by Donna Alward
She was rid of Robert Langston and she had the job, the life, she’d always wanted.
And somehow, she still felt completely empty.
She straightened her shoulders. As if preordained, the words of the note that had accompanied the painting rang in her ears: “When it speaks to your heart, you know it’s the right one.”
She’d been so very utterly wrong.
It hadn’t been about Robert. It was about Luca. He was the one that spoke to her heart. He was the right one. She could either accept what he’d said tonight, or she could fight for him. Was she brave enough?
There had been no chance to speak privately. With Luca planning on leaving so soon, the morning was completely filled with meetings and details. Mari looked across the table at him. The sinking feeling that had begun last night widened to a gulf that threatened to swallow her up.
It wasn’t about drapes and fixtures and figures anymore.
She already felt the loss of him and didn’t know how she was going to manage it when he was gone. And she had no confidence at all in her ability to convince him to stay.
Something had changed. The sound of his voice as he hashed things over with the plumbing contractor both grounded her and filled her with emptiness. Never, in the seven years since she’d been attacked, had she let down her guard so completely. She’d been so used to reacting to things that she didn’t know how to take control and act. And while he thought that giving her control of The Cascade was what she wanted, nothing was further from the truth. A month ago she would have taken it gladly. But now…it meant nothing, not without Luca.
But it wasn’t what they agreed, and she had spent the better part of the morning desperately trying to find a time to speak to him in private to tell him how she felt.
Luca wound up the meeting and shook hands with the contractor. Mari smiled and offered her hand as well, knowing that from this moment on she would be the one carrying out Luca’s vision. She was pleased he trusted her enough to leave her with it. No one had ever shown her that much faith before. But at what cost? She wanted them to do it together. They had thus far, and it had changed her life. The last thing she wanted was to be put back in her old life. It was drab and colorless now.
The door to the conference room had just closed and Mari turned, wanting to say something and not knowing what. For a few long seconds their eyes clashed, and she wished she knew how to put into words what she was feeling.
Mari straightened her blouse. Should she ask him to lunch? Suggest something else? Her stomach twisted.
“That covers it, then.” His voice came quietly across the room and she closed her eyes, wondering if she could take the sound of it and commit it to memory.
“Piece of cake,” she replied, trying to inject some vigor into her words. They fell flat.
“Mari I—”
“Luca, would—”
They both halted as they interrupted each other. He held out his hand, offering to let her go first.
Always the gentleman.
“I was wondering if you’d like to have some lunch before you leave for the airport.”
“Do you think that’s wise?”
Mari shook her head. Would she feel better or worse for it? “Probably not. But I’m tired of being wise.”
The air crackled between them. She didn’t look away, couldn’t. She wanted to remember how he looked in his Italian suits, remember the sound of his voice, the way his cologne smelled. Wanted to imprint everything about him on her memory. She’d thought they had time, but after last night, the sand in the hourglass was slipping away much too quickly.
From the moment he’d stepped up and defended her, something had snapped, had turned around. Perhaps it was ridiculous, but she’d felt part of a unit. That with him beside her Robert couldn’t hurt her anymore. She loved him for that. Loved him for giving her safety, and freedom. He was her asylum.
Now he was taking it away, and she refused to accept it. She didn’t need asylum anymore. Robert was gone. He had no power over her now. And she wanted Luca more than ever before.
“Mari.” He leaned back against the conference table and folded his arms. His lips were unsmiling, troubled. “Mari, if we do this it won’t change anything. I’m still leaving.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” He looked confused and his arms unfolded. “Don’t say goodbye? Would you rather I left without a word?”
Mari swallowed every single ounce of fear and lifted her eyes to his. “Don’t go.”
He sighed. “You’ll be fine here. You don’t need me.”
She shook her head. She’d opened the door and dammit, she was going to walk through it.
“I do need you. More than you know. Robert—”
Luca’s back came away from the wall. “Robert what? Did he contact you?” His hands gripped her elbows and she tried to ignore the thrill that shot through her, just having him this close. “Is he trying to find you? I swear, Mari, if he—”
Mari shook her head quickly. “No, no! Of course not…Luca, Robert is dead.”
Luca released her arms and stared at her dumbly. She started to laugh at his confounded expression.
“I’m sorry. But you should see your face.”
“How did it happen?”
“Car accident. I opened the letter when I got home last night.”
Luca came forward and hugged her, surprising her with the strength of the embrace. “I’m glad, oh that sounds awful, doesn’t it? But I was worried about you. I told Vince—”
Mari pulled away. “You told Vince what?” Vince was their head of security, and she’d hired him herself two years earlier.
“I told him to keep an eye on you. To make sure you were protected.”
“And why does that matter to you?”
“How can you ask that?” He nearly exploded, spinning about and going behind the table, putting it between them.
Mari smiled and leaned slightly over the polished top. “I am asking that very thing. Why does my protection matter to you?”
“Because I…” He faltered and then scowled. “You know why.”
Oh, her Luca. He’d helped her more in a few short weeks than months of therapy ever had. She didn’t know how she could ever explain how much that meant. She knew in her heart she couldn’t let him go without a fight, so for the first time in her life, she stopped hiding in the shadows and came out to face her fear head on.
She let all her love for him shine out of her eyes. “Yes, I think I know why.” She straightened, folded her hands demurely and said with far more confidence than she felt: “Then stay. I love you, Luca. Stay with me and love me back.”
Nothing she could have said could have affected him more. His heart pounded at her words for a brief moment of elation before reality kicked in.
And in some small corner of his mind, he heard voices from his past. Voices asking for love and having it denied. Of going through the motions until it just wasn’t enough. He wasn’t fool enough to believe Mari actually meant it. And even if he did love her back—which he couldn’t possibly—it would be impossible for him to say the words.
“Mari, I don’t know what to say.” He knew he sounded cold and wished it were different. “I know what we said last night, about it meaning something, that was all true. But love…” His voice trailed away. He couldn’t say the words that leapt into his brain. I’m not ready for love.
“You’ve been through a horrible ordeal, and I think if you take time to look at it rationally, you’ll see your feelings are misplaced gratitude.”
“I do owe you thanks,” she agreed, and from the way she worried her fingers he could tell this wasn’t coming easily for her. “For showing me how to feel again, Luca. For forcing me out of my box and into the world again.”
Oh, what had he done! His brilliant plans. Never had he considered they would end like this!
“I don’t need your gratitude.”
She drew back and he tried hard to
ignore the hurt his jab had caused. It was written all over her face.
“You’re turning me away.”
He came around the table and took her icy hand in his. He’d give anything not to be breaking her heart right now, but he couldn’t give her what she wanted. He didn’t know how. He’d fought against it his whole life! He couldn’t just change who he was in an instant, just because she asked him to.
He remembered how she’d cried on his chest and poured out her pain. Hated himself for how much he wanted to stay and hold her that way. She’d made him weak. That’s what she’d done to him without even trying. And because he knew she hadn’t meant to do it, he placed all the blame firmly on himself for becoming vulnerable to her. And for giving her hope where he shouldn’t have.
He squeezed her fingers. “I meant what I said last night. We did have a connection, you and me. We just knew it wasn’t forever. I will always look back on this as a fond memory.”
He didn’t know how to handle her tears, but to his surprise she pulled her hands away from his and straightened her shoulders.
“A fond memory. That’s all.” She tried a smile but he saw through it to how deeply he’d hurt her and regret had a bitter taste.
He had to get out now before he made a huge fool of himself or hurt her feelings further. There really was no choice. He was due in Paris. He’d given his word he’d be there, and he’d never broken a promise to his father, even when he’d wanted to. Yet he couldn’t quite bring himself to break ties with The Cascade, either. Changing it, restoring it, had meant a great deal to him and he hated having to walk away from all their hard work. It was more than a project. It was his and Mari’s project. At least he knew that he was leaving it in good hands.
“I’m sorry you thought it was more. I’ll be in touch anyway, about the hotel. So this isn’t really goodbye.”
“That’s all you have to say?” Her blue eyes blazed up at him, looking for truth and he didn’t have any to give.
“Yes, that’s all.”
“This is goodbye, then. After everything.”
He nodded. Perhaps it was kinder to let her go angry. Maybe it would make it easier for her to move on. His stomach burned at the thought, but he carried on. “Yes. I assured my father I’d be in Paris as soon as I could. I’m leaving with Charlie within the hour.”
She held out her hand. “Goodbye, Luca. It’s been a pleasure working with you.”
He took her hand and felt the trembling there.
“Goodbye, Mariella.”
She pulled her hand away and retrieved her purse. She walked down the hall and out the doors, through the parking garage to her car.
And once she was inside, she finally let it all go in a rash of weeping. She’d risked it all. And lost.
Chapter 12
Dawn wasn’t gray, it was pure white.
Mari looked out the window and shook her head. Last night she hadn’t given a thought to a storm, but at this time of year anything could happen in the mountains. Should she go to work, or take a day off? It was a short drive, but her road hadn’t been cleared and she wasn’t sure her little car could handle the curves. Not to mention the return drive, up the hill. Flakes were still falling in thick flakes, obscuring the view of even the parking area above the cottage.
Tommy came back in from his trip to the yard, shaking the snow from his golden coat with great enthusiasm. Mari gave him an absent pat and went to the bathroom. Seeing her puffy eyes in the mirror, she decided that there were advantages to being the boss. She made the necessary call—they’d be running on essential staff today anyway—and decided she could work from home this once. She would log in to the server at the hotel and access all her files, and if anything was pressing Becky could phone.
She put on the coffee pot and calculated the time difference in Paris. It was afternoon there already. What was he doing?
Before long, he’d be in Italy, with his father and Gina and her children. All she’d wanted when he’d walked in that first morning was to get rid of him and retain her manager’s job. And now she’d done it. And knew that the sad reality was that yesterday she’d been prepared to give it all up if only he would have said he loved her back.
She was starting on her second cup of coffee when a knock sounded at the door. She opened it to find Luca there, bundled in a heavy parka with “Bow Valley Inn” embroidered on the front. It was obvious he’d raided the old boutique storage for suitable outerwear.
“Luca!”
“Can I come in?”
She had been so shocked to see him that she’d been standing in the doorway like a dolt. “Of course! How did you…when are…I mean, what happened to your flight?”
He stepped inside, his already tall figure made even larger by the addition of winter books and the jacket. “I didn’t take it,” he replied, pulling a black toque off his head and shoving it into a pocket. His normally precisely gelled hair was in disarray from the hat. To Mari, he’d never looked better.
And she was suddenly acutely aware that she stood before him, barefoot and braless in a pair of pink candy-striped flannel pajamas.
“Oh lord, excuse me a moment!” Her cheeks went hot as his gaze remained pinned to her flannel jammies.
“Mariella,” he said, and her feet refused to move.
Just yesterday he’d said goodbye. He’d taken her protestation of love and had politely, but quite definitively, rejected it. Why was he here now?
“I couldn’t get on that plane.”
“You couldn’t?”
He shook his head. And she frantically tried to beat down the hope that fluttered in her heart. There was no sense getting her hopes up. They’d said all there was to say. He’d been crystal clear.
He unzipped his coat, shrugging out of it. When he stood there with it in his hands, it came to her that she should hang it up for him.
“I’m glad you didn’t go into the office today. The roads are horrid.”
“Yet you came here.” She turned from the closet, amazed at herself for voicing the thought so easily. A month ago she would never have done such a thing. It was more proof just how much she’d changed since Luca had come to The Cascade. She owed him more than he knew, for shaking her out of her life that had been nothing more than self-preservation.
“I have the four-wheel drive. You only have your little car.”
“I called in to say I was doing paperwork from home. I should get dressed…”
“Mari, wait.” The urgency in those two words stopped her.
“I came here to say things. Things I should have said yesterday. But you caught me off guard.”
He bent, removed his boots, and padded across the hardwood to stand before her.
“My Mariella,” he whispered, lifting a hand to her cheek and cupping it.
“Don’t,” she choked, her eyes drifting shut anyway. “Luca, I can’t take it. You said all you needed to yesterday.”
But he ignored her, cupped her other cheek and dropped the sweetest of kisses on her eyelids.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I said too much, and all the wrong things. You, Mariella Ross, made me a coward, and that’s not something I like in myself.”
His breath was warm on her forehead. “You’re not afraid of anything,” she whispered breathlessly.
“I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of me, how I feel when I’m with you. And then on the drive to Calgary I realized how incredibly difficult it must have been for you to say what you did. And how you deserved better from me.”
She leaned back, searched his eyes. “And that’s why you’re here?”
“That’s what frightens me, Mari. You make me want to give you more. You make me want to be worthy and I’m terrified of failing. Again.”
“I don’t understand.”
He tugged on her hand and led her to the table and chairs that covered the space between the kitchen and living room. When she was seated, he pulled a chair close and sat so that their knees were pressed t
ogether, the same way he had the night she’d told him about Robert.
“Mari, you deserve so much more than what I have to give. I hadn’t even given a thought to love, and everything that goes with that. You’re just now stepping out of the shadow of all you’ve been through. I said what I did because I was too selfish to end it like I wanted to. I wanted us to stay friends, and if not that, business associates that had shared something great.”
His thumbs grazed her knees. “You make me want things, things I haven’t wanted for a very long time. I thought I was making the right decision by leaving. For you, for me. I thought my reasons were right. But I was wrong. I had Charlie bring me back. And I spent all of last night trying to fix it.”
“You have to go to Paris.”
“No, cara. I don’t.”
He took her hands in his. She wanted to believe him, even when his words of yesterday still rang in her ears. He was here and for some reason being here was important. She had to believe that was because somehow she was important.
She absorbed how he looked; the tanned skin, the mobile, full mouth that didn’t smile, the cappuccino eyes that had always been able to see into her. Somewhere along the way he’d become her ideal. She longed to cup his face in her hands and kiss him as he’d kissed her that last night in the alcove.
But he spoke, keeping her in her chair.
“You know that my mother left my father when I was very young. And though we had our father, I felt very responsible for Gina. And for my father at times as well, because I was old enough to see how our mother leaving had hurt him. Time and again I saw him ask for her love and she gave it, but the words were meaningless. He tried in every way he could, but it wasn’t enough for her.”
“Did you think I didn’t mean what I said yesterday?”
“I’m not one for words, Mari. I need to be shown…I need to show. I said the words once, remember? I told you about Ellie. I gave her my heart. And it wasn’t so much that I found her with someone else, you see. It wasn’t even that I learned she was only with me because I was a Fiori. It was that I’d trusted her, with my heart. It was my judgment holding me back. And I vowed not to trust it again. So when I started having feelings for you, I gave myself every justification and excuse in the book.”