“Sí?” He looked up at her.
Shivering, she grabbed her short silk robe with the colorful dragon and tied the silk sash around her waist. Pacing past the window, she glanced through the blinds. The delivery trucks were gone. Instead, she saw two polo players, and three young women in hats walking across the field toward an enormous white tent. Some of the guests were apparently so eager for the day’s events that they’d arrived unfashionably early.
Annabelle took a deep breath. “It will feel odd to have strangers here.” Her lips turned down grimly. “Your guests are starting to arrive.”
His voice was low. “I know.”
Annabelle turned away. “I should really get ready. I have a lot to do today….”
He stopped her with his stark question.
“Annabelle, what did you want to tell me?”
She didn’t turn around. “Why should I tell you?” she whispered. “What more is there to say?”
Except I love you. I love you.
She closed her eyes. Her heart was beating so fast she thought it might explode.
She heard him rise from the bed and walk toward her.
“Whatever it is,” he said, putting his hands on her shoulders, “you can tell me.”
Annabelle tried to hide the tremble that went through her at his words. She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
He was standing in front of her, naked and so brutally strong, even as his dark eyes shone with tenderness. She looked up into his face, and could no longer keep silent.
Slowly, she lifted her chin.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Stefano sucked in his breath. Drawing back, he searched her face. Fear and hope coursed through Annabelle like a storm, leaving her knees weak.
“You love me?” His voice was husky and low.
Unable to speak, she nodded. “And I need to know … how you feel about me.”
He blinked, then looked down at the floor.
“I care about you, Annabelle,” he said. “More than I’ve ever cared about any woman.”
His last words were quiet. But she could hardly hear anything over the loud thrumming of blood rushing through her ears.
Suddenly, she was freezing. The air in the bedroom was icy. She was surprised she couldn’t see her breath. The soft woven rug felt sharp as rocks beneath her feet.
He didn’t love her.
The mocking voice had been right. It was happening again. Every time she loved someone, they hurt her. Every time she gave someone her heart, they crushed it into dirt.
She felt like she was going to faint.
“You care for me?” she whispered. “I just told you I’m in love with you!”
Stefano’s fingers tightened around hers.
“Yes,” he said sharply. “I care. It’s all I can offer you right now.” Looking down at their intertwined hands, he took a deep breath. “And it’s the most I’ve ever offered any woman. I care for you. I want to be with you. And as long as we are together, I will be faithful.”
“Faithful?” She tossed her head, looking at him coldly. “For how long? A day? A week?”
He lifted his head, and his dark eyes glittered like a January midnight. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “But as long as we are together, querida, you will have all of me.”
Staring at his handsome, tortured face, Annabelle wanted to fall to her knees and weep. Of course it had ended this way. Of course it had.
She folded her arms, willing herself to feel as numb as everyone believed her to be. But bitter anguish seeped through her soul like acid.
“All of you would mean love. Commitment. A promise. What you offer me is a long series of one-night stands. That is all a man like you can offer any woman!”
With a harsh intake of breath, Stefano stumbled back from her words, as if she’d shot him with a rifle.
Heartsick, stricken with tears, Annabelle turned to go.
“Wait. Don’t go.” His voice was low and hoarse. “It’s all happened so fast. I never expected this. I need more time. You have to give me more time.”
“No. I don’t.” Turning away, she started toward the door, desperate to escape before she collapsed into humiliating sobs.
“Wait!” He raced across the room. Gripping her shoulders, he looked down at her fiercely. “Just wait, damn it!”
“I don’t need to wait,” she whispered. “I already know how this ends.”
“You don’t!”
“And I hate feeling like this, feeling I can’t live without knowing if—if—”
“If what?” he ground out.
She exhaled. “If loving you will kill me.”
Stefano paced in front of her. He stopped, his jaw clenched. Furiously, he raked his dark hair back with his hand.
“What do you want from me, Annabelle?” he said. “Should I give you a list of pretty promises to keep you here with me? I’m telling you the truth! Should I lie and tell you I love you, when I don’t even know what I feel right now?”
Annabelle choked out a gasp.
Should I lie and tell you I love you?
Turning with a sob, Annabelle went to his wardrobe and grabbed the tattered linen suit she’d worn the first day he’d made love to her.
Dropping her robe, she yanked on her underwear and suit and shoes as fast as her trembling body would allow her.
“What are you doing?”
Grief ripped through her. “Leaving.” Tears fell unheeded down her cheeks. “Right now.”
“You can’t leave! You’re the official photographer today. It’s part of your cover story for Equestrian—”
“I don’t care,” she choked out. “I can’t stay another minute!”
“You’re being ridiculous!”
“I know,” she choked out. “See what you’ve made of me?”
“Annabelle!”
But she didn’t listen. She ran down the hall to her bedroom. Leaving her equipment and camera bag, she grabbed her wallet, passport and car keys and fled down the stairs.
She could hear his heavy footsteps behind her. She could hear his shout. But her vision was misty with tears as she went to her old Land Rover in the garage. Starting the engine, she roared out of the garage.
Stefano ran in front of her truck, stopping her. Their eyes locked through the windshield.
“Don’t go. I know you think I will hurt you, you think I will betray you, but … you’ve changed me,” Stefano said hoarsely. “Can’t you believe that?”
She looked at him.
“No,” she whispered, and she drove away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BY THE time HER LAND Rover approached the French city of Châtellerault that afternoon, Annabelle had cried until she had no tears left.
A loud honk from a passing truck made her focus her attention on the road. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She’d just nearly had an accident. Had she wanted to crash?
Had she?
Her heart pounded. She saw an exit and pulled off the motorway. Parking beside a gas station, she turned off the ignition and cried, leaning her head against the steering wheel.
She wished she could talk to someone who’d give her a reason why she shouldn’t crash her truck into a tree right now. Her heart yearned for Stefano. But he was lost to her now forever.
Who else could she turn to for comfort? Who? Her ex-assistant Marie was busy with her husband and newborn baby. Annabelle’s brothers were getting married and settling down. They didn’t need to be bothered by their poor pathetic sister yet again.
Then she thought of one person who’d remained at Wolfe Manor all these years, even after Annabelle’s brothers had left. One person who’d refused to completely let Annabelle fall off the face of the earth.
Mollie Parker.
Annabelle turned on her mobile, and sudden hope rose to her throat. She looked to see if Stefano had left any messages, messages like I changed my mind. I love you. I need you.
But there were no mes
sages.
And Annabelle realized she did have tears left, after all.
She was being stupid. She’d be back in London by midnight, she told herself, wiping her eyes. Soon, she’d be home.
Except her empty flat didn’t feel much like a home anymore. Now, home meant blue skies and wide golden fields, laughing teenagers and a kindly, plump-cheeked housekeeper keeping them all in line. And most of all, home meant Stefano.
Gone. All gone.
Huddled in the driver’s seat of her parked truck, she wiped her eyes even harder. She’d throw herself back into her career just like always. She’d forget Stefano. She’d bury herself in work until she died.
But the thought just made her cry harder. Once, she’d been numb and content in such a life, with her heart frozen and dead. Stefano had changed that. He’d brought her to life.
Then … he’d taken it all away.
With a shaking finger, Annabelle dialed Mollie’s mobile number in the U.K. But she reached only voice mail. “Hi, this is Mollie.”
Annabelle didn’t leave a message. Desperately, she rang the main house instead, praying that Mollie would be there.
Instead, she heard a man’s deep voice.
“Hello?”
“Jacob?” she said in shock.
“Annabelle?” Her brother sounded surprised, too. “Is that you?”
“I didn’t expect you to be at the house,” she stammered. “Mollie said you were in London all week …”
“I was, yes, but then something happened and—”
Nervously, Annabelle spoke over him. “Actually, I was ringing for Mollie …”
“She’s not here.” He paused. “But can I help you with anything, Belle?”
Her first instinct was to say no, to make an excuse and ring off. But instead, something made her grip the phone to her ear and take a deep breath, which came out as a sob. “Have you been crying?” Jacob demanded.
“What’s happened?”
“No.” She choked in answer to his first question, then, “Yes. But I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t I already done enough to you?” she said fiercely. “Everything you did to save me, with Dad.” She took a shuddering breath, remembering that awful night her father had nearly killed her in a drunken rage. “It wasn’t enough that I forced you to protect me, and made you go through those horrible months of the trial. Then I finally drove you away from England with all my whinging and complaining.”
“You weren’t whinging.” His deep voice was gentle. “You were going through a hard time. You felt scarred and isolated and alone. I never blamed you for that, Belle. Never.”
She looked up at the busy gas station nearby. The colors of the cars blurred. “But you left!” she cried. “The next morning you were gone. You didn’t come back for twenty years!”
She heard his deep intake of breath.
“All this time, you’ve thought it was your fault?” he said. “You came into the study seeking comfort. I was drinking and nearly. I could see myself turning into …” He choked back his words. “You all were better off without me.”
“But can you forgive me?” she whispered. “For ruining your life?”
“You never ruined my life,” he said in a harsh voice. “I left because it was the only way to protect you—all of you.”
“Protect us—from what?”
He paused. “From me.”
Something about his dark, bleak tone reminded her of another man’s voice.
What do you want from me, Annabelle? Should I give you a list of pretty promises to keep you here with me? I’m telling you the truth! Should I lie and tell you I love you, when I don’t even know what I feel right now?
“Oh, my God,” she breathed aloud.
“Belle? What is it?”
Stefano hadn’t taken her home away from her.
She’d done it to herself. Her fear and lack of faith had demanded a promise for him that he wasn’t ready to give. She’d accused him constantly of being a faithless playboy, but the truth was that, for Stefano, a commitment was a sacred thing. He hadn’t wanted her to go. But he’d accepted her decision, rather than lie to her.
She’d been so afraid he would someday hurt her, but she’d beaten him to the punch. She’d deserted the only man she’d ever loved. All because she was afraid.
Pain is how you know you’re alive, he’d once said to her. If you are too afraid to feel pain, you’ll never know joy.
Closing her eyes, Annabelle took a shuddering breath. Her life had been so full of pain already. It was a cold, cruel world. She’d learned the only way to be safe was to be alone.
But what if … that wasn’t true?
What if playing it safe just was playing dead?
Memories came through her like the burst of dawn. The sound of Stefano’s joyful laugh. The depth of his black eyes. The way he’d held her so tight against his naked body in the tender, sacred night. He made her feel safe. He made her feel loved.
I care for you, Annabelle. More than I’ve ever cared for anyone.
He’d wanted her to stay. She was the one who’d run away.
For too long, she’d lived in fear. But from now on, she would be brave enough to become the woman she was born to be.
Annabelle gripped her mobile phone. “I have to go.”
“What? Why?”
“Bless you, Jacob,” she whispered. “I love you. Talk to you more soon.”
Her hands shook as she started the engine of her truck. Backing it out of the parking lot, she got back on the motorway—headed not north toward Calais, but back toward the Spanish border. Back home. Back to Stefano.
People didn’t change, she thought.
Except … when they did.
Stefano had lost that afternoon. Lost big.
And as he walked through the enormous white tent that night after dinner, his teammates were not being terribly forgiving about it.
“Nice going,” his polo team’s number-two player snarled as Stefano passed by in his tuxedo.
“Did you have to take us all down with you?” his number three growled from the dance floor.
“Were you drunk?” the fourth member of his polo team jeered from the bar.
“Not yet,” Stefano muttered, heading toward the opposite bar. “But I will be.”
The enormous white tent, erected in the biggest field near the hacienda, had been turned into a glamorous ballroom. Lilies and greenery decked with fairy lights overlooked the dance floor, which was filled with guests now that the surrounding dining tables had been cleared of dinner plates. Four different bars lined the edges of the tent and everyone was guzzling champagne like water. People would dance all night, Stefano knew. They’d dance till the music stopped.
But for Stefano, the music had already stopped hours ago.
“Bartender,” he growled, holding out his hand. Fifteen seconds later, he took a long gulp of a double Scotch.
The polo game should have been close. On paper, the players were evenly matched. Instead, it had been a rout. Stefano’s team usually won but this time, for him, each chukka had been worse than the last. Even Stefano’s pony kept rolling his eyes at his rider’s pathetically weak performance.
Stefano’s heart hadn’t been in the game. His heart had left the ranch that morning in a battered 1973 Land Rover.
Ignoring all the sexy women who were, even now, trying to get his attention, Stefano turned away from the frivolity of the dance floor. He stared bleakly at the white canvas of the tent behind the bar and loosened his tie. He could still hear her sweet, trembling voice.
I love you.
Should I have lied to her? he snarled at himself. Should I have told her I love her when it’s not true?
At this moment, he almost wished he had. He took another gulp of Scotch, and the amber liquid burned down his throat like fire. Setting the glass back onto the bar with a hard clink, Stefano wiped his mouth. Yes, he wished he’d lied. He wished he
’d said any damn thing to keep her at his side.
Because he missed her. He missed her like he’d miss his heart if it had been ripped out of his chest.
He had the sudden destructive urge to smash his glass against the bar. To insult his famous guests and order them off his ranch. To sell all his horses for a single euro. What difference did it make, when he’d lost everything he’d cared about the instant Annabelle Wolfe had disappeared through his gate?
He felt a small hand on his arm. For an instant, he held his breath. Then he turned.
Instead of Annabelle’s angelic face and blond hair, he saw a brunette in a slinky red dress. The woman seemed familiar. Maybe he’d slept with her before. Or maybe all women just looked exactly the same now—none of them were Annabelle. “Care to dance?” she said in a sultry voice. Stefano finished off his drink and slammed the empty glass down on the bar. “Sure,” he said harshly. “Why not?”
As he led the brunette onto the dance floor, she pressed against him. “Don’t feel bad about losing the game,” she purred, softly stroking his upper arm. “There are other prizes to be won tonight.”
Her offer couldn’t have been more blatant. Stefano stared at her. What better way to draw the line, to put Annabelle forever behind him, then to accept her offer?
But the thought of it sickened him. Even as self-destructive as he felt right now, there was only one woman he wanted. Only one woman he would ever want. Ever.
He stopped.
Annabelle was his first thought in the morning. His last thought at night. She was his sunlight. His moonlight. She lit his way. Her goodness. Her vulnerability. Her heart.
Ever since he’d been betrayed at nineteen, Stefano had been unwilling to commit to any woman. He’d thought he’d never love anyone again.
But his youthful infatuation for Rosalia had meant nothing. The truth was, he’d been waiting all these years for the right woman. The woman who would be his heart. His home.
He’d been waiting for Annabelle.
With an intake of breath, Stefano suddenly knew he could be faithful forever. But only for her. Only Annabelle. She was his woman. The woman he wanted. The woman he adored.
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