Natalia stared at him, saw the sincerity and something else blazing in his eyes. Something deeper. Could she walk out of this, walk right out on her parents and the palazzo, and go with Ben she didn’t even know where?
Her heart thumped in her chest and she felt as dizzy as if she’d drunk a dozen glasses of champagne.
‘Natalia?’ Ben asked softly, and she heard the vulnerability in his voice that she’d felt so long in herself.
‘Yes,’ she said, her voice a thread, a wisp of sound. ‘Yes, I’ll come with you.’
She set her champagne on a tray and walked out of the room, felt the gaze of a dozen people, of her parents, hard on her back. At the door her mother stopped her, one hand clutching her wrist.
‘Natalia,’ she warned. ‘Where on earth do you think you’re going?’
Ben stepped between her and her mother. ‘She’s with me,’ he said, his voice as polite as ever, but very, very firm. Her mother drew back, startled, and Ben led her out of the room.
Natalia let out an uncertain, trembling laugh as they stepped out of the palazzo and the night enveloped them, as soft as a lover’s caress. ‘So where are we going?’ she asked.
‘I could tell you, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise.’
‘True.’ She hesitated and Ben turned to her, his hand outstretched.
‘Do you want a surprise?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not sure I can take any surprises right now.’
‘I want to take you up in my plane,’ Ben said, and Natalia did not reply. She was thinking of the last time they’d been in that tiny plane, how Ben had pushed her away from him. The rejection still hurt, still made her doubt. ‘Please,’ he said, and silently she nodded.
They didn’t speak as they drove through the darkness to the airfield. Ben’s plane waited for them in a corner of the tarmac, looking as tiny and intimate as ever. Natalia swallowed nervously as she climbed into the plane, grabbing a handful of her long, swishy evening gown as she picked her way across the cockpit in her high heels. Ben steadied her with one hand before climbing in himself.
‘This all feels so very familiar,’ she said as she stared out the window. She heard a sharp edge to her voice, an edge she could not suppress.
‘Familiar,’ Ben agreed, ‘but different too. I hope.’ He started the plane and Natalia leaned her head back against the seat as they took off into the sky, leaving the lights of Santina twinkling far below.
They didn’t speak for a long moment and Natalia felt a tension—and a tenuous hope—uncoil and tautly stretch inside her. ‘So,’ she finally said, breaking that endless silence. ‘These things.’
‘Yes.’ Ben cleared his throat, and with a jolt Natalia realised he was nervous. ‘I never told you why I’ve been so afraid of commitment.’
‘OK.’
‘My father cheated on my mother. You knew that. I knew that, even when I was small, and it made me so angry. I loved my dad. He was funny and charming and just…fun, really. Always laughing. When I realised he was weak and full of flaws too, I felt like I could almost hate him.’ Natalia said nothing and Ben sighed. ‘That’s all rather expected, I know. Nothing new there. But what I haven’t told you—didn’t want to tell you—is that I also resented my mother, for taking him back. Over and over again, even though she knew. She knew about all his flings and affairs, and she just pretended like she didn’t. It infuriated me. Still does, at least in part, if I’m going to be completely truthful. I wanted her to be strong. And I never wanted to be like her.’
‘So,’ Natalia said slowly, ‘you avoided commitment because you were afraid of being weak, like her?’
‘Yes, although I see now it takes a certain kind of strength to do what she has done. But as for you and me…’ He let out a long, slow breath. ‘From the moment I met you I felt like I was losing control. Wanting you. Wanting to know you, and for you to know me. And yet I avoided telling you anything really important about myself because I didn’t want to feel weak. I tried to keep you the way I’d thought you were because I didn’t want to get close. I didn’t want to want you.’
Natalia gave him the ghost of a smile. ‘Do you know how many times you’ve said that?’
‘But the you I didn’t want isn’t the real you, Natalia.’
‘Don’t think too highly of me,’ Natalia said quietly. Even now she couldn’t keep from warning him off, just a bit. ‘I’ve done a lot of things. Made a lot of mistakes.’