How could it hurt so much?
Because she had allowed him back into her heart, that was why. She’d broken every single promise she’d ever made to herself and now she was paying the price. All those weeks and months and years of trying to forget about her Sicilian tycoon might as well not have happened.
Opening her computer, she went online and booked an early-morning flight for England, then changed and went down to the nearby pizzeria for supper. But despite the delicious smell of the capricciosa, she merely prodded at the pizza aimlessly and ate barely any of it. She sat there for a while, drinking coffee, and when at last she left the small restaurant she found herself going into the little church she’d seen at the far end of the street. Stepping into the dimly lit and cool interior, she gazed up at the brightness of the stained glass above the altar and thought about Peggy, and about Rocco’s parents, too. She thought of the baby she’d never had, and she lit a candle for all of them. And something in that ageless symbolism gave her a new strength—as if in the flicker of those four flames she saw what she needed to do.
And that was to forget Rocco. To collect her pride and set him free. Her heart pounded. She wasn’t going to send him a text telling him which flight she’d be on or which hotel she was staying in because that would be the behaviour of someone desperate, and needy. And she wasn’t that person any more. She’d told him how she felt but you shouldn’t say something just to get something back. Rocco didn’t want her—he couldn’t have made it any plainer and she needed to get that simple fact into her thick skull. She still had a life and a future—it was just one which didn’t involve him. She would go back to Cornwall and make her pots and she wouldn’t hide away from what had happened. She would embrace the experience—with all its accompanying pleasure and pain—and produce a new collection based on the things she had seen in Monaco. Who knew? One day she might even be able to think about the man she had married without an aching deep in her heart.
Back in the hotel room she lay beneath the thin sheet, listening to the sounds of people in the street below, as the minutes ticked slowly towards midnight. Her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep when she woke the next day and she despised the eager way she instantly reached for her phone. But the screen was blank. There was no missed call or message from Rocco asking where the hell she was.
Of course there wasn’t. She hadn’t told him where she was staying but he did have her mobile number.
How long would it take her to accept that he just didn’t want her?
* * *
The taxi which took her to the airport next morning was stuffy and smelt of cigarettes and Nicole was glad when she reached the terminal, even though she recognised she was leaving Sicily for ever. And that hurt, too. Wasn’t it stupid how everything seemed to hurt today? Half-heartedly she removed her shoes and belt but for once the security process seemed speedy and her progress onto the fully booked flight relatively smooth. She had just snapped on her seat belt when some kind of commotion started happening on the opposite side of the aeroplane. People were pointing out of the windows and exclaiming in voices of rising excitement.
Nicole leaned over to see what they were looking at and her heart gave a lurch of disbelief. Because there, running across the Tarmac like a champion sprinter, was Rocco. Rocco as she’d never seen him before, suddenly appearing breathlessly on the plane, his face filled with dark intensity and something else...something she didn’t recognise. He spotted her straight away and began to walk down the central aisle towards her. People’s necks were craning and women were turning to watch him as he moved, their voices instinctively murmuring their appreciation.
Sitting bolt upright in her seat, Nicole ignored the loud pounding of her heart and glared at him. How dared he do this? Cause some kind of major disruption, which was probably going to get them both into all kinds of trouble. And for what? Especially when he’d already rejected her and she’d been coming to terms with that, and now she was going to have to do the same thing all over again.
‘What are you doing here?’ she bit out.
‘You told me you were going to let me know where you were, and you didn’t,’ he accused. ‘I searched every damned hotel in Palermo!’
‘Tough. I changed my mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative—remember? And anyway—you had my number if you wanted me.’
‘And if I’d phoned, you probably would have hung up on me.’
How convenient of him to think that. Nicole’s lips tightened. ‘I probably would,’ she agreed steadily, as if she didn’t care. ‘So what are you doing here? You made your feelings very clear yesterday. Why don’t you just leave me alone to get on with my life independently, Rocco?’
He was crouching down beside her and his face was very close—those bright eyes burning into her like twin blue lasers. ‘I’m here to tell you something you need to hear, which is that I love you, Nicole. Very, very much.’
His words were like a red rag to a bull. How dared he say such things so carelessly? Furiously, Nicole shook her head, pulling back from him so that she couldn’t be influenced by the warmth of his breath or his proximity. ‘You don’t love me. You don’t love anyone except yourself and your wretched business.’
‘I love you,’ he repeated fiercely. ‘And I want to do all those things you suggested in the lemon grove. To start over. To be with you. And to spend the rest of my life making up for everything I’ve done, or failed to do.’
Nicole shook her head, trying to cling onto some sense of normality, despite the fact that one of the air stewards was now speaking into the intercom and any minute now he was going to get kicked off the plane—and so, probably, would she. Didn’t he realise she didn’t have the kind of funds to keep buying more tickets? Did he even care? ‘It’s too late for all that, Rocco. Don’t you understand? It’s just too late.’
‘It can’t be,’ he said stubbornly.
‘It can be whatever I want it to be,’ she said, with equal stubbornness.
After a moment he nodded, as if he’d come to some kind of decision, and then he began to talk in a low voice. ‘In Monaco you asked whether I had married you because you were pregnant and I said yes.’ He voice became more fervent. ‘But the main reason I was willing to marry you wasn’t just because of duty or the life you carried inside you, but because with you, for the first and only time in my life, I had experienced the colpe di fulmine—’
Nicole frowned because for some reason all the passengers within earshot—far from seeming irritated at their delayed take-off—were now cheering wildly.
‘What are you talking about?’ she snapped.
‘The thunderclap,’ he interpreted, punching his fist hard against his heart. ‘When love strikes like lightning—so intense and powerful that it cannot be denied.’
Nicole blinked at him in sheer amazement. Was this really Rocco—cold, emotionless Rocco Barberi—declaring his feelings and his love for her in front of a plane-load of people? ‘Why are people cheering?’ she questioned suspiciously.
‘Because Sicilians are by nature romantic and they enjoy a love story.’
‘Well, it’s still too late. And now the captain has appeared and is putting on his cap and walking towards us and you really are going to get into trouble.’
‘Please, tesoro.’ He cast a wry glance over his shoulder. ‘Can we at least go somewhere else and talk about this? I may own the airline but I really don’t want the plane to miss its take-off slot.’