Two short days ago she had been so happy. So wondrously happy. So sure that he loved her.
Do you think I needed another wife?
Hadn’t he wanted to marry her? Then why had he asked her? What had she been thinking? Tears streamed down her face, blurring her vision. The bank of dark clouds blotted out the sun, the loose edges like thick, black fingers rolling dark dough across the sky; they rumbled and grumbled with discontent. But still she ran on, faster, towards the stone steps that led down to the beach.
Behind her, she heard him call her name again and ran faster, her grief pushing her on. She flung herself down the time-worn steps to the beach, her feet barely touching the stones, before launching herself onto the sand. The skirt of her dress flew around her; she kicked her flat shoes from her feet at the first opportunity to give her purchase on the sand.
‘Gabriella!’
Above her the sky darkened, the waves crashed against the cliff. She heard his voice on the wind that whipped through her hair, filled with salt and moisture from the sea, but she didn’t look back. She dared not. There was no point. What was the point of looking back at a man you loved—a man you thought you loved—who seemed incapable of loving you but had married you nonetheless?
She could not bear to see him.
Why had he done this to her?
Why?
Her feet pushed on, fighting the loose, soft sand, searching for somewhere to hide, somewhere she could be safe in her misery and despair.
But the sand had been eaten up on the incoming tide and there was nowhere to run. The tide lapped at her feet and she turned back only to collide with a rock that should not have been there. Except this rock was warm, had a thumping heart and had arms that clamped tightly around her.
Raoul.
She looked up at him, panting, desperate and afraid. She saw her storm reflected in his eyes, wild, insane and wanting, as above them the storm broke in a thunderclap that shook the ground and sent the vibrations spiralling through her. They fell on each other like that storm, hungry, wild and insatiable.
Their mouths meshed, their tongues dancing, duelling, her cheek scraping hard against his blue-black beard as she pulled his clothes free with busy, seeking hands, needing to touch him, to feel him; needing to feel his hot flesh against her own.
Rain pelted down upon them, fat droplets that tugged on their hair, their clothes and stuck the fabric to them, but his hands were hot and liberating; the wet fabric was no barrier to those seeking hands. He groaned in her mouth and spun her away, finding their own private grotto, where he pressed her hard against the stone, and pressed himself hard against her, making her gasp with his size and his need while her own need spiralled out of control. Her hands explored him, fingernails raking his back, relishing the firm, hard flesh, the muscled tone; her fingers traced the lines of his ribs, the nub of his nipples, the thick column of his erection.
He made a sound like a hungry beast, half-growl, half-roar, and she felt her dress tear apart, felt the rain on her hot skin and his hotter hands at her breasts. Felt her bones dissolve as he dropped his hot mouth to one breast, sucking her nipple in tight until she thought she would explode with the agony and the ecstacy, while his large hands travelled her body, heading south, taking away her last remaining scrap of cover.
She battled with his waistband and, still locked together with her at the mouth, he pushed her hands aside and did the job himself; she felt him hard and hot and bucking against her belly.
She felt herself lifted, pressed hard against the smooth stone, her body pulsing as her legs encircled him, throbbing with need, anticipating completion.
Thunder boomed again and lightning rent the sky. She caught sight of his face, wretched, desperate and tortured, and she pulled his face to hers and kissed him so deeply, she knew he must feel her very soul.
She was lost to the storm going on around her, the storm going on inside, the fury building with the need until he lowered her slowly down.
She felt his hardness in a nudging press, her muscles working to pull him in; her body ached for completion. And yet he held her there, suspended, for what seemed like for ever as his tongue drove into her mouth, demanding every part of her for his own. Until he let her fall as he pressed inside, her mind blew apart in a raging storm of stars.
Nothing could ever be better than this.
The fleeting thought came to her in that one moment of clarity when the world and everything in it was suspended and there existed just this one, intense moment.
Then he moved inside her and her world threatened to come apart. He was so large she felt that she could not let him go without feeling the suck of his organ on her womb, without feeling the need to have him back inside.
She was already on the brink. He thrust again and she gasped with the spiralling sensations shuddering around him, and with the next he cried out and buried himself so deep inside her she wondered if he could ever find his way out.
Her orgasm came in a rolling wave, like the dark clouds had done this day, building and intensifying until there was no way to go but be lost in the thunderclap of her release as she felt him lose himself inside her.
He carried her to the castle wrapped in the shredded remnants of her dress and his damp shirt; he carried her to his bathroom where they soaped each other in the steamy shower, exploring each other’s bodies, taking the time they had not had before.
And then he laid her reverently on his bed and acquainted his mouth with every part of her, tasting her, suckling her until she once again cried out, begging for release.
Afterwards he held her close. ‘I love you,’ she said, and he stilled and kissed her cheek.
‘Go to sleep,’ he said, holding her close, his voice a husky promise.
She snuggled closer. For she knew in her heart that he loved her, even though he still could not bring himself to say the words for whatever reason he must love her.
She knew it.
Until she woke in the morning to find him gone.
There was a letter on his pillow, barely a note, just two short lines:
I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
And the bottom dropped out of her world.
HE HAD gone. Some time this morning before light, according to Natania who had heard the car, he had left her.
Why?
‘I thought he loved me,’ she said, sitting in Natania’s kitchen, sipping sweet tea.
‘I told you this was a bad place. You should leave.’
Nothing had ever sounded so tempting. But where to go? Back to Paris, and the big empty house? Or Venice, where she would not be welcome if Raoul was there? ‘I don’t know where to go.’
‘You have a friend in London. Marco can take you to the airport.’
She bit her lip, thinking through the options. Wondering how Phillipa’s husband would take the news of her separation so soon after dragging his wife and young baby to Venice for the wedding. ‘I don’t know. I have to call her, see if it’s okay.’
‘Call her, then. Or email. There is a computer in the library.’
‘You’re right. I’ll book a ticket while I’m at it. Thank you, Natania. I’m sorry that we could not have met in better circumstances.’
The gypsy woman shook her head, setting the hoops at her ears dancing. ‘It