LITMIR.BIZ

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room, but he shook his head.

      ‘Don’t. I shouldn’t have brought you here.’

      ‘I asked to be brought here,’ Allegra answered. ‘I want to share your sorrows along with your joys. Please, Rafael...’

      Rafael just shook his head again, pacing the small waiting room like a panther in a cage.

      ‘How long has she been like this?’ Allegra asked quietly.

      Rafael didn’t still his stride. ‘Since she was fifteen. A year after my father died.’

      ‘How...how did he die?’

      He lifted his tormented gaze to hers, his mouth twisting. ‘You heard her.’

      ‘I don’t believe her.’

      ‘Don’t you?’

      ‘No,’ Allegra said, but her voice wavered. She didn’t believe Angelica, not really, but she knew something had happened, something that tormented Rafael, that made him the way he was, dark and distant, and she was afraid to find out what it was.

      ‘Well, you should,’ Rafael said, and turned away.

      ‘Why don’t you tell me your version?’ Allegra asked quietly. ‘What really happened?’

      ‘What really happened?’ He stopped, raking his hands through his hair and then dropping them in one abrupt movement. ‘My father killed himself. I was the last to see him.’

      Uncertainty mingled with sorrowful relief rushed through her. ‘Then you didn’t kill him...’

      ‘I drove him to his suicide. And then I wasn’t able to stop him from pulling the trigger.’

      ‘Oh, Rafael...’

      ‘And my mother and my sister blamed me. They blamed me, and they should have blamed me, because...because I couldn’t...’

      ‘But it wasn’t—’

      ‘You know what I was saying to him before he killed himself?’ Rafael didn’t wait for her to reply, not that she had any idea what to say. ‘I was complaining about having to leave my private school, because there was no more money. My father had lost everything, everything, and I was whinging about school.’ He shook his head slowly.

      ‘Rafael, you were a boy...’

      ‘A stupid, selfish boy. And it broke my father. He left the room and locked himself in his study...’ He stopped, shaking his head again. ‘But there’s no need to talk of it. Angelica won’t see me again. You might as well return to the villa. I never should have brought you in your condition.’

      ‘I’m not an invalid.’ Her heart was aching, aching for this man she loved. And yet Rafael’s expression was stony, and when she reached out a hand he jerked away from her.

      ‘I’ll arrange your flight.’

      ‘What...what about you?’

      Rafael shook his head. ‘I won’t come with you. I have business to see to.’

      Allegra stared at him helplessly, knowing that Rafael was taking another step away from her, and this one far worse than any before. Yet what could she do?

      ‘Please don’t do this, Rafael,’ she whispered, but he was already getting out his phone.

      * * *

      It was better this way. Rafael continued to tell himself that as he arranged Allegra’s flight and saw her onto it. She looked at him with a face full of hurt and desperation, but he steeled himself against it.

      She might want to make explanations, excuses, but he couldn’t. And he wasn’t about to open either of them to more pain. What it meant for their future, he didn’t know. But now he knew he needed distance. Space.

      He stayed in Naples for another two days, trying to reason with Angelica, but she wouldn’t even talk to him. He called Allegra, and was reassured she had returned safely to the villa.

      ‘When are you coming back?’ she asked, her voice soft and sad.

      ‘I don’t know,’ Rafael answered tersely. ‘I have business in Milan and Rome.’

      ‘I miss you,’ Allegra said quietly, and he didn’t answer. But after the call he spent several long minutes staring out the window at the dark night.

      ‘I miss you too,’ he said into the empty silence of his hotel room.

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

      THE NEXT WEEK WAS ENDLESS. Allegra drifted around the villa, wishing she could make things better and feeling utterly powerless. She went over her conversation with Rafael again and again, considering all that he had and hadn’t said.

      Did he really blame himself for his father’s suicide? If anyone, she thought with a bitter pang, he should blame her father, for ruining his. No wonder Rafael had been so driven to see justice served. His family had been utterly destroyed.

      But they didn’t have to be destroyed. She couldn’t let this ruin them, and yet Rafael seemed hell bent on letting the past destroy any chance of their future.

      She thought she understood now why he’d been so distant these last few weeks. Not because he didn’t care but because he cared too much...at least, that’s what she hoped. She hoped that it was fear of getting hurt that was keeping him away rather than brutal indifference.

      Because that’s how she’d felt for so long. Loving someone was risky. Loving hurt, because people left you. People hurt you. And Rafael didn’t want to be hurt.

      She hadn’t either. She’d lived her life for safety’s sake, never letting anyone get close, missing out because it was easier. Safer. But she didn’t want to do that now. Now she wanted to risk. Now she was willing to risk everything, because she knew she loved Rafael. And love risked. Love fought. Love, she hoped and prayed, won. But first Rafael had to come back.

      * * *

      Rafael unlocked the front door, every muscle aching with weariness. He’d spent the last week working as hard as he could, in a desperate and fruitless effort to forget. To erase the memory of Allegra, the sweetness of her, so he’d be strong enough to come back here and maintain his distance. Stay separate.

      It was late and the villa was swathed in darkness, everyone hopefully in bed. Rafael intended to creep quietly to his bedroom and avoid Allegra altogether. He’d barely taken a step before he heard a creak on the stair and then he turned to see Allegra standing there.

      Her hair was tumbled about her shoulders and she wore a silky white slip of a nightgown that left frustratingly little to the imagination. Already desire was surging through him, and he wondered if he could make this simple. If he could make it about sex.

      Then she took a step forward, one pale, slender hand held out in appeal. ‘Rafael,’ she said softly, and he tensed because there was no supplication in her voice. No accusation. There was just warmth. Acceptance. He turned away.

      ‘I thought you’d be asleep.’

      ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

      ‘You didn’t even know I was coming back tonight.’

      ‘I know.’ She let out a soft, sad laugh. ‘I’ve been waiting since you left, Rafael. A whole week.’

      His chest felt tight and he tried to shake the feeling off. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

      ‘Why not? Why are you pushing me away?’

      ‘Why aren’t you pushing me away?’ The words burst out of him, revealing, and yet he couldn’t keep himself from it. He turned to her, his voice ragged, his gaze burning. ‘Why are you still here?’

      She looked hurt, shocked. ‘Do

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