It felt like a knife ripping through her heart as Giovanni’s blessing brought all her secret fears bubbling to a head. Willow tried hard not to let her distress show, but she was grateful when the nurse came to help the patriarch to bed. And as she made her way back to the cottage, she couldn’t stop Giovanni’s unwittingly cruel words from echoing round and round in her head.
Don’t wait too long before giving him a baby, my dear.
Stumbling inside, it took a few moments before she could compose herself enough to get ready for bed and to register from the quick glance at her cell phone that there was no missed call or text from Dante. With trembling fingers she put on her silk nightdress, slithering beneath the duvet and staring sightlessly up at the ceiling, as she reminded herself that he hadn’t promised to ring.
She had to stop relying on him emotionally. She had to learn to separate from him.
This wasn’t going anywhere.
It couldn’t go anywhere, she reminded herself fiercely. And sooner or later she had to address that fact, instead of existing in la-la land.
She fell asleep—her sleep peppered with heartbreaking dreams of empty cribs—and when she awoke, the pale light of dawn was filtering through the windows, bringing Dante’s still and silhouetted form into stark relief.
Brushing the hair from her eyes, Willow sat up. ‘How long have you been there?’ she questioned sleepily.
He turned round slowly. So slowly that for a minute she was scared of what she might see in his face. Distress, perhaps—if his reconciliation with Dario had come to nothing.
But she couldn’t tell what he was thinking because his eyes gave nothing away. They were shadowed, yes, but there was no apparent joy or sorrow in their lapis lazuli depths.
‘I got back about an hour ago.’
‘You didn’t come to bed?’
She could have kicked herself for coming out with something so trite. Obviously he hadn’t come to bed, or he wouldn’t be standing at the window fully dressed, would he?
But he didn’t seem irritated as he walked towards her and sat down on the edge of the mattress.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I thought if I came to bed, then I’d have sex with you, and...’
‘And you don’t want sex?’
He laughed. ‘I always want sex with you, Willow, but it’s very distracting and right now I don’t want any form of distraction.’
She nodded, staring very hard at the needlepoint bedspread before lifting her eyes to his. ‘Do you want to talk about what happened?’
Dante considered her question and thought that of all the women he’d ever known, no one else would have asked it in quite that way. It was curious, yes—but it wasn’t intrusive. She was making it plain that she could take it or leave it—it was entirely up to him what he chose to tell her. She didn’t want to give him a hard time, he realised. And wasn’t her kindness one of the things which kept drawing him back to her, time after time?
He sighed and the sound seemed to come from somewhere very deep in his lungs. It hadn’t been an easy meeting with his twin, but it had been necessary. And cathartic. The pain of his remorse had hurt, but not nearly as badly as the realisation of how badly he had hurt his brother. And now that it was over he was aware of feeling lighter as a result.
‘Not really. I’m done with talking about it,’ he said, taking her hand within the palm of his own and wrapping his fingers around it. ‘Would it be enough to tell you that Dario and I are no longer estranged?’
Willow nodded. ‘Of course it’s enough.’ Her fingertips strayed to his shadowed jaw, where she felt the rasp of new growth against her skin.
‘Willow, I need to talk to you.’
‘I thought you just said you were done with talking.’
‘That was about family rifts. This is something else.’
She bit her lip because now he sounded like she’d never heard him sound before. All serious and...different. Did he want to end it now? Already? ‘What is it?’ she questioned nervously.
Almost reflectively he began to trace a little circle over her palm before lifting his gaze to hers. And Willow didn’t know if it was the fact that the sun was higher in the sky, but suddenly his eyes seemed clearer and bluer than she’d ever seen them before, and that was saying something.
‘I’m in love with you,’ he said.
Willow froze.
‘With me?’ she whispered, her voice choking a little.
He reached out his other hand—the one which wasn’t holding hers—and touched her hair, as if he was testing how slowly he could slide his fingers over it.
‘Yes, with you,’ he said. ‘The woman who has me twisted up in knots. Who made me do what I told myself I didn’t want to do. Who gave herself to me—the sweetest gift I’ve ever had, as well as the best sex of my life. Who taught me how to forgive myself and to seek forgiveness in others, because that has helped me repair the bitter rift with my brother. You are the strongest and bravest woman I’ve ever met.’
‘Dante...’
‘Shh. Who has withstood more than the average person will ever know,’ he continued. ‘And then just shrugged it off, like the average person would shrug off rain from a shower. But you are not an average person, Willow. You’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met—and I want to marry you and have babies with you.’
Her voice was more urgent now. ‘Dante...’
‘No. Just let me finish, because I need to say this,’ he said, his fingers moving from their slow exploration of her hair to alight on her lips, to silence her. And when he next spoke, his words seemed to have taken on a deeper significance and his face had grown thoughtful—as if he’d just discovered something which had taken him by surprise. ‘I never thought I wanted marriage or a family because I didn’t know what a happy family was, and I wasn’t sure I could ever create one of my own. The only thing I did know was that I never wanted to exist in an unhappy family. Not ever again.’ His mouth twisted. ‘But somehow I believe I can do it with you, because I believe—with you—that anything is possible. And I want you by my side for the rest of my life, Miss Willow Anoushka Hamilton.’
Willow blinked her eyes, trying furiously to hold back the spring of tears as she tried to take in words she’d never expected to hear him say. Beautiful, heartfelt words which made her heart want to melt. Wasn’t it funny how you could long for something—even though you tried to tell yourself that it was the wrong thing to long for—and then when it happened, it didn’t feel quite real.
It seemed inconceivable that Dante Di Sione should be sitting there holding her hand, with all the restraint and decorum of an old-fashioned suitor and telling her he’d fallen in love with her and wanted her to have his babies. She should have been jumping up and down with excitement, like a child on Christmas morning. She should have been flinging her arms around his neck and whooping with joy, because wasn’t this the culmination of all the hopes and dreams which had been building inside her, despite all her efforts to keep them under control?
So why was she sitting there, her heart sinking with dismay as she looked into his beautiful eyes and a feeling of dread making her skin grow cold and clammy?
Because she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. She could never be the woman he wanted.
She thought about something else his grandfather had said to her last night and the wistful expression on his face as he’d said them.