can’t possibly feel guilty about that.” He sounded incredulous. He frowned at her. “Paige. Please. You did everything you possibly could for that woman. Literally. You can’t stop people when they want to destroy themselves—you can only stop them from taking you along with them.”
She shrugged again, as if that might shift the constriction in her throat. “She’s still my mother. I still love...if not her, then who she was supposed to be.”
Giancarlo looked at her for a long time. So long she forgot she’d been too ashamed to tell him this. So long she lost herself again, the way she always did, in that face of his, those dark eyes, that mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice so low it seemed to move inside of her, like heat. “I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me. I don’t think I understand why you don’t.”
“Because my whole life, Giancarlo,” she whispered, unable to hide anything from him, not after all this time and all the ways they’d hurt each other, not any longer, “you’re the only person I’ve ever loved. The only one who loved me back.”
He shifted back and then he reached over to brush moisture from beneath her eyes, and Paige reminded herself that she was supposed to be resisting him. Fighting him off. Standing up for herself. She couldn’t understand how she could feel as if she was doing that when, clearly, she was doing the opposite.
“Violet adores you,” he said then. “And despite her excursions around the Tuscan countryside purely to be recognized and adored, she does not, in fact, like more than a handful of people. She trusts far fewer.”
Paige made a face. “She has no idea who I really am.”
He smiled then. “Of course she does. She tells me she’s known exactly who you are from the moment she met you. Why else would she let you so deep into the family?”
But Paige shook her head at that, confused. And something more than simply confused.
“Why would she do that?” she whispered.
“Because my father was a good man,” Giancarlo said, his hands hard and warm and tight on hers again, “and a kind man, but a cold one. And shortly after I told her you’d left she informed me that the only time in my life when I didn’t act just like him, inaccessible and aloof and insufferable—her words—” and his mouth crooked then “—was when I was with you. Ten years and three months ago.”
“She knew,” Paige whispered, trying to take it in. “Is that why she was so kind to me?”
“That,” Giancarlo said, a certain urgency in his voice that made her shift against the chair and tell herself it was only nerves, “and the fact that no matter what you might have been taught, it is not that difficult to be kind to you.”
“You’ve found it incredibly difficult,” she pointed out, and it was getting harder by the moment to control the things shaking inside her, the things shaking loose. “Impossible, even.”
“I am a selfish, arrogant ass,” he said, so seriously that she laughed out loud.
“Well,” she said when the laughter faded. “That’s not the word I would have used. But if the shoe fits...”
“I am my mother’s son,” he said simply. “I was born wealthy and aristocratic and, apparently, deeply sorry for myself. It took me all of an hour to realize I’d been completely out of line that day in Italy, Paige. It wasn’t about you. It was about my own childhood, about the vows I’d made that only you have ever tempted me to break—but I have no excuse.” He shook his head, his mouth thinning. “I know you didn’t try to trick me. I considered chasing you down at the airfield and dragging you back with me, but I thought you needed space from the madman who’d said those things to you. I took the earliest flight I could the following day, but when I got to Los Angeles, you weren’t there. Your things were packed up and shipped out to storage, but you never went there in person.”
“That storage facility is in Bakersfield,” she said, blinking. “Did you go there?”
“I haunted it,” he said, his gaze dark and steady on hers. “For weeks.”
There was no denying the heat that swirled in her then, too much like hope, like light, when she knew better than to—
But he was here. He was kneeling down in front of her even after she’d told him the kind of person she’d been at twenty. The kind of life she’d have led, if not for him. The kind of world she’d been raised in. He was trying, clearly.
And Paige didn’t want to be right. She wanted to be happy. Just once, she wanted to be happy.
“I was going to ship it wherever I settled,” she told him, letting that revolutionary thought settle into her bones. “There was no point carting it all around with me when I didn’t know where I was going.”
“What ‘all’ are you talking about?” he asked, his tone dry. “It is perhaps three boxes, I am informed, after bribing the unscrupulous owner of that facility a shockingly small amount of money to see for myself.“ His expression dared her to protest that, but she didn’t. If anything, she had to bite back a smile. “My mother requires more baggage for a long afternoon in Santa Monica.”
Paige shook her head, realizing she was drinking in his nearness instead of standing up for herself and the little life inside of her. That she owed both of them more than that. That the fact she felt lighter than she had in years was nice, but it didn’t change anything. That wasn’t happiness, that was chemistry, and she’d already seen where that led, hadn’t she? She needed more.
Paige might not be certain what she deserved, but her daughter deserved everything. Everything. She would use Arleen as her base and do the exact opposite. That meant many things, among them, not settling for a man—even if it was Giancarlo Alessi—simply because he was in front of her. Paige had watched that dynamic in action again and again and again. Her baby would not.
“How did you find me?” she asked, keeping all of her brand-new hopes, all of her wishes and all of her realizations out of her voice. Or she tried. “And more importantly, why?”
“The how is simple. I remembered you said you wanted to see the fall leaves change color in Vermont.”
“I did?”
“When we first met. It was autumn in Los Angeles, hot and bright, and you told me you wanted to see real seasons. You also said you wanted to live near the sea and see the snow.” He shrugged. “I decided that all those things pointed to New England. After that, I utilized the fact that I am a very wealthy, very motivated, very determined man to hunt you down.”
“Giancarlo—”
“And the why is this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box, and smiled slightly when she jerked back.
“No.” It was automatic. And loud.
Giancarlo didn’t seem at all fazed.
“This was my grandmother’s diamond,” he said. He cracked open the box and held it out, and she remembered, then, that first night with him in Italy, when he’d stood with his hand out and she’d thought he could stand like that forever, if he had to. His dark gaze met hers, and held. “I had
