Celia found that she couldn’t be the one to break the silence, because she was so conscious of what had caused it, but his manner of breaking it brought no comfort. He offered her coffee and another glass of wine, his manner polite and impeccable. Earlier he’d been warm and pleasant. Suddenly only courtesy was left, and it had a hollow feel.
The truth began to creep over her, and with it a chill.
At her front door he said, ‘I’ll take your folder with me. I like your ideas, and I think we’ve got a deal, but I’ll know more when I’ve read it again.’
‘You’ve got my number?’
‘I made sure I got it. Good night.’
He didn’t even try to kiss her.
Now she knew the truth.
When he didn’t call her, she understood why. As though she was inside his head, she followed his thoughts, his dread of getting too close to a blind woman, his common sense advice to himself to back off now, before it was too late.
‘They all do it,’ she mused to Wicksy as they took their final walk one evening. She sat on a bench beneath the trees and felt him press against her. ‘We’ve both known it to happen before. Remember Joe? You never liked him, did you? You tried to tell me that he wouldn’t last, and you were right.’
His nose was cold and comforting in her hand.
‘Men are scared to become involved with me in case it disrupts their pleasant lives, their successful careers.’
The nose nudged gently.
‘I know,’ she said sadly. ‘We can’t blame them, can we? And maybe it’s better for him to be honest and retreat now rather than later.’
Another soft nudge.
‘It’s just that I thought this time it might have been different. I thought he was different. But he isn’t.’
There was a whine from beside her knee, with a distant air of urgency.
‘What’s that? Oh, the biscuit. I’m sorry. I forgot. Here.’
She felt it vanish from her hand.
‘What would I do without you, my darling? You’ve got more sense than the rest of us put together. As long as I’ve got you, I don’t need anyone else.’
Celia leaned down and rested her cheek against his head, trying to take comfort from their loving companionship.
But the truth was that her heart was aching. Something about Francesco had reached out to her, and she had reached back because it had felt so right. It was crazy to feel like this about a man she’d only just met, but with all her heart and soul she wanted him.
Now, floating in the blessed anonymity of the ocean, she wondered how she could have loved him so agonisingly then, and five months later be running away from him?
The question tortured her as she sank deeper into the water, reliving the events of yesterday, when she’d slipped out of the home they shared without telling him where she was going. She’d left him a note that she’d managed to write on a large pad:
I’LL CALL YOU LATER TODAY, CELIA.
She’d hated the deception, hated herself for doing it, but she’d had no choice. She loved him now as much as she’d done on that evening, five months ago, when she’d wondered, sadly, if she would ever see him again. If anything, she loved him more.
And yet she’d escaped him, knowing that if she didn’t she would go mad.
CHAPTER TWO
THE PR contract had been arranged the next day, and over the following week there had been a good deal of coming and going between the two firms. But it had never been Francesco who arrived. Celia had resigned herself to not meeting him again when there was a knock on her front door in the evening.
She’d gone to the door, switching on the light as she went, so that the visitor should have some illumination. She lived without lights.
‘Who is it?’ she called.
‘It’s me,’ came his voice from behind the door.
He didn’t need to identify himself further. They both understood that there was only one ‘me.’ She opened the door and put out her hand, feeling it enfolded in his.
‘I came because—’ He stopped. ‘There are things we need to—Will you let me in—please?’
She stood back. ‘Come in.’
She heard the click as the door closed behind him. He was still holding her hand, but for a moment he didn’t move, as if he was unsure what would come next.
‘I didn’t think you’d come back,’ she said. ‘The contract—’
‘The hell with the contract,’ he said with soft violence. ‘Do you really think that’s why I’m here?’
‘I don’t know what to think,’ she whispered. ‘I haven’t known all week.’
‘I’ll tell you what to think of me—that I’m a coward who runs away from a woman who’s different, more challenging than other women. I run away because secretly I’m afraid I can’t match up to her. I just know I’ll let her down and she’ll be better off without me—’
‘Isn’t that for her to decide?’ she asked joyfully.
His hand tightened on hers and she felt him raise it, then his lips against her palm.
‘I couldn’t keep away from you,’ he said huskily. ‘I tried, but I can’t. And I never will be able to.’
‘I’ll never want you to,’ she said in passionate gratitude.
His lips were burning her hand, igniting her whole body so that she longed for him to touch her everywhere. She drew his face towards her and felt the urgency of his mouth at the first touch of hers. It was as though she’d given him the signal he’d been waiting for.
Now she knew that she’d wanted this since she’d sat with him in the restaurant, listening to his words and trying to picture the mouth that shaped them. His lips on hers, coaxing, inciting, urging, pleading, had been the temptation that teased and taunted her.
And all this week, after he’d gone, she’d been haunted by dreams of the impossible, of his body lying naked against her in the equality that darkness would bring. Now he was here, and joy and excitement possessed her body and soul.
‘Celia,’ he said huskily. ‘Celia—’
She stepped back, drawing him after her towards the bedroom, reaching up to turn out the hall light, so that the place was dark again and only she knew the way.
It might be madness to rush helter-skelter into love. Caution was indicated. But her circumstances and a combative nature had always made her despise caution. Besides, Francesco had tried it and it didn’t work. It was a relief, setting her free.
She touched his face, letting her fingers gently explore its planes and angles, the wide mouth and sharply defined jaw, the slightly crooked nose. He was just as she wanted him to be.
She remembered everything. Floating now on the cushion of water, cut off from the world, she recalled details that she’d barely noticed at the time. They’d been obscured by the sweet fire flaming through her, engulfing all in its path, yet they’d endured in some corner of her consciousness, to be relived later.
Now they made her heart ache for their cruel contrast with the present. Francesco was still the same man who’d won her love by his gentleness and his open adoration of her. He was still the man who’d taken her to bed and loved her with slow, reverent gestures that had brought her flesh to eager life.