exit to his room, her anger and frustration came tumbling out. She said that she got an email from one of our classmates, and he was about to set sail around the world.”
Jules’s insides tensed with foreboding. His tone grew softer as though he had disappeared back in time to that fateful night. She wanted to pull him back to her—back to the present—but she couldn’t. If they were ever going to make a future for themselves, then they had to get this all out in the open.
“What...what happened next?”
He gave Jules a quick glance as though she’d startled him back to reality. Then, in a hollow, pained voice, he continued, “Gianna said that she was tired of waiting for me. She was losing time, time that she could be off exploring the world, discovering new things. I...I asked her if she still loved me.”
Jules’s heart pinched. She knew the answer, and she was willing to bet that he’d known the answer before he had even asked the question. The backs of her eyes stung again, and she blinked repeatedly to keep her tears of sympathy from splashing down her cheeks. She didn’t want to make this any harder on him.
He drew in an unsteady breath. “She said she didn’t love me. She...she didn’t know if she ever truly did because I wasn’t the man she thought she’d married.”
Jules squeezed his hand tight. She wanted to offer words of comfort, of encouragement, but they clogged up in her throat. This story was going to get worse, much worse. She lifted her head and tried to subdue her emotions. In the otherwise clear blue sky, one lone cloud floated over them, blocking out the sunlight.
Stefano massaged the back of his neck. “I was hurt and I was angry. Most of all, I was tired—tired of all the fighting. Tired of trying to find a way out of the mess. Tired of feeling so miserable. And that’s when I made the worst mistake of my life.”
The air was trapped in Jules’s lungs as she waited for what happened next—what had turned this fine man into a shadow of the outgoing person everyone told her he used to be.
“I told Gianna that I wasn’t a man to skip off into the sunset and forget my responsibilities. And that she might as well quit waiting around for that to happen. If she didn’t love me or our life at the vineyard, then she could use the door. I told her I was done...with her.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “And with our marriage.” He dropped his face into his hands. “Why did I do that?”
“You can’t blame yourself for being honest with her.”
His head jerked up, and his distraught gaze needled her. “You don’t know what you’re saying. If only I hadn’t lost my patience—if I’d tried to reason with her, none of it would have happened.”
“What happened?”
The only sound was the breeze rustling the leaves overhead and a couple of birds singing. Stefano stared off into the distant horizon as though in his mind he was back in that stormy night. Jules waited for the ominous conclusion to his heart-wrenching story.
“For the first time ever, she didn’t fight back.” His voice cracked with emotion. “It was as though my words had knocked the fight out of her. Gianna ran out of the kitchen. I didn’t want to go upstairs. I didn’t want to confront her again. So I started cleaning up the dinner dishes. I don’t know how much time passed when I heard the car start and the engine rev as she gassed it out of the driveway. I went to the door and ran outside after her. The rain was coming down in sheets, and the wind was turbulent. It wasn’t a night fit for driving. But I couldn’t stop her.”
Jules’s wrapped her arm around his back and leaned her head against his shoulder. “You didn’t force her out into the storm—”
“But I did. I was the reason she ran off that night. I didn’t give her any reason to stay. If only I’d...”
“Nothing you could have said would have made a difference. She was only waiting for you to give her a reason to follow through with her threats. She wanted to go.”
“But not that night.” His voice cracked with emotion. “It wasn’t too much later when the phone rang. The car had hydroplaned...Gianna lost control. The...the car went over an embankment.”
How awful. Now Jules understood the shadow that seemed to follow him around and the way he pulled back when he was having a good time.
“It’s not your fault,” she repeated, willing him to believe her. “She knew what she was doing.”
“But she wouldn’t have been out there if I had thought before opening my mouth. I had all of those months to tell her how I was feeling. Why did it have to be that night?”
“Because she was backing you into a corner. She wanted to go, but she just hadn’t worked up the courage to do it.”
“So you agree. I’m responsible—”
“No. That’s not what I’m saying. You’ll never know exactly what she was thinking that night. But she was a grown woman plenty capable of making her own choices and the accident was just that—an accident.”
“They said that she died instantly.” His voice was so soft that she strained to hear him. “The coroner said she was pregnant. She was going to have my baby.” A tear splashed onto his cheek.
Jules leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him. At first, he hesitated, and then his body pressed against hers. Her heart was breaking for him. When he finally got himself together, he pulled back. She reluctantly let him go.
She looked into his bloodshot eyes. “And this is the guilt you’ve been carrying around with you, isn’t it? Every time we start to get close, you pull back because you’re still blaming yourself for Gianna and the baby?”
“Yes.” His voice took on a weary, broken tone. “I don’t deserve to have you in my life.”
“I disagree. I think I’m exactly what you need.”
When he glanced at her, she ducked her head and pressed her lips to his. He didn’t move at first. She brushed her mouth over his, hoping he’d respond—that he’d reach out to her. He’d been so alone for so long and piling on the guilt for his wife’s untimely death. She couldn’t imagine what that would feel like. He was a good guy, and he deserved to move on with his life.
His lips moved over hers like a drowning man sucking in some much needed oxygen. He pulled her over onto his lap. His hands on either side of her head. Her hands resting on his powerful shoulders. Lip to lip and tongue to tongue, the love dance of a lifetime started.
At last the wall between them had come crumbling down. Jules knew what she wanted—Stefano. She wanted all of him, his past and his future. She loved him.
“WE SHOULDN’T HAVE done that.” Stefano rushed to button his shirt.
He swore under his breath. Every time he was alone with Jules all his common sense evaporated. Guilt consumed him. He’d meant to explain to her why they couldn’t be together and he’d ended up making love to her instead.
He raked his fingers through his hair. He didn’t dare look at her. It
