LITMIR.BIZ

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safe here. I thought by not taking her with me on that trip, not dragging her through those time zones when we were trying to conceive, she would be better off.” His mouth flattened. “I also thought it would help toughen her up. Show her she could do it on her own.”

      Oh, no. She pressed her fingers to her mouth. The guilt he must feel.

      “When the robbers left her alone,” he continued, cheekbones standing out like blades, “she called me instead of 911. The call went to my voice mail. I was in a meeting. When I listened to the message, I lost my mind.”

      Her throat constricted. “No,” she whispered. “Lorenzo, no.” Tears welled up in her eyes. She got up, closed the distance between them and slid onto his lap. “It wasn’t your fault,” she murmured, pressing her lips to his cheek. “Tell me you don’t think it was your fault.”

      The soul-deep wounds in his eyes said otherwise. “I should have respected her fears and taken her with me.”

      She shook her head. “You were trying to make her stronger. You were protecting her in your own way. I know that because you’ve done it with me. You’ve pushed me when I needed to be pushed, forced me to face my fears. It’s how you care.”

      His dark lashes swept across his cheeks. “I’m not telling you this to inspire your pity, I’m telling you so you understand me. Us. It was never about me still loving Lucia, Angelina. It was about me being consumed by guilt. Me not being able to forgive myself for what I’d done. Me never wanting to feel that pain again.”

      Hot tears ran down her cheeks. She brushed them away, salt staining her mouth. Finally she understood what drove her husband. Finally she understood him. He’d lost the most important thing in his life to a senseless act that could not be explained so he had blamed it on himself instead because, in his mind, he could have prevented it.

      She cupped his jaw in her hands. “You have to forgive yourself. You have to accept what happened was beyond your control or you—we—will never be whole.”

      He nodded. “I know that. Watching you walk away from me this week was a wake-up call. I thought I could outrun the past—the guilt. But having to face it or lose you, I realized that wishing I’d made different decisions, acknowledging I’ve made mistakes, is something apart from forgiveness. That maybe I need to forgive myself for being human. I think it might help me let go.”

      Her heart stretched with the force of what she felt for him. For the peace she hoped he would find now.

      “And then there was you,” he said quietly. “Admitting how I felt about you. How angry I still was with you. When you walked away from me the first time, I was just learning to trust, to love again. I was in love with you. But I wouldn’t admit it—wouldn’t allow myself to love you—because I didn’t think you were a sure bet. When you left, you proved me right.”

      Her heart squeezed. “I should never have left. I should have worked through things with you.”

      He shook his head. “I think it needed to happen. You needed to grow up—to become who you’ve become. I needed to realize who that woman is—to appreciate her. Our timing was off.”

      Maybe he was right. Maybe it hadn’t been their time. Maybe now was.

      “Forgive me,” he said, pressing his mouth to her temple. “I was a fool to let you walk away a second time…to say those things I didn’t mean. If I don’t have you, mi amore, I am nothing. I am a shell of a man, because you take a part of me with you every time you leave.”

      Her heart climbed into her throat. “Promise me you will always tell me when you’re hurting. Promise me you will always be that open book you talked about and I will.”

      “Sì,” he agreed, lowering his mouth to hers. “No more holding back.”

      He kissed her then. Passionate and never-ending, it was full of such bone-deep need, such truth, it reached inside her and wound its way around her heart, melting the last of the ice. She curled her fingers around the lapels of his jacket and hung on as every bit of the misery of the past week unraveled in the kiss and was swept away.

      A sharp nip of her bottom lip brought her back to reality. “That,” her husband remarked, “was for ignoring my phone calls this week.”

      “You deserved it.”

      “Yes,” he agreed throatily, standing and sweeping her up in his arms, “I did. Allow me to demonstrate how very sorry I am.”

      He carried her through the shadowy penthouse to their bedroom. Dispensing with her dress, he set her on the bed. She watched as he stripped off his clothes, his body showcased to delicious advantage in the close-fitting black hipster briefs he favored.

      His eyes turned a smoky black as he stripped them off and joined her on the bed. “You like what you see? Take it, cara, I’m all yours.”

      She straddled his beautiful, muscular body, emotion clogging her throat. “I’ve missed you,” she murmured, leaning over to kiss him. “Nothing is right when I’m not with you. You are my heart, Lorenzo Ricci.”

      His kiss said the words back. Passionate, perfect, it was everything she knew they were going to be. Because now that they were an open book, now that they had exorcised their last ghost, anything was possible.

      Breaking the kiss, she took him inside her slick heat. Gasped when he tilted his hips and filled her with his thick, hard length in a single thrust that stole her breath.

      “You can’t do it, can you? Let me take control?”

      His dark eyes glittered. “You wouldn’t have it any other way.”

      No…she wouldn’t. Not in this particular arena.

      She let herself drown in his black eyes as he made love to her slowly, languidly, telling her how much he loved her until their breath grew rough and they were both poised on the edge of a release that promised to be spectacular.

      “Say it again,” she murmured.

      “What?”

      “That you love me.”

      His mouth curved. “Ti amo, angelo mio.”

       I love you, my angel.

      Her heart wove itself back together. “I love you, too, Lorenzo,” she whispered back before he closed his hands around her hips and took her to heaven.

      Her first love. Her only love. Her forever love.

       Epilogue

      Nassau, Bahamas, El Paraíso de Mar—the Carmichael Estate

       “P APA !”

      A squeal of delight from one of her girls was Angie’s first hint that her husband had arrived home in time for the Carmichaels’ annual winter party, just as he’d promised, after a week’s trip to Italy.

      Ready for a shower before the party, she slipped on a robe, tied it around her waist and walked to stand in the doorway of the adjoining bedroom. Her husband stood in jeans and a T-shirt, his bag abandoned, a giggling, excited daughter under each arm as their nanny looked on.

      Abelie Lucia and Liliana Ines, their four-year-old identical twins, were playing their usual game.

      “Lili,” said Abelie, pressing a hand to her chest.

      Lorenzo gave her a kiss and set her down. “E, Abelie,” he said, giving his other daughter a kiss.

      The girls collapsed into gales of laughter. “Mia Abelie,” her oldest reproved, wrinkling her nose at her father.

      “Ah, sì,”

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