The Last Time I Saw Venice. Vivienne Wallington

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СКАЧАТЬ “There were twenty of us—mostly crew, and a handful of passengers. It wasn’t a yacht exactly, it was a three-masted barque. A special round-the-world voyage, stopping off at various islands and foreign ports along the way. I applied for the job of medic.”

      A brilliant brain surgeon, taking on the lowly job of medic for a year… She searched his face, amazed there was no bitterness in his voice. He seemed resigned, rather than angry or upset.

      Aware of her scrutiny, he gave a rough jerk of his shoulder. “I needed to get away. I needed time to think. To heal, I guess.”

      To heal? She gulped. Was he talking about his damaged hand? Or his heart, his soul? The heart she’d broken when she hadn’t been able to react quickly enough on that pedestrian crossing and had failed to save Lily’s pram from the erratic path of that speeding, out-of-control car.

      “And…did it help?” she asked tentatively, half expecting to see him withdrawing again, his eyes turning bleak and remote again.

      “By the end of the year’s voyage, I felt I was ready to rejoin the human race…yeah,” he said with his slow, crooked smile—the irresistible smile she’d fallen in love with on the first day they’d met, though she hadn’t recognized it as love back then. “And to come looking for you,” he added softly.

      She stared at him, shakily aware of the sharp intensity of his blue eyes—no hint of remoteness there now. “You—you knew I was here in Venice?” Her head whirled. Their meeting in St. Mark’s Square yesterday had been no accident? If true, at least it would explain why they’d bumped into each other here in Venice, of all the places in the world they could have chosen to visit. It had seemed such an amazing coincidence that they should both be here at the same time, in the first week of June. “How did you know?” she whispered.

      “I called your London office and your secretary told me. No other details,” he was quick to assure her, “except that you’d come here to recuperate after a bout of pneumonia.” He raked a tanned hand through his dark hair, drawing her gaze upward for a mesmerized second. “How the hell did you come down with pneumonia?” he demanded. “I never knew you to have a cold in your life.”

      It was hard to tell if he cared or was being critical, blaming her again…for carelessness of a different sort. She gave a shrug. “I guess I was a bit run-down…with London’s cold winter and taking on extra work and…and everything.” He would know what everything meant.

      “A lazy day on the beach at the Lido sounds like just the thing you need,” he said out of the blue, surprising her with a tantalizing image of two sunbathing bodies lying side by side on soft warm sand—or, failing soft warm sand, on comfy sun lounges—revelling in the sun’s healing warmth. Assuming he wanted to spend the day with her.

      “If the weather stays like this, I might just do that,” she murmured, trying not to show too much enthusiasm for the idea in case he didn’t want to be a part of it.

      

      Simon, noting that she’d said I, not we, decided not to push his luck. Let her get used to having him around again before trying to get too close and personal. He’d pushed too far yesterday and look at what had happened. He’d ended up brawling with her and jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

      But damn it, she hadn’t denied…

      “How could you let me think you’d had another baby?” The bitter question leapt out.

      He saw color flare in her cheeks. When she answered, he had to strain to catch what she said, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

      “It was the way you just assumed…” She trailed off, then gave an impatient shake of her head. “When you lashed out at me I—I thought it was pointless going on talking to you, even trying to find common ground. You—you didn’t seem to have changed…”

      That hurt. She was still holding it against him? Still feeling he’d let her down?

      “But you have changed,” she conceded in a softer tone. “We—we’ve both changed.”

      “Yes.” He glanced round. Much as he wanted to ask her about her life over the past two years—and knowing she must be equally curious about his wrecked career and what he intended to do in the future—a pressing queue in the busiest piazza in Venice was no place for those kind of confidences. They needed to be alone.

      If she would agree to have lunch with him…a quiet, intimate lunch for two, maybe in one of the quieter, less crowded squares or alleys…

      “That tour guide’s actually quite informative,” he remarked as the strident voice grew closer again. “If we listen in, we might find out what we missed seeing last time.”

      “Good idea,” Annabel agreed, turning away from him to pay more attention to the woman’s tireless spiel.

      No more was said about spending a day at the Lido’s famous beach resort or about their time apart. Before too long, the great doors of the Basilica were opened and they and the rest of the queue began to surge forward.

      It was worth the wait. Just like four years ago, they found their senses assailed by the magnificence all around them—the dazzling gold mosaics; the exquisite Pala d’Oro, the famous gold, enamel and jewel- encrusted altarpiece; and the Galleria and Museum upstairs, home of the original gilded bronze horses. From there, they had wonderful views of the Basilica’s cavernous interior and the awesome mosaics decorating the huge central dome.

      An hour passed, stretching into another. It was only when he saw Annabel lean against a pillar that Simon realized how tired she must be, and remembered that she was still recuperating from an energy-sapping illness.

      “Let’s find a quiet place to sit down and grab a bite to eat,” he said, half expecting her to knock back the offer and insist on going back to her hotel to rest. There was still a wariness about her that sounded a warning. Don’t push it. You’ve only just found her again and she’s plainly still upset that your so-called godlike surgical skills failed to save our baby daughter. His heart constricted at the agonizing memory.

      It wasn’t going to be easy. Far from it. In her eyes, their marriage was dead, and it was going to take a miracle to change her mind. She’d never wanted to settle down and get married in the first place. Marriage had been forced on her. He’d forced it on her. And now their reason for getting married had tragically gone, leaving her free to concentrate on her soaring legal career, the career she’d worked so hard for and which had always meant more to her than anything else in her life.

      “You know of a place?” she asked, and he felt some of the heaviness lift from the black place deep inside him. She hadn’t run away yet. Maybe she was just curious about what he intended to do now that he was back in circulation, or maybe—hopefully—she felt a bit more than that, wanted a bit more than that.

      At least she was giving him the chance to find out. And a chance, with luck, to mend some bridges and begin to heal the rift between them. Could she forgive him? Would she ever stop secretly blaming him? He’d blamed her for a black moment when he’d first heard about the accident, but that had changed once he’d learned the true circumstances. Maybe she could change, too, and learn to forgive him.

      He sought her lovely green eyes and nodded. “Well, yes, I do, but we’ll need to take a vaporetto ride along the Grand Canal to the Accademia Bridge. The concierge at the hotel recommended a place.”

      “Okay.” СКАЧАТЬ