He heard her stagger backwards, and swore from deep within his soul.
“But… you… insisted on it.”
He turned to face her, and felt like the worst kind of bastard. Her expression was a mask of desperate agony.
“I was wrong.”
“You don’t want to be married to me?”
His laugh was a harsh sound of disbelief. “It’s not about what I want. I was wrong about you. I was so wrong.” He crossed the room, cupping her face in his hands so he could stare into her eyes. “And my mistakes are killing you, and I can’t stand to watch it.”
His eyes scanned her face, hungrily, desperately, seeing her tiredness and pain, knowing he’d caused it, and then he stepped back, as if taking control of his emotions.
“When we had dinner a few weeks ago, you thought I was judging you for giving up law, but I wasn’t. I was sitting there thinking how amazing you are, to have given up so much for our son. How selflessly you committed yourself to his life, at the expense of your own dreams. I was listening to you with admiration, not judgement.”
He sighed heavily, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck as he searched for the words he needed to find.
“I have been so angry these past four years. Do you have any idea what it’s like for a man like me to have been made so vulnerable? I lost everything in that damned accident.”
“You’re still alive,” she whispered huskily.
“No, you don’t understand.” He paced to the window and braced his hands on the window’s ledge, the only way he could stop himself from touching her again. That could stop him from using their unique brand of cataclysmic heat to bring her under his spell. “I’ve spent the last four years feeling as though something was missing. Not my memories, something more intrinsic. I have felt as though a part of me had been severed. Like an amputation. And then I saw you and my God, Elizabeth, it all came back. Not my memories, but the feeling that I was whole for the first time in four years.”
“Don’t,” she whispered shakily. “Don’t say this.”
“And when I found out about Joshua, it made me realise how much I’d lost. Not just you, but the whole life that should have been mine. And I took that out on you.”
“Because I was to blame,” she said stiffly. “When I think about what might have happened, if we hadn’t run into each other at that ball. If you hadn’t come to me the next day and found out about him for yourself…” An involuntary shiver danced along her spine. “I may never have told you.” The words were said with disbelief. “I was wrong not to tell you about him.”
“Perhaps,” he agreed, with a terse shake of his head and a crumbling of all his defenses. “But I can understand why you didn’t.”
He heard her rapid breathing and felt it inside his chest as though it was his own breath.
“That’s nice of you to say, but it doesn’t change the fact that I made a decision not to tell you we’d had a baby. You deserved better.”
He shook his head slowly from side to side. “I failed you, Elizabeth. In every way possible, I failed you.”
Her exclamation was a primal, enraged noise of disbelief. “You were in an accident. That’s hardly your fault. None of this is your fault. It’s all me. Do you understand that? You were innocent and I was, I am, guilty. Guilty as sin. You should spend the rest of our lives making me pay for what I took from you. Demean me. Embarrass me. Humiliate me.” She sobbed and his heart burst apart inside of his chest. “I deserve everything you can give me.”
“Stop!” He shouted, and the word rang through the cabin. He turned to face her, dragging his own breath in. “You raised our beautiful son on your own even when you were terrified and had to put all your dreams on hold. You did it to save my marriage –,”
“A marriage that was already broken,” she snapped, too upset to be mollified. “A marriage I would have known was over if I’d done the right thing. See? That’s my fault too.”
“It’s not your fault and damn it, you need to stop saying that.” He ignored all his common sense and pulled her into his arms and dropped his mouth to hers.
He kissed her as senseless as he was.
He kissed her until her body was pliant and her tongue was dueling with his and her fingers were curled in his hair and then he pulled away, because she was silent and she was drugged by their desire, as he needed her to be.
“I wasn’t there for you four years ago. I have put you through hell, thinking I was engaged. I would never have married Arabella if I’d known about you.” He padded his thumb over her lower lip, feeling her sharp intake of breath. “You have to know that I didn’t sleep with her. Not once. Our marriage wasn’t like that. There’s been no one in my life since you, Elizabeth. I think on some level my brain must have known that I made you a commitment four years ago, and was helping me honour that.”
He kissed her again, slower this time, but just as deep, just as desperately. “I will always be sorry for what I’ve done to you. Seeing you fall apart in front of my eyes this month and knowing that it was my hardness and darkness, my anger and contempt, that was doing that to you? I’ve treated you so badly and you didn’t deserve any of it.”
He dropped a hand and caught hers, running his finger over her wedding ring. “Let me start again, please.” He cleared his throat, thinking it was appropriate he was at a house on the edge of the world when he felt as if he was about to step off it. “I will annul this marriage if you wish. You will retain full custody of our son, as you should. I will be as much or as little a part of his and your life as you wish.” Every cell in his body rejected the offer but he knew he had to make it.
“Is that what you want?” She murmured softly, without giving him any clue how she felt.
“No.” This wasn’t a time for ambivalence. “I want to start this marriage properly. I want to start this marriage with the words I love you and I want to say that to you every day for the rest of our lives. I want to be here with you, my wife, knowing that you’re here because you feel the same way about me.” A muscle jerked in his jaw.
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s true. We’ve had enough misunderstanding to last a lifetime. Now is a time for honesty. And I honestly love you. I completely love you.” She sobbed. He took a step closer. “I will always love you.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“What for?” He asked through narrowed eyes. “For being brave and beautiful and selfless and kind? For being honourable and lovely and everything I could ever want in this life? Or for giving me the most perfect son in the world and the chance to be a father to him?”
Another sob. This time, he caught it in his mouth, swallowing it, willing it to be the end of tears and sadness for her. He broke the kiss reluctantly.
“Fate brought us together four years ago and it brought us together again in London, a month ago. I don’t want to lose you, Elizabeth, but what happens next is your decision.”
“My decision?” She shook her head and his body froze thinking she was going to do the smart thing and tell him he’d ruined it all, for good. Then, she kissed him. “There’s no decision to be made. It’s not like that. I love you – it’s fate, just like you said. I can’t not love you. Why do you think I let you bully me into this marriage?” She said it with a half-smile but it didn’t soften the pain from the accusation.
“Don’t,” he groaned, pulling her to him and lifting her, cradling her to his chest. “I regret every moment that brought you pain…”
“I know,” she whispered. “It wasn’t you.”
“It was me. It was what life without you was turning me into. You’ve brought me back to life, my darling Elizabeth. Please let me do the same for you now. No more tears. No more pale face, and tormented sleep. Let me kiss you and love you and hold you tight and make you laugh. Please, my darling, beautiful wife?”
She sobbed and she nodded, and right there, on the edge of the earth, she held his hand and his heart an
d she agreed to step into the unknown with this man by her side – as he always would be, for evermore.
*
They didn’t stay at Borde del Mondo. Instead, they’d climbed back into the helicopter, two people so dramatically different to those that had disembarked only an hour earlier, and Xavier flew them a short distance along the coastline, to Casa por Azul, the house he’d spoken of to Elizabeth, many years earlier. The house in which she’d pictured him.
And he’d described it so vividly that as she stepped out of the helicopter and the white gravel of the drive crunched underfoot, reality perfectly matched her imaginings. A sprawling Spanish hacienda, enormous and somehow homely all at once, with frangipani trees on either side and pomegranate trees scrambling down the hill to the side. The ocean glistened in the distance.
“So here it is,” she said softly, under her breath.
“And here you are,” he murmured, turning to face her, his smile spreading across his face almost as brightly as the late afternoon sunshine. “Can I tell you something?”
She arched a brow. “It seems to be an afternoon for confessions.”
“Your ring,” he reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips, pressing a kiss into her palm and then curving her fingers over it. “I bought it years ago.”
Ellie looked at it, confusion swirling inside of her. “What do you mean?”
“I saw it in a jeweler’s window and I couldn’t say why, but I was drawn to it. I thought of it for weeks afterwards and finally bought it. I told myself I was simply collecting a lovely piece of value, as though it were just an investment. But I bought it for you. Somehow, from deep within my mind, I knew that the ring was for you.”
A single tear glistened on her lashes and then found surrender on her cheeks. “I’m sorry you can’t remember that weekend,” she said, standing up on tiptoes and kissing him gently. Her heart fluttered in her chest, for it was such a simple gesture and yet it meant the world to her. A kiss freely given, openly received. What bliss! What simple grace!
“I am also,” he agreed, putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding her through the large glass doors. The ocean sparkled through the windows and she stared at it for a moment, sighing at the perfect outlook. “But I cannot dwell on the past when the whole future is ours.” He smiled. “Besides, you can tell me all about it, yes?”
“Yes,” she agreed, and he wrapped his arms around her and she turned to face him, and everything fell into perfect harmony. “I love you,” she said simply. “And I always have.”
“It is exactly as I feel,” he agreed. “When I think how close I came to losing you –,”
“Not possible,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m sure we were fated to find one another again.”
His smile was lopsided. “Yes. You must be right.”
Much later that night, after they’d swum and eaten a relaxed platter-style dinner and made love beneath the ancient, star-lit sky, Xavier propped up on one elbow, and watched his wife, as she stared at the stars above. “I used to call you Ellie, didn’t I?”
Her heart twisted. Hearing that name on his lips brought back so many memories, all of them exquisitely perfect.
“Yes,” she nodded. “You called me Ellie. And querida.”
“And I told you I loved you?”
Ellie’s heart turned over in her chest. “No.”
“No?” He frowned.
“You told me, when we made love, that I was your dying breath and you were mine. You said we were sand and water, designed to be together. You said life without me is like the night sky painted black. You told me you’d been waiting for me all your life. But you never told me you loved me.”
“You don’t think?” He drawled, with a little laugh.
“Not in those exact words,” she answered, pushing up on her elbow and trailing her fingertips over his chest.
“And what did you tell me, Ellie?” he asked, catching her fingers and lifting them to his lips.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you say that you loved me?” His tone was light, but there was a heart-wrenching quality to the question.
“Ah.” She pushed up onto her elbow so she could see him more clearly. “I told you that I’d had my heart broken and I’d sworn I’d never fall in love with anyone ever again.”
The words hurt him – he felt her pain personally – and he knew it must have been the same then, as well.
“And you told me,” she continued, her eyes assuming a faraway look, “that only a fool would have me and lose me. You told me that if you were lucky enough to hold my heart, you’d wrap it up right inside yours.” Her smile was wistful. “You told me you’d hold my heart forever, and you were right.”
“Ellie,” he said, the name graveled, pulled from deep inside his chest. “I am going to keep your heart safe from now on. There is nothing on this earth that will ever separate us again, querida.”
She sighed and nodded, because there was not a single point of doubt in her mind. She lay down beside him, her head on his chest, so she could hear his heart beating and his breath moving and she closed her eyes. And for the first time in four years, she slept with a smile on her face and a certainty deep inside of her that she was exactly where she was supposed to be.
EPILOGUE
One year later
“YOU MEAN THEY WANT us to come back again already?” Ellie smiled, shaking her head. Her dark hair was loose and it fluffed around her face in a way that had Xavier staring, as always.
He blinked, trying to focus on the conversation at hand instead of his beautiful wife. “Apparently Joshua looks to have grown in the photos.”
At this, Ellie laughed properly. “We were there three weeks ago…”
“What can I say? My parents dote on Joshua.”
Ellie ran a hand over her swollen stomach, feeling the baby’s shape through the firmness of her pregnancy belly. “Yes, we couldn’t have asked for more loving grandparents.”
Xavier sipped his coffee, his eyes holding his wife’s over the rim of the coffee cup. “Even if my mother did her best to ruin my life.” He said the words mockingly, but Ellie’s cheeks flamed.
Despite Ellie’s insistence, Maria had confessed her role in things to Xavier shortly after they’d returned from their honeymoon. Beset by guilt, the older woman hadn’t been able to let it go. Fortunately, things between Xavier and Ellie had resolved so beautifully by then that he hadn’t been able to muster much enthusiasm to be angry about it.
He’d simply told his mother that she’d had no place to interfere, and that Ellie was his reason for living and in the future, Maria should do everything she could to support his wife.
And that had been the end of the matter, except for the occasional tease from Xavier.
“Yes, well, all that aside,” Ellie grinned across at him. At that moment, Joshua pitched himself into the lounge room, a grin on his cherubic face, his uniform so adorable.
“Janice says it’s time to go,” he chirruped, and Ellie nodded.
“Then you’d better come here to collect your cuddle, Master Salbatore,” she said, picking him up in her arms and kissing his head. When she placed him to the ground, he ran around the other side of the table (he rarely walked when there was space to hurricane through the house) and Xavier tousled his hair.
“We shall see you tonight?”
“Yes. Daddy, when are we going to see Abuela and Abuelo again?”
Xavier caught Ellie’s eyes over Joshua’s head, a smile crinkling his eyes.
“Do you ever suspect we are being conned, querida?”
Ellie nodded. “Most definitely.”
“Well, then,” he placed Joshua back on the ground. “Off to school and your mother and I shall discuss another visit to Spain.”
“Yay!” Joshua ran from the room, as happy and confident as any little boy could ever be.
“Are you free for lunch?” Xavier prompted, reaching for the newspaper and flicking to the f
inance section.
“I should be. I’ve got class until eleven and then I need to speak to my lecturer about an assessment.”
Pride glowed in Xavier’s expression. From the moment Ellie had told him about her aspirations to finish her degree, he’d known he would help her find a way to do just that. But the hard work and study was all her.
“Have José bring you to my office and we’ll go from there.”
She hid a smile behind her tea cup. Her husband spoke in orders, but she wouldn’t have him any other way.
He was her perfect other half – her destiny.
Only towards the end of their lunch, Xavier was struck by a rare headache. He ignored it at first, but by the end, it speared through his brain like a drill, and then another, so that – worried and concerned, Ellie paid the bill and had José bring the car to the restaurant to take Xavier straight home.
It was the third such instance she’d witnessed, and she knew what to do. She helped him into bed and prepared a glass of water and some aspirin on the bedside table, and then she left him to sleep, checking on him every hour, making sure he hadn’t been ill.
But hours and hours later, after Joshua had returned from school, eaten dinner and been dispatched to Bedfordshire for the evening’s repose, Ellie went to check on Xavier and found him sitting up, propped against the pillows, a bemused expression on his face.
Concerned, Ellie closed the distance and pressed a hand to his forehead, but he caught it and squeezed her fingers in his. “You love strawberry ice cream,” he said thickly. “You think it is a food group, all on its own.”
She stared at him and then, as the significance of what he was saying came back to her, tears cloyed at her throat. She lifted a hand to her mouth and nodded. “Yes.”
“I went to see Les Miserables, and you were wearing your hair in a bun and I fell in love with you as soon as you looked at me. I called you Ellie and you slept with your head on my chest and when I left the hotel that day, Ellie, it was to fly to my parents and tell them about Arabella so that I could propose to you. Because I met the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and nothing on earth could keep me from her…”
Claiming his Secret Baby_One night and a lifetime of consequences... Page 19