Читать книгу Modern Romance September 2017 Books 5 - 8 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 24

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE NEXT WEEK WAS ENDLESS. Allegra drifted around the villa, wishing she could make things better and feeling utterly powerless. She went over her conversation with Rafael again and again, considering all that he had and hadn’t said.

Did he really blame himself for his father’s suicide? If anyone, she thought with a bitter pang, he should blame her father, for ruining his. No wonder Rafael had been so driven to see justice served. His family had been utterly destroyed.

But they didn’t have to be destroyed. She couldn’t let this ruin them, and yet Rafael seemed hell bent on letting the past destroy any chance of their future.

She thought she understood now why he’d been so distant these last few weeks. Not because he didn’t care but because he cared too much...at least, that’s what she hoped. She hoped that it was fear of getting hurt that was keeping him away rather than brutal indifference.

Because that’s how she’d felt for so long. Loving someone was risky. Loving hurt, because people left you. People hurt you. And Rafael didn’t want to be hurt.

She hadn’t either. She’d lived her life for safety’s sake, never letting anyone get close, missing out because it was easier. Safer. But she didn’t want to do that now. Now she wanted to risk. Now she was willing to risk everything, because she knew she loved Rafael. And love risked. Love fought. Love, she hoped and prayed, won. But first Rafael had to come back.

* * *

Rafael unlocked the front door, every muscle aching with weariness. He’d spent the last week working as hard as he could, in a desperate and fruitless effort to forget. To erase the memory of Allegra, the sweetness of her, so he’d be strong enough to come back here and maintain his distance. Stay separate.

It was late and the villa was swathed in darkness, everyone hopefully in bed. Rafael intended to creep quietly to his bedroom and avoid Allegra altogether. He’d barely taken a step before he heard a creak on the stair and then he turned to see Allegra standing there.

Her hair was tumbled about her shoulders and she wore a silky white slip of a nightgown that left frustratingly little to the imagination. Already desire was surging through him, and he wondered if he could make this simple. If he could make it about sex.

Then she took a step forward, one pale, slender hand held out in appeal. ‘Rafael,’ she said softly, and he tensed because there was no supplication in her voice. No accusation. There was just warmth. Acceptance. He turned away.

‘I thought you’d be asleep.’

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

‘You didn’t even know I was coming back tonight.’

‘I know.’ She let out a soft, sad laugh. ‘I’ve been waiting since you left, Rafael. A whole week.’

His chest felt tight and he tried to shake the feeling off. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

‘Why not? Why are you pushing me away?’

‘Why aren’t you pushing me away?’ The words burst out of him, revealing, and yet he couldn’t keep himself from it. He turned to her, his voice ragged, his gaze burning. ‘Why are you still here?’

She looked hurt, shocked. ‘Do you want me to leave?’

‘No.’ He scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Something felt broken deep inside him and he couldn’t articulate what it was, even to himself. ‘I’m getting a drink.’

He stalked into the lounge, and after a taut moment Allegra followed him. Rafael poured himself a large measure of whisky from the crystal decanter and drank it down in one healthy swallow. He could feel Allegra’s presence behind him. He could feel her confusion and hurt. ‘You should go back to bed.’

He heard a sound, something he couldn’t quite identify. She was moving or opening something, and he didn’t know what it was. He stayed with his back to her, willing her to leave him alone even as a deeper part of him ached for her to stay.

Then he heard the first sorrowful note hover in the room, steal into his soul, and shocked blazed through him. She was playing the cello.

He turned slowly, his glass dangling from his slack fingertips as he took in the sight of Allegra, her hair tumbling about her shoulders in a fiery halo, her expression serious and intent as she drew the bow across the strings of the cello and another sonorous note flowed through the room.

‘But...’ His voice was hoarse, breaking the stillness. ‘You said you didn’t play. Hadn’t played for ten years.’

Her gaze lifted and something deep in him trembled at the expression in her eyes, silvery and huge, clear and full of sadness. Full of love.

‘I haven’t. But I want to play for you, Rafael. Music...’ She paused, her voice choking. ‘Music has been the greatest comfort to me. And I don’t know of any other way to comfort you.’

She bent her head again and began to play once more, the notes sure and true and piercingly beautiful.

Rafael’s throat thickened with emotion and he sank into the sofa as the music washed over him, note after perfect note, the music haunting and powerful, breaking him. He was broken inside, nothing but jagged pieces, his heart a handful of splinters. He let out a sound, a choking cry that would have shamed him if he hadn’t felt so overwhelmed.

Allegra kept playing, each note touching his soul, undoing him. He let out another choked sound, and then Allegra was kneeling there in front of him, her arms around him, her face pressed against his chest as she whispered words that felt like sweet, sweet arrows, piercing the armour he’d surrounded himself with for so long.

‘I love you, Rafael. I love you. Nothing matters to me but that. But you. Please believe me. Please.’

He let out a groan, defenceless against the onslaught of her heartfelt words. ‘How can you love me...?’ The words spilled from him, heedless.

‘How can I not?’ She pressed her lips against her jaw. ‘I fell in love with you the night of my father’s funeral.’

‘I was only trying to seduce you...’

‘And I wanted to be seduced. I saw glimpses then of the man you really are, the man you want to be. Don’t turn away from me now, simply because you’re afraid.’ She laid her hand against his jaw, her skin silky and cool. ‘Because that is why you’ve been keeping your distance, isn’t it, these last few weeks, and even more so since we went to Naples? Because you’re afraid of being hurt.’

He closed his eyes, not wanting to admit it, knowing it was true. He’d tried to separate his body from his heart but it hadn’t worked. Allegra affected him in every way, right down to his core. And yet still he found himself saying, ‘I didn’t think anyone would love me. That anyone could love me...after my father...’ He shook his head, his eyes closed, and Allegra kissed him again, her lips soft against his jaw. ‘How could he do that? How could he walk away from me and kill himself? I begged him, Allegra. Pleaded with him with everything I had, pounded on the door, and still he did it, knowing the cost of it on me, on my mother and sister. How could he do that?’

The question rang out, the cry of a hurt child. It had festered inside him for twenty years, until his heart was nothing but scar tissue, barely healed over the old, old wound. And Allegra, and her love, had broken it all—him—open.

‘I asked you something similar,’ she whispered, her lips moving against his cheek. ‘Do you remember? And you told me it wasn’t my fault. Now I say the same thing to you, only even more so. Your father was a desperate man, Rafael, driven to terrible things because—because of my father. It wasn’t your fault, just as my father leaving wasn’t mine. Let’s leave the past behind us and make our own future, for the sake of our child and for the sake of us.’

‘But it was my fault,’ Rafael groaned, his voice breaking on the word. ‘Not his death, perhaps, but my mother...my sister...the choices they made, the fact that they felt compelled to make them. That they didn’t trust me to provide for them, to see us through the darkness and the mess. That was my fault. I was the man of the family, I was in charge, and I failed utterly. I can’t forgive myself for that. How can anyone else?’

* * *

Allegra squeezed Rafael’s hands, holding on tight, wanting to imbue him with her strength, her love, because she felt as if everything teetered on this moment. Whether he would pull away for good or if the walls would finally come down for ever.

She recognised the core of honour and compassion that he’d kept hidden for so long, realised now that his withdrawal from her had not been from indifference but because he’d cared too much.

She knew that he now suffered from both guilt and hurt—just as she did, with her father’s abandonment. Because when you were hurting, you assumed it was something in you that drove a person away. Something bad or wrong. And she would give anything now to show Rafael that there wasn’t.

Slowly she leaned forward, still holding his hands, her bump pressing against him as she brushed her lips across his in a kiss of acceptance and healing. A kiss where she offered her whole self, there for the taking.

His body was still, his lips slack under hers, and her heart trembled at the terrible thought of his rejection, but then he opened his mouth and made the kiss his own, one hand coming to rest on the back of her head, and he took what she offered and gave even more back.

Moments later they broke apart and with a shuddering breath Rafael leaned his forehead against hers. ‘When my father died,’ he murmured, his breath fanning her face, ‘I felt like my world had shattered...not just because we lost everything but because I’d lost him. Because he’d been driven to such despair, and I couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop him.’

‘I’m so sorry, Rafael...’

‘I felt powerless and out of control. And I never wanted to feel like that again. But then I cruelly inflicted that pain on another family. I killed your father too, Allegra.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘If what Caterina said was true...then your father died of a heart attack when he heard the news about me taking over the company. I killed him—’

‘No, you didn’t,’ Allegra said quietly. ‘You can’t know exactly what happened, and in any case you can’t blame yourself for my father’s death along with everyone in your family.’

His eyebrows rose in disbelief. ‘You absolve me?’

‘I’m not the one to do that, Rafael. You don’t need my forgiveness.’

‘Whose then?’ The question was genuine, yearning.

‘Your own,’ Allegra said softly. ‘Rid yourself of these ghosts and demons. Your father chose to kill himself—there was nothing you could have done. Despair leads people to feel there’s no way out, no hope. That was not your fault.’ He opened his mouth to protest but she continued, her voice rising in strength and conviction. ‘And your mother—that was her choice too. Perhaps she didn’t want to live without her husband. It’s not a reflection on you—’

‘It is—’

‘No. Maybe she should have wanted to live for her children, but some people are not strong enough. Don’t blame her, Rafael, but don’t blame yourself either. For your mother’s death or your sister’s addiction.’

‘And your father?’ Rafael asked after an endless moment of silence. ‘Don’t you...aren’t you angry for what I did?’

Was she? ‘I understand why you wanted to take over his business,’ she said slowly. ‘And I wish I understood more fully what happened back then. Did my father blame yours on purpose, knowing he was innocent? Who else could have embezzled the money?’

Rafael stiffened. ‘It wasn’t my father.’

‘I know,’ Allegra soothed. ‘And maybe we’ll never know who was truly responsible. But let’s put it behind us, Rafael. For ever.’

He stared at her, and Allegra held her breath, waiting, everything in her aching. She’d given him everything. Her love, her heart, her body, her soul, her music. Everything. And she still didn’t know what he was going to do with it.

‘I want to try,’ Rafael said at last, and Allegra nodded as she blinked back tears.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s try.’