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of course I didn’t! I would never—!’

      ‘Yes, you did,’ Alessandro countered softly. ‘You’ve believed it all this time, haven’t you? You think it was your fault. And you’ve never forgiven yourself.’

      ‘What?’ She jerked back as if she’d been slapped. ‘Forgive myself? You think I need that?’ She shook her head so hard her hair tangled against her face, and she brushed it away in one angry, impatient gesture. ‘I forgave myself a long time ago—if there was anything to forgive. Which there wasn’t.’ Her breathing hitched and she forced herself to sound calm.

      There was no truth in what Alessandro was saying. There was no sense. Could he actually think she was to blame for what had happened? For what she hadn’t known? For what had happened next…?

      ‘Perhaps there wasn’t anything to forgive,’ Alessandro agreed evenly. ‘But you blamed yourself all the same, didn’t you? You tell me now you didn’t know. But maybe there was a little whisper in your heart. Deep down you thought, you must have known. You must have at least suspected.’

      Meghan stared at him transfixed. Horrified. She felt stripped bare … again. This time more vulnerable than ever before, and it hurt. It hurt so much. More than physical blows. Still, she could not look away from Alessandro’s gaze, his eyes blazing with knowledge. Knowledge of her heart, her mind.

      ‘Maybe I did,’ she whispered, the words torn from her.

      ‘That’s why you thought I was propositioning you outside the restaurant.’

      ‘You were—’

      ‘No. I told you. Richard Harrison—the man here earlier— wanted to proposition you.’ Alessandro’s lips curled in distaste. ‘I wanted no part in that plan.’

      ‘You still thought—’

      ‘Yes.’ He held up a hand, cutting her off. ‘Until you told me I was talking to the wrong kind of woman.’ He smiled sadly, spreading his hands wide. ‘It stunned me at first. But what kind of woman assumes she’s being propositioned that way? Not a true whore—because that kind of woman would take it in her stride, sidle up to me and make an offer. Another woman—most women—would ask me what I meant, perhaps, or assume that since I’d called you out of the restaurant I naturally wanted your services as a waitress. But you didn’t. And it made me wonder.’

      Meghan swallowed. Her throat was dry, as if it were coated in sandpaper. ‘What did it make you wonder?’ she whispered huskily.

      ‘It made me wonder why you thought you were a whore when you so obviously weren’t. That’s why you flirted that way, isn’t it? Why you stayed at that hostel—why you never reported Paulo. Why you keep thinking I’m treating you like one, thinking of you as one. Because you think you deserve it.’

      Meghan shook her head. ‘I don’t deserve it.’ Her voice broke, and she couldn’t keep the tears from clogging her throat, her eyes. She blinked them back; they fell anyway, tracing silver tracks down her face. ‘I don’t.’

      Wordlessly Alessandro put his arms around her, drawing her to him. Meghan let herself be pulled against him, let him tuck her chin against his chest.

      He couldn’t see her face, yet his thumb still traced her cheek, wiping away the tear that slipped softly, silently down—as if he’d followed its track with his heart. He was holding her as close as a lover, as gently as a child.

      ‘Mia gattina, of course you don’t. Of course. I know that. Perhaps you know it in your mind, but not in your heart. Where it matters.’

      She closed her eyes. For a long moment there was nothing but the sound of their own ragged breathing. Alessandro stroked her hair softly.

      ‘What … what happens now?’ Meghan asked in little more than a whisper.

      Alessandro tensed, then sighed, a shuddering breath that made Meghan realise he was not as much in control as she’d thought. She’d been laid bare, but somehow, in some way, so had he.

      He understood.

      Why? How?

      ‘What happens now?’ Alessandro repeated almost musingly. She felt rather than saw his smile. ‘Now you marry me.’

      The silence in the room was deafening, a roaring in her ears. Meghan froze, then forced herself to move away. She stared at him, looking for humour, for mockery. For something to tell her he was not, could not possibly be, serious. There was nothing in his face to indicate he was joking. He looked bland, impassive, yet Meghan suspected that blank look was his brand of armour. What did that mask hide? What emotions? What hopes?

       Marriage?

      Meghan shook her head.

      ‘You’re joking.’

      ‘Do you really think I would joke about marriage?’

      She shook her head slowly, hating the sudden flare of hope and need that he had ignited within her. ‘Why would you want to marry me?’

      ‘Just because you think so little of yourself doesn’t mean I do.’

      ‘You just acted like you thought very little of me indeed,’ Meghan said through stiff, numb lips. ‘You called me a child, you blamed me for what happened—’

      ‘I drove you to confession,’ Alessandro corrected quietly. ‘Absolution.’

      ‘Oh, is that what that was?’ Meghan slapped her forehead in a parody of understanding. ‘Sorry. Silly me. Because it sure didn’t feel that way. It felt like you were condemning me for every single thing I thought you didn’t believe!’

      ‘I don’t,’ Alessandro said calmly. ‘Not now. But I knew you did, and I had to show you that. Only then would you be able to move on. Stop blaming, stop being the victim.’

      ‘Thanks for the psychotherapy.’ Meghan turned away in disgust—disgust at herself for falling into his trap, and for the damn thing working.

      He knew her better than she knew herself, and it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t like feeling so vulnerable, so exposed, so raw.

      And yet, she realised with sudden, sweet surprise, it was a relief.

      It was a relief to be known and not judged. To be accepted, not condemned. To not carry the burden of her secrets, her shame, alone.

      ‘Marry me, Meghan.’

      It was tempting. Far, far too tempting. To marry a man she barely knew, a man she shouldn’t trust.

      Except she did trust him. More, she knew, than she’d ever trusted anyone else.

      ‘Alessandro, it’s crazy.’ She tried to laugh; it came out as a wobble. ‘We barely know each other.’

      ‘Actually, I think I know you rather well.’

      That much was true. How had he slipped beneath her defences, her skin? When had it happened? How had she not seen, felt, realised until now, when she was exposed and empty and he was tempting her with promises, with hope?

      With a second chance.

      ‘I don’t know you,’ Meghan pointed out. That was true, too. She didn’t understand him at all—couldn’t fathom how such tenderness could be coupled with a refusal to love, how his smiles hid a seething darkness, a vulnerable need so at odds with the strength and control he radiated.

      ‘You know you can trust me, at least. Don’t you?’

      ‘Yes …’ She just didn’t know where that trust would lead her.

      ‘So why not?’

      ‘ Why? Why not an affair? A few days at your villa and then a sweet parting? Isn’t that what you had in mind all along?’ Her chin lifted in challenge even as the words rent her soul.

      Alessandro

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