She could have asked him to fly to the moon with her and he would have said yes. As he climbed aboard, he noticed the folio tucked by her side. ‘You brought the papers?’
‘I brought them.’
And something inside him died, something unreasonable—because it was unreasonable to hope that she had changed her mind after all he had put her through, even if he wished it could be so. He had spent two months in his own personal hell, wishing he had done things differently, wishing he had never agreed to Umberto’s deathbed wishes, wishing he had been man enough to follow his gut and refuse.
But he had not refused, and now she had come with the papers that would be the death warrant to their marriage.
‘How did you know to find me here?’ he asked as the gondolier gently negotiated the vessel into the wider canals, and she smiled again, easier this time.
‘Lucky guess. I figured that not even you would want to stay in that mausoleum of a castle a moment longer than you had to.’
Even he had to smile at that. ‘It is good to see you, Bella.’
She blinked up at him. ‘And you.’
‘You could have posted the papers.’
‘I know, but there were still some things I didn’t understand. I have spent two months trying to hate you. Two months trying to forget. But there are still some things that will not let me go.’ She shook her head. ‘I could not ask those things by mail.’
‘What things?’
‘Like the ghost story you told me that foggy night we were here in Venice—the story of the merchant who lost his wife to two brothers. That was no legend. That was your story, wasn’t it?’
‘It was mine.’
She breathed out. ‘You made it sound like the merchant had killed them both. But it wasn’t like that, was it?’
‘It might as well have been.’
The gondola slipped along the canals, turning this way and that, the movement of the boat strangely soothing despite the subject matter.
‘So tell me.’
And it was his turn to pause. ‘I should have seen it coming. She was a ballet dancer, as you know, famous the world over. But she was at the end of her career, and she craved the adulation of the audience. I should have known she would never be happy with just one man when she was used to the adulation of a crowd. Everyone but me, it seemed, knew about her secret room. I think in the end she hated me because I didn’t know, that I was foolish enough to believe that she actually loved me.
‘And, when I found out it was true, I was in such a rage, it was no wonder that even in the midst of a storm they fled from me. I could not have saved Manuel—the railing was old and rusty and pulled away from the stone—but Katia …’
He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘She cried out and I was so angry, so tortured, that for a moment I could not move. And when I did it was too late.’
He felt her hand slide between his and he opened his eyes in surprise. She smiled sadly. ‘How do you know you would have reached her in time?’
He shook his head. ‘That is my curse. I will never know.’
She gazed up at him. ‘That’s why you feared you could not keep me safe, isn’t it? You feared you could not keep anyone safe.’
‘How could I keep anyone safe? I could never trust myself again.’
‘But you did save me, Raoul. Don’t you remember? When the wind caught that window and pulled me from my feet, you were there to stop me falling. You saved me, Raoul.’
He shook his head. ‘I surprised you. I made you turn. If I hadn’t come …’
‘I could have fallen. But you saved me.’ She nodded then, taking a deep breath. ‘I think I understand now, at least some of it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking these last two months. Remembering. Pulling those weeks apart and trying to work out what happened. And I keep coming back to you trying to walk away. That night in Paris when you put me in a taxi and strode into the rain—you were walking away from Umberto’s promise then, weren’t you?’
‘I didn’t want to hurt you. If there was another way to keep you safe, I would do it. But you would not let me.’
‘Because I came to your hotel in the morning.’
‘You wanted my help to defend Garbas and when I refused you were going to do it all by yourself. I had to get you out of Paris.’
‘And so you brought me here to Venice, to seduce me, to convince me to marry you.’
‘Bella, I’m not proud of what I did.’
‘Maybe it’s not so bad, what you did. Or maybe why you did it.’
He turned towards her, trying to find a meaning to her cryptic comment. But she was looking ahead, avoiding his gaze, staring at the buildings now turning softly golden with the lowering sun. ‘They called me, you know, several times—Consuelo’s lawyers.’
‘What did they want?’
‘Money. I turned twenty-five last week. Consuelo thought I might like to donate to his defence fund.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘That I had better things to do with my money. You were right; he would have sucked me dry.’
She looked at him then. ‘I went to the hospital where Consuelo’s foundation was based. I went to talk to the director to see what I could do about providing for a new foundation to support those children undergoing chemotherapy, those left in the cold without funding after the collapse of the foundation. He told me that someone had already taken care of it. That someone had already covered what they had lost in the foundation and more.’
She hesitated and looked up him with tears in her eyes. ‘That was you, Raoul. You funded the programme, so no child’s treatment would be interrupted. So those children’s lives might be saved.’
He saw the setting sun in her eyes, saw the golden light dance in her tears. ‘I felt responsible.’
Moisture tracked down her cheeks. ‘And for two months I have been trying to find a reason to hate you, to believe you had no heart—but everywhere I look, everything I remember, makes the pieces fall another way. And then, with learning of one generous act of kindness, I knew I was wrong. How could I hate a man who did such a thing?’
He smiled, her words a balm to his soul. ‘I am glad you don’t hate me, Bella. I have lived in hell these past months thinking that.’
She sniffed. ‘And so I was wondering …’
He lifted her chin with one hand and rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the thumb of the other; his touch made her catch her breath. ‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice a husky, deep whisper that carried an urgency that rippled through her bones.
‘You once said that you loved me. I threw it back in your face. I thought you were lying. But did you mean it? Was it true, Raoul?’
‘That I love you?’ He exhaled in a rush. ‘Oh, Bella, I know I have betrayed your trust. I know I hurt you so much. And God knows I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I didn’t think it was possible. But every time we made love, every time I looked at you, I couldn’t help but fall in love with you that bit more.
‘And it scared me, Bella. I knew you would leave me one day, and I knew it would kill me—so I tried to push you away, but it didn’t work.
‘Because