One Reckless Decision

She wanted to scream at him, to protest what he’d said, but how could she? She had done all of those things. Could he not see how he had driven her to it? How she had never had any other choice? How she had felt forced to flee—or she might have withered away to nothing but an empty shell?

“I have always been right here, Bethany,” he said, the anger she had never imagined she would see in him lighting him with a cold glow, making her yearn to warm him somehow, despite herself. “Right here, awaiting your return, should you ever condescend to recall your commitments.”

“I don’t know why you would expect—” she began, but cut herself off, her mind reeling. How could she ever imagine he might see these things from her perspective?

He saw only her abandonment of him. He never saw his own abandonment of her, because he had not physically left her. He had only disappeared in every other possible way. Yet he still considered himself firmly on the moral high ground.

“You to keep your promises?” he finished for her, his voice heavy with irony. When his gaze met hers it was too intense and angry, kicking into her and making her stomach clench and her breath catch. “Because you gave your word.”

She wanted to fight him, deny his condemnation—but she was much too afraid that was not what she really wanted. That beneath it, she only wanted those dark eyes to shine at her again, as they had once. And she could not let herself down that way. Not this time. Not again.

“You gave your word too,” she said in a determined undertone. “But that did not prevent you from conveniently—”

“Did I beat you?” he asked, his voice raw, yet still so fiercely controlled. Only his eyes showed any hint of the wildness within, so dark and stormy, bittersweet and on fire. “Did I take other women to my bed? Did I abuse you? Demean you? Did I fail to attend to your every need?”

He waved a hand at the castello.

“Is my home not big enough? Is it too rural? Would you prefer the house in Milan? Exactly what is the root of all this bitterness and hostility?” he demanded. “What did I do that was so terrible you punished me in the only way you could—by running away?”

She could not breathe for a long moment, could not manage it past the swell of agony that swept through her. When she could, she had to fight off tears. Was that truly how he saw her—no more than a spiteful little brat? She knew with a sudden, unbearable certainty that it was. He believed she’d left him on a whim—rather than in pieces.

“I can’t imagine why you ever wanted me in the first place,” she managed to say, her voice trembling, shaken to the bone.

“Oh, I want you.” His voice was far too raw then, with too many undercurrents, and spoke to all the sins she dared not name—all of which he had taught her. The look in his eyes set her afire. His expression was almost brooding. Something deeper, more painful, than simply wry. “It seems there is nothing at all you can do to keep me from wanting you, and you have certainly put that to the test.”

He did not move, he only watched her, and yet he seemed, suddenly, to be everywhere. It was as if she had forgotten the danger of being this close to him—of talking to him, of allowing him to weave his way into her psyche again—until this very second—and now she could notice nothing else.

Her heart beat in a jagged rhythm. Her mouth was far too dry. She felt as if her entire body was short-circuiting, shutting down. Readying itself for his touch.

It did not matter how much it hurt. She still wanted him. She always wanted him.

Blindly, she shoved away from the table and lurched to her feet. She knew only that she had to escape. She had to put distance between them, because he might have made a promise not to touch her of his own volition, but she knew all too well that she was the one who could not be trusted in that area.

She moved toward the French doors and she knew even as she reached for the handle that he was behind her. She did not have to turn and confirm it, not when she could feel him.

She stopped with her hand on the ornate handle and felt the heat of him at her back, so close she could smell the faintest hint of his cologne—so near that if she shifted her weight backward she would be nestled beneath his chin, her back against the hot, hard wall of his chest.

“You promised!” she whispered, desperate to run away and yet frozen in place. She wanted him, but she also wanted the comfort of his heat, his closeness, his scent.

He had been her man, her family, her love. She still did not know how to let go of any of that, only that she must.

Even so, her eyes drifted closed. “You said you would not …”