The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ her hope and happiness, had been destroyed.

      Just as before.

      Just as when Chiara had choked to death and she’d watched and done nothing. Been unable to do anything, and that appalling lack of action would haunt her for all of her days.

      And had she learned nothing in the past twenty years? Once again she’d let her own stunned silence damn her. She had seen from Sandro’s expression that he wanted something from her—but what? As she’d stared at him, his expression so horribly blank, she’d had no idea what it was. And while her mind spun and her body remained still, he walked out of her room.

      Out of her life.

      As if the realisation had kick-started her, she suddenly jerked to life, strode to the door, and wrenched it open. Sandro was halfway down the hallway, his bearing straight and proud as he walked away from her.

      ‘Stop right there, Sandro.’

      He stiffened, stilled, then slowly turned around. ‘I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.’

      ‘You don’t think?’ Liana repeated in disbelief. She grabbed handfuls of her frothy dress as she strode towards him, full of sudden, consuming rage. ‘You just drop that bombshell on me and walk out of my life with hardly a word, and you think that’s it?’ Her voice shook and tears started in her eyes, although she didn’t know whether they were of anger or grief. ‘You told me you loved me, Sandro. Was that a lie?’

      ‘You told me the same,’ he answered coolly.

      She stared at him for a moment, trying to fathom what had brought him to this decision. ‘I think I get it,’ she finally said slowly. ‘This is another ultimatum.’

      ‘Another—’

      ‘Just like with your father.’

      ‘Don’t—’

      ‘Don’t what? Don’t tell the truth? You threatened to leave once before, Sandro, with your father all those years ago. You wanted him to admit he loved you and he didn’t. He disappointed you and so you left, and now you’re doing the same to me, threatening me—’

      ‘It wasn’t a threat.’

      ‘Maybe you don’t think it was. Maybe you are seriously considering abdicating. But you didn’t come to me as a husband, Sandro. As a—a lover and a friend. You didn’t sit me down and tell me what was on your mind, in your heart, and what I might think about it. No, you just walk in and drop your damned bomb and then leave before the debris has even cleared.’

      ‘Your response was obvious—’

      ‘Oh, really? Because as I recall I didn’t say much of anything. I was still processing it all and you decided that meant I couldn’t love you if you weren’t king. You jumped to so many damn conclusions you made my head spin.’ And her heart break.

      Sandro folded his arms. ‘You made your reasons for our marriage clear, Liana. You wanted to be queen—’

      ‘You’re going to throw that at me? After everything we’ve said and done and felt?’ She shook her head, her throat too thick with tears to speak. Finally she got some words out. ‘Damn you, Sandro. Damn you for only thinking about your feelings and not mine.’

      A muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘So you’re denying it?’

      ‘Denying what?’

      ‘That you married me to become queen—’

      ‘No, of course not. That is why I chose to marry you. There were a lot of messed-up reasons behind that choice, but what I am trying to say—what I thought you knew—is that I’ve changed. As I thought you had changed, except maybe you didn’t because I thought you were a cold-hearted bastard when I met you, and you certainly seem like one now.’ He blinked, said nothing, and the floodgates of Liana’s soul burst open. She drew in a wet, revealing breath.

      ‘I never told you about Chiara’s death.’

      He blinked again, clearly surprised, maybe discomfited. ‘You told me she choked—’

      ‘Yes, she had a seizure and she choked on her own vomit. But what I didn’t tell you was that I was there. The only one there. My parents were away and our nanny was busy. I was alone in the room with her and I watched her choke and I couldn’t move to help her. Couldn’t even speak. I panicked, Sandro, so badly that it caused my sister’s death. I could have run to her, could have called for help, and instead I was frozen to the floor with shock and fear.’ She felt her chest go tight and her vision tunnel as in her mind’s eye Chiara’s desperate face stared up at her in mute appeal. And she’d simply stood there, wringing her hands. ‘By the time I finally got myself to move, it was too late.’ She’d run to her, turned her over. Cleared out her mouth with her own scrabbling fingers, sobbing her sister’s name. And Chiara had just stared lifelessly back. Too late.

      Liana drew in another ragged breath. ‘I as good as killed her, Sandro, and I’ll live with that for my whole life.’ She realised, distantly, that tears were running down her face but she didn’t care. Didn’t wipe them away. ‘And when you delivered your awful ultimatum, I froze again. Didn’t speak. Didn’t move. But damn if I’m going to lose my soul again, Sandro, because I didn’t have the courage or the presence of mind to do something.’

      She stepped closer to him, close enough to poke him in the chest. ‘I love you. You love me. At least I hope you do, after what I just told you—’

      He shook his head, his own eyes bright. ‘Do you really think something like that would make me change my mind?’

      ‘I don’t know. It changed my parents’ minds. At least, it felt like that. We’ve never recovered. I never recovered, because I spent the past twenty years living my life as an apology and cloaking myself in numbness because feeling meant feeling all the guilt and shame and fear, and I couldn’t do that and survive.’

      ‘Liana—’ Sandro’s face was twisted with anguish, but she wasn’t done.

      ‘So we love each other, then, and I might not know much about love but I do know that when you love someone, you believe the best of them. You don’t wait for them to let you down. You don’t set up situations so they fail. Maybe you’ve been looking for love for most of your life, Sandro, since you didn’t get it from your parents. Guess what? I didn’t get it either. My father has barely looked at me since Chiara died. But even I know enough to realise that you don’t find love when you act like it’s going to disappoint you. When you don’t trust it or the person who is meant to love you for five minutes of honest conversation.’ She shook her head, empty now, so terribly empty. ‘You think I disappointed you by not saying something when you wanted me to. Well, you know what, Sandro? You disappointed me.’

      And with another hopeless shake of her head, she turned and walked back down the hall, away from him.

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      HE’D SCREWED UP. Big time. It was nearing midnight and Sandro sat in his study, gazing broodingly into space.

      Every word Liana had spoken was true.

      He СКАЧАТЬ