The Sicilian's Unexpected Duty(84)
At first he didn’t answer. ‘I’ll keep them here until you decide.’
She jerked a nod, and finally made herself look at him. ‘Thank you.’
He raised a shoulder. ‘No problem.’
Despite his casual air, she wasn’t fooled. Not for a second. Pepe was hurting every bit as much as she.
He looked wretched too, even more so than she’d seen at the graveside, when she’d been too heartbroken and scared to do more than cast him fleeting glances. Scared she would take his hand and offer the support he so clearly didn’t want. Scared his grief would make him reject her.
He couldn’t have shaved at all since it had happened. The man who took such pride in his trim goatee now had a fully fledged black beard. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. Even his clothes were all wrong. He hadn’t dressed. He’d thrown clothes on.
His feet were bare.
She longed to reach out but didn’t know...
She didn’t know anything. She didn’t know how to cross the bridge to him.
What did she think she was doing? Pepe didn’t want her there.
He didn’t want anyone.
She straightened and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes as she said, ‘I need to go.’
She took his lack of an answer as agreement.
Her hand on the door, she turned to face him one last time. ‘Be kind to yourself, Pepe.’
Tears blinding her, she walked through the living room, fumbling in her bag for her phone to call Grace, who’d likely not even made it back to the house yet.
‘Cara?’
Hastily brushing the tears away with the back of her hand and in the process clonking her nose with her phone, she stopped and slowly turned.
Pepe shuffled towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Don’t go.’
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
Her legs too weak to carry her any further, her stomach feeling the strain of being upright for too long, she sank onto the chair right behind her.
When he reached her, he knelt down and placed his hand on her neck. ‘I can’t bear it,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I think I could cope if it was just the loss of our baby, but losing you too...’
A sound like a wail echoed in the room. It took the beat of a moment for Cara to realise the sound had come from her.
Pepe’s face contorted and he looked down to her belly then back up to her face, his eyes searching for...something. ‘I know what I’m asking is selfish but, please, cucciola mia, please don’t go. I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you heal. Please, just give me the chance to show how much you mean to me and prove how much I love you.’
When Pepe saw the confusion and doubt ringing in Cara’s eyes, he almost gave up. It was the tiny spark of hope he also saw that gave him the courage to forge on.
To put his heart on the line. Because if he didn’t say it now it would be too late.
‘When Luisa aborted our baby—and I believe with all my heart that child was mine—it was the loss of that child so soon after the loss of my father that ruined me. Her lies and deceit were supplementary. I never missed her. I’d been in love with a dream that didn’t exist—in my own family I’d always felt like a spare part. Luca was the brother who mattered; I was just the spare, and, no matter how much my parents loved me, I always knew that. With Luisa, I dreamt of having my own family where I mattered.