Chapter Eight #2
He shook his head. ‘I never hated you, Angel… I was angry, betrayed…but what I feel for you is not hate.’
It certainly isn’t love, either. Not that she wanted love, she told herself hastily.
Been there, got the heartbreak T-shirt. What they had now was the remnants of the chemistry that had first brought them together.
And maybe now that was gone too…not for her, she could still feel every part of her humming just to be near Leo, but maybe this would have pushed him too far.
Even so, Angelica felt as if a weight had been lifted from her entire body. This was the first time she’d ever willingly told anyone about her family.
There was something very fragile between them now. As if scaffolding had been ripped away, leaving them exposed, with nothing to hide behind. She felt vulnerable. Now he knew…and she had to be sure.
‘You won’t use this information to…threaten them or hurt them, will you?’
Leo looked at her and numerous expressions crossed his face, disbelief, horror, disgust and then anger. He stood up. ‘No, how could you think such a thing?’
‘Because I’ve lived with that fear for the last three years.’
Leo paced back and forth. He stopped and looked at her and his face was stark. He said in a slightly more modulated tone, ‘Of course I wouldn’t do anything to harm them, or use them against you.’
Angelica sucked in a breath. ‘Thank you.’
Leo said, ‘If Aldo had touched you…’
Angelica stood up. ‘But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He was a coward.’ But she understood what Leo meant. If Aldo had really wanted to violate her, she wouldn’t have been able to stop him.
‘That’s where you were going to the day of the funeral? To see your mother and brother?’
Angelica nodded. ‘Yes, I was coming here.’
Leo looked at his watch. ‘You’re here now, you shouldn’t have to wait any longer.’
Angelica’s heart beat fast, her eyes widened. ‘You mean it? Now?’
Leo nodded. ‘I’ll get my driver ready.’
Angelica put a hand to her mouth, afraid the emotion would tumble out, and then she acted on impulse, crossing the space to Leo and throwing her arms around his neck.
For a moment he did nothing, as if stunned, and then his arms came around her and they were welded together, torso to torso, hip to hip.
‘Thank you,’ Angelica said brokenly and pressed a kiss to his neck.
His scent flooded her nostrils and by the time she pulled away she was shaking.
‘I’ll just…freshen up and let them know.’
She left the room before she threw herself back into Leo’s arms and got ready in a daze, not even sure if she wasn’t dreaming. She was afraid to pinch herself and wake up.
She pulled on some fresh clothes, trousers and a shirt, and got a soft leather jacket out of the wardrobe. She pulled on flat boots. She did her best with some make-up to try and look less…emotionally wrung out.
When she went back into the main part of the suite, Leo was on the phone. He terminated his conversation, eyes raking over her. He said, ‘My driver is waiting downstairs. He’ll take you wherever you need to go.’
Angelica felt as if she were on a precipice. What happened now? After this? Where did this leave them?
He said, ‘Maybe we can talk after you’ve spent some time with them.’
Angelica nodded. ‘Of course.’ She went to make her way to the door but Leo didn’t move. She looked back. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ It hadn’t even occurred to her that he might not be with her and she didn’t want to analyse the significance of that now.
‘You want me to come?’
‘I’d like you to meet them.’
‘But you haven’t seen them in years.’
‘I know…it’s OK.’ She felt exposed now. ‘That is unless you have something else to do, it’s—’
But he was grabbing his jacket and saying, ‘No, let’s go.’
The journey to the suburbs seemed both endless and quicker than a nanosecond. They pulled into a quiet street with very ordinary apartment blocks. Leo could feel Angelica almost vibrating beside him. He had to to curb the urge to take her hand in his.
Everything had changed with this revelation. But they would discuss that. He could see a woman and a tall young man under a streetlight. Waiting outside a building. Angelica let out a sound and he looked over to see her hand over her mouth and tears falling freely from her eyes.
He instructed the driver to stop. The car had barely pulled in before she was out of the car and running straight into the arms of the woman and young man.
For a second, Leo stayed in the car, feeling a tightness in his chest, and expanding outwards.
For years after his family had been killed in front of him, whenever he’d seen any kind of family unit, he’d experienced panic attacks.
He hadn’t had to see a psychologist to understand that he most likely had PTSD and saw danger and horror in a scenario that anyone else would see as totally benign.
But over time he’d learned to control his reaction. Except now, with Angelica lost in a tangle of arms and heads, he felt close to one again, for the first time in a long time.
He forced himself out of the car and the young man looked at him over Angelica’s shoulder. He said something to her and she extricated herself from the tangle of arms. Leo saw the tears on her mother’s face.
Angelica beckoned him to come over and he forced himself forward even though an instinct was telling him to run. She introduced them to him and he shook hands, aware of their curious looks, especially Angelica’s younger brother, who stood beside her protectively.
‘Can I have a word?’ Leo asked pointedly.
She nodded and moved away from her mother and brother. Leo said, ‘You need some time with them. Take as long as you need. I’ll be in Madrid for two more days. We should talk before I leave.’
She looked at him, eyes wide, glistening, full of emotion. ‘I… OK, yes, I’ll be in touch. Thank you, Leo, for letting me come to them.’
He shook his head. He owed her. So much. This was the start. They’d both been victims of Aldo’s perverse toxic jealousy. Perhaps her, even more so.
Leo gave a little salute to her mother and brother and then went back to the car, instructing the driver to take him back to the hotel.
He didn’t look behind him to see the family unit again.
He didn’t need to. It was ingrained on his brain, and it tugged far too dangerously on the tiny little seed of hope he’d felt when Angelica had told him she loved him, before he’d crushed it three years ago.
If anything, this only reinforced his determination to never put himself in that danger again. It was time to let Angelica go. For good this time.
Two days later
Angelica returned to the hotel in the centre of Madrid. For the first time in years, she finally felt at peace. Whole again. The past forty-eight hours with her mother and brother had healed her. And the fact that she could see them any time…still felt like a dream.
Her brother was doing so well, getting an internship with a big legal firm and moving in with a girlfriend. Her mother was embarking on a very slow and tentative relationship with a retired widowed man who she’d met at a local bookclub.
They were happy. Thriving. And so now it was just Angelica who needed to get on with her life. But she couldn’t see past Leo. As she ascended in the elevator to the suite, she truly had no idea what to expect.
She stepped into the suite and heard Leo’s deep voice before she saw him.
Her skin prickled with awareness. The cacophony of voices and questions in her head stopped when she saw him standing at the open French doors with a phone lifted to his ear.
Wearing a white shirt tucked into dark trousers.
The plain clothes did nothing to disguise his powerful body.
She could imagine him in a boxing ring. Maybe that was what he’d done in prison.
Imagining her and Aldo as he’d taken lumps out of someone.
He’d told her he didn’t hate her but she had a feeling that whatever he did feel for her most likely wasn’t enough to sustain a marriage built on a need for revenge and rehabilitation.
The need for revenge was gone and Angelica hadn’t really done much to help Leo’s image in public, apart from, as he’d said, diverting attention away from his rebuilding and rebranding of his business.
And then he turned around and saw her and her heart palpitated. She still loved him. No. No! She couldn’t still love him. He’d crushed her love for him three years ago, ground it into dust. All she felt now was desire but that assertion stuck in her chest like a boulder, constricting and tight.
After he terminated his phone conversation he said, ‘I wasn’t sure if I would see you again.’
And he didn’t seem to be too devastated by that prospect. Angelica pushed the vulnerability down. She lifted a hand where her rings sat. ‘We’re still married, in case you forgot.’
‘We don’t have to be. We can initiate divorce proceedings as soon as you like.’
Angelica spoke slowly. ‘As soon as I like.’
He nodded. ‘I forced you into this marriage, Angelica, seeking revenge. I did you a great disservice.’
Angelica. Her insides clutched. He looked so distant. Sounded so formal. ‘You didn’t know—you didn’t have all the information.’
His mouth twisted. ‘Because you were terrified I would threaten your family’s safety if you told me.’
She swallowed. ‘I think I knew, even then, that you wouldn’t ever do anything like Aldo had…but it all happened so fast…and I did feel guilty. I knew you were innocent but I couldn’t do anything to help you.’
‘Because you were in a prison too.’
‘Not like you.’ Angelica shuddered when she thought of the scar on Leo’s body. What he’d had to endure in that place.
‘How are your family?’
Her tension dissipated. She couldn’t help smiling. ‘They’re amazing. Thank you for letting me be with them.’
‘You’re free now to do whatever you want.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I’m letting you go, Angel. I should never have come for you. I needed to punish someone…and Aldo was gone.’
Angel. There was the spark of something…she could cling onto. All she knew was that the thought of turning around and walking back out of the door and out of Leo’s life was impossible. Even if he was actively trying to get rid of her.
Bluntly she asked, ‘You said we had unfinished business. Do you still want me?’
Leo’s cheeks flushed. ‘Looking at you right now, I don’t know if I can imagine a time when I won’t want you.’
Angelica nearly sagged against the chair near her. She couldn’t believe she’d had the nerve to ask that. He still wanted her. The relief was sharp and sweet.
She slipped off her jacket and let it and her bag drop into a chair. She walked towards Leo. His gaze narrowed. ‘What are you doing?’
She stopped in front of him. ‘We made an agreement, to marry and rehabilitate your image.’
‘It was hardly an agreement. That’s why I can’t ask you to stay.’
‘Do you want me to, though?’
His eyes flared golden. But he said, ‘It’s not about what I want.’
‘Well, what about what I want?’
‘What do you want?’
‘You.’ She couldn’t believe she was being so forward but since she’d unburdened herself and seen her family again, she felt liberated.
‘This isn’t a good idea, Angel. We have too much history.’
‘Precisely why we need to exorcise it. Aldo took three years of our lives and almost ruined your reputation and everything you built up. You deserve to have it all back.’
‘And what about you?’
She felt emotional. ‘I have my family and for now that’s enough.
I’ve used my work for the last three years as a buffer between me and a sadist, but I don’t even know if I want to do that any more.
I want something more meaningful.’ A family.
The words popped into her head and she had to push them away.
That was not something Leo could give her, she’d known it subconsciously three years ago and he’d only confirmed it since then, but she knew she’d never be able to move on with someone else while this electric charge existed between them.
As if he couldn’t help himself, Leo reached out and touched her jaw. ‘So, what are you proposing?’
She moved a tiny bit closer. ‘I can act the part of a dutiful, socially acceptable wife. Let me do that for you.’
‘No more Lady Godiva moments?’
She shook her head and felt her face heat up. ‘Not unless you specifically request it.’
‘And?’
Her throat suddenly felt dry. This was the most forward she’d ever been in her life. ‘And…while we both still want each other, why not let it burn itself out?’
He took a step back and said, ‘Three years ago, you told me you loved me. Nothing has changed… I can’t offer anything more.’
Angelica strove to look as nonchalant as possible. ‘Three years ago I was naive. You were my first lover. I was infatuated.’
‘I’m still your first and only lover,’ Leo pointed out.
She flushed. She wasn’t in love with him. She wasn’t. ‘And you won’t be my last. I know that. I do want a family some day, Leo, and I know you don’t want that, but that day is a long way off.’
He went a little pale. ‘We both come from a past where family puts you and them in jeopardy. How can you risk that? You’ve seen it first hand—your own family have been used against you.’
‘And they’re the only thing that kept me going and sane through the past three years. If we lose hope in the future, then what’s the point in anything?’
Angelica held her breath, waiting for Leo’s answer. Eventually he said, ‘Nothing has changed for me in that regard. If anything the last three years have only made me more determined not to subject loved ones to what you went through with your mother and brother.’
‘I’m not asking you to change.’ Liar.
The distance between them suddenly seemed like a chasm.
Feeling a sense of defeat, Angelica said, ‘Look, Leo, if you want to end this marriage now, then we go our separate ways for good. Maybe that’s for the best…
’ She looked around for where she’d dropped her bag and jacket when her upper arm was taken in a firm grip.
She looked up and into Leo’s face and the stark intent and hunger in his expression told her all she needed to know about what he thought of that idea. Her heart leapt.
‘Why would I want to end this marriage when we haven’t even had a honeymoon yet?’
Angelica blinked at him. She hadn’t expected that. ‘A honeymoon?’
He nodded and tugged her closer, until their bodies were touching. He cupped her jaw and his thumb rubbed her bottom lip. She wanted to flick out her tongue and taste him. Her knees felt weak.
‘I can’t think of two people who deserve a honeymoon break more, can you? After everything we’ve been through?’
A slow unfurling of heat made Angelica’s insides tighten with anticipation. She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Good, then how ready are you to leave right now?’
Angelica smiled and it felt good. She pushed aside the voices telling her she was playing with danger, courting Leo like this. He’d already hurt her once, he couldn’t do it again. ‘I’m ready.’