Chapter Eleven #3
So why the hell was he demonstrating an arrogance which might cause her magnificent pride to assert itself, and tell him to take a running jump? He needed to keep her onside. To placate her. To make her realise why he had come here. And to make her realise that it was the only possible solution.
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.
‘Talk away.’ She gave a careless shrug. ‘I’m not stopping you.’
‘In private.’
‘I’d prefer to stay here, if you don’t mind.’
‘Unfortunately, tentatrice, I do mind.’
Without warning, he caught hold of her hand, his fingers enclosing her hammering pulse as he led her through the throng of partygoers until they had reached one of the bedrooms. He shut the door, just as she shook her hand free and glared at him.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.
‘You can’t just waltz up to someone in the middle of a party and manhandle them like that!
You can’t just drag a woman from a room because you’ve decided you want a private word with her.
Oh, sorry—I’d forgotten.’ She slapped her palm against her brow.
‘You can—and you do. Well, you might be Tarzan but I am not your Jane. I don’t do Neanderthal and I don’t do arrogant men who think they can just blaze into other people’s lives doing exactly what they want.
So will you please step aside and let me pass? ’
‘Not until you’ve heard me out,’ he said, as a strange sense of calm washed over him. ‘Please.’
She looked at him for a moment before pointedly glancing at her watch. ‘You’ve got five minutes.’
Niccolò sucked in a breath but for a moment he couldn’t speak.
His calmness seemed to be deserting him as he realised that this wasn’t going to be easy.
He was going to have to do something unheard of— something he had instinctively always shied away from.
He was going to have to pull out his feelings from the dark place where he’d buried them and he was going to have to admit them.
To her. And even when he did, there was no guarantee that it might not be too late.
He looked into the wary blue of her eyes and his heart pounded.
‘I need to ask your forgiveness,’ he said.
‘For all the unjust accusations I hurled at you. For my bull-headedness and my lack of compassion. For taking so long to realise the kind of woman you really are. Strong and proud and passionate and loyal. I’ve missed you, Alannah, and I want you back.
Nobody talks to me the way you do, or makes me feel the way you do.
Nobody else makes my heart skip a beat whenever I see her.
I want to spend the rest of my life with you.
To one day make the baby we didn’t have this time.
I want to make a real home—with you. Only with you. ’
She took a step back, as if she’d just seen a ghost, and she started shaking her head.
‘You don’t want me,’ she said in a hoarse voice.
‘You only think you do, because I’m the one who walked away and that’s probably never happened to you before.
You want someone respectable, who is as pure as the driven snow—because that’s the sort of thing you care about.
Someone suitable. You didn’t want me as bridesmaid because you were worried about what other people would think.
Because you’re hung up on appearances and how things look from the outside, no matter what you say. ’
‘I used to be,’ he said savagely. ‘But you have made me realise that appearances and social position don’t matter.
It’s what’s underneath which counts. And you have everything that counts.
You are soft and smart and funny. You are kind and caring and talented.
You didn’t even smoke dope at school, did you—even though you were accused of it? ’
Startled by this sudden conversational twist, Alannah narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Did Michela tell you that?’
He shook his head. ‘She didn’t have to. I worked it out for myself. I think you may just have covered up for my sister all this time.’
‘Because that’s what friends do,’ she said fiercely. ‘That’s called loyalty.’
‘I realise that now,’ he said. ‘It’s just taken me a long and very circuitous route to get here. But I don’t want to talk about the past any more… I want to concentrate on the future.’
He reached within the pocket of his snow-covered overcoat and pulled out a little box. ‘This is for you,’ he said, and his voice was slightly unsteady.
Alannah watched as he opened it and she was shamefully aware of a sinking sense of disappointment as she looked inside.
Had she really thought it was an engagement ring?
Was she really that fickle? Because glittering against the background of dark velvet was a brooch shaped like a little honey-bee.
Its back was covered with yellow, black and white stones and she found herself thinking that she’d never seen anything so sparkly.
She looked up at him, still disorientated.
‘What’s this?’ she said.
‘You collect insect brooches, don’t you? They’re diamonds. The black ones are quite rare. It’s for you,’ he said again. ‘Because I didn’t buy you a Christmas present.’
But Alannah felt a terrible lump in her throat as she began to blink her eyes rapidly.
‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she whispered.
‘The brooches I have are all worth peanuts. I wear them because my mother gave them to me—because they mean something to me. I don’t care if they’re diamonds or paste, Niccolò.
I don’t care how much something is worth. ’
‘Then what if I tell you this is worth what I feel for you, and that is everything. Everything.’ He moved closer. ‘Unless you want me to go to a flea-market to find you something cheaper? Tell me, Alannah—are you going to set me a series of challenges before you will accept me?’
She almost laughed, except that now hot tears were springing to her eyes and she couldn’t seem to stop them. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ she whispered. ‘Because I’m scared. Scared because I keep thinking this is all a dream and that I’m going to wake up in a minute.’
‘No, not a dream,’ he said, taking the brooch from the box and pinning it next to the little grasshopper which already adorned her golden dress. ‘I bought you this because I love you. This is the reality.’
Her lips parted. ‘Niccolò,’ she said again, and now her voice was shaking. ‘If this isn’t true—’
He halted her protest by placing his finger over her lips.
‘It is true. It has always been true. The first time I set eyes on you, I was hit by a thunderbolt so powerful that I felt as if you’d cast some kind of spell on me.
And that spell never really faded. I love you, Alannah—even though I’ve been running away from the idea of love all my life.
I saw what it did to my mother. I saw it as a weakness which sucked the life from everything in its path.
Which blinded her even to the needs of her children. ’
She bit her lip. ‘I can understand that.’
He sensed her absolution, but he was not finished. ‘But what I feel for you does not feel like weakness. I feel strong when I am with you, Alannah. As strong as a mountain lion. As if I could conquer the world.’
She let him put his arms around her and her head rested against his chest. ‘That’s funny, because right now I feel as weak as a kitten.’
His black eyes burned into her as he gently levered her face up so that she was looking directly at him. ‘The only thing I need to know is whether you love me?’
‘Of course I love you.’ The words came tumbling out as if she’d been waiting all her life to say them.
She thought about the first time she’d seen him, when they’d just clicked.
It had been a thunderbolt for her, too, and she had never been able to forget him.
She thought about how empty her life seemed when he wasn’t there.
He wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be—he was so much more. ‘I think I’ve always loved you.’
‘Then kiss me, my beautiful Alannah,’ he said softly. ‘And let me show you my love.’
Slowly and tenderly, he traced his fingertip along the edges of her lips before lowering his head towards hers and Alannah’s heart filled up with so much happiness that she felt as if she might burst with it.