. Having been burned more than once, she had finally learned to do her due diligence, to ask every possible question.
“What changed your mind?”
“Nothing. I just realised my mind. I have wanted you in my life since that first night we met.”
She blinked quickly.
“I am the one who suggested marriage. Yes, to satisfy my grandfather’s requirement, but think, Allegra.
Why you? Why then? I have dated many women, there are any number of women I could have married for the sake of the company.
It was you I wanted. You I knew I needed, and would always need, in my life. ”
“But you told me—,”
“I was a fool. Allegra. I couldn’t admit to myself what you meant to me.
I thought that loving you like this made me weak, because I might lose you, and I know that pain, so well.
But your love has made me strong. It’s made me do things I never thought possible.
And eventually I came to understand that it is better to put everything on the line and have you turn your back than it is to never ask the question. To lose you out of fear and stupidity.”
His voice was raw, the pain so obvious she wanted then to throw all caution to the wind and pull him to her.
“I am begging you to reconsider this.”
Another plea, and this one landed like an arrow in her heart.
She sobbed softly, bit into her lip to try to stop it.
“I just want to be clear,” she said, lifting a hand and pulling her hair over one shoulder, to play with the golden ends.
“This isn’t about sex. This isn’t about infatuation.
This isn’t something you’re putting a time limit on? ”
He closed his eyes, his chest shifting as he sucked in a deep breath. “Cristo, I’ve been such an ass. That you could even ask that shows how badly I have failed.”
Her throat felt tight.
“I love you,” he said. “Ti amo, with my whole heart. The only time limit I want either of us to put on our marriage is forever. As long as we both shall live, like we drunkenly promised.”
Her laugh was wet with unshed tears.
“I want you to come home with me, so we can start the rest of our lives, so I can show you how utterly and completely you are the best of me. The best bits of me. I am nothing without you, my darling, beautiful wife.”
And now her sob was echoed by her movements, as she wordlessly closed the small distance between them and lifted her arms around his neck, brushing her body to his. “Please tell me this is a yes,” he groaned, dropping his head so their brows met.
“It’s a si, certo,” she smiled, and he groaned as he took her mouth and kissed her so long, and so hard, that she felt quite weak afterwards. Weak, and complete, and ready for the rest of their lives to start—together, as they were meant to be.
* * *
Two years, to the day, after their Vegas wedding, they stood by the pool at Luca’s spectacular villa, beneath an arch exploding with pink bougainvillea flowers, and said their vows. They spoke in Italian, in which Ally was now fluent, watched on by a small group of their closest family and friends.
Valentino was in the front row, that same shrewd, watchful expression in his eyes.
But Ally didn’t fail to notice the way they were suspiciously moist, and he reached into his pocket more than once for a handkerchief to dab at their corners.
Dante and Paolo were there, so like Luca that she laughed whenever she imagined them living as enemies.
Valentino had never admitted fault, as to his role in their estrangement.
Ally had gathered that the old man genuinely felt the competition he’d thrust them into, all their lives, had given them spines of steel.
And perhaps he was right. But she knew that the lesson she and Luca had learned—that it was better to depend upon a person than not—was far more apt.
THE END