Chapter Eleven #2
His eyes lifted to hers and his lips tugged downwards.
‘I’m not telling you because I require sympathy, nor because I think there is anything you can say that will alleviate this, here, that I feel,’ he pressed his fingers to the space between his rib cage and Charlotte’s blood ran cold at the clear allusion to his love for his ex-wife.
‘I have been torn apart by guilt for so long, I don’t know any other way to feel. ’
‘Guilt?’
‘I couldn’t give her what she wanted, don’t you understand that?’
‘Yes. I do. And while that’s very sad, Dante...it’s just, not your fault.’
‘I couldn’t fix it.’
Vulnerability for him weakened her heart. ‘Believe it or not, even you, the great Dante San Marino, cannot fix everything in the world.’
He looked away, his jaw locked in an expression of determination, if ever she’d seen one. Of dismissal, too. He wasn’t willing to hear what she was saying, nor to take it on board.
‘Dante, if the shoe were on the other foot, and it was you who had a medical reason for not being able to create a pregnancy, would you have wanted Jamie to feel bad about that?’
A muscle jerked in his jaw.
Charlotte shook her head. ‘I don’t mean to say anyone should feel bad. Not you, not Jamie. Sad, yes. Disappointed, but not bad. This was nobody’s fault.’
‘My reason for telling you is because I need you to understand that when we broke up, it was the end for me. Not just of my marriage, but of any possibility of ever moving forward. Of ever opening myself up to caring about another person, to the possibility of hurting them, to the possibility of not being able to fix whatever they might need me to fix.’
Charlotte’s heart twisted with sympathy.
‘My work is my life.’
Charlotte nodded softly. She felt the beginning of a strange sensation, like a splintering in the region of her heart, but there was also warmth and a need to comfort Dante, even when her own world was strangely unfamiliar.
‘My reasons are very different to yours,’ she said, slowly, thoughtfully.
‘But you were right before. I’m as determined as you are to never get seriously involved with anyone. ’
He looked at her as if he didn’t quite believe her and yet he wanted to.
‘My mother was completely destroyed by what my biological father did to her. She loved him so much—honestly, she still does. All her life, she pined for him.’
‘But she had you,’ he pointed out. ‘That must have given her some consolation.’
She made a noise of rejection. ‘You think?’
He was quiet, watchful.
Charlotte let out a small sigh. ‘Honestly, Dante, my mother went between hating me and ignoring me. I was a constant reminder of what she’d had and lost.’
A harsh invective flew from his lips. ‘Charlotte—,’
‘It’s fine,’ she lied, trying to summon a casual smile.
‘I stopped waiting for her to love me a long time ago. I stopped wishing my father would acknowledge me, want to know me. I stopped looking to anyone else to care about me, whatsoever. If it weren’t for Jane, I would be completely alone,’ she added.
‘Which is fine, because that’s kind of how I’ve always known it had to be.
I was only a teenager when I came to understand something I’d probably instinctively known for even longer.
The only way to avoid being hurt is to never, ever trust another person with your heart. ’
He nodded, as if in total agreement, but there was a sympathy in his eyes, a look of pity that she hated.
‘Really, you don’t need to worry.’ She forced a bright smile more successfully now.
‘I’m an excellent actress, but everything that happens up there is purely for your grandmother’s sake.
We both need this ruse to work, Dante—and while I’m not asking for your heart, I am asking for your trust. We both are.
’ Her smile began to feel brittle. ‘So, we’re all good, right? ’
It took him a beat to answer, but when he did, he nodded. ‘Yeah, we’re all good, Shaw.’ But God, how she wanted him to call her cara in that moment. And what kind of a liar did that make her?
* * *
After five days in Tuscany, at his grandmother’s villa, with Charlotte in full-blown fiancé-for-hire mode, Dante was in desperate need of a break.
He’d thought that telling her about Jamie, their fruitless quest for a baby, the toll that had taken on his marriage and his life, might have somehow fundamentally changed their dynamic, but it hadn’t.
He felt this oppressive need for her, all the time.
And while he kept telling himself it was just physical, all this time together was making her crave other things, too.
Like the stories she so artfully weaved.
The way she laughed. The way she was so kindly solicitous with his grandmother.
The way the afternoon sun bounced off her hair, making it look almost like lava.
Or the way she adored Italian food, savouring absolutely every meal that was produced, eating it in a way that was so sensual and downright sexy they often barely made it into the pool house before he started ripping off her clothes, kissing her like it was the one thing he’d been designed for.
Sometimes, they didn’t even make it to the pool house.
Sometimes, they didn’t even make it out of the house.
Once, his grandmother had found them kissing, just outside the front door and promptly slammed it shut again, causing them both to laugh like teenagers.
Cristo, what was happening to him?
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Allegra San Marino cut into his thoughts, topping up their glasses of mineral water and gesturing to the evening antipasto platter spread out before them.
‘Uh oh,’ Charlotte teased. ‘This sounds important.’
Allegra wiggled her brows. ‘I have a proposal.’
‘We’re already engaged,’ Dante pointed out.
‘Yes, that’s right. You’re getting married, in London, in three weeks. Correct?’
‘Yes,’ Dante agreed.
‘But what if you were to get married here?’
‘Here?’ Charlotte looked from Allegra to Dante and then to the gardens surrounding them.
‘Oh, yes, of course. It is far nicer than some registry office in England.’ Allegra shuddered, as though the very thought was truly awful.
‘We can do another ceremony,’ Dante offered. ‘Later.’
‘Darling, I might not have “later”,’ Allegra said, gent-ly though, as if she was worried he didn’t understand the complication her health presented.
Charlotte’s features softened.
‘Unless there is a reason you feel the need to marry so quickly?’ Allegra pushed.
He saw Charlotte’s cheeks heat as she computed his grandmother’s meaning. She was as subtle as a sledgehammer.
‘No, Allegra,’ Charlotte said, gently, though, reaching over and putting her hand on Allegra’s.
He looked at their hands and wondered at the strange, twisting feeling in his gut, the sense of being out of control, unsure of himself suddenly.
He didn’t like it. He also didn’t like the things Charlotte had revealed to him earlier, the depths of emotional neglect she’d had to live with, the fact she’d been made to feel unwanted by everyone in her life.
While Dante had lost his parents and grandfather at a young age, he’d never known anything but love from them before hand, and afterwards from his Nonna.
He drew his gaze back to Charlotte’s face, wishing she could have known that same feeling of affection.
Wishing she’d had more security in her life.
Wishing she had it, even now. ‘The only reason is that we don’t want to wait. ’
His eyes bore into hers, as that statement shifted around inside of him.
He knew she was just saying something to placate Allegra. To ensure they could still go through with their swift marriage. To meet her requirements of inheriting the Papandreo empire. But that didn’t mean her statement was entirely false.
Dante found, on some level, that thought absolutely terrified him.
He couldn’t wait. He didn’t want to. No matter how he felt about marriage, about his marriage to Jamie in particular, this was all so different.
Charlotte was different, their relationship was different and the marriage they’d planned out was something else entirely.
Simple.
Straightforward.
The same rules that had kept them both happy and safe for the last six months were still in place. Even more so now. The more they each got to know the other, the more those rules made sense. The more they both understood why they had to be followed.
‘Ah, young love,’ Allegra agreed, though her disappointment was impossible to miss.
He had been pleasantly surprised by how much his grandmother had taken Charlotte into her heart. By how much she clearly admired and respected the other woman.
She’d loved Jamie, too, but it had been a different kind of love.
To Jamie, Allegra had served almost as a second mother.
Someone who Jamie could turn to when she needed holding up.
This interaction with Charlotte was more mature and level.
Almost as though they were friends and equals.
In fact, there was a confidence about Charlotte that, now that Dante thought about it, had been one of the things he’d noticed first. He’d watched her from afar, seen the way she was with other people, and he’d felt a shockwave of electricity, pounding towards him.
‘You know,’ Allegra said, slowly, thoughtfully. ‘I’m tired today.’
Dante was immediately watchful. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Fine, fine,’ she waved a hand through the air. ‘As wonderful as it is having you here, I don’t entertain often these days. I’m a little worn out.’
Dante felt a rush of regret. ‘Of course. I should have known.’
‘Nonsense. I wouldn’t change a thing. The only reason I bring it up is that I thought I might have a quiet night.’
Dante frowned. Something about this seemed almost pre-arranged.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but while you’ve been here, Rosaria has been arranging dinner at the pool house for you.’
Charlotte rolled her eyes with easy affection. ‘Has she?’
‘I get the impression we’re being managed, don’t you, cara?’ he asked Charlotte, eyes glancing to hers and then bouncing away again immediately afterwards, because the bolt of lightning that burst into him seemed almost to sear his skin.
‘I think that might be the case,’ she said with a good-humoured laugh.
‘Oh, you two,’ Allegra said, standing, wagging her finger towards them. ‘You’re being quite unkind to me!’
Dante shook his head.
‘Walk me to my room, Dante. If you’ll excuse us, Charlotte?’
‘Of course,’ Charlotte agreed good-naturedly, a smile still playing about her lips. A smile that, if he’d allowed his gaze to linger on it, might have robbed him completely of breath.
‘Just wait a moment,’ Allegra said, lifting her finger to hold Dante where he was before disappearing into her bedroom. A moment later, she returned, holding a black, velvet pouch.
‘I would like you to give this to Charlotte for me.’
Dante took the pouch, frowning. ‘What is it?’
‘A gift.’
‘I presumed as much. But of what?’
‘It’s a necklace, if you must know.’
‘A necklace? May I?’
She nodded once, her lips pursed as Dante opened the pouch and tipped the contents into his palm.
It was like being dragged back in time. He remembered this so vividly from his childhood.
On a delicate platinum chain sat a diamond pendant, shaped like a teardrop.
He remembered his mother wearing it, often.
She’d loved it. And when Dante had, as a little boy, asked her if she wore it because she was sad and it looked like a tear, she’d considered that for a moment before replying that in fact, if you turned it upside down, the pendant looked like half of a love heart.
She’d told him that she loved it because it was a reminder that she was one half of so many other people—that for everyone she loved, she was loved back.
He’d always remembered that, as one of the first times he’d been corrected—and happily so.
‘This was my mother’s.’
‘No,’ Allegra said, gently. ‘It was my mother’s. She wore it, I wore it, your mother borrowed it—and would no doubt own it, by now, had they not—,’ she tapered off, blinking quickly. ‘I would like Charlotte to have it.’
‘Nonna, I know she won’t accept it,’ he said.
‘Then you must make her.’
‘I don’t know if you’ve met Charlotte, but I haven’t got a hope in hell of making her do anything she doesn’t choose.’
‘Then make her choose to wear it. For me, Dante.’
He stared at it, his heart pounding. He couldn’t say why, but somehow, it just felt so meaningful.
‘Why don’t you give it to her?’
‘It should come from you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you have the other half of her heart,’ Allegra pointed out.
His lips parted in surprise. ‘My mother’s story.’
‘Yes,’ Allegra’s expression softened in memory.
‘She told me about your question. You were such an observant, literal boy, darling. We giggled about it, at the time, but the more I’ve thought about it over the years, particularly after that day, the more truth I’ve seen in her words.
This is one half of a heart and whomever wears it should always be reminded that someone else is in their heart just as much as the reverse could be said. ’
He squeezed his palm over the necklace and tried to think straight. Tried not to let emotions colour his judgement—because he was torn between acting like himself and the man he was supposed to be—a desperately in love fiancé.
‘It’s a beautiful gesture,’ he said, clearing his throat.
‘The necklace has always meant so much to me. On my darkest days, when I am missing them most of all, I have worn it and your mother’s story has brought me such comfort.’
‘Then you should continue to have it, to wear it.’
‘I don’t need it now. Don’t you see, Dante?
Charlotte is my comfort and my hope. All things I didn’t have, until so recently.
’ Her smile dazzled him, or perhaps it was the lie he had dragged his grandmother into that was blinding him with shame.
‘Seeing the two of you together—I know now that you are loved just as much as you deserve. More than that, I know you love. I cannot tell you how relieved I am.’
‘Nonna,’ he began. But what could he say? Deny it? Tell his grandmother that he’d only ever loved one woman and that had been an unmitigated disaster?
Only, even if he’d wanted to say that the words wouldn’t form in his mouth. He couldn’t make his tongue cooperate.
‘Thank you,’ he said, simply, pushing the necklace into his pocket.
‘You’ll give it to her tonight,’ Allegra insisted. ‘Promise me.’
He ground his teeth. ‘Of course, Nonna.’ He leaned down and kissed her cheeks. ‘Sleep tight.’