A Royal Wedding(33)

He smiled. ‘You did. You turned up in my dark world and showed me what life could be like with your enthusiasm, with your joy of discovery. At first, I admit, I hated you for it, because you reminded me of all the things I had lost and of all the things I would never know again. But bit by bit I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to share your light. I wanted to share your joy.’

She thought back to the disastrous dinner and his cruel comment about the dress. ‘You were protecting yourself.’

‘I couldn’t let myself crumble. It took me years to recover after the accident. I couldn’t let anything like that happen again, even if it meant losing the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was desperate to find some kind of outlet. I hadn’t played the piano for ten years until you came. It was something I associated with her. It was part of my former life and I couldn’t bring myself to touch the keyboard until wanting you drove me to it. Drove me back to something I loved. Just as you drove me back to life and living and I realised it didn’t have to be the same.’

Tears leaked from her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest.

‘You kissed my scars, Grace. I was shocked and I overreacted, but do you have any idea what was happening to me? You broke something free inside me, something dark and poisoned and toxic. And bit by bit you chased the blackness away.’

For the first time she noticed the moisture glazing his eyes too, as he brought her hands up to his mouth, closed his eyes and kissed them.

‘I had to come,’ he said at last. ‘I knew it from the first day you left. I knew I had missed an opportunity so golden that it might never come again. But still I couldn’t do it. I told myself you were busy becoming famous, that you could not possibly have any place for me in your life. Fear bound me to the castle, just as you said. But as the days and weeks went on I had to know. I had to find out for myself, whatever it took.’

He hesitated then, as if searching the depths of his soul for words. ‘Grace, you once told me you loved me. Is there any chance you might love me again? Love a man who was too blind to recognise his own love when it stared him in the face?’

Her heart swelled so large with his words she thought it might explode with happiness. She threw herself into his arms, drinking in his scent, relishing the hard plane of his chest. ‘I will always love you, Alessandro. Always.’

And he sighed, almost with relief, as if there had ever been any doubt, and drew her closer into his embrace. ‘You do not know how I have longed to hear those words again— if only for the opportunity to tell you that I love you with everything this scarred heart can offer. You have it all. But I know you have your career, and that must come first—’

Alarm bells sounded. ‘What do you mean that must come first? Before what?’

‘We can work it out. You will prefer to continue working, of course. You will not want to be tied down …’

‘Alessandro, what are you saying? Maybe you should spell it out first.’

His dark eyes were troubled and uncertain, and she had never seen him so vulnerable. He had risked everything for her today, she realised. Everything. And she would love him for what that had cost him for ever.

‘You have your work.’

‘Tell me!’

‘I hoped—I wondered—so long as it doesn’t interfere with your work—’ she glared at him ‘—I wondered if you might agree to become my wife?’

‘Yes!’ she cried, tears of joy springing to her eyes. ‘Yes, I will marry you, Alessandro. Yes, I will become your wife.’

And his face lit up brighter than she had ever seen it, until both sides of his face were beautiful, both sides of him magically, wonderfully hers.





EPILOGUE



THE dock had been sanded and oiled till it gleamed in the sun, the rocks bordering the track freshly painted white. Flags fluttered gaily along the route, and the small harbour was filled with dozens of bobbing white pleasure craft.

It was to be a small affair, he’d promised her. No more than two or three hundred guests. And under the lure of a perfect summer’s day they spilled out of the massive ballroom and filled the grounds around the castle, admiring the view across the sea to the Italian coast or having their pictures taken in front of the dolphin fountain, where the water played and splashed like jewels in the bright sunshine.

He looked magnificent, she thought as she caught a glimpse of him through the crowd, in one of his beautifully tailored suits that showed the long, lean line of his body to perfection. He looked magnificent and at ease with himself at last—as if he’d cast his demons from his shoulders, as if he’d come to terms with his past. He’d even wooed the inevitable media, so it was now fully behind him, and covering his wedding as if it was some kind of fairytale. And it was a fairytale, she knew.