Her insult stoked his anger at what she was doing and his incomprehension. ‘You call me emotionally spineless when you’re the one running away?’
‘I’m not running, I’m leaving.’
Like that made any difference whatsoever.
‘You always run away. You ran away from your parents and then when you lost Johann you ran away from your life, and now you’re running away from me, and you know why? Because you’re too much of a coward to stay and fight.’
‘How was I supposed to fight my parents? I was a child!’
‘Running from them taught you the only way to cope is by running away.’
‘Well, seeing as you’re now a self-appointed shrink, maybe you could tell me what kind of life I was supposed to fight for after Johann. What life did I have? Who did I have? I’d cut myself off from my family. Johann’s family had emigrated to Australia. I had no real friends. So you tell me what life it was I was fighting for.’
‘Your life! Not a life hiding away in a Third World country shunning friendships and relationships.’
‘Oh, so now you’re an expert on relationships as well as a shrink? You’re the one who’s spent their entire life shunning relationships, not me, too busy trying to best your brother in everything you did and prove your worth to the family that has always loved you, living the playboy life, showing off in your fast cars and your jets and your yachts and hand-stitched clothes to want anything deeper or meaningful. Everything’s disposable for you, including me!’
His fury coiled into such rage he shook with the violence of it. ‘You’ve gone too far.’
‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it?’ she spat. ‘A nice, simple marriage with a woman with the emotional capacity of a goldfish, that’s all you can cope with, isn’t it? Well, sorry to disappoint you but it turns out I’m a lot more emotional than you thought. Sorry I’m not level-headed, sensible Eva. Turns out I actually do have feelings and unless you can return them then there is nothing for me to fight for so I suggest you give me those car keys and let me go.’
‘Eva...’ He took what felt like the longest, deepest breath of his life. If he didn’t get hold of his anger right now there was every chance he would throw her over his shoulder and march her back inside and lock her in the cellar.
‘Unless you can tell me that you love me or that there’s a chance you could one day love me, I don’t want to hear another word.’
The pounding in his chest vibrated through every part of him, from the soles of his feet to the hair on his head, the noise so loud he could hardly think straight. ‘How can I make a promise like that? I want you. I like and respect you. Isn’t that enough?’
‘Not for me it isn’t. I want everything. I want your babies. I want to grow old with you.’
‘I want, I want, I want,’ he mimicked. ‘Everything’s about what you want, isn’t it? Where does what I want come into it?’
‘Well what do you want?’
‘The marriage we agreed on!’
‘Then that’s too bad because that’s not what I want. And seeing as you don’t want to hear what I do want, I’ll tell you what I don’t want. I don’t want to waste the best years of my life pining for you and wishing like a lovesick fool for you to feel things you’re not capable of feeling. I might not have much but I do have my self-respect. Now, for the last time, give me the keys.’
‘Fine.’ He threw them as hard and as far as he could, at the other side of the car from where she stood. ‘You want the keys, then you go and get them. You want to leave then be my guest. I never wanted a needy wife in the first place.’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HATE AND FURY filling her so much she could vomit, Eva scrambled on the cold ground for the keys to her escape while Daniele shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled back into the castello without a backward glance. All that was missing was a cheery whistle.
Hands shaking so much she had to put one on top of the other to insert the key into the ignition, it took three attempts to turn the engine on.
The sound of the wheels screeching as she sped out of the courtyard was extremely satisfying.
She must have been mad to think she loved him. Must have been. How could anyone love a bastard like Daniele Pellegrini? He was cruel beyond belief.
Why couldn’t he have just let her go without making a fuss? He was the one who wanted to stick to their original deal, and their original deal had been that she could leave without any issue, any time she wanted. Sure, he’d asked her to explain her decision if she ever did decide to leave, and she’d done that. She’d left him a letter.
How dared he accuse her of cowardice and of running away? He was the coward, not her, the selfish, egotistical...
Almost too late, she saw the tight hairpin bend mere yards ahead and slammed her foot on the brake. The car skidded and there was one long moment that seemed to last for ever, when she was certain the car was going to fly off the road with such force that not even the metal barrier would stop her hurtling down the steep olive grove on the other side of it.
The barrier did its job.
When she finally had the car under control and had brought it to a stop, both her knees were jerking manically. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the rear-view mirror and saw her face was as white as her knuckles holding onto the steering wheel for dear life.
A little ahead of her was a passing place and somehow she managed to steer the car to it, crawling at a snail’s pace in fits and spurts.
Then she turned the engine off and rested her head back, taking deep shuddering breaths into her petrified body.
The passenger door had buckled under the impact of the collision with the barrier.
But no matter how many breaths she took it wasn’t enough for her to keep it together a minute longer. The first tear spilled out and landed on her jumper with a splash, the second and third falling in quick succession until she was crying so hard her eyes were blinded and her heart felt like it was ripping out of her.
* * *
Eva had left her note on the dressing table.
Daniele snatched it up, scrunched it into a tight ball, and threw it into the fire.
He didn’t care what she’d written. She’d said everything she wanted to say. They’d both said everything that needed saying.
Good riddance to her.
It was just a shame she’d only had the time to pack one suitcase before running away like the yellow-bellied coward he’d never thought she could be. Her dressing room was still filled with the clothes he’d paid for.
He stared at them for a long time then slowly backed out of the dressing room, his hands clenched in fists to stop himself from grabbing it all and shredding it into rags.
It felt like he had a living being inside him, twisting and biting into his guts, and it needed purging and killing now.
He’d hardly drunk a drop of alcohol since his drunken exploits when he’d learned the truth about his brother; even yesterday in the hotel after the memorial he’d limited himself to only a couple. Now seemed the perfect time to remedy that, and while he was remedying it, he could celebrate having his freedom back.
Yes, that’s what he would do. He would celebrate his regained freedom. He’d get changed and go to Club Giroud...
Before he could take more than two paces back to his bedroom, his phone rang in his pocket.
He pulled it out and was disconcerted to find his hands were shaking.
His heart sank to his feet to see it wasn’t Eva’s name that flashed up.
Why would he want her to call? he asked himself bitterly. For someone who professed to be in love with him, she clearly didn’t think he was worth enough to stay and fight for. She didn’t think what they had was worth fighting for.
If it had been anyone but his mother, he would have ignored the call but he couldn’t ignore her. He’d spent enough of his adult life avoiding her calls.
She wanted to know if Eva was feeling any better.
Op
ening his mouth to say, ‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Eva’s gone and she’s never coming back,’ he instead found himself saying, ‘Yes, she’s much better.’
Eva was so much better that she’d driven away with a parting screech of tyre for good measure.
‘Good,’ his mother said. ‘I was worried about her.’
‘You have nothing to worry about.’ He quickly changed the subject, swallowing back the monster in his guts that had reared up again.
The chatted for a couple more minutes before he said, ‘I need to go now, Mamma.’
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d addressed her so informally.
‘Okay, my son. I’ll see you soon. I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ he whispered.
Disconnecting the call, he closed his eyes.
When had he and his mother last verbalised their love for each other? He honestly could not remember.
For so many years he’d practically demonised her in his own head, just as he’d demonised his father.
He’d let his semi-estrangement from his father prevent him from being there for him when he’d died and it was something he regretted more and more as time passed. All those years when his father had been ill and still Daniele had kept his distance.
He slumped onto the floor, dimly aware this was almost the same spot he’d slumped down at before when he’d been drunk and Eva had been so compassionate and attentive in her care of him.
Eva was right. He was selfish.
The only member of his family he’d ever been close to was his sister and that was because she was impossible not to love and, he had to admit, a bit of a wayward rebel just as he’d been but with different things to rebel against.
What had his parents ever done for him to create such distance from them? Comparisons to his brother? Encouragement for him to be more like his brother? Chastisement for the times his exploits had brought shame on them?
The feeling that nothing he did would ever be good enough for them?
What about all the good times, and there had been many of those. His mother’s face lighting up when he’d walked into her private hospital room as an eleven-year-old meeting his brand-new baby sister for the first time. His mother had made room on her bed for him to sit beside her so she could cuddle him tightly to her.
And what about the time his father had taken a teenage Daniele, and only Daniele, to the Monza track for a day driving at high speed, the pair of them racing each other like lunatics.
It had been too easy to push aside the good memories and embrace only the bad.
His father was dead. It was too late to make his peace, but it wasn’t too late for him and his mother. She was a loving woman. She had her flaws but who didn’t? Daniele had so many that Eva had spat them all at him just a short while ago.
He’d married Eva for the sake of his family’s happiness and peace of mind. He’d never cared for the castello and would have been happy for it to be sold off.
Through Eva he’d learned to love the cold castle where they’d made their home and now he found himself wanting to be embraced back into the bosom of the family he’d neglected for so long.
Had the distance between him and his parents been a creation of his own making, driven by his jealousy and single-minded rivalry with his brother? Because surely it was his relationship with Pieta that had clouded every other relationship he’d ever had; that feeling of always being second best.
Eva never made him feel second best. When she looked at him she saw him whole. She knew him better and more intimately than anyone else had ever done and still she loved him.
Eva loved him.
Eva had driven out of the courtyard like a woman possessed...
A sudden image of her car lying in a crumpled heap struck pure terror into his veins, followed by an eruption of emotion so big the waves rippled out of him; the truth he’d refused to see flashing in colours so bright he could no longer deny them.
Eva loved him.
And he loved her.
Snatching his phone, he dialled her number—he’d learned it by heart—but found it went straight to voicemail. She’d either turned it off or hadn’t bothered to recharge the battery.
He scrambled to his feet and raced around, looking for a set of car keys.
The first ones he located were for the Ferrari, and he ran to it with lungs fit to burst.
He had to find her. He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t.
His clever, serious, compassionate, passionate, beautiful wife loved him.
What they hell had he been thinking, letting her drive away?
Which way had she gone? Left to Pisa or right to Florence?
Instinct told him she would have gone left to Pisa. She was familiar with its airport.
Yes, that’s where she’d gone.
He blinked the image of her crumpled in her car from his mind. If he let it take that route he would go mad long before he found her.
Fighting the need to thrash the hell out of his Ferrari, he nevertheless raced through the winding roads, leaving a trail of dust behind him.
Ten minutes into his drive and he only just remembered to brake in time to steer round the tight hairpin bend everyone familiar with this stretch of road knew as the Death Bend, for obvious reasons.
Fresh tyre tracks lay on it, evidence that someone had had a near-miss here very recently...
His heart lodged fully in his throat, he steered round the straight and slowed even more.
Then his heart just stopped.
The barrier that was there to stop cars hurtling down the steep olive grove had a contortion in it that hadn’t been there when they’d driven back from the airport earlier.
Someone had recently—very recently—crashed into it.
But where was the car?
* * *
Eva had run out of tissues with which to blow her nose.
She couldn’t stop crying. Every time she thought she was all cried out and capable of driving, fresh tears would fall. All she had left to cry into was a napkin she’d scavenged from the bottom of her handbag.
But she couldn’t stay here. The sun was starting to set and she needed to find her way to the airport on roads she still wasn’t completely familiar with in a car she loved but still hadn’t quite got to grips with.
She had the rest of her life to mourn.
Taking one more deep inhalation, she turned the engine back on and gritted her teeth.
Her heart might feel it had been ripped out of her but that didn’t mean she was suicidal. On the contrary.
She wanted to live. And that meant driving without tears blinding her.
Her feelings for Daniele had crystallised during her few hours back at the camp in Caballeros. So many of the children and teenagers had come over to say hello and embrace her, Odney hunting her down specifically to show off his number three ranking in the colourful ball phone game. The few senior members of staff at the camp at the time had been thrilled to see her—a rich husband who’d donated three million dollars in recent months was bound to make her popular with them. But none of her regular colleagues, who knew nothing about Daniele’s donation, had gone out of their way to say hello.
She’d never realised the distance she’d created between her colleagues and herself. She’d always thought they got along well, and they had but only in a professional sense. She’d turned down their social offers so many times that they’d stopped asking her. Her weekends off had always been spent alone in a cheap hotel room.
Daniele had brought the sunshine into her life without her even realising.
How had she lived without that sunshine? But, then, she hadn’t been living, had she? Ever since Johann had died she’d been alone in the world and simply functioning.
Daniele had made her feel again, all the things she’d been so frightened of because having real emotions and feelings for people meant you could get hurt.
She was hurting now, hurting more than she’
d ever hurt before in her life, yet, somehow, the sunshine he’d blessed her with felt like a gift and she knew if she drove the sunshine out of her again and slipped back into the darkness she would stay in that black hole for ever...
Slamming her foot on the brake, she brought her car back to a stop.
What did she mean, if she drove the sunshine out again?
She was driving this car. She was driving it away from Daniele and away from the sunshine. The sun would still beat down on her but it wouldn’t beat as strongly. She would never feel it soak into her skin and into the very heart of her without him.
And she wasn’t driving away, was she?
She was running away.
Daniele was right. She was a coward. She’d thrown her feelings at him and then thrown a tantrum because he hadn’t returned them. She’d already told herself what response to expect from him, had overheard his talk with his sister and convinced herself that what he’d said was the truth and he would never love her.
But what about the truth in the loving, possessive way he made love to her? Or the truth in the way he looked at her and valued her as a person as well as his lover? Or the truth that he had kept every promise he’d ever made to her?
Wasn’t all that worth fighting for?
A car hooted loudly as it swerved past her, jolting her out of her trance.
She needed to go back.
Spinning the car round, she sped back along the road she’d just travelled, having to control herself to keep only just above the legal limit.
Please be there, Daniele, she prayed. Please be at home...
She screeched the brakes again as she flew past the passing place she’d only recently steered the car away from.
She recognised the car that was parked exactly where she had so recently parked.
She recognised the man looking over the barrier, a distance ahead of the car.
Only just remembering to use her mirrors to make sure no one was approaching her from behind, she reversed sharply and slid her car into the tight space in front of his.
Throwing herself out, she saw his long legs were already marching towards her.
And then her own legs, which so desperately wanted to run to him, turned to jelly.
Buying His Bride of Convenience Page 16