Chapter Twelve #2
‘Because,’ he said, still not shutting her down, even when his features had grown taut with tension and he was wrapping his fingers so tightly around the stem of his champagne flute she thought it might snap.
‘I knew that even if she were able to adopt, the baby would only be a reminder of what I hadn’t been able to give her.
I have no doubt we both would have loved them, but I don’t think it could have saved our marriage. Not after so much loss and resentment.’
‘Did she resent you?’
‘Yes.’
‘She said that?’
He paused. ‘She didn’t have to.’
Charlotte closed her eyes against a wave of pity and something else. Something that moved like a groundswell through her, a surge of recognition and understanding that made her pulse erratic and her head spin.
Because there was not a thing Dante could say that would change how she felt. There was not a single part of her that would ever get over him.
She toyed with her fingers as piece by piece, she began to understand something that she’d probably known since the very first moment she met him.
Or at least, since that very first kiss, that very first night when he’d held her and she’d glimpsed a light, in the distance, a shimmering promise of what could be, if only she were brave enough to reach for it.
She’d been as brave as she could allow herself to be—trying to reach for Dante, whilst also holding herself back. Telling herself that everything they shared could be boiled down to a casual physical relationship when it was, with hindsight, so much more.
‘You’ve never told me about your past, you know,’ he said, conversationally, like the whole world wasn’t exploding down around her ears. She barely even heard him over the cacophony of noise.
‘What?’
‘Lovers, boyfriends, a trail of broken hearts left in your wake?’
She blinked rapidly. There were no such men, because she’d always been incredibly careful. And that caution had extended to keeping her relationships utterly temporary.
Not once had she been tempted to prolong a fling.
Not once had she woken up buzzing with a need to find her phone and text someone. To see them again.
Not until Dante.
She glanced towards the pool, staring at the flickering candles, her throat throbbing with the sensation that her heart had taken up residence there.
‘You’ve never asked.’
‘We agreed we wouldn’t talk about any of that.’
‘That’s true.’
‘Yet, here we are,’ Dante murmured, then, with an exaggerated grimace. ‘You know my darkest secrets.’
‘My darkest secret is that my most significant relationship is with Jane,’ she said, a half-smile on her lips when she thought of her best friend.
Dante’s lips flickered in the hint of a frown. ‘Your best friend?’
‘Right. But really, we’re more like sisters—like family.
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her and she’d say the same about me.
’ Charlotte glanced down, her stomach twisting with guilt at what Jane was currently doing for her.
The feeling that she’d thrown her bestie to the wolves—or rather a very specific wolf—wouldn’t go away.
‘There’s no guy that broke your heart, that made you this way?’
‘What way?’
‘Determined not to settle down. Self-protective.’
‘You say that like it’s a bad thing.’
‘It’s not,’ he murmured, but his frown deepened. ‘Except, I feel like you have so much more to give, cara. If only you’d let yourself.’
‘I’m okay with how things stand.’
He reached over and took her hand, lacing their fingers. Butterflies burst into her veins, their wings flapping and making her body shiver from the inside out.
‘You think that because your father didn’t love you, no one ever will?’
Her lips parted on a harsh exhalation. It sounded indignant, but in truth she was shocked. That he’d understand her so well. That he’d verbalise her fears so concisely. That hearing him say it would unstitch something deep down inside of her.
She looked away, towards the pool and, in the distance, the string quartet. They were playing beautifully—but neither Charlotte nor Dante were listening properly at all.
‘I think it’s not worth the risk,’ she said, unevenly, because Charlotte didn’t know what she felt any more and what she’d be prepared to risk, if there was any chance of being with Dante—of really being with him. Of being free to love him and being loved back by him.
But it was all so impossible, wasn’t it?
She didn’t know how to love—not without fear, not without mistrust—and he wasn’t prepared to try, after what had happened with Jamie.
That was why they had all their rules and boundaries.
For more than six months, they’d kept each other at arm’s length, telling themselves they were safe from consequences because they refused to let this thing get out of hand.
But what if it wasn’t so easy to control?
What if their relationship had developed a mind—and heart—all of its own?
‘One day, you might meet someone who changes your mind.’
Her heart slammed into her chest. Someone else? Did he have any idea how impossible that was to contemplate? Just the idea of opening herself up to another man was like pouring acid over her skin.
‘Do you think you’ll ever let yourself fall in love again?’
His eyes lifted to hers, speared them, held her gaze for so long, her breath seemed to be stagnating inside of her.
She waited as if everything she was hinged on his answer to this one, all important question, and she didn’t really understand why.
Only, she knew that whatever he said next was meaningful and important.
‘No,’ he answered, eventually, shaking his head a little and removing his hand. Ice flooded her whole body. ‘I will never let that happen.’ He glanced away from her, towards the band, so she had a full view of the way his jaw was clenched and her stomach dropped to her toes.
He would fight love, even if he thought he felt it, because he was determined to avoid what he’d gone through with Jamie. He would fight love, even if it was sitting right across the table from him, looking at him with unmistakable longing.
There was no way he would ever want to hear the revelation she’d just had.
There was no way she could tell him.
He wouldn’t allow himself to return her feelings, but he’d feel obliged to her, for the rest of his life, just because of who he was, just because of how he seemed to think it was his job to save people.
Well, Charlotte would never become a problem he had to save.
She was brave, she was strong, she was independent and, no matter what, she wasn’t going to burden Dante any more than he’d already been.
* * *
Long after the dinner plates had been cleared away, they sat on the edge of the pool, feet resting on the first step, knees touching, beneath the starlit sky.
For Charlotte, there was such a finality to this evening, though it was their second to last night in Italy and not their last. It just felt like a new beginning, even when it was a goodbye of sorts.
She’d come here believing herself completely immune to love and now she knew she wasn’t. Dante, and this magical, beautiful villa, had opened up that side of her and she supposed she should be grateful.
But in many ways, she also recognised she had a life ahead of her just like her mother had lived. Alone, lonely, pining for the one man she’d ever loved, knowing she couldn’t have him.
Dante wasn’t married, and she wasn’t even sure if he was still in love with his ex-wife, but it was clear that his marriage to Jamie was going to prevent him from ever being able to move forward.
So, in all the same ways Aristotle Papandreo had been unable to return Charlotte’s mother’s feelings, Dante was unable to return hers.
‘I have something for you,’ Dante said, his voice deep, cutting through her thoughts.
She glanced across at him and her heart, newly awakened, lurched with the fulness of her love. ‘You do?’
‘It’s from my grandmother. She wanted you to have it.’
She kept her features neutral, but she heard the distinction he insisted on making. It wasn’t from him. There was no significance to whatever this was, at least, not so far as they were concerned.
‘Here.’ His voice, though, was heavy with emotions.
He pulled a black velvet pouch from his pocket, held it in his hands a moment and then passed it across to Charlotte.
She felt it between her fingertips, the friction of velvet on fine metal.
Curiously, she opened the drawstring and carefully fished out the contents.
A stunning, enormous teardrop diamond was held on a very fine white gold chain.
She stared at it for a long time, trying to understand why Allegra would give her such a beautiful piece of jewellery.
For even though Charlotte generally despised ostentatious pieces, and this was certainly emblematic of wealth, there was something delicate and beautiful about it.
Something that overcome any distaste she might otherwise have felt.
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, it’s way too much,’ she said, trying to infuse her tone with teasing lightness when her heart was weighing her down so completely. ‘But I love it, anyway.’
She stared at it, aware that a heavy silence enveloped them, making Charlotte acutely aware of the lapping of the water around her calves.
‘It’s a family piece,’ he said, the words devoid of emotion, but in a way she knew was carefully cultivated. ‘It was my great grandmother’s, then my grandmother’s. My mother loved it and wore it often.’
Charlotte drew in a quick breath, closing her fingers over the necklace for a few brief seconds before slipping it back into the bag, drawing the string tight and holding it towards Dante. ‘I can’t accept it.’
His dark eyes flashed to hers. ‘You have to.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s too valuable. Too sentimentally important,’ she corrected. ‘It’s very kind of her, but that’s not what we are.’
His lips pulled to the side. ‘She thinks we are.’
Charlotte’s eyes closed. ‘Of course she does, but she’s wrong.’ Oh, how it hurt to say that!
‘I want you to have it.’
Charlotte blinked and stared at him, her heart rabbiting hard. Did he have any idea what effect that sentence had on her? If he cared for her, if any of this was real, she would take the necklace and wear it every day close to her heart. But it just wasn’t right.
‘I’ll wear it tomorrow,’ she said, softly. ‘So she can see me in it. But after that, you can have it.’
‘You won’t even think about keeping it?’
‘Dante, you just told me it’s an important piece to your family.’
‘We have other important pieces.’
‘This is—too much.’
‘Think of it as a thank you,’ he said. ‘A bonus, for a job very well done.’
She was caught so completely off guard by the transactional nature of his statement that she lost any ability to mask her feelings, to hide how shocked—and hurt—she was by the very idea of that.
For a moment, she was sure it was written all over her features, before she managed to flash him a bright smile, as though her heart wasn’t splintering into a billion tiny fragments.
He closed his hand over hers, pushing the velvet pouch towards her chest.
‘She loves you,’ he said, quietly, voice deep. Was she imagining the way those words seemed to come right out of the middle of him, like they were a part of him. Was it just wishful thinking that imbued them with something else? Maybe a little of his own feelings too?
Yes. Of course it was wishful thinking. She loved him and she was desperate for him to love her back. Desperate, just like her mother had been, all Charlotte’s life.
The kind of desperation that had the ability to turn to bitterness, if you weren’t very careful.
‘She’s a very special woman.’ Her voice sounded rigid to her own ears. ‘I’m sorry I won’t get to see her again.’
Something crossed Dante’s features. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure.’
Charlotte’s heart twisted. ‘No?’
‘We’re getting married, Charlotte. We haven’t talked about a divorce—there will be other events, in the future, with my grandmother. I’m sure of it.’
‘Oh.’ She blinked quickly. She wasn’t sure she could muster the emotional fortitude to keep pretending. Not now that she knew how much of her act had been real. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right.’
‘So, keep the necklace. Wear it whenever she’s around. It will make her happy.’
She bit into her lower lip, staring at the black velvet pouch.
‘It will make me happy.’
And really, what wouldn’t she do to make him happy?
She glanced across at him and he smiled.
Every part of her began to tremble with just how much she felt for this man.
He leaned forward a little and she matched his gesture until their lips met and they were kissing beneath the ancient, starlit sky, surrounded by the fragrance of citrus blossoms and night flowering jasmine.
She kissed him, finally realising that he was the love of her life and he’d never, ever know it.
They’d promised each other this was a meaningless marriage of convenience, a transactional, mutually beneficial arrangement, devoid of any truth or emotion, and damn it if she wasn’t going to keep acting her heart out and pretend that was still the case—even when it hurt more than she could ever put into words.