Bella.
There was that name again.
‘I was just going to go home.’
‘Ah, but of course.’ He looked around the room, the remaining stragglers exchanging stories and talking over old times. ‘It has been a very long day for you. Then maybe I can take you home?’
‘No, not home,’ she decided suddenly. At home there would be no treasured grandfather waiting for her, ever again. Why had she ever thought ‘home’ would offer some kind of sanctuary?
Besides, with Raoul beside her she didn’t feel so enervated, so drained. Instead, it seemed like every nerve ending in her body was suddenly awake and acutely aware of the man before her.
And acutely aware of a sudden hunger. It felt like she hadn’t eaten for ever. ‘Thank you, Raoul. If the offer still stands, dinner would be lovely.’
He stayed by her side while the wake wound up, lending her his strength when mourners departed and succumbed to a final burst of tears as they kissed her goodbye, and then he took her to a tiny 1890’s bistro on the Left Bank that greeted them with the scent of roasted garlic and tomatoes, with its belle epoque decor, quaint etched-glass and globe lamps. It was not somewhere she’d been expecting to be taken and definitely somewhere she was sure Consuelo would not know existed. There were no billionaires here that she could see, no players, politicians or film stars. Simply ordinary people enjoying a night out.
Well, ordinary apart from Raoul. There was nothing ordinary about his broad shoulders and strong black hair that glowed blue in the subtle lighting. He shrank the tiny room with his sheer presence, blotting out the other diners until they might just as well have been cardboard cut-outs. It felt good to be able to sit opposite and have no reason not to look at him and drink in his strong features—those dark eyes with their depths only hinted at under that dark slash of brow; those sculpted cheekbones, strong blade of nose and those lips, their passionate lines as detailed as if chiselled by a sculptor’s hand.
It felt good to be here with him.
‘Twice today I have found you alone,’ he said after they had ordered their meals. ‘Could Garbas not stay until the end of the wake?’
She fiddled with the napkin in her lap. Consuelo hadn’t made it at all, not that Raoul needed to know that, not when he clearly harboured enough resentment towards the man already. And not when there had been no word and she still had no idea herself what was going on. ‘He was called away. Something important, I guess.’
‘More important than you?’
She flushed and waited while the waiter poured them both a glass of Beaujolais, ruby red in the light cast by the lamp in the centre of the table. Consuelo always had good reasons when he was delayed or had to suddenly change their plans—it happened so often that she was used to it. To let her down today of all days … But he would have good reason, she was sure.
Although, what reason would he have for assuming they would now move in together?
She picked up her glass on a sigh, admiring the colour of the wine. Maybe he’d just felt neglected, with her attention going firstly to her grandfather and then to Phillipa when she’d needed her recently. And maybe he hadn’t been uppermost in her thoughts these last few weeks and wanted to change that. But, still, when had going to a few parties and dinners together been a sign of imminent cohabitation?
Then she saw Raoul waiting for her and decided to worry about the missing Consuelo and his distorted perception of their relationship later. She gave an ironic smile. ‘Clearly much more important. Anyway, I didn’t come to dinner to talk about him.’
‘Touché.’ Across the table Raoul smiled and lifted his glass to hers in a toast. ‘To us, Gabriella. To old friends and new beginnings.’
His words stirred her soul deep. ‘To us,’ she said, taking a sip, feeling the sensual slide of fine wine down her throat. She watched him watching her over the rim of her glass, liking the way he watched her, wondering if he liked what he saw.
And she knew she was in danger of reading too much into this. She was feeling things and hearing things that couldn’t possibly be there or mean what she thought. And for all his talk of new beginnings and expressions of regret that it had been so long, he would most likely disappear from her life tonight and not even Umberto would be there to bring him back to her.
After all, this was Raoul, and her teenaged fantasies had been just that—fantasies. She put her glass down before the alcohol might convince her otherwise. ‘You visited Umberto the week before he died?’
Across the table Raoul stilled. ‘Umberto told you that?’
She shook her head and the lights in her hair danced under the lamps. She’d worn it up for the funeral, a severe knot at the back of her head, but time and the damp had worked tendrils loose, so now the ends softly framed her face. ‘No, his nurse. He died before—before I made it home from London. I was too late to see him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, praying that his visit had done nothing to hasten his old friend’s death and prevent his granddaughter one last opportunity to see him.
‘I think he knew he was dying and he didn’t want me there.’ She looked at the ceiling and pressed her lips together in a thin white line. ‘He sent me away, you know.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Phillipa was almost due to give birth. Her husband was overseas and booked to get back—there should have been plenty of time—when a coup closed all the airports. He was stuck in a war zone and she was frantic with worry; little wonder the baby came early. And I didn’t want to leave Umberto, but he told me he was fine and that I must go to help my friend. He promised me he would be fine …’
He took her hand, squeezed it in his own. ‘He was looking out for you. He was trying to spare you.’
‘By denying me the opportunity to share his final days, his final moments?’ She hauled in a breath and shook her head. ‘Why don’t I feel blessed in that case? Instead, I feel cheated. I didn’t even get a proper chance to say goodbye.’
‘Bella,’ he said, his hand stroking her cheek, his thumb wiping the moisture welling from her eyes, ‘He didn’t want you to see him like that.’
‘But why wouldn’t he want to say goodbye to me?’
‘Because maybe he wanted you to remember him as he was before, strong and happy, not confined to a bed with a battery of machines beeping out his existence while you waited for them to fall silent one by one. He loved you too much to subject you to that.’
She sniffed and rested her cheek against his hand, staring blindly at the table as if considering his words. She looked lost, a little girl in a woman’s face, a little girl who had suffered too much already in her short life; a beautiful face that was no hardship to stare at, no hardship to caress. Even with leaking eyes and tear-streaked cheeks, even with that trembling bottom lip, she was indeed a beauty. Even without her fortune in waiting, she would be a catch.
What a waste.
For she deserved only the best. She deserved happiness and love and a good man who could give her both.
She deserved so much more than a man who would marry her simply to fulfil the terms of a promise.
And that wretched knot he seemed to endlessly carry with him grew in his gut, twisting, tangling and pulling tight. Why was he even considering going through with this? Garbas would be no threat now. Garbas could not hurt her. So he should just take her home, say goodnight and walk away. He should let her go. If he had any sense at all, he would just let her go. Umberto would never know.
Except he had promised.
And