Visconti's Forgotten Heir(64)

‘Don’t I?’

‘No!’

‘Then why are you crying? And why are you shaking so much just from the thought that I might be getting married?’

‘I’m not!’

‘And why can you never stop yourself when we do this?’

His mouth came down over hers in a kiss that demanded, was almost brutal.

‘You’ve said yourself. It’s just sex,’ she parried desperately when he released her mouth.

‘No, it isn’t! Not for me. Not for you. Not for either of us,’ he said hoarsely, confounding her, because she couldn’t grasp or understand what he was saying. ‘But that’s beside the point—because you’re going to tell me, Magenta!’

‘Tell you what?’

‘Why you’re crying.’

‘So you can have your last pound of flesh? Is that it? Is that why you’re forcing me to say it? All right, then! I love you!’ Her head dropped back and she sagged against him in defeat. ‘I love you. So, so much...’

‘Then why didn’t you tell me before this?’

‘You know why.’

She couldn’t understand why he was looking and sounding as though all the demons from hell had suddenly been let loose to torment him. The night was drawing in, but even in the encompassing darkness she could make out the anguished lines scoring his face. Why? Magenta wondered. When he should be looking triumphant? When he’d just taken great pains to disclose his intention to marry someone else?

‘Because you thought I’d use it against you? To hurt you?’

Wasn’t he going to? She couldn’t understand the incredulity she heard in his voice.

‘Oh, I’ll admit I wanted to,’ he was saying. ‘When you threw away everything I thought we had six years ago. And when you turned up for that interview after pretending—as I thought—not to remember me in that wine bar... Well... To get you in my bed and make you pay through your submission suddenly became the only thing that mattered. My father died the night you left, while we were arguing over you, and I wanted to hold you solely responsible for it.’

She uttered a small groan at this further revelation, and yet there had been a note of self-deprecating futility in his voice.

‘It was my fault entirely, but I needed to blame someone else so I blamed you—for everything: what happened to him, what you’d done to me. And I let it fester away inside me for years. When I kissed you in that lift it was to see if you’d respond to me. But as soon as I’d got you here I realised that I’d already bitten off more than I could possibly chew. I wanted to stay immune, to be the one in control this time, but even before that night we made love I’d already discovered I was no more immune to you than I’d been when we were just kids. When I’d found out you’d had that brain haemorrhage...’

His voice trembled as he cupped her face lovingly with both hands. ‘Any desire to hurt you went well and truly out of the window. And not because I felt sorry for you...’ He shook his head, as though unable to put it into words. ‘After we’d made love I wanted you to stay here, because I couldn’t imagine letting you out of my life again, but you seemed so determined to go. I knew it was because you believed my only intention was to hurt and humiliate you, and I couldn’t seem to convince you that it wasn’t. I don’t think I really knew myself at the time why I wanted you to stay.’ He grimaced. ‘Or I wasn’t ready to admit it. But then I spent the fortnight after you’d gone wondering why it was driving me so crazy not to have you around. And that day you told me about Theo and all that you had been through after we broke up—I knew.’

It still pole-axed him to think of the terrible struggles and the odds she had faced from which she had come through fighting. Alone. With his baby. And without him.

‘I love you, Magenta. I’ve wanted to tell you so often over the past couple of weeks but you’ve seemed so distant. So cool.’

‘Only because you were!’ she exclaimed, trying to take in all that he was telling her. ‘But why did you let me think you were marrying someone else?’ Pain etched her face as her eyes scoured the shadowy structured lines of his. ‘You aren’t, are you?’ She was still not able to believe that it wasn’t true.

‘Are you crazy?’ He laughed, and now all the earlier anguish in his voice was giving way to pure and simple joy. ‘I wasn’t absolutely certain that I wasn’t kidding myself in believing you might possibly be in love with me. And, forgive me, my darling, for being so devious—and too proud to face rejection if I really had been kidding myself—but it was the only way I could think of finding out.’