Defying Her Billionaire Protector
Her stomach twisted. His words sliced too close to the bone. Except she wasn’t afraid of needing. She was afraid of wanting. Or was there really no difference?
She wheeled backwards, but he followed. ‘You use your independence to isolate yourself,’ he said. Relentless. Ruthless. On the offensive now because she’d pushed and he had warned her not to. ‘To cut yourself off from what you really want.’
She balled her hands into fists. ‘You don’t know what I want—and you’re a fine one to talk about isolation. This from the man who chooses to sit up here in his house all alone and wallow in his misplaced guilt.’
Fury darkened his features. ‘You know nothing about my guilt.’
‘Don’t I?’
A fierce ache ballooned in her chest. This exchange of harsh, angry words wasn’t what she’d imagined for their last night together. She dropped her shoulders, defeat and weariness washing over her. How had they ended up here? What were they doing? The sudden urge to retreat tugged at her, but she loved this man—too much not to serve him a final painful truth.
‘I survived a car crash that killed three of my friends,’ she said. ‘So I do know something about guilt, Nico.’ She paused, took a moment to choose her next words carefully. ‘What happened to Julia was tragic and horrific but it wasn’t your fault—and it wasn’t your father-in-law’s.’
His frown deepened ominously but she forced herself to finish.
‘I think it’s sad that you haven’t spoken to each other in ten years, and while I never knew Julia I can’t b
elieve it’s what she would have wanted—nor can I believe she would have wanted you to spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for not saving her.’
Nico was tight-lipped, but the emotion she knew he tried so hard to suppress swirled in his eyes.
‘You need to let go of your guilt,’ she said gently. ‘And if you can’t do it for yourself—then do it for her.’
And for me.
She turned her chair and wheeled away from him—before the tears threatening to overwhelm her could spill.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE NEXT MORNING they travelled in the helicopter from the island to the airstrip in Toulon, the entire journey conducted in tense, agonising silence.
Marietta’s chest ached from the emotion she was bottling up inside. Tears threatened at regular intervals but she forced them back, determined to remain stoic. Even throughout the long night, as she’d lain alone in the guest bed, she’d refused to succumb, afraid that if the tears started to fall they might never stop.
When Nico carried her from the helicopter to the jet and lowered her into one of the soft leather seats she clung to him for a few seconds too long, desperate to imprint every detail of him onto her memory: his clean citrus scent, his hard male body, the bone-melting heat he exuded.
He straightened. ‘Leo will collect you from the plane in Rome.’
She nodded; he had told her this morning that he wouldn’t be travelling to Rome with her. Impulsively she reached for his wrist.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For...for keeping me safe.’
Flimsy, inadequate words—yet what more could she say? She couldn’t tell him she loved him. Not when she knew she wouldn’t hear those same words in return. And everything else—hurtful or otherwise—had been said the day before.
His gaze held hers for a long moment. Then he leaned down, cupped a hand around the side of her face and dropped a brief kiss on her mouth that brought those foolish tears springing into her eyes again.
‘Au revoir, Marietta.’
And then he was gone.
A solitary tear escaped and she dashed it away, her insides twisting with the bitter irony of it all. Yesterday Nico had flung her fears in her face, and now he was validating them by walking away. Denying her the thing she wanted most. Him.
Twenty minutes later the powerful jet was soaring, and Marietta blinked as a glass half filled with amber liquid appeared on the table in front of her. She looked up. Evelyn stood by her chair, her mouth curved in a gentle smile.
‘I know you like your coffee, but right now I figure you could do with something stronger.’ She touched Marietta’s shoulder. ‘I’ll give you some space, honey. Buzz if you need anything.’
Marietta murmured her thanks, then sniffed the drink and blinked at the eye-watering fumes. It was whisky rather than her favoured brandy, but she sipped it anyway, hoping the potent liquid would warm the cold, empty space inside her.
It didn’t.