'I told you about that—he wasn't honest with me and I was fooled by him; it was that simple.' This was killing her, killing her. 'But this isn't like that. Perhaps I had to taste the counterfeit to know the real thing, I don't know, but you've been honest—blatantly honest,' she added painfully, 'and I'm under no illusion that you can return my love. However, the way I feel makes it impossible for me to stay in Italy. I'm sorry, Romano, it just does.'
'You are running away—'
'No.' She stopped him with an upraised hand, her chin rising and her back straightening. 'No, I am not running away. I am leaving. That is quite different. I didn't mean to lay all this on you. I wouldn't have, except…'
'I pushed you into it,' he ground out grimly.
'Perhaps it's for the best—I don't know.' She shook her head, her silky hair stroking her face from which all colour had fled. 'But I do know I can't stay. If I go now it ends cleanly, with some dignity, but if I stayed…if I stayed I'd turn into the sort of woman I despise—a little toy, a marionette, just waiting for the next phone call, the next time you wanted me in your bed.'
'It would not be like that.' He raked his hair back from his forehead in a gesture of sheer frustration. 'We would be friends, companions too. It would not just be sex—'
'I can 't be your friend, Romano.' Her voice was too shrill and she lowered it quickly, clasping her fingers into tight fists at her sides as she prayed for control until this was finished. 'Don't you see? I want more, much more than that, and in the end I'd be like a millstone round your neck. You'd grow to hate me and I might even grow to hate you too, even as I loved you. I want it all, you see.' She couldn't stop the tears falling but she spoke on through the pain and anguish, knowing she had to make him see. 'I want all of you—everything. To be your friend, lover, wife, the mother of your children, the companion you're with in old age—all of it.'
He looked stricken now, his face as white as hers with a tinge of grey that spoke of his own inner turmoil.
'And I know that can't be, that your heart is buried with Bianca, that you wanted all that with her and she was taken from you…'
She couldn't say any more, her voice trailing away in a muffled sob as she turned and ran, ran as though her life depended on it, along the length of the pool and out into the garden towards Casa Pontina.
And even then—foolish, stupid, ridiculous though it was—a tiny part of her hoped he would follow her, catch her before she reached the house, tell her he had realised now, at last, that there was some hope for them, that he could perhaps learn to love her.
But he didn't. And she reached the house and her room. And then there was just silence.
CHAPTER NINE
'Claire? Claire, are you all right?'
At the sound of Grace's voice outside her door Claire turned from the window where she had been standing in numb silence for nearly an hour, too devastated even for the relief of tears.
She had done and said everything she'd promised herself she never would—why, why hadn't she kept quiet? she asked herself with genuine horror. But it was too late now to count the cost; the deed was already done and her humiliation was absolute. And yet, in the exact same circumstances, would she do any different if she had the time over again? She turned the thought over in her mind as she walked across the room to the door. No, not really. It had seemed, no, it had been the only way to make him understand that she had to leave and not return.
Oh, Romano… She leant her forehead against the wood for a moment before she opened the door. She would have suffered humiliation a thousand times worse if only it could have made him love her.
'Claire?' Grace was standing on the landing, her vivid blue eyes shadowed with concern. 'Is anything wrong? I don't mean to pry but Donato said you ran back to the house as though the devil himself was after you, and that Romano left without saying goodbye. You…you haven't argued or something, have you?'
'Not exactly.' Claire gazed at her wearily. 'But something is wrong—terribly wrong—for me at least. You'd better come in for a minute and I'll tell you.'
'I don't want to pry—'
'No, I want to tell you,' Claire said quickly. 'It's only right that you know, Romano being Donato's best friend and all. Perhaps I should have told you be
fore, but I didn't want to worry you or spoil things. Anyway, I'm going now, and you should know. The bare facts are that I've fallen in love with Romano and he doesn't feel the same. He's just attracted to me—physically, that is.'
'Oh, Claire.' Grace sat down on the bed with a little thud. 'Does he know? That you love him, I mean?'
'That was the cause of me running back to the house and him disappearing this afternoon,' Claire said grimly. 'He'd got in mind that we could have some fun together, a light affair—something very grown-up that would end amicably with no hard feelings and where we could still be friends—but I couldn't see it that way.'
'I should think not.' Grace glared into the distance. 'Men! They're on a different planet from us, aren't they?'
'Admittedly he didn't know I loved him then.' Claire sighed. 'I should think now he does know he's congratulating himself on a lucky escape. He looked…he looked quite horrified.'
'Did he say he didn't love you?' Grace asked carefully.
Claire nodded dismally. 'He doesn't believe in love, real love, any more. I think that when Bianca died his feelings went into cold storage. Perhaps he'll never meet anyone else he can care for the way he did her.' It was agonising but she had to face it.
'Bianca?' Grace's eyes shot to her face. 'He said he still loved her?' she asked incredulously.
'More or less.' Claire walked across to the window again, looking down into the gardens below with her back to the room. 'Anyway, regardless of all that, he doesn't love me, and I can't stay feeling as I do. You understand that, don't you?'