But, oh, it hurt.
How could it hurt so much?
Because she had allowed him back into her heart, that was why. She’d broken every single promise she’d ever made to herself and now she was paying the price. All those weeks and months and years of trying to forget about her Sicilian tycoon might as well not have happened.
Opening her computer, she went online and booked an early-morning flight for England, then changed and went down to the nearby pizzeria for supper. But despite the delicious smell of the capricciosa, she merely prodded at the pizza aimlessly and ate barely any of it. She sat there for a while, drinking coffee, and when at last she left the small restaurant she found herself going into the little church she’d seen at the far end of the street. Stepping into the dimly lit and cool interior, she gazed up at the brightness of the stained glass above the altar and thought about Peggy, and about Rocco’s parents, too. She thought of the baby she’d never had, and she lit a candle for all of them. And something in that ageless symbolism gave her a new strength—as if in the flicker of those four flames she saw what she needed to do.
And that was to forget Rocco. To collect her pride and set him free. Her heart pounded. She wasn’t going to send him a text telling him which flight she’d be on or which hotel she was staying in because that would be the behaviour of someone desperate, and needy. And she wasn’t that person any more. She’d told him how she felt but you shouldn’t say something just to get something back. Rocco didn’t want her—he couldn’t have made it any plainer and she needed to get that simple fact into her thick skull. She still had a life and a future—it was just one which didn’t involve him. She would go back to Cornwall and make her pots and she wouldn’t hide away from what had happened. She would embrace the experience—with all its accompanying pleasure and pain—and produce a new collection based on the things she had seen in Monaco. Who knew? One day she might even be able to think about the man she had married without an aching deep in her heart.
Back in the hotel room she lay beneath the thin sheet, listening to the sounds of people in the street below, as the minutes ticked slowly towards midnight. Her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep when she woke the next day and she despised the eager way she instantly reached for her phone. But the screen was blank. There was no missed call or message from Rocco asking where the hell she was.
Of course there wasn’t. She hadn’t told him where she was staying but he did have her mobile number.
How long would it take her to accept that he just didn’t want her?
* * *
The taxi which took her to the airport next morning was stuffy and smelt of cigarettes and Nicole was glad when she reached the terminal, even though she recognised she was leaving Sicily for ever. And that hurt, too. Wasn’t it stupid how everything seemed to hurt today? Half-heartedly she removed her shoes and belt but for once the security process seemed speedy and her progress onto the fully booked flight relatively smooth. She had just snapped on her seat belt when some kind of commotion started happening on the opposite side of the aeroplane. People were pointing out of the windows and exclaiming in voices of rising excitement.
Nicole leaned over to see what they were looking at and her heart gave a lurch of disbelief. Because there, running across the Tarmac like a champion sprinter, was Rocco. Rocco as she’d never seen him before, suddenly appearing breathlessly on the plane, his face filled with dark intensity and something else...something she didn’t recognise. He spotted her straight away and began to walk down the central aisle towards her. People’s necks were craning and women were turning to watch him as he moved, their voices instinctively murmuring their appreciation.
Sitting bolt upright in her seat, Nicole ignored the loud pounding of her heart and glared at him. How dared he do this? Cause some kind of major disruption, which was probably going to get them both into all kinds of trouble. And for what? Especially when he’d already rejected her and she’d been coming to terms with that, and now she was going to have to do the same thing all over again.
‘What are you doing here?’ she bit out.
‘You told me you were going to let me know where you were, and you didn’t,’ he accused. ‘I searched every damned hotel in Palermo!’
‘Tough. I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative—remember? And anyway—you had my number if you wanted me.’
‘And if I’d phoned, you probably would have hung up on me.’
How convenient of him to think that. Nicole’s lips tightened. ‘I probably would,’ she agreed steadily, as if she didn’t care. ‘So what are you doing here? You made your feelings very clear yesterday. Why don’t you just leave me alone to get on with my life independently, Rocco?’
He was crouching down beside her and his face was very close—those bright eyes burning into her like twin blue lasers. ‘I’m here to tell you something you need to hear, which is that I love you, Nicole. Very, very much.’
His words were like a red rag to a bull. How dared he say such things so carelessly? Furiously, Nicole shook her head, pulling back from him so that she couldn’t be influenced by the warmth of his breath or his proximity. ‘You don’t love me. You don’t love anyone except yourself and your wretched business.’
‘I love you,’ he repeated fiercely. ‘And I want to do all those things you suggested in the lemon grove. To start over. To be with you. And to spend the rest of my life making up for everything I’ve done, or failed to do.’
Nicole shook her head, trying to cling onto some sense of normality, despite the fact that one of the air stewards was now speaking into the intercom and any minute now he was going to get kicked off the plane—and so, probably, would she. Didn’t he realise she didn’t have the kind of funds to keep buying more tickets? Did he even care? ‘It’s too late for all that, Rocco. Don’t you understand? It’s just too late.’
‘It can’t be,’ he said stubbornly.
‘It can be whatever I want it to be,’ she said, with equal stubbornness.
After a moment he nodded, as if he’d come to some kind of decision, and then he began to talk in a low voice. ‘In Monaco you asked whether I had married you because you were pregnant and I said yes.’ He voice became more fervent. ‘But the main reason I was willing to marry you wasn’t just because of duty or the life you carried inside you, but because with you, for the first and only time in my life, I had experienced the colpe di fulmine—’
Nicole frowned because for some reason all the passengers within earshot—far from seeming irritated at their delayed take-off—were now cheering wildly.
‘What are you talking about?’ she snapped.
‘The thunderclap,’ he interpreted, punching his fist hard against his heart. ‘When love strikes like lightning—so intense and powerful that it cannot be denied.’
Nicole blinked at him in sheer amazement. Was this really Rocco—cold, emotionless Rocco Barberi—declaring his feelings and his love for her in front of a plane-load of people? ‘Why are people cheering?’ she questioned suspiciously.
‘Because Sicilians are by nature romantic and they enjoy a love story.’
‘Well, it’s still too late. And now the captain has appeared and is putting on his cap and walking towards us and you really are going to get into trouble.’
‘Please, tesoro.’ He cast a wry glance over his shoulder. ‘Can we at least go somewhere else and talk about this? I may own the airline but I really don’t want the plane to miss its take-off slot.’
He owned the airline?
Nicole blinked.
Was there really no escaping the influence of Rocco Barberi on this infernal island?
She told herself to say no. To tell him she didn’t need him—and maybe she didn’t. But deep down she wanted him and something told her that was never going to change.
‘Very well,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I will hear you out—just as long as you understand that I’m not making any promises.’
‘I understand,�
� he said gravely.
But despite the clapping which accompanied them as they made their way off the plane, Nicole refused to give the laughing passengers the fairy-tale ending she suspected they wanted. A prolonged kiss in slo-mo and the big clinch on the Tarmac. Because life wasn’t a fairy tale and she still didn’t believe she had any kind of future with Rocco.
He ushered her towards an unmarked door and before she knew it they were in some sort of private lounge, with huge potted palms, squishy sofas and panoramic views over the runway. But instead of feeling overwhelmed or joyous—or any of the emotions she might have felt if he’d said these things just eighteen hours earlier—Nicole felt flat. More than that, she was angry with herself for allowing herself to be led off a flight which she had paid for—like some docile little mouse. Wasn’t she supposed to have shed her mouse-like skin?
‘So hurry up and say whatever it is you want to say, Rocco.’
It wasn’t the most promising of beginnings. In fact, Rocco would go so far as to say that he had never seen Nicole look so angry. And he knew then that he needed to go further than he’d planned. Further than he’d ever been before. That she would not be willing to accept half-measures—and why should she? He’d pushed her away so many times—why would she believe he had changed unless he was prepared to show her? Unless he opened up a heart which had remained locked and bolted for so many years.
He sucked in a deep breath. ‘You accused me of pushing you away once we were married and maybe I did—but not for the reasons you imagined. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you, Nicole—there hasn’t been a second of my life since we first met that I didn’t want you—but because I was being cautious.’
‘Cautious?’ She fixed him with an enquiring look.
Restlessly, he shrugged. ‘I had no idea how to deal with a pregnant woman—and you were sick. So very sick. I thought you would prefer a nurse rather than a husband who was out of his depth, and then...’ He swallowed. ‘Then you lost the baby...’
‘And that was when you pushed me away—’
‘I was giving you space,’ he argued. ‘I thought that’s what you needed. I could see how broken you were and I couldn’t get near you.’
‘You didn’t want to get near me,’ she said slowly.
‘It wasn’t that. You wouldn’t talk. You wouldn’t even look at me. I thought if I went to the States to work that you would have the chance to come to terms with it in your own time.’ He sighed. ‘And maybe deep down I was relieved that you didn’t want to talk about it.’
She tilted her chin to meet his gaze full on. ‘Why?’
There was a pause. ‘Because I was afraid,’ he admitted. ‘Afraid of facing my feelings about losing our baby. Afraid of where it might take me.’
The husky choke of his voice made Nicole’s heart twist and she wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him tight. But not yet. Because he needed to do this. To say it and feel it, no matter how much it hurt.
‘I was afraid that it would bring up all that stuff from the past when my parents were killed. Stuff I had suppressed and didn’t want to look at. Naively, I thought that if I went away—everything would have calmed down by the time I got back.’
‘You went to America,’ she said woodenly.
He nodded. ‘Yes, I did. Which only made it worse. And then I came back to Sicily and—’
‘I had gone,’ she finished.
‘Se.’ His features looked like a tight mask. ‘I tried telling myself it was all for the best. That I’d never planned for this marriage to happen. I knew I could never make you the kind of husband you wanted. The kind of husband you richly deserved.’
‘And that’s why you never came after me?’
He nodded. ‘That’s why I never came after you. Until that divorce petition landed on my desk and suddenly my lifelong ability to suppress my emotions was blown out of the water. I felt anger—and indignation, too. I convinced myself that I was going to get you to come to Monaco with me, because that would be the last thing you wanted. I intended to punish you by making you jump through hoops to get your divorce. I even convinced myself that my desire for you was no more—mainly because my ego had been wounded by having a woman leave me, the way you did.’
He paused. ‘And then I saw you... I saw you and the thunderclap happened all over again and there didn’t seem to be a thing I could do about it, no matter how much I fought it. I told myself that having sex with you would rid me of my hunger, but it only increased it. Just as being with you reminded me of all the things I love about you. Your creativity. Your irreverence. The way you make me laugh. All those things reinforced what I was reluctant to admit—even to myself.’ There was a pause. ‘That I love you and want to be with you. Now and always.’
She didn’t say anything but her gaze was very steady as she looked at him.
‘Could we start again, Nicole?’ he said huskily. ‘Or continue where we left off? Is spending the rest of your life with me something you would ever consider?’
Her lips seemed to be closing in on themselves and as he saw her struggling to contain her emotions, Rocco desperately ached to hold her, but he knew he must not. Because the answer to his question had to come of its own accord. Not because he was stroking her or kissing her. It needed to come from the mind and the heart, not the body.
Say yes, he prayed silently. Say yes, my love.
It seemed to take an eternity but eventually she nodded. ‘Yes, I would,’ she said, in a rush. ‘Of course I would. For all my life if you want it. Oh, Rocco... Rocco,’ she said falteringly.
‘Let it out, tesoro,’ he prompted shakily, though he knew he had no right to tell her to connect with her emotions when he’d been so cut off from his own for so long. But Nicole’s emotions had been repressed too—and wasn’t she as much of a novice in all this stuff as he was? ‘Just let it out.’
His soft entreaty must have worked because that was when she started to cry—great big tears welling up from those beautiful green eyes and sliding down her cheeks like rain. He held out his arms and she went into them, burying her head against his shoulder while he smoothed down the wild tumble of her curls. She cried until there were no tears left and he suspected she was crying for their lost baby as well as for the wasted years apart. And when he had dried her cheeks with his fingertips, he touched his lips very gently to hers.
‘Where we live and how we live is up to you. Tell me what you want and where you want to go,’ he said unevenly. ‘And I will do everything in my power to make that happen.’
Her eyes were very bright and for the first time a smile lifted the corners of her lips. ‘I don’t care where we go or what we do,’ she said simply. ‘The places or the trappings aren’t important. I only want to be with you, Rocco. That’s all I’ve ever really wanted.’
EPILOGUE
ROCCO’S VOICE WAS thick with emotion. ‘Tesoro, he is...bello.’
‘Isn’t he?’ Nicole looked down into the crib at the sleeping baby, then gazed up into the proud eyes of his doting papa. ‘And the image of his father.’
‘Then let us hope he has his mother’s good heart and sense,’ responded her husband drily as he pulled her into his arms, smoothing his hand over the crown of her head. ‘I thought today went well, didn’t you?’
Brushing her lips against his neck in a drifting kiss, Nicole smiled. Today had been their son’s baptism—a joyous day, celebrated first in the Sicilian church where she and Rocco had been married all those years ago, and then afterwards at a champagne reception outside, in the fragrant lemon grove on the Barberi complex. They had named their son Turi in honour of the patriarch who had died peacefully last year—contented to see Rocco and Nicole reunited at last and taking great pleasure in the role he had played to help bring that about.
Turi hadn’t lived to see his great-grandson, but he had doted on the twin girls who had been born exactly a year after Nicole and Rocco had decided to make their permanent home in Sicily, albeit with trips to C
ornwall whenever their schedules allowed. With their raven corkscrew curls and bright blue eyes, little Lucia and Sofia would have melted the heart of any statue, but they had adored Rocco’s grandfather, who had been their biggest fan.
‘It was a perfect day,’ Nicole said softly. ‘Perfetto. I liked your brother’s latest girlfriend and I thought your sister looked very well.’
So much had happened since that day when Rocco had walked onto the aircraft and declared his love for her in front of a planeload of passengers. Approaching their future in an orderly way, her husband had accompanied her back to Cornwall, to help her find someone to take over her little shop—someone who would cherish it as much as she had done.
They had returned to resume their married life in Sicily—not just because Turi was old and frail, but because Nicole found herself valuing the simplicity of life there. And this time she felt she belonged. This time she was no longer the outsider with no legitimate place. Rocco had sold the Monaco apartment and started delegating as much work as possible, in order to spend as much time with the people who really mattered.
His family. The twin daughters who had him wrapped around their little fingers, and now his new son. And Nicole, of course. A day didn’t pass without him telling her that she was key to his happiness and none of this could have happened without her.
He had built her a studio with a kiln where, whenever Lucia and Sofia allowed her a rare spare moment, Nicole would craft the vases and the bowls which were gaining her something of a reputation. She had already exhibited in Palermo and Rocco had spoken about buying her a shop there, but she’d told him not to rush anything. That there was a time and a place for ambition and she wanted to enjoy the gifts she had been given. She wanted to give silent thanks that three children had now worn a little romper suit which had lain unused in a drawer for so long...
Bound to the Sicilian's Bed Page 14
