Watching her, Riccardo now knew for sure that she still had an ongoing relationship with the other man. So maybe she wasn’t sleeping with him, but she was giving him her love, and what greater gift was there, after all?
‘How long has it been going on?’ he asked roughly, pushing himself to his feet and pacing the room.
Charlotte wearily wondered whether she was letting herself back in for another speech about relinquishing all contact with every other man on the face of the earth, even if the contact was perfectly innocent, because that was the Italian way. Never mind that he wouldn’t have a problem with his Italian way allowing him to take a mistress as and when he so desired.
She opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her with his hand. ‘No. Don’t answer that. I don’t have a right to know and I do not want to, anyway.’
‘You mean you’re not going to lay down laws about Ben? I don’t believe you!’ She laughed, but nervously, because this too was unlike the Riccardo she knew. Which brought her right back to the ‘seriously ill’ theory.
‘I gave you up eight years ago, Charlie. I have no right to ask anything of you now.’ He dragged a chair closer to hers and sat down heavily, raking his fingers through his hair before resting his arms loosely on his thighs.
‘But I want to.’
‘Want to what?’
‘Ask a millions things of you. Ask you not to see that man ever again. Ask you never to even let him cross your mind. I have a problem with him. I have a problem with your friendship with him.’
‘You mean you’re jealous?’ Charlotte asked incredulously, and Riccardo flushed.
‘What’s so weird about that?’ he asked, his head snapping up. ‘I am a jealous man. Of course I can’t bear the thought of you enjoying the company of another man.’
‘But Ben isn’t competition.’
‘No. Because you have reluctantly come round to my proposal and decided to marry me.’ His eyes tangled with hers and Charlotte felt her heart do a crazy loop. She wanted to tell him to spend a little more time discussing the jealousy issue, because just the thought of that sent an illicit thrill racing through her. ‘But I see now that you were right all along. Reluctant acceptance…a business arrangement, call it what you will…just is not good enough. For either of us. I thought that it would be fine, that it was in the best interests of our daughter, but now…’
‘Now you’ve changed your mind.’
Riccardo nodded with difficulty and tried to marshal his thoughts. ‘We were happy once.’ No. Just referring to their happiness in the past tense scared him because it made him realise that it might be lost to him for ever and there would be nothing he could do about it. Money could buy him anything on the face of the earth, but if she turned him away then nothing it could buy would be of any value. ‘I know what you think of me. But we could be happy again. I…was happy when we were living together, and if I didn’t show it then that was my fault. Don’t say anything. I just want you to think about what I am going to say to you, and if you still don’t want me then so be it.’
Charlotte didn’t think there was anything she could say, because her tongue seemed to be glued to the roof of her mouth.
‘Eight years ago, I let you go. We were both too young, and there was too much living left to do to settle down with one person.’
‘I know.’ Her cheeks were tinged with dull colour. ‘We’ve gone over this ground a million times before. I thought we’d made peace with the past.’