She smiled then, a little sadly. ‘I guess we can’t always have what we want. If you give me half an hour I’ll clear my gear out of the apartment and be gone before you get back.’
And out of the tumult, out of the confusion of his thoughts and the mayhem of his mind, one thing was crystal-clear. He could not let her go. He could not lose her again. ‘No. You can’t do that. You can’t move the finish line. It’s not over—’
‘Goodbye, Alejandro.’
She turned and walked away. And something inside him snapped. At first it was the same thing that had happened the first time she’d left him—the same anger, the same fury. But then it was different. This was a pain that felt as if
his chest had been ripped open, the beast tearing its way out from the inside, arranging words and thoughts into new ways—ways that he could understand, words that told him more of the things he didn’t want and didn’t need, more of the things he did.
And it was all so obvious. Why hadn’t he seen it before? He didn’t want to go back to Spain alone. He didn’t want to marry Francesca de la Renta or anyone like her. He didn’t care about her, and he didn’t care about spawning a dynasty.
Because he cared about Leah.
She was all that mattered.
Because he loved her.
Anguish followed the revelation. Anguish that he could have treated her so cruelly, that he had trampled on her honest declaration, that she might once again leave him.
‘You can’t go,’ he called as she walked away. ‘You can’t leave me—not like this.’
His voice fractured on the last word and she stopped, taking her own sweet time before she turned around, a time that felt to him like an eternity.
Even across the metres that separated them he saw the moisture sheening her eyes, the tears clumping her lashes, and his heart squeezed tight. He knew that he had done this to her, was determined that he would do all in his power to make things right. Starting now. He took a deep breath and, for the first time since arriving in Australia, knew he was telling the truth.
‘I love you,’ he said.
She blinked, her blurry vision now seeming to affect her hearing too. ‘What did you say?’
He walked up to her, the tails of his white shirt flapping in the breeze and his salt-stuck hair making him look more of a pirate than ever. ‘I said, I love you.’
She shook her head, not believing, too afraid to encourage the answering call, the tiny quaking tremble inside that signalled the return of her heart.
‘You can’t love me. I’m just a nobody. You don’t want me to love you.’
‘I can’t lose you again,’ he said, taking her hands. ‘I don’t ever want you to leave me. Marry me. Come back to Spain as my fiancée.’
‘Marry you?’ His hands wrapped their warmth around hers as his words found their way into her heart. ‘I…I don’t know what to say.’
‘Say yes,’ he said, wrapping her in his arms before dipping his mouth to hers.
CHAPTER NINE
HAPPINESS was infinitely better, she decided, when you were coming from the depths of despair. She hummed to herself as she removed the last few things from the wardrobe and folded them into her suitcase. Colours were brighter, the air was sweeter, and nothing and nobody could make her feel bad.
And love? Love was the most wondrous thing of all, shiny and precious, a gift from the gods.
As Alejandro surely was.
And Alejandro loved her.
Life couldn’t get any more perfect.
Her skin felt so good it glowed, and her body still hummed from their latest encounter. He’d brought her back to their rooms and filled a spa bath for two, and let her know just how much he loved her. And the suspicion, fed by his veiled hints, that he’d gone downstairs in search of something to formalise their new relationship, made her senses buzz.
The phone rang and she answered it to hear Alejandro’s richly accented voice greet her. Even that was enough to trigger a jump in her pulse-rate.
‘Meet me downstairs in the lobby,’ he told her. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’