Chapter Thirteen #2
The autumn air was getting chilly, and she tried not to think about it, just as she tried not to think that she hadn’t drunk anything since the glass of water when she’d woken.
If she didn’t have such personal experience of how long a pregnant woman could go without water before it affected her baby, that would be the one thing to get her panicking.
Domenico would find her. Of that, she had absolute faith.
It was just that as her thirst and the chill in the air increased and the sun began to set, the thought of being trapped in here for any length of time in the dark…
She concentrated on breathing.
If she let the fear out, then panic would set in.
The shadows were getting very long, though. Frighteningly long. There was a tree a short distance away from her that had to be fifty feet high. The shadows of its branches danced in front of her like groping fingers.
She drew her knees to her chest and hugged herself. Her bottom was numb from the cold of the stone bench, and her feet were freezing.
The shadows were coming even closer.
‘Marnie!’
Her heart thumped. She lifted her head, hardly daring to believe she’d just heard her name, and so close too, and then she heard a loud slam and a door swinging open and footsteps crunching.
‘Marnie! Where are you?’
‘I’m right here!’ she called back, although her throat was so dry and hoarse from thirst and shouting that it was more of a croak than words. She’d barely made it to her feet when he emerged from the shadows.
There was no hesitation. One moment he was five feet away from her; the next he’d lifted her into his arms and was carrying her out of the secret garden’s door.
Only when he reached the chapel did he speak, sitting down on a wooden bench beside it and keeping her firmly on his lap while thrusting a bottle of water in her hand. ‘Drink.’
She obeyed. Drinking slowly, she gazed through the romantic night lights that glowed around them at the beautiful face of the only man she would ever love, her heart filled with an emotion so true and pure that all she could do was carry on staring.
And he was staring right back with the same expression she knew was ringing from her eyes.
When she passed the bottle to him to share, their fingers brushed.
His eyes widened. ‘Dio, you’re freezing.
’ In moments, he’d stripped his shirt off and draped it over her, all the while not letting her move an inch off his lap.
Once satisfied he’d wrapped the shirt around every available inch of her body, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket and made a quick call, and then she was swooping back through the air as he stood back up, carrying her up with him.
Adjusting his hold to secure her to him, he glowered down at her. ‘Don’t you ever put me through that again.’
If Marnie hadn’t already known he loved her, the way Domenico’s voice broke on the last syllable and tears filled his eyes would have confirmed it, and she pressed her cheek to his naked chest and closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry for what I said and sorry for scaring you.’
He didn’t respond verbally, just pressed a tight kiss to the top of her head and then set off again.
In the warmth of the villa, he headed straight up the stairs, only putting her down when they reached the bedroom, where he set her down gently on the bed. The delicious scent of fresh bubble bath permeated the room.
As docile as a lamb, Marnie let him strip her naked and then carry her into the bathroom.
There, he held her hand tightly as she stepped into the steaming, foamy water.
Once she was lying back in it and her cold body was sighing with relief at the warmth enveloping it, she watched him strip his trousers and underwear off.
He stepped into the water and settled on the other side of it to her, holding her stare.
His features tight, his eyes glittering, he said, ‘Let me make one thing very clear. My marriage to Carmela was a nightmare. We were completely wrong for each other and made each other damned miserable. Yes, we had passion to start with, but there was nothing to underpin it, not from either of us. I never contested the divorce or tried to win her back. She came to me months after she left and tried to seduce me into trying again, but there was nothing left in me for her. I felt nothing, not on any kind of emotional level. All those years of my vengeance was for my pride, not for her. I never wanted her back, but you, fiore mio…’
With a shuddering sigh, he shook his head and pushed himself forward, kneeling between her legs. Bringing his face close to hers, he whispered, ‘When you left me… I went out of my mind.’
Her heart ballooned to the sky at the admission.
‘What I felt for Carmela is the difference between a pebble and a mountain compared to how I feel for you. With you, the passion is different and so much more because it’s entwined and underpinned by love.
You said before that you’d made me your life…
well, that’s how I feel for you, because you are my life.
I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but it feels like I’ve loved you forever, and when you love someone, truly love them, then all that matters is their happiness, and that’s all that matters to me.
Your happiness. That’s what I thought I was giving to you earlier.
’ Gently, he traced the contours of her ear.
‘You, fiore mio, are more deserving of happiness and the joy life can give than anyone else in this world, and if you feel you can give me the chance to be the one to share that happiness with, then you will make me the happiest man in this world.
‘Please, Marnie, let me share my life with you, not for our baby’s sake but for our sake, because we love each other and because I can’t live without you. I swear I will spend the rest of my life making up for all the…’
She silenced his mouth with a finger to his lips. ‘That’s already in the past,’ she whispered with a smile. ‘Don’t you already know you’re the only person in the world who’s ever made me happy? I’ve loved you forever, Domenico Cannavaro, and I will love you forever.’
His chest rising, he blew out an exhalation and lifted his chest upright, out of the water. Taking her left hand, he rubbed her ring finger and gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Marnie Ware, will you do me the honour of my life and marry me?’
She didn’t have to think twice about it. ‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. Yes, love of my life, I will marry you.’
In a beat, giant hands had captured her face, and then she was being devoured by kisses so hot and passionate that they smothered all the ghosts of the past, starving them so completely that by the time they came up for air, the ghosts had vanished for good.