‘Doing what?’
‘Taking over. Going all Big Brother on me. I can do this on my own—without your help.’
Leo stared at her, his jaw clenching, a stab of intense emotion—the kind he’d been feeling too much of lately—lancing his chest. He tried to smooth his expression, but Marietta knew him too well.
She reached for his hand. ‘You know I love you?’
A fist-sized lump formed in his throat. ‘Si. I love you, too.’
‘I know.’ Her fingers squeezed his. ‘And that’s all I need.’
Leo swallowed. That damned lump was making it difficult to speak. ‘It doesn’t feel like enough,’ he admitted, and realised he had never said those words out loud before.
Marietta’s eyes grew misty. ‘Enough for what? For this?’ She tapped the arm of her wheelchair. When her question met with silence, she shook her head. ‘Oh, Leo. This isn’t your fault and you know it.’
‘The surgery—’
‘Wasn’t successful,’ she cut in. ‘Maybe we waited too long, or maybe the delay made no difference—we’ll never know for sure. But I’ve made peace with it and you must, too. My life is good. I have my job, my art, you.’ She sat forward, her dark eyes glistening. ‘I’m happy, Leo. Yes, my life has challenges, but I’m strong and I don’t need you to prop me up or catch me every time I fall. All I need is for you to be the one person in the world I can rely on to love me—no matter what.’
Her fingers wrapped more tightly around his.
‘There’s one other thing I need, and that’s to know my brother is happy, too.’ She gave him a watery smile. ‘Maybe you could start by sorting out whatever has turned you into such a grouch these last few weeks?’
Leo scowled, but underneath his mock affront his sister’s words were looping on a fast-moving cycle through his head, their impact more profound than he cared to a
dmit. He felt something loosen inside his chest. Felt the heavy shroud of darkness that had weighted his every thought and action for almost a month start to lift.
He reached across and tweaked her chin. ‘I do love you, piccola. Even when you are giving me lip.’
She grinned. ‘I know. Now, stop scowling. You’re scaring off the waiter and I want my dessert.’
An hour later, after seeing Marietta safely home, Leo ignored the lift in his building and bounded up the seven flights of stairs, a burst of energy he hadn’t experienced in weeks powering his legs.
He loved Helena. He had reached that conclusion within days of returning to Rome. Within minutes of walking into his apartment and realising how empty it felt—how empty he felt—with her gone.
For more than three weeks he’d clung to the belief that she deserved better than him.
But how could she do better than a man who would love her with everything he had for the rest of his life?
Paris, eight days later...
Helena pulled off her strappy sandals and took the stairs two at a time inside the old building near the bustling promenades of Les Grands Boulevards.
The apartment she and her mother had rented for the week was small but charming, with shiny wooden floors, decorative finishes, and a sunny balcony where each morning they soaked up the beauty of Paris over coffee and croissants.
It was a girls’ holiday. A chance for mother and daughter to reconnect and a celebration of sorts. For Helena because she’d worked out her notice at the bank, and for Miriam because, following her discharge from hospital, she had walked out of the home she’d shared with her husband of twenty-nine years and retained one of London’s most successful divorce lawyers.
The weeks since had been challenging—tongues had wagged and Douglas had refused to ‘play nice’—but Miriam was holding strong and Helena was proud of her.
Warm from her stroll and the three-storey climb, she reached the landing, glad she’d worn her new dress today instead of shorts or jeans. With its camisole bodice and little flared skirt the yellow sundress was cute and bright, and she’d worn it to buoy her spirits as much as anything. She was doing her best to move on, to live the life she should have lived these last seven years, but still she had plenty of dark, desolate moments when all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry. When it seemed she would never excise Leo from her thoughts or her heart no matter how hard she tried.
It didn’t help that he’d called her mobile several times this past week. She hadn’t answered and he hadn’t left any messages—which was good, because she wouldn’t cope with hearing his voice. And, really, what could he say that she wanted to hear? Or vice versa? That last day at the hotel his lack of interest couldn’t have been any clearer. The man who’d held her with such heartbreaking tenderness in the aftermath of their lovemaking had, in those final stilted moments, barely forced himself to look at her.
Sighing, she fished her key from her tote and ousted Leo from her thoughts. She was in Paris and the sun was shining—good reasons to smile. And she couldn’t wait to tell her mother, who’d opted for an afternoon of lounging in the sun with a book, about the incredible street art she’d found nearby.
Helena pushed open the door. ‘Mum!’ she called. ‘I found the most amazing—’ She stopped short. Her mother had been outside on the balcony when she’d left but now Miriam sat in the cosy sun-filled lounge. And with her, looking utterly incongruous in an easy chair covered in pink floral upholstery, sat the man Helena decided some wistful part of her imagination must have conjured.
Her key and tote dangled from her fingers, forgotten. ‘Leo?’