Modern Romance Collection: March 2018 Books 1 - 4. Cathy Williams
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Название: Modern Romance Collection: March 2018 Books 1 - 4
Автор: Cathy Williams
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
Серия: Mills & Boon e-Book Collections
isbn: 9781474083027
isbn:
‘I don’t have to sit here and listen to this,’ he said, his blue eyes furious now.
‘Oh, I think you do, Rocco. I think this needs to be said, no matter what happens.’ She drew in another breath because while this was the hardest thing of all to say, somehow it was the easiest too. ‘And I’m telling you that I love you. That I never really stopped loving you. That I’d like the chance to start over. To give our marriage another go—only a real one this time.’
‘And you think—what?’ He stared at her incredulously. ‘That I will magically start to love you, too?’
‘Who knows what could happen if you dared let me close?’ she whispered. ‘Why did you keep all my things if you didn’t care about me a little bit? Why didn’t you just get rid of them?’
‘Did my grandfather tell you to ask me that as well?’ he demanded.
Nicole saw his face darken and she realised that she might have pushed him too far. ‘He might have mentioned it,’ she admitted and then swallowed. ‘Look, you don’t have to say anything right now. Just think about it, that’s all.’
‘How confident you sound, Nicole,’ he said, and now his words were icy-cold. ‘Whatever happened to that wide-eyed amenable woman who first bewitched me?’
‘She grew up,’ Nicole answered simply. ‘And the confidence is just a veneer, Rocco. Inside I’m shaking with nerves because something in my heart is telling me not to just give up on this marriage. So this is what I’m going to do.’ For a moment she stared up at the deep blue sky behind the fretwork of leaves and lemon blossom and inhaled the warm, sweet scent of the flowers. ‘I’m going to Palermo to find myself a hotel room and to look into the availability of cheap flights back to the UK—’
‘And I just told you—’
‘I know what you told me and it’s a very kind offer to let me use your plane, but if we’re splitting up then I’d rather do it under my own steam. Start as I mean to go on. I’ll text you to let you know where I am and which flight I’m booked on, and if you want me to stay...if you’re prepared to open up your heart to me, then...’ she drew in another breath ‘...all you have to do is come and get me.’
He rose to his feet, his face darkening as he tucked the sheaf of papers under his arm, his sapphire eyes blazing and brilliant. ‘You can have your answer right now, Nicole, and it’s very simple. I don’t want that kind of relationship. I never did. I’m sorry about everything that’s happened but we just have to live with that. Perhaps you were right all along and we need to move on.’ One of the sheets of paper he’d been working on fluttered to the ground like an oversized piece of confetti, but he didn’t even appear to notice. ‘My offer to fly you home remains—but I’m not going to force you onto my plane. It’s up to you. Let me know if you change your mind, but that’s all you’re going to get from me.’ His mouth hardened. ‘You’re on your own from now on.’
THE HOTEL ROOM was small, clean and perfectly functional. It had plain walls, a dark-beamed ceiling and a bed with a mattress so hard it might have been made of stone.
Just like Rocco’s heart, Nicole thought before forcing herself to stem that particular tide of thought. She couldn’t blame him for being the man he was. She couldn’t force him to feel emotions he wasn’t capable of feeling or make him want to try again. Because that wasn’t what he wanted. She’d been honest enough to put her feelings for him on the line and he’d been honest enough to tell her he wasn’t interested. All she needed to do now was be grown-up enough to accept the situation as it was, not how she wanted it to be.
But, oh, it hurt.
How could it hurt so much?
Because she had allowed him back into her heart, that was why. She’d broken every single promise she’d ever made to herself and now she was paying the price. All those weeks and months and years of trying to forget about her Sicilian tycoon might as well not have happened.
Opening her computer, she went online and booked an early-morning flight for England, then changed and went down to the nearby pizzeria for supper. But despite the delicious smell of the capricciosa, she merely prodded at the pizza aimlessly and ate barely any of it. She sat there for a while, drinking coffee, and when at last she left the small restaurant she found herself going into the little church she’d seen at the far end of the street. Stepping into the dimly lit and cool interior, she gazed up at the brightness of the stained glass above the altar and thought about Peggy, and about Rocco’s parents, too. She thought of the baby she’d never had, and she lit a candle for all of them. And something in that ageless symbolism gave her a new strength—as if in the flicker of those four flames she saw what she needed to do.
And that was to forget Rocco. To collect her pride and set him free. Her heart pounded. She wasn’t going to send him a text telling him which flight she’d be on or which hotel she was staying in because that would be the behaviour of someone desperate, and needy. And she wasn’t that person any more. She’d told him how she felt but you shouldn’t say something just to get something back. Rocco didn’t want her—he couldn’t have made it any plainer and she needed to get that simple fact into her thick skull. She still had a life and a future—it was just one which didn’t involve him. She would go back to Cornwall and make her pots and she wouldn’t hide away from what had happened. She would embrace the experience—with all its accompanying pleasure and pain—and produce a new collection based on the things she had seen in Monaco. Who knew? One day she might even be able to think about the man she had married without an aching deep in her heart.
Back in the hotel room she lay beneath the thin sheet, listening to the sounds of people in the street below, as the minutes ticked slowly towards midnight. Her eyes were shadowed from lack of sleep when she woke the next day and she despised the eager way she instantly reached for her phone. But the screen was blank. There was no missed call or message from Rocco asking where the hell she was.
Of course there wasn’t. She hadn’t told him where she was staying but he did have her mobile number.
How long would it take her to accept that he just didn’t want her?
* * *
The taxi which took her to the airport next morning was stuffy and smelt of cigarettes and Nicole was glad when she reached the terminal, even though she recognised she was leaving Sicily for ever. And that hurt, too. Wasn’t it stupid how everything seemed to hurt today? Half-heartedly she removed her shoes and belt but for once the security process seemed speedy and her progress onto the fully booked flight relatively smooth. She had just snapped on her seat belt when some kind of commotion started happening on the opposite side of the aeroplane. People were pointing out of the windows and exclaiming in voices of rising excitement.
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