“It really isn’t convenient right now…”
“It’s never convenient,” she said. “It hasn’t been convenient for eighteen years.”
“Actually, I think it would be best if you left now.”
“For fuck’s sake, when are you ever going to talk to me?” Despair and anger converged, propelling her to throw her cup on the floor, spilling brown liquid all over the pristine cream carpet.
The look on her father’s face would have been comical if matters weren’t so serious.
He cleared his throat. “There really is no need for that kind of language. I’ll get Shirley to clean up your mess.”
“What do I have to do to get your attention? Do I have to throw a brick through the window?”
“I have suffered quite enough of your attention seeking.”
“None of it worked, though, did it? Not the bad language, not the clothes, not the binge drinking—none of it. You never gave a shit, did you?”
A pained look flashed across his face. “You know I abhor bad language, Pippa.”
“Why do you think I used it?” She ran her hands down her face. Why did his indifference hurt so much? Why couldn’t she just accept it and move on? “Everything I did was, mostly, to gain your attention.”
“I do hope you’re not blaming me for your abhorrent behavior?”
“Where were you, Dad? When Mum died, I needed you. I still need you.” There. She had said it.
His eyes, usually so cold, brimmed with an emotion that gave her the courage to carry on.
“I didn’t just lose a mother, I lost a father, too, and I’ve never understood why. Why did you send me away to boarding school? I was only eight—I was the youngest in the entire school.”
She waited for him to answer, but he just stared at her as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“I’m sorry for everything I have done,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I am sorry for every shame and humiliation I have heaped upon you and I’m sorry for being so vile to Amelia—none of this was her fault. But Daddy, you hurt me, too…”
“You look so like her,” he interrupted starkly. “When your mother died, I couldn’t cope. Every time I looked at you, all I could see was her face, and it was a reminder of everything I had lost.”
“Everything you had lost?” she said, repeating his words.
“I did what I thought was for the best, and if you feel in some way that I let you down, then I…” His voice broke. To her distress, her father staggered to the nearest seat and collapsed onto it, burying his head in his hands, great sobs racking his lithe frame.
She wanted to comfort him, to wrap an arm around him, but all she could do was kneel before him, bewildered by the misery she was witnessing.
“It was all my fault.”
“What was?”
“Your mother’s death. I should never have left her alone on the balcony, not as drunk as she was. But I was so angry with her.” He raised his head from his hands to look at her with bloodshot eyes. “Do you know what the worst of it is?”
She shook her head, her heart so full of emotion she feared it would spill over.
“The worst of it is I can’t even remember what we were arguing about. And I can’t bear it.”
Pippa could only stare at him. It was as if he were naked, stripped back with raw grief.
“Daddy, whatever you were arguing about, Mummy’s death was not your fault. You had come to my cabin, remember? You had come to check on me. Your seven-year-old daughter.”
He buried his face back in his hands. “How can you ever forgive me? Oh God, Pippa, I let you down.
“You are so like her,” he whispered when he finally had his tears under control. “You look like her, you sound like her. Sometimes I see you and I think you are her.” Fresh grief-wracked tears streamed down his face. “When I married Amelia I told myself it was for the best, that you needed a mother, but really, I was looking for someone to heal me.”
“And did she heal you?”
“Amelia has been a good wife to me and our marriage suits us both, but no, she never healed me. Your mother…” his voice broke again. “Your mother was irreplaceable.”
Pippa could hold back no more. Rising, she wrapped her arms around her father and, for the first time in eighteen years, embraced him. For the first time in eighteen years he embraced her in return.
“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed into her shoulder. “I have been a selfish boor. If your mother was here I am certain she would be giving it to me with both barrels.” He pulled his arms away and studied Pippa’s face, a wry smile carving his cheeks. “She was so like you. Even her temper. Believe me, she would have done a lot worse than throw a cup on the floor.”
Even as the tears poured down Pippa’s own face, a feeling that could only be described as cathartic washed through her. And another image was there, lingering in the forefront of her mind as it had every step of her journey back to England.
Marco.
The grief her father had been through—was still going through—finally she understood it. In no way did it excuse her father’s behavior, but now she could see exactly how he had become the way he had and how she had become the person she was.
Love. Scary, frightening, magical, wonderful, heart-breaking love.
How could she doubt that Marco loved her? How could she have ever doubted it?
And how could she have doubted that she loved him? In the same way her mother had lodged herself in her father’s heart, Marco had lodged himself in hers.
If anything were to happen to him…
It did not bear thinking about.
“I love you, Daddy,” she said, whispering the words into his ear. “And I forgive you.”
“And I love you too, Pipsqueak.”
It was a long time before they let go of each other.
Chapter Fifteen
Marco sat in his office working diligently through the pile of paperwork that had accrued in his absence. It was time he learned to delegate, he told himself grimly. He had spent seventy-two of the past ninety-six hours at his desk and he was no nearer to completion. The launch for the new software was planned to take place in ten days. Unless he got his skates on, the unthinkable was going to happen—postponement. Rumors were already going around the software world and he was determined to head them off at the pass.
While signing off yet another contract, he considered who would be best placed to take over as his right-hand man or woman. Although there were many high-caliber, thorough people working within his company, there was none he trusted enough to take his place during any absence.
Trust. Why did it always come back to trust?
The irony that outside of his family—and he regarded Joycy as part of that —the only person he would trust with his life was the one person he had once believed to be the most untrustworthy person in the world.
Pippa.
With a loud growl, he pushed the mental image that flittered between his eyes away.
She had been gone for four days and the only word he’d had from her had been a brief text to say she had landed in England safely.
He would not allow himself to think of her. Or the additional irony that she hadn’t trusted his love for her.
All of this catch-up work had proved to be a blessing in disguise, allowing him to at least pretend the spears slicing into his heart were nothing but a dull ache.
His office phone buzzed. Muttering an oath, he pressed the button. “Yes?” This had better be an emergency. He had left strict instructions that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances other than floods or hurricanes.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Marco,” came the unapologetic voice of Marnie. “But you have a visitor.”
“Tell them to make an appointment. I should be free by Friday.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Since when did she call him “sir”? “But she is refusing to leave.”
“Then let her wait…”
Over the line he heard Marnie suddenly say, “Excuse me, miss, but you can’t go in there.”
And then he heard a distinctly familiar plummy voice say, “Try and stop me.”
In a trice he was on his feet just as the door opened and a disheveled-looking Pippa strolled in, followed by his irate PA.
“I’ll call security,” Marnie said, looking decidedly excited at the prospect.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said, acting as if it were normal for beautiful blonds to barge their way into his inner sanctum. “Please bring a pot of Earl Grey in for Miss Rowantree and a coffee for me.”
“Earl Grey?”
“Yes,” he said, impatient to be rid of her. “There’s a shop in George Town that stocks it. My housekeeper knows where it is. She’ll tell you.”
“I’ve just come from the house. Joycy’s not at home,” Pippa said quietly. “And coffee will be fine for me, thank you.”
Glaring suspiciously at both of them, Marnie left the office, no doubt in a bad mood to be asked to make coffee when she would much rather be witnessing security perform a bodily eviction.
Pippa’s cornflower eyes were studying him. Now that they were alone, there was a decided wariness in them. “You need a shave.”
He rubbed his stubbly chin. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you.”
“Why didn’t you let me know you were coming?”
“I had to hang around Heathrow for hours trying to get a flight—they were all full, but I managed to get a cancellation—and then every time I tried to use my phone on the plane one of the flight attendants would bust me and make me turn it off. When I finally arrived, I tried to phone you but it kept going straight to voicemail.”
He patted his trousers and located his BlackBerry, discovering he had inadvertently switched it off. Which was a further irony, as he had turned the sound up full blast in the vain hope she would call him.
Switching it back on, he found a slew of missed calls, all from her number.
“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here—why were you looking for me?” He didn’t want to allow his hopes to build. If there was one thing he knew about Pippa, it was not to take anything for granted. Until he knew for certain, the acid in the pit of his stomach, which had sprung back to life and percolated for four days, would not be doused.
She sank onto the squashy sofa in the corner of his office. “I’m sorry—I haven’t slept for two days. I would have come back sooner, but my father and I had a lot to catch up on.”
He perched on the edge of his desk and studied her. She looked shattered.
“You have things straight with him?” If that man had hurt her again, then to hell with the family ties—he would fly straight to England and tell him exactly what he thought of him.
Her face softened. “I think so. We’ve sorted out a lot of things. I’ll fill you in on it all later, but there’s something else I need to ask you first.”
“Oh, yes?” He arched a brow. Coming from Pippa, that statement could mean anything. But then he looked closer.
Her fingers were wringing together in that nervous fashion he recognized. “You look nervous.”
She blinked before taking a deep breath. “I am nervous. I’m nervous because I’ve never asked anyone to marry me before.”
He would not have been more stunned if she had said she was planning to swim the English Channel.
Pippa shuffled off the sofa and knelt before him, placing a hand on his thigh. Her blue eyes were wide and she took another deep, uneven breath before speaking. “Marco Capello, I love you. I cannot imagine spending the rest of my life without you. Will you marry me? Please?”
“Why?” He needed her to spell it out.
She winced. “I guess I asked for that.”
Leaning forward, he laced his fingers through her hair, sniffing at the fragrant scent he had so missed. Four short days had felt like a lifetime.
His chest filled with an emotion so pure that unbidden tears moistened in his eyes. “Before I give you my answer, I need to be sure that this is what you really want.”
“You were right,” she said starkly. “I was running scared. I was scared to take the plunge with you because I was scared of what failure would entail.”
“What did you think would happen? That you would hit the bottle?”
“That is exactly what I was afraid of. I find it so hard to trust people.”
“That is understandable,” he said, wiping away a falling tear from her cheek. “You have been very badly treated.”
“But never by you.” Her lips curved upward. “You’ve never let me down.”
“If I say no, what will you do? Will you hit the bottle again? Allow yourself to become fodder for the press?”
“No.” This time the shake of her head was emphatic. “I am never going to go down that road again. I’ve spent so long worrying that the slightest rejection will send me back down it that it never actually occurred to me that I could handle rejection without it.”
“Is that what holds you back from pursuing your music?”
She jerked a nod.
“Do you want a career in music?”
“More than anything. Apart from you. And that terrifies me, how badly I want it.” She blinked and took a shuddering breath. “I was terrified that if I screwed it up the fallout would destroy me.”
“And now?”
She smiled. “Now, I’m terrified that if I screw up, the fallout will destroy me for five minutes before, with your help, I pick myself back up again.”
The last scrap of fear dislodged from his heart. “Stay right there,” he said, leaning back and opening a drawer in his desk. “I have something for you.”
“Oh?”
“This,” he said, producing a small, black velvet box.
Her eyes widened further.
Marco slid to his knees, facing her, and snapped open the lid.
He thought her eyes would pop out when she first saw the diamond solitaire gleaming from its luxurious packaging.
“You knew I’d come back?”
“I had faith you would come to your senses,” he said, taking her hand. He took the ring from the box and slid it onto her finger. “Just like I have faith you and I will grow old together, and faith that there will be days when we will want to murder each other.”
She spluttered a laugh and flung her arms around him. “The only faith I have is in you,” she said, breathing deeply into his neck.
He hugged her tighter. “You will never be alone, cara, please believe that.”
“I do.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “It feels as if you’re my anchor, the weight that stops me drifting away into nothing.”
“And you, cara, you are everything. You are my light.”
A sharp rap on the door made them pull apart.
Marnie stomped in, carrying a tray of coffee, which she put down with bad grace on the overflowing desk. She only batted a few eyelashes to see her boss kneeling on the floor with the blond woman who had barged into his office.
Marco winked at Pippa. “Marnie,” he said, “Thanks for the coffee but we’re going out. I’m leaving you in charge.”
“How long are you going to be gone for this time?” she said snarkily.
He took Pippa’s hand and shrugged. “I have no idea. Sort out the documents that still need my signature and send them to the house. The rest of it you can deal with. Just try not to be rude to anyone.”
Clinging on to each other’s hands, Marco and Pippa snickered like school kids all the way out of the building.
Epilogue
Pippa stood waiting in the wings, her heart pounding, and wiped her clammy hands down the sides of her black dress for the umpteenth time. At the rate she was going, she would be lucky to have any skin left on her palms.
Finally, the words she had been anticipating with dread filtered through the loudspeaker overhead.
“Our next perform
ance is a debut from Pippa Capello, who will play her self-composed piece, entitled Elizabeth’s Lament.”
The conductor stood in her line of sight and nodded his encouragement.
As soon as she emerged from behind the curtains, a volley of flashes went off. There had been rumors the British press were in the audience, but so far that had not been verified. In any case, the concert hall was a public place and the San Francisco press at least was out in force.
She did her best to ignore the flashes and the knowledge that four thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on her, trying to take heart from the friendly winks being dropped by members of the orchestra, who were all happy to be having a five-minute break.
Nausea churned in her belly.
Dear God, why was she putting herself through this? If she screwed it up, the whole bloody world was going to know about it.
It was not until she took her seat behind the piano that she spotted Marco sitting in the front row, exactly where he had promised he would be. He looked utterly relaxed. To his left sat Joycy, whose beaming smile could light the stage on its own. To his right were Marco’s parents, her father, and Amelia. The conductor bowed and took his seat.
It was time.
The hall was silent. From the first strokes of the piano the silence turned into a dumbstruck hush.
She was oblivious. From the first strokes she was in her own world, throwing herself into the tune she had written as a personal good-bye to her mother. Now it would be Elizabeth Rowantree’s legacy.
A year ago she would never have dared dream she would find the courage to do this, too terrified of the consequences of failure.
Those consequences no longer existed, not with Marco there, encouraging and supporting her every step of the way.
Marriage was not easy, but neither of them had assumed it would be. A lifetime of emotional self-sufficiency could not be vanquished overnight and, for all his good intentions, his workaholic tendencies kept rearing up.
Yet somehow they were managing. Not once had she regretted marrying him—would do it again in a heartbeat. He was her anchor and she was his light. Together they were the perfect fit.
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