The black town car drove through ornate iron gates tipped in gold, and turned down a long private lane leading to an elegant two-story villa, the smooth plaster walls a wash of soft apricot paint. It might be wine country Argentina, but the house was all Tuscany. The original owners had been Italian. The wood beams, hardwood floor, roof tiles all imported from Italy.
With the morning sun casting a warm rosy glow across the front of the one-hundred-year-old villa with the tall cypress trees and the plaster arch flanking the front door, the house looked magical.
Lucio felt a pang of loss. This is the place he’d brought Ana as his new bride. This is the place he’d thought they’d finally make their home.
Nothing ever worked out as one hoped, did it?
“Shall I bring your bags in, Senor?” The chauffeur’s respectful voice interrupted Lucio’s painful thoughts.
Lucio shook off his dark mood, stepped from the car, and adjusted the collar on his black leather traveling coat. He’d do what he’d have to do. “No, Renaldo. I’ll be staying at my apartment downtown.”
Suddenly there was a shout from upstairs. He heard his name called. Once, twice, and Lucio turned to look up at the second floor of the villa. The windows were open to welcome the freshness of the morning. He searched the windows for a glimpse of Anabella but saw nothing.
Seconds later the front door burst open and suddenly she was there, on the doorstep, breathless from the dash down the stairs.
“Lucio,” Anabella cried, green eyes bright. “You’re home!”
CHAPTER TWO
FOR a long moment Lucio could think of nothing to say. It felt as if his brain had stopped functioning altogether and he simply stared at Anabella, amazed to see her downstairs, at the door.
The doctor had made her sound ill—fragile—but she practically glowed, her skin luminous and her green eyes bright like Colombian emeralds. “Are you all right?” he asked.
She was barefoot and wearing snug jeans, a crisp white blouse, and her long glossy black hair hung loose. “Now that you’re here.”
Now that you’re here.
Her soft, husky voice burrowed deep inside his heart. She sounded so glad to see him, so unlike the Anabella he’d last seen eight weeks ago, just hours before she left on her big shopping trip to Asia.
That Anabella, the antiques buyer, had been dressed immaculately in a black suit, high black heels, her red leather suitcases stacked at the door.
She’d stood on the doorstep of the villa for a long silent moment looking at him before smiling faintly. “Well, this is it,” she said, her cool smile not reaching her intense green eyes.
“Is it?”
Her head tipped, giving him a flash of her black hair smoothed into a sophisticated French twist. “I think so.”
“And you get to make all the decisions?” He shot back, regretting that he’d driven to the house to say goodbye, regretting that he couldn’t even contain his temper.
He knew she hated his temper. She hated the unresolved issues still simmering between them. Her cool smile slowly faded. “No, Lucio, I didn’t make all the decisions. We made them together.” And pulling on her black leather traveling gloves, she headed for her car, her head high, her slender back straight.
And that’s how he’d remembered her. Cool, elegant, an ice maiden. But that wasn’t the woman before him now.
“Where have you been, Lucio?” Ana’s voice sounded uncertain and her unblinking eyes held his.
“On a trip.”
Her uncertain smile faded, as did some of the joy from her eyes. “You said you’d never leave me.”
He frowned, puzzled. “We agreed—”
“To be together,” she interrupted fiercely, finishing the sentence for him. And her expression darkened for a moment before she struggled to smile once more. Lucio could feel her struggle. She was trying to make it light between them but on the inside she was hurt. Angry.
“I’m here now,” he answered, unable to think of anything else to say even as his mind raced. She’d been the one to send him away, but that didn’t matter now. He could see that Ana was confused and he felt the urge to protect her, shield her, from memories that hurt. “Everything will be fine now.”
But her eyes filled with tears and she looked away, biting her lip. “It’s too late,” she said sadly.
“What’s too late?”
She hunched her shoulders and her body quivered. “They’ve done terrible things, Lucio. Things I can’t even tell you.”
His heart faltered. And then he remembered the doctor’s caution, the warning that Ana wasn’t herself, and that her memory wasn’t what it’d once been.
She must be talking about the illness, he reassured himself. No one had harmed her. He might not like her family, but they loved Ana. Dante loved Ana.
“Of course you can tell me,” he said gently. “You tell me everything. You always have.” Once, he silently corrected. Once you told me everything. Once we were as close as two people could be. But that was long ago and it’d been years since they were so open, so free, so hungry together.
“You told me to wait at the café. I waited and waited but you never came. What happened? I was so afraid and then my mother’s people came and they brought me home.”
He didn’t know what to say.
There was only one time when they were separated, forcibly separated, and that was years ago. That episode was the darkest point in his life, the point where all seemed lost.
She took a step away and her hands went to the pockets of her jeans. “Do you know what it’s like to be left? To be abandoned in the middle of the night?” Her rigid shoulders drew her white cotton blouse taut. She still had such a beautiful body, her breasts round and full, her torso lean, her hips curved beneath the faded denim. “I felt so lost, so confused. And I’ve been waiting for you ever since. Waiting for you to come find me again.”
But he had found her again. He’d found her three and a half years ago and they’d moved here, and later married, but their happiness hadn’t lasted. It hadn’t worked the first time. And it hadn’t worked the second, either. Their passion, their attraction couldn’t handle the brunt of reality.
Yet that was all water under the bridge. Clearly she didn’t remember anything since that terrible night five years ago.
“You said you’d be there for me,” she whispered, eyes blazing now, furious. Accusing. “You lied to me. You weren’t there when I needed you most.”
“I’m here now.”
Her brilliant green gaze held his, and she searched his eyes, her full lips pressed into a mutinous line. He didn’t know what she was searching for. He didn’t know what she hoped to find.
“Are you going to stay?” she asked at length.
The air felt bottled in his lungs. “As long as you want me to stay.”
“I want you to stay forever.”
The innocence of her answer, the childlike honesty, made him ache. His chest burned, his heart felt as if it were on fire. She was torturing him.
She’d been the one to send him away, he heard a voice protest inside his head. She’d been the one that wanted the divorce. Insisted on the divorce.
But that didn’t matter now, he silently argued. Right now she needed him. And that was all that mattered.
She