‘You expect me to believe that? I heard you tell Anna just the opposite, querida.’ He didn’t dare give way, but his heart was soaring like a bird. He wanted to jump up, sing, wrap his arms around her, all at the same time.
‘When?’
‘When? What do you mean when? Yesterday, of course. When the two of you were having your cosy chat in my kitchen.’
‘I spoke to Anna this morning and told her everything. Well, almost everything.’ Laura sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She was perspiring, as if she had run a marathon, and her hands were shaking, I told her how I felt about you. I can’t change how you feel, whether you believe me or not, but...’ she met his eyes steadily, without blinking ‘...I love you, Gabriel Greppi, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if this all fizzled out and you never knew how I really felt. When I told Anna that I wasn’t involved with you, I was lying. It’s as simple as that. I had a moment of pride. I might have thought that you ...would have recognised the passing weakness.’ She paused long enough for the silence to settle, and then said shakily, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Even if all you have to say is that you don’t believe a word I’m saying?’
‘I cannot ask you to marry me ...I asked you once...’ A moment of pride! He had a lifetime of pride. He couldn’t ask her to marry him, not again, even though he believed every word she had just spoken. The truth of it was shining in her eyes. But his pride.
‘Is that all you have to say, Gabriel? Laura stood up. Nothing else? You damned, stubborn, okay, you win I’ve told you how I feel and if you have nothing to say then you were right, it’s over.’ She had gambled everything. What price one more gamble?
His head shot up and he stood up as well, moving swiftly over to her.
‘Marry me.’ Laura looked at him with blazing challenge. ‘What we have is good, very good, and it’ll get better. Take a chance.’
‘You’re asking me to marry you?’ His face darkened and he dropped his head.
‘That’s right. Marry me.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else you’ll regret giving up the greatest love you will ever know.’ She tentatively placed her hand on the side of his face and caressed his skin.
‘No,’ he murmured hoarsely.
So this was it. She had taken the gamble and lost.
‘Right,’ Laura said hollowly.
‘I mean, no, I would not just regret giving up the greatest love I will ever know... I would regret a great deal more than that...’ He tilted her chin so that she was looking at him and what she read on his face, the tenderness and love, made the breath catch in her throat. ‘I lost the only thing worth having the day I walked out of your life, my darling.’ He buried his head into her neck and then, when he had gathered his self-control, that priceless commodity that had been in very short supply ever since he had gone barging back into her life, he raised his head once again to catch her eyes with his.#p#分页标题#e#
‘I came back, yes, for the lowest of reasons. I thought I was over you and that I was simply closing a chapter. God help me, I saw myself as the all-powerful one who had returned to settle old scores. But the fact is, there were no scores to settle. I should never have let my pride kill our relationship then. I should have listened to what you were saying because every word you said was right. We were both young. We could have waited a little longer, grown to know each other better, but I was having none of it. When I think that this cursed pride of mine would have caused my own destruction a second time, my blood runs cold.’
‘You love me,’ Laura said with a wondering smile.
‘I adore you. When you called me on my mobile this morning and told me that you wanted to see me, to talk, I couldn’t wait for my meetings to be over. I couldn’t wait to be in your presence again because it’s only when you are around that I feel alive.’
‘And you’ll marry me?’
‘You don’t intend to let me wriggle away again, do you, querida?’ This time he gave a low, velvety chuckle that made her go to liquid inside.
‘That’s certainly one of the reasons.’
‘One of the reasons?’
‘Would you mind if we sat down? I feel as if my legs are going to buckle from under me.’
Thank goodness the kitchen stools were generously built. Big enough for Gabriel to comfortably sit with Laura on his lap. She rested her head on his shoulder and realised, suddenly, that the full extent of his love was about to take a serious knock. Marriage, passion and a three year honeymoon spelled a different story from marriage, a swelling stomach and midnight feeds.