A Royal Wedding(31)

‘Then go,’ he flung over his shoulder. ‘As you say, we knew you would leave. I’m not stopping you.’

His rapid change of face did not deter her. He’d been disappointed with the news of her imminent departure, she was sure. Or at least unhappy with the news.

‘Come with me,’ she said on impulse, following him. That way she could have her career and not lose Alessandro. And suddenly not losing Alessandro was more important than she could fathom. ‘This is your discovery as much as mine. People will want to know everything they can about the pages.’

‘And what could I tell anyone beyond the fact they were found in the caves below my castle? You do not need me there for that.’

‘Then come anyway. Come and keep me company. It will do you good to get away from here for a while.’

‘My place is here!’

‘Why? So you can bury yourself on this island while your castle crumbles around you? Until you end up as dried and broken-down as that fountain outside?’

‘You do not know what it is like.’

‘Because you’re scarred? No, I don’t know what it’s like to be scarred. I don’t know what it’s like to have people turn from me in horror. But I do know you can’t let your scars define you. You are more than that. And I know I couldn’t live that way, burying myself away where nobody might see me.’

‘How do you know? You do not know the first thing about me! You have no concept of what it is to like be the only survivor of a party of eighteen. All of them dead. Dead! All of them. Apart from me. How do you think that feels? Special? No, Dr Hunter, it does not. Instead it makes me feel damned. Cursed. And the scars are a constant reminder. The scars never let me forget it.’

She felt his pain in the wave of anguish that rolled off him. ‘I’m sorry for what happened. I’m sorry for what you suffered—’

He rounded on her. ‘You have no concept of what I suffered!’

She recoiled from his outburst. Recoiled and then reloaded, knowing she had to let him know she understood. That she cared. ‘I know you lost your fiancée and your friends.’

‘I lost much more than that. I lost hope that night. I lost trust.’

Her heart went out to him. ‘I understand how that could happen after an accident like that.’

‘Do you? I doubt it.’ His mouth pulled into a snarl. ‘I doubt that you have any idea of the kind of woman my fiancée was—the kind of woman who was so in love with the media fantasy that we were the “It” couple that she would have done anything to maintain it, even when it was already over.

‘She threatened to leave me that night, for another of my friends she said wanted her. She would go with him if I did not marry her immediately and fulfil the destiny she had planned. But our relationship was already soured, and her attempt to make me jealous was her last-ditch effort to save our floundering relationship. I told her it was over. And that instead of having a blazing row in a nightclub we would break amicably and put out a joint press release the following day. That night, on our way back to the castle, the accident happened.’

He dragged in air, as if struggling with the memories. ‘Someone there overheard us talking and reported it to the police, and so when they came to the hospital, while I was barely recovering from injuries so horrific they expected me to die, it was to inform me that I was the suspect in a mass murder case.’

Ice-cold water sluiced through her veins. She took a step closer. His pain was so clear on his face she could read his story there, etched in his scars. That anyone had suffered so much pain, that he had suffered so much, destroyed her. His pain became hers, and she wanted to do anything she could to make things right. Knowing she never could, no matter what she felt for him, knowing now she’d had a right to be scared of staying.

‘Alessandro …’

‘Can you blame me for burying myself here and hiding away from the media’s macabre pursuit, Dr Hunter? Can you begin to understand?’

‘It doesn’t have to be like that,’ she offered softly, but knew it could indeed be like that. ‘It never has to be like that again.’

‘No. Not if I stay here.’

And she knew she had to play her final card—the final truth she had taken this long to admit. ‘And if I told you that I loved you?’

He looked at her then, savagery mixed with tragedy. ‘Then I would say you are the most cursed of all.’