Chapter Thirteen #2
Oh, please don’t let him ghost me again. Let him come to the scan, she prayed. As painful as it is, I can live without him, but my baby shouldn’t have to live without him in its life too. That wouldn’t be fair. My baby deserves its father.
The only light in the dark that had become Alessia’s life was that her mother had been markedly warmer to her, her maternal compassion roused by the sudden implosion of Alessia’s marriage. For once, there had been no talk about damage limitation. Alessia suspected that was Marcelo’s doing.
Her relationship with her mother felt like a fresh start.
Her marriage hadn’t lasted long enough for its ending to be stale.
She missed him as desperately as if she’d spent her whole life with him.
The carriages arrived in the piazza the cathedral opened onto.
Placing a kiss on the top of her little cousin’s head, she fixed a great smile onto her face and herded the other bridesmaids off the carriage, the driver helping them down one by one.
The flash of cameras was so great that it blurred into one mass of light.
Organising the bridesmaids, Alessia directed them to wave at the screaming, excited crowd and then it was time to follow the bride and King Pig into the cathedral.
The packed congregation got to its feet.
As the bridal party began its long march, Alessia’s smile turned into something real as she noticed the spring in Elsbeth’s feet. The bride really was fighting the urge to run to Amadeo and demand the bishop get straight to the ‘I do’s.
Alessia was halfway down the aisle when a tall figure in the family section at the front made her heart thump and then pump ice in her veins.
The cathedral began to sway beneath her feet. If not for the small hands clasped in hers, she would have stumbled.
It took everything she had to keep putting one shaking foot in front of the other. The closer she got, the clearer his features became.
His eyes were fixed directly on her.
The ice in her veins melted and began to heat rapidly. By the time Elsbeth took Amadeo’s hand and the bridesmaids’ mothers beckoned them to their seats, her whole body was burning, her heart beating like a hummingbird in her chest.
That was her family in their pride of place, the women in the perfect royal attire for a wedding, the men in identical long-tailed charcoal morning suits. Her father. Her mother. Her brother Marcelo. Her sister-in-law, Clara. Her husband...
He held a hand out to her. His features were tight but his eyes were an explosion of gold.
Her hand slipped into his without any input from her brain.
The service began.
Alessia didn’t hear a word of it.
Her body went into autopilot, standing and sitting as directed, singing the hymns, clapping politely when the groom kissed the bride.
It stayed on autopilot as they filed out of the cathedral, tipped confetti and rice over the happy-ish couple, smiled for the numerous photos that were taken.
And it remained in autopilot in the carriage she shared with Gabriel, Marcelo and Clara, all waving at the cheering crowds, back to the castle and throughout the entire wedding banquet.
Gabriel could see Alessia was in shock and was working entirely in princess mode.
She ate and conversed, laughed when appropriate, but she’d shut something off in herself.
Even when he spoke directly to her she answered politely but there was a dazed quality to her eyes and no real engagement.
It was as if he were a not particularly interesting stranger she’d been paired with for the day.
The banquet ended. The five hundred guests moved into the adjoining stateroom where the evening party was being held.
Decorated in golds and silvers that shimmered and glittered from floor to ceiling, the round tables with no official place-settings quickly filled.
He followed Alessia to the one she joined Marcelo and Clara at.
They exchanged a significant look and then Marcelo fixed his stare on Gabriel.
The look clearly said, ‘Fix things now or I will do what I would have done if my wife hadn’t taken pity on you and made me help you today: I will throw you out of a window.’
He wouldn’t blame him. It was nothing less than he deserved.
The bride and groom took to the dance floor.
Alessia’s knuckles whitened around her glass of water.
Gabriel’s heart splintered.
The first dance finished.
Gabriel got to his feet and tapped Alessia’s shoulder.
She looked at him expressionlessly.
His heart beating fast, he extended his palm to her. ‘May I have this dance?’
She continued to stare at him. With no movement on her face, she looked slowly down to his hand then back to his eyes. But still not seeing. Not seeing him.
By now convinced that she wasn’t even going to dignify him with an answer, electricity jolted through him when she pressed her fingers into his palm and rose gracefully to her feet.
He closed his fingers around hers before she could change her mind.
Leading her to the slowly filling dance floor, cameras flashing all around them, he slid his hands around her slender waist.
There was a too-long hesitation before she looped her hands loosely around his neck and turned her cheek so that she wasn’t looking at him. Other than her hands, not an inch of her body touched his.
But she was there with him. Dancing with him.
Swaying softly to the music, he spoke in a low voice so only she could hear him.
‘I love you, Princess Alessia Berruti. I love all of you, the passionate woman and the dignified princess. I love your sense of duty. I love your loyalty. I love your laugh and your sense of the absurd. I love that you can make me laugh. I love that I can make you laugh. I love your voice. I love your eyes. I love your lips and your smile. I love how it feels when I touch you and how it feels when you touch me. I love that you’re carrying my child. ..’
Still swaying, her face slowly lifted. Her eyes locked onto his. The dazed sheen had gone but there was still no expression.
Another splinter broke off his heart and he sucked in a breath before continuing.
‘But there are things I hate too. I hate that I left you sleeping that morning. I hate that I never called you back. I hate the conditions I put on our marriage. I hate that I didn’t consider your feelings when I imposed them.
I hate that our wedding was tiny and sparse.
I hate that I was arrogant enough to think that you could ever be anything but the woman you are, and I hate that I let you believe you would suit me better as anything other than the woman you are. ’
A tear rolled down her cheek.
‘I hate that my selfish insecurities tried to hoard you all to myself. I hate that I’m a blind, pig-headed fool who pushed away the best thing that ever happened to him.’
Still holding her waist with one hand, Gabriel reached into his back pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. Taking one of her hands in his, he placed the paper in it.
She dipped her gaze to it before closing it tightly in her fingers then locked back on him, another tear falling.
‘My PA gave me this within minutes of you calling me,’ he told her, staring deep into her shining eyes.
‘I’ve kept it in my wallet ever since. I tried to destroy it once.
Scrunched it up and threw it in the bin.
I went back to the hotel room for it. Alessia.
..’ A sharp lump had formed in his throat and he had to close his eyes and swallow it away before he could continue.
‘Lessie, I don’t know if love at first sight exists but the first time I looked at you it felt like I’d been struck by lightning.
You were everything I thought I didn’t want but the truth is you’re everything I need.
All of you. The princess and the woman. The whole of you. I can’t live without you.’
His voice caught and he had to take another moment to compose himself enough to speak.
‘I can’t live without you,’ he repeated, choking and now completely unable to control it.
‘Please, Alessia, forgive me. Take me back. Please, I beg you. I am nothing without you. I can’t go on like this.
You are everything to me. I beg you, give me a chance to put things right.
Give me a chance to prove that I can be the husband you deserve and the prince you need. ..’
‘Shh.’ A delicate finger was placed on his lips.
It took a beat for him to register that Alessia had closed the gap between them, another beat to register that her tear-filled face was shining at him.
‘Oh, Gabriel.’ Alessia gazed at the man she’d fallen in love with long before she’d even known it, feeling like she could choke on the emotions that had cracked through her frozen heart and were erupting inside her.
The eyes boring into hers... What she saw in them...
Oh, but it filled her with the glowing warmth of his love.
Dropping the slip of paper, she rose onto her toes, wound her arms around his neck and pressed her nose into the base of his strong throat.
He loved her.
With her lungs filled with that wonderful Gabriel scent she loved so much, she tilted her head back so she could look again into the eyes that always glistened with such wonderful colour.
She would look into them every day for the rest of her life.
‘I love you,’ she whispered. ‘With all my heart.’
He closed his eyes as if in prayer.
Loosening one of her hands from his neck, she slid her fingers down his arm and clasped them around his hand.
She smiled up at him. ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered dreamily. ‘Kiss me, dance with me and love me for ever.’
Then she closed her eyes as the heat of his breath filled her senses.
His lips brushing tenderly against hers, Gabriel held her in his arms on the dance floor until the music stopped. And then he loved her for ever.