Eliza had turned down his marriage proposal because she had honoured her commitment to her fiancé. It took the promise of in sickness and in health to a whole new level. She hadn’t done it because she hadn’t loved him. His instincts back then had been right after all. He had felt sure she had fallen in love with him. He had felt sure of it last night when she had danced in his arms on the balcony and made love with him with such exquisite tenderness.
He had felt his own feelings for her stirring beneath the concrete slab of his denial where he had buried them four years ago.
He thought back to all the little clues she had dropped about her fiancé. If only he had pushed a little harder he might have got her to trust him enough to tell him before things had gone this far. Was it too late to undo the damage? Would she forgive him?
His heart felt as if someone had slammed it with a sledgehammer.
What did it matter if she did or not? She was still tied to her fiancé. She still wore his ring, if not on her finger then around her neck.
Close to her heart…
Eliza got back to the hotel a little flustered at being later than she’d planned. Samantha had taken the news hard, as she had expected. There was no magical cure for Ewan. No special treatment or miraculous therapy that would make his body and mind function again. It was heartbreaking to think of Samantha’s hopes being dashed all over again. What mother didn’t want the best for her child? Wasn’t Leo the same with Alessandra? He would move heaven and earth to give his little girl a cure for her blindness, but it wasn’t to be.
Samantha had been so upset Eliza had found herself promising to spend the rest of the summer break with her and Ewan once she got back from Italy. Even as the words had come out of her mouth she had wished she could pull them back. She felt as if she was being torn in two. Leaving Leo for the second time would be hard enough, but this time she would be leaving Alessandra as well.
Could life get any more viciously cruel?
Eliza opened the door of the suite and Leo turned to face her from where he was standing at the window overlooking the view. Her heart gave a little jolt in her chest. She had hoped to get back before he did. ‘I’m sorry I’m late…’ She put her handbag down and put a hand to her hair to smooth it back from where the breeze had teased it loose. ‘The shops were crazily busy.’
His eyes went to her empty hands. ‘Not a very successful trip, I take it?’
Her heart gave another lurch. ‘No…no, it wasn’t…’ She tried to smile but somehow her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. ‘Where’s Alessandra?’
‘With Marella in the suite next door.’
‘I hope you didn’t mind me having a bit of time to myself.’ She couldn’t quite hold his gaze.
‘I seem to remember telling you before that you are not under lock and key.’ He wandered over to the bar area of the suite. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Um…yes, thank you.’
He handed her a glass of chilled white wine. ‘Shopping is such thirsty work, sì?’
Eliza still couldn’t read his inscrutable expression. ‘Yes…’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘How did your meeting with the bursar go?’
‘I’ve decided to bankroll your project.’
She blinked at him. ‘You…you have?’
‘I read your proposal in detail.’ His expression remained masklike. ‘There are a few loose ends that need tying up, but I think it won’t take too much time to sort them out.’
Eliza forced her tense shoulders to relax. Was there some sort of subtext to this conversation or was she just imagining it? It was hard to gauge his mood. He seemed as if he was waiting for her to say something, or was she imagining that too? ‘I can’t thank you enough for what you’re doing. I’m not sure why you’re doing it.’
‘You can’t guess?’
She flicked over her dry lips with her tongue. ‘I’m not foolish enough to think it’s because you care something for me. You’ve made it pretty clear from the outset that you don’t.’ Apart from last night, when it had seemed as if he was making love with her for the very first time.
There was a silence that seemed to have a disturbing undercurrent to it. It stretched and stretched like a too thin wire being pulled by industrial strength strainers.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Leo asked.
‘Tell you what?’
He let out a stiff curse that made her flinch. ‘Let’s stop playing games. I saw you today.’
Her stomach clenched. ‘Saw me where?’
‘With your fiancé. I assume that’s who the young man in the wheelchair is?’