and Millie didn’t know whether to be relieved or terrified when a pair of electric gates opened and their car was spotlighted by the security lighting which zapped on.
She wasn’t really aware of the terse conversation going on between Gianferro and his head of security, only that it seemed to take endless negotiations before the two of them were finally alone in a rather formal-looking salon. It had the air of a room which had not been lived in for some time—although the furniture was very beautiful indeed.
Gianferro closed the door quietly and an immense silence seemed to swallow them up. He looked at her properly then, as if for the first time, but his face did not relax.
‘So, Millie,’ he said quietly, ‘is there some kind of explanation for this extraordinary behaviour?’
She stared at him, bewildered and hurt. ‘I wanted to see you.’
‘And now you have.’
‘You aren’t going to make this easy for me, are you, Gianferro?’
He gave her the bland, formal smile she had seen him use at so many official functions. ‘Make what easy?’
She wanted to drum her fists against his chest, to tell him that he couldn’t hide behind that icy persona—except that she knew he could. Had she thought that simply because she had seen it melt from time to time it was gone for ever? Of course it wasn’t.
She looked at him. ‘I’m so sorry for what I did, my darling,’ she whispered. ‘And I wondered…’ She swallowed down the lump in her throat and the salty taste of tears which tainted her mouth. ‘Maybe I have no right to ask this—but do you think you can ever find it in your heart to forgive me?’
Her words touched him as he had not expected or wanted to be touched, and so did her stricken face, but he steeled his heart against her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said tonelessly.
Millie felt as if he had struck her, but she remained strong. Maybe what had happened between them was too big to be cured with just a single word of apology. Maybe he didn’t want it to be cured.
She bit her lip. ‘Do you want to save our marriage?’
A cold and sardonic smile curved his lips. It had been his trademark smile as a bachelor, and he was discovering how easy it was to slip back into it. But this nagging ache in his heart had never been there in those days, which seemed so long ago now. ‘Is it worth saving, do you think, Millie?’
She told herself that he was deliberately trying to hurt her, and that she must withstand his taunts. That this, in a way, was her punishment. And she wanted to suffer, for she had made him suffer, and then she wanted to be washed clean of all her pain and regret and to start all over again. But this might be one idealistic hope too far, it could only work if he wanted it, too.
‘Yes,’ she said, in a low, firm voice. ‘Yes, I do. More than anything.’
And then she knew that she had to do something else, too. That it was foolish for her to wait for words of love from Gianferro. Even if he did feel love—which she doubted—he would be unable to show it, for nobody had shown him how to. This wasn’t some quiz from a women’s magazine. It didn’t matter who said what and in what order. Just because some ancient code said that the man was supposed to declare his feelings first she didn’t have to heed it! If it was just pride standing in the way of her telling him how she really felt—then what good was pride?
What good was anything if she didn’t have her man? And didn’t she owe it to Gianferro to tell him how much he meant to her?
‘I think it’s worth saving because when I made my vows I meant them. I think it’s worth saving because I have a duty both to you and to Mardivino, to provide emotional security and succour to their King.’
She swallowed down the last of her fears as she looked up into his face with very clear and bright blue eyes. ‘But, most important of all, I think it’s worth saving because I love you, Gianferro, even though you think I may not have shown it. I have loved you for a long, long time now, but I have never dared tell you. And now I am terrified that my stupid actions will prevent me from ever showing you just how much.’
He stilled. What she was offering was like a beacon glowing on a dark night. It was comfort from the storm and warmth in the depths of winter. It was like having walked in the desert for days and being tempted with the sight of an oasis shimmering on the horizon. But Gianferro had walked for too long alone to allow himself to give in to temptation. She was offering him an easier, softer option, and he didn’t need one—he didn’t need her.
He should tell her to go to hell. He should tell her that he could live without her. And he could. He had before and he would again.
His heart was pounding with the pumped-up feelings of a man about to enter battle. But as he looked at her he realised that he did not want to do battle with her. He continued to stare at her, remembering the slight figure and the fearlessness which had first so entranced him. Then she had been a tomboy, but today she looked regal and beautiful. In her eyes he could read that self-same fearlessness, but now there was doubt, too.
‘You would recover if it ended,’ he said harshly.
She shook her head. ‘Not properly. Only on the surface.’
‘And you would find another man.’
‘But never like you,’ she said simply. ‘And you know that. You told me that once yourself, on the very day you proposed marriage to me.’
Gianferro’s eyes narrowed as he remembered. So he had! Even on that day he had used an arrogant persuasion which could almost be defined as subtle force. He had been determined to have her and he had gone all out to get her. She hadn’t stood a chance.
He had brought her here and then told her—told her—that she should have his child immediately, when she had still been so very young and inexperienced herself.
Was that the kind of tyrant he had become? So used to imposing his will that he didn’t stop to think about whether it was appropriate to do so with his new wife?
Pain crossed his face as for the first time he acknowledged where his arrogance and pride could lead him if he let it. To a life alone. An empty life. A life without her. His life was one into which she had crept like a flame, bringing both warmth and light into it. Her absence had left a dull, aching gap behind—even though the independent side of him had resented that.
He had once seen her as a path to be taken in a hazy landscape, but now he could see very clearly the two paths which lay before him. He saw what being with his wife would mean, and more terrifyingly, he saw what being without her promised. A life which would be stark and empty and alone.
‘Oh, Millie,’ he said brokenly. ‘Millie.’
The face she turned up to him was wreathed in anxiety and fear. ‘Gianferro?’ she breathed, in a voice she prayed would not dissolve into tears. Something in his expression gave her a tenuous hope, but she was too scared to hang onto it in case it was false. ‘Just tell me—and if you really want it to be over then I will accept that. I will never like it, nor will I ever stop loving you, but I will do as you wish.’
Something in her words let the floodgates open, and feeling came flooding in to wash over the barren landscape of his heart. After a lifetime of being kept at bay it was sharp and bright and painful and
