Chapter Eleven #2
Shame had kept Erin silent and guilt had kept her from being able to move on at all. It had been two and a half weeks since she’d left the marina in Cannes and she couldn’t think of anything else.
I did something unforgiveable, Mum.
Arla had told her that nothing was unforgiveable. Unless it involved children or animals, and that had made Erin laugh just a little.
So, slowly, over a cooling cup of tea, Erin told her about the meeting with Gio, the deal he’d offered in exchange for Charterhouse, and then travelling to Capri.
She told her mother about meeting Enzo, and what she’d thought of him.
She told her about touring the coastline, about the romantic proposal.
About the dress she’d worn that had drawn such horrible attention, and even though it had been by design she now realised, Erin told her of how he’d made her feel when she’d told him of the bullying she’d experienced as a teen.
She told Arla about Enzo taking her to Florence, about seeing the frescos and Giotto’s bell-tower, just like her mother had always wanted.
Erin told her about the muddying of her feelings and how she’d finally told Gio she wouldn’t do it, and then, eventually, how she’d uncovered that Enzo had known all along.
‘I... I’m so ashamed,’ she’d confessed tearily, her lips wobbling as she tried to pull it all back in, the sadness that kept pouring out of her. ‘Enzo didn’t deserve what I did to him.’
Her mother had sighed and rubbed circles on her back, soothing the ache that held her entire body tight in a vice.
‘You need to forgive yourself, my love.’
Erin had shaken her head.
‘You do. You made a mistake.’
‘It was more than a mistake, Mum.’
‘Okay, you made the wrong choice.’
‘I was just like Dad,’ Erin had confessed, finally unearthing the deep heart of her hurt. ‘I’m just like Dad. I just thought... I thought that...’
‘That when we got Charterhouse back, it would all be okay?’ her mother had finished for her.
Erin had nodded and cried even harder.
‘Oh my love, I’m so sorry. I know how much you had to do for me in those first few years after we moved down here. I know how much we clung to that dream of recovering everything that we’d had before. I was... I shouldn’t have let you do that.’
‘No, Mum, I was fine—’
‘No. It wasn’t fine. You were a child. You shouldn’t have had to do what you did.
And you shouldn’t have had to shoulder that burden or that silly dream.
And for that, I’m sorry,’ she said, taking a shuddery breath.
‘But you need to know that you’re nothing like your father,’ Arla had said gently.
‘Your father was a selfish man, it’s true.
He put his schemes above your needs and mine.
But he never felt guilt or discomfort or regret.
He never learned from his mistakes and never used them to shape him into becoming a better person.
You? You are doing those things. And it’s hard.
It’s painful to confront our mistakes. It’s hard to forgive yourself and move on through that discomfort. But if anyone can, you can.’
Her mother’s words had offered her a small light in the darkness.
She’d been stuck, thinking the worst of herself, but if she learned from it, used it to guide her in the future, harnessed it to be better.
.. No, it wouldn’t bring back Enzo. But she couldn’t do it for Enzo, she had to do it for herself.
‘But, Erin, I don’t need Charterhouse for security.
I don’t want Charterhouse for me. If you do, that’s an entirely different matter.
But that company has cost us as much hurt and upset as your father has.
Perhaps it’s time to let the past go and move into the future, fresh and new.
Perhaps,’ her mother had said, ‘it’s time to figure out what you want to do. ’
As Erin looked out at an angry grey tide she realised that now that she didn’t have Charterhouse hanging over her head, ideas were pouring in.
There were so many people in Sam’s network with exciting projects and businesses that she could contribute in small ways until she found the thing that she wanted to do.
But the one thing she did know, truly know, was that she wanted to help other women find their path, to give women the support they needed as they found what it was they wanted to do with their businesses.
To support them while they made mistakes and picked themselves back up again.
But underneath those ideas, the slow sparking of energy and peace she had found with her mother’s forgiveness and her own, was the ache for Enzo. She wanted to speak to him, to laugh with him, to tease him and to know what he was thinking.
She missed his charm. She missed the lightness of being she had felt around him.
She missed the balance she had found between Erin and Rin in his company.
And even though he had told her that what they’d had wasn’t real, that nothing they’d shared was true.
..she knew that what she’d felt was real and she wouldn’t let anyone take that away from her.
In the distance a dog ran back and forth between its owner and the tide, chasing birds and stones and whatever else took its fancy. She sighed at the simple easy joy before shrugging deeper into her jacket, knowing that it was time to head back, so as not to worry her mother.
As she turned, her gaze landed on a solitary figure on the headland, the forceful winds pushing the long line of his coat from his body. Hair tousled by those same winds, and the harsh jawline made her think of a man who couldn’t possibly be there, in Falmouth on such grey stormy day.
Wishful thinking never got anyone anywhere, she decided, cutting back up towards the path that would take her home. But as she drew closer and closer, the feel of the man’s gaze heavier and heavier...she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was...
Enzo.
For a moment, he thought she was a mirage.
That after three weeks of thinking of little else, he had conjured her from his imagination.
Sinking deeper into a thick coat, the red hair whipped around her like flames on a breeze that felt almost punishing after the Mediterranean climes.
For days Gio Gallo’s words had haunted him as vehemently as his thoughts of Erin Carter.
So much so he’d even spoken to his mother who was, perhaps most surprisingly of all, still in rehab. They’d talked. A little, not too much. But enough for him to verify Gio’s statements.
But none of that retained a foothold in his mind as Erin Carter made her way towards him. She looked pale, the dark smudges beneath her eyes letting him know that it was highly likely that she was still punishing herself.
Guilt lashed him, the salt on the air irritating the emotional wounds he had opened in the last few weeks. Erin didn’t deserve that. He was just as responsible, if not more so, for what had happened.
As she drew closer, her steps faltered, as if she’d only just realised that it was him.
Enzo.
He wasn’t quite sure if she’d said it out loud, or if he’d imagined his name in her voice, but it soothed the restlessness he’d felt for weeks. She came close enough for him to catch the scent of her perfume on the air before it was whisked away by the breeze.
Christo , he had missed her. The sound of her voice, the way her eyes glittered when she smiled, the guilelessness that he’d mistaken for an act. Or at least that he’d told himself he’d mistaken for an act.
In truth, he’d never have fallen for her if he’d genuinely believed her to be lying to him. And he had fallen for her. So deep and so far.
He scanned her face, soaking the sight of it into him like he might never get another chance.
Which was true. Because he’d hurt her. He’d caused her pain.
He’d sent her away, after using her as a pawn in a game he was playing.
He’d done exactly what he’d accused her of doing and he was genuinely fearful that he might not deserve her forgiveness.
‘Are you really here?’ Erin asked, as if not quite believing her eyes.
‘Yes,’ he said, the words forced out through a throat thickened with emotion.
Her hand raised as if to touch him, but fell by her side as she looked down, her cheeks flushing for all the wrong reasons.
‘I—’
‘I had a few things I wanted to say, if that’s okay,’ he said.
He knew he’d cut her off, but he was pretty sure it was another apology that he didn’t really deserve.
He’d looked up her father, looked up Charterhouse.
He wondered if in the same position he would have been driven to do whatever it took to claim back what she should have rightfully inherited.
Erin nodded.
‘Would you mind walking while we talk?’ he asked, and when she shook her head, he stepped out onto the beach, her beside him, and oddio , he missed her hand slipping into the crook of his arm.
He took a deep breath, praying to get through what he needed to say before dropping to his knees and begging her to take him back into her life any way she’d have him.
‘First I want to say that I’m so deeply sorry for the things that I said that last night on the yacht.’
‘Enzo—’
‘ Cara , please. Let me finish?’
She nodded, eyeing him warily.
‘I should never have held you responsible for a mess of my own making. I’m not saying that setting out to marry me for an ulterior motive was a good thing, but you were right. I didn’t have to play along. And I’m sorry for the way you must have felt at me placing the blame at your feet.