He paused, and she felt his eyes suddenly reaching deep inside her—felt it like a jolt of electricity passing through her innermost being. She felt emotion flex around it like a strong magnetic field, engendered by him.
He spoke again, his words clear. ‘I want to go forward, Eloise. Into the future.’
She heard him speak, felt the slug of her heart, felt his gaze holding hers. She saw him lift his hand, gesture all around him.
‘A future for the two of us.’
His eyes were fixed on hers. He could not take them from her. In his head his own words echoed—‘the two of us.’ That was what he wanted. A future with Eloise. Only Eloise. He knew that—felt it all the way through him with a certainty that was flowing through him now as if a sluice gate had opened. It was as ineluctable as the tide flowing in from the depths of the ocean, lapping at the shore.
He felt all his emotions—so turbulent, so torn—finally resolved, after so much confusion. This was what he wanted—he knew that now, knew it with a certainty that he could not deny or question. It was all coming together now, in this moment.
Emotion flowed with the tide of certainty in a powerful sweeping through his consciousness. He did not need more time, more wondering, more questioning. It was not necessary. He knew—he knew. Knew everything he needed to know about Eloise—about his feelings for her. More than desire, more than passion.
There is nothing she can say or do that will change that. I want my future—my whole future—to be with her. To be with Eloise.
It was a name he had said so often, and it had meant what he had not yet known—but now he did.
Eloise.
The woman he wanted—the only woman he wanted. The only woman he would ever want in his life.
I wondered if it was her—wondered if she could be for me, if we were destined to be together all our lives. And now I know. She is—she is that one.
The certainty of it seared through him. His hand dropped, seeking hers to turn it over in his, to mesh his fingers with hers—mesh his life with hers.
For a moment—so brief—he felt her hand tremble beneath his. And then she slipped it away, out of his grasp. The expression in her eyes changed.
‘Do you mean that?’
Her voice was little more than a whisper, and the expression in her eyes was one he could not read—as if a fine veil had fallen across them, dimming them.
He took a breath. ‘Yes—beyond anything. Beyond everything.’
He spoke in a low voice, but there was certainty in it, a clarity she could not misunderstand. He paused, holding that veiled expression in her eyes, feeling in his chest the thump of his heart, as if giving emphasis to every word he said.
‘You may say this is too soon—too fast. But for me it is not. For me, Eloise, it has been in the making ever since you left me.’ His eyes worked, showing a flash of pain. ‘When you left—it hurt, Eloise. But I could not allow myself to give in to the pain—I had to continue with the bitter farce of my engagement to Carla. But the pain was there all the time, deep within me.’
He paused again.
‘It was that pain that made me turn away from her on our wedding day—that gave me the determination to show that this was something I could not—should not—go through with. And that pain...’ He took a breath, ragged now. ‘That pain stayed with me all the while I searched for you—and it stabbed me yet again, deeper and more dreadfully, when, after I’d finally found you, you told me—again—to get out of your life.’
He paused once more, his eyes searching hers now, trying to pierce that fine veil that still masked them.
‘There is only one time I do not feel that pain, Eloise. It’s when I’m with you—’
He reached for her hand again, hardly aware that he was doing so, knowing only that it was a need within him he had to obey. And this time she did not withdraw from him. This time she let his fingers mesh with hers, fasten around hers. Warming his.
‘And there is only one reason for that, Eloise—there can be only one. Because you’ve become my life—the reason for it.’ His hand gripped hers, his voice urgent. ‘Eloise, make your future with me—make our future together.’
‘Do you mean that? Do you truly mean it, Vito?’
It was the same question, the same doubt, the same low, strained tone of voice. The same searching of her eyes.
‘With all my heart,’ he said. ‘We are so good together—we are so right! It’s always been like that, Eloise—always! From the very start.’
Her expression changed. ‘I was just one more leggy blonde in your life...’ she said.
Vito shook his head, his thumb caressing the surface of her hand. ‘Oh, no—so much, much more.’ His voice was as caressing as his touch. ‘Eloise, I knew there was something different about you—everything with you was so...so natural. So right.’