The Consequences of That Night (At His Service #6)(52)

Cesare shook his head. “She wore me down over that year, demanding a divorce so she could marry Menendez. She hated me, accusing me of being her jailor—of wanting our marriage to last longer just so I’d get more of her fortune. Do you know what it’s like? To live with someone who despises you, who blames you for destroying her only happiness?”

“Yes,” Emma whispered, and he remembered her stepmother. His heart twisted at the pain in her beautiful face. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her she’d never feel that kind of grief again. Trembling, he took a step toward her.

“So you let her go,” Bouchard said.

“I finally set her free so she could marry him,” Cesare said. “She ran off to Argentina, only to discover Menendez already had a wife there. She came back to New York broken. I’m still not sure if she was trying to kill herself—or if she was just trying to make herself go to sleep to forget the heartbreak....”

Bouchard paced, then stopped, clawing back his hair. He looked at Cesare. “If this is true, why did you never tell me? Why did you let me go on believing you were at fault—that you were to blame?”

“Because you loved your sister,” he said quietly. “I didn’t want you to know the truth. That kind of blind love and faith is too rare in this world.”

“I insulted you, practically accused you of...” He stopped. “How could you not have thrown the truth in my face?”

Cesare shook his head. “I thought I loved her once. And I had my faults, too. Perhaps if I hadn’t worked so much...”

“Are you kidding?” Emma demanded incredulously, juggling their baby against the hip of her wedding gown. He smiled.

“I’m telling you now because you both deserve to know the truth.” He looked at Emma. “I didn’t want anyone to know my weakness, or the real reason I never wanted to marry again. I thought love was just delusion, that led to pain.” He paused. “Until I fell in love with you...”

Emma’s lips parted in a soft gasp.

The Frenchman tilted his head, looking thoughtfully between them. “I think it’s time for me to go.” Stepping forward, he held out his hand. “Merci, Cesare. I have changed my mind about you. You are—not so bad. You must not be, for a woman like Emma to love you.” Turning back, he kissed her softly on the cheek and gave her one final look. “Adieu, ma chérie. Be happy.”

Climbing into his small boat, Alain Bouchard turned on the engine and drove back across the lake.

Cesare turned to face Emma. As he looked down at her beautiful stricken face, so haunted and young beneath the long white veil as she held his child, her eyes were green and shadowed as the forest around them. His heart was pounding.

“You left me at the altar,” he said.

She swallowed. “Yes. I guess I did.”

“You said you saw something in my face that drove you away,” he said in a low voice. “What did you see?”

Moonlight caressed her beautiful face. She took a deep breath.

“Dread,” she whispered. “I saw dread.” Her voice caught. “I couldn’t marry a man with a face like that. No matter how much I was in love with you. I couldn’t trap you into a loveless marriage for the rest of your life. And pretend not to notice as you—cheated on me, again and again.”

“Cheated on you?” he demanded.

The baby started to whimper. Comforting him, she nodded miserably. “I assumed—”

“No.” Going to her, he grabbed her shoulders and looked down at her. “Now you know the story, you have to know I would never betray you.”

“I thought you still loved your wife,” she whispered. “That I had no chance of holding your heart—”

“I was too proud to tell you the truth. I never wanted to appear vulnerable, or feel weak like that ever again. I did love her. I loved my parents, too. And all I learned was that when you love anyone—they leave.”

“Oh, Cesare.” Her eyes glimmered in the moonlight as she shook her head. “I’m so sorry...”

“I swore I’d never let anyone that close to me again.” His lips lifted at the edges as he looked down at her. “Then I met you. And it was like coming home.”

“You never said...”

“I told myself you meant nothing to me. That I’d only brought you from the hotel to be my housekeeper. But I think it was for you that I bought that house. Even then, some part of me wanted to settle down with you. With you, I lowered my guard as I never did with anyone else. And when I found you crying that night in the kitchen, it broke through me,” he said hoarsely. “When I finally took you in my arms, I took everything I’d ever wanted and more....” He looked at Sam, then back at her fiercely. “Do you think it was an accident that I took such a risk? I’ve long since realized that my body and my heart must have known what my brain spent years trying to deny.”

“What?” she whispered.

He looked down at her. “That you are for me. My true love. My only love.”

She was crying openly now. “I never stopped loving you—”

He stopped her with a finger to her lips.

“I nearly died when I saw you leave with him,” he said in a low voice. “It was like all my worst fears coming true.”