Chapter Thirteen #2
‘I don’t want a meek, compliant wife,’ he continued.
‘I want you exactly as you are, because exactly as you are is all I need, and I will never forgive myself for the way I ended it with you all those years ago. I should have guessed you were pregnant.’ The burn of tears stabbed the backs of his eyes, and he blinked hard to control it.
‘I remember those calls we had and the excitement in your voice… I knew you were keeping something from me, but in my arrogance, I thought you had something special planned for when I got back. That’s why I broke things off as soon as I walked in and didn’t give you the chance to tell me.
My analogy of ripping a plaster off was crude and cruel, but there is no better way to describe it, and because of my cruelty, you were alone when you lost our baby when I should have been with you, and thinking of that kills me.
’ Throat close to choking, Xavi wiped a tear away.
He needed to get through this. Beth deserved everything, not half measures. It was the least he owed her.
‘I’d promised you forever and I threw you away, and I want you to know that whatever happens between us now, mi vida, know you will never be alone again and I will never, ever, discard you again.
I will be there for you, in whatever capacity you need.
The business is yours to do as you wish.
Appoint whoever you want to run it, run it yourself, whatever you want.
You’re the majority stakeholder. It’s yours.
I want nothing to do with it. You and the baby are my only priorities now.
I’m yours, however you need me and I will be forever. ’
He blew out through his constricted airway and wiped away another tear. ‘Please, Beth. Please, find it in your heart to forgive me. I know I don’t deserve it, but I swear I will do everything I can to earn it.’
Another blow of air, and he dragged himself back to his knees.
She was still frozen, chin on her knees, eyes closed.
He pressed his mouth to the top of her head and breathed her in. ‘I love you, mi vida. Always. Call me whenever you need me.’
Beth heard Xavi’s footsteps disappear like a receding echo. When the last echo vanished, the tears came. Rolling into a ball on the floor, she sobbed her heart out, wishing harder than she’d ever wished for anything that she could believe him.
She ached to believe him, just as she’d ached to believe their marriage could be a real one.
When the tears had finally run dry, she sat herself up and hugged her chest, which felt so bruised. Coffee beans were scattered all over the floor, and the ache in her heart stupidly wrenched even harder to know he’d gone without having his coffee.
She could feel his breath in her hair.
She hugged herself, wishing so hard that he’d wrapped his arms around her so she could still feel his imprint on her.
She wished she didn’t love him so much. Her heart, her amor…
Amor.
Amore.
Miss Amore.
Her heart punched her again, this one landing like a slap, and suddenly she was filled with the memory of the moment her grandfather had introduced them. That very first look between them. The way Xavi’s eyes had widened. The way her heart and her breath had caught.
The memory fast-forwarded into a reel of their time together. Oh, how young and carefree they’d been. How happy, always smiling and laughing, always touching each other, drugged on nothing but love and desire…
The reel shifted, flying to their ending and Xavi’s words when he’d broken them: It doesn’t have to be forever… I’ll always care for you and will always be there for you.
Through the brutality of his other words, those words had faded into insignificance, but now, through the hot blood pulsing in her brain, Beth realised they’d been the most truthful words of all.
He had always cared for her, through all the years of their separation.
He’d never stopped caring. Never stopped loving her, but she…
Foolish, heartbroken Beth, so recently wounded by the lies of her father about her mother’s family and the double life she suspected her grandfather of living, hadn’t believed it. Not once Ellen’s cruel pictures had pinged into her phone.
But the truth had always been there, as clear as the truth of her love for him that had always lived deep in her heart. She’d just been too frightened and heartsick to see it.
Xavi had never stopped loving her,
Still half-dazed, she scrambled to her feet and yanked her phone out of her back pocket.
Miss Amore.
Xavi had bought Miss Amore for her, so he could always be looking over her. Taking care of her. Loving her.
She scrolled the numbers as she ran to the door.
Miss Amore.
She pressed Xavi’s name and ran down the long drive. It went to voice mail as she reached the closed gate. He’d gone.
Ignoring the cameras suddenly flashing in her face as the waiting paparazzi realised their prey had come out to play, she pressed the code to open it and pressed his name on her phone again.
It went straight to voice mail.
Barging her way through the scrum of photographers, she started composing a message to him as she ran, and then her phone rang in her hand.
‘Mi vida?’
‘Miss Amore,’ she burst out.
‘Beth?’ There was alarm in his voice. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Miss Amore!’ Half laughing, half crying, she said, ‘I love you, Xavi. I love, love, love you. I love you to the edges of the universe! I love you, and you love me, and we’ve lost so many years, and I can’t bear to spend another second without you!
Please, come back and take me home. Come back and get me, please. ’
She heard him shout for his driver to turn the car around, and though she knew he would be with her in minutes, still she ran and still she laughed, her heart pounding, overwhelmed with a joy she’d never believed she would feel again, a joy so pure she felt it in the tips of her toes.
A black SUV appeared in the distance.
She ran even faster.
A figure threw himself out and ran towards her.
She threw herself into his arms.
He caught her, just as she knew he would, just as he would be there to catch her, always, for the rest of her life.