since. ‘She was my very best friend from day one, even through the couple of years when her family shifted to New York. She came back to study librarianship at uni as well, and we ended up living together during terms. We’d each go our separate ways in the holidays, her to New York, me to Paris, or we’d take turns at visiting each other’s homes.’ She smiled. ‘Phillipa’s the most brilliant friend. Better than a sister—not that I’ve ever had one.’
She stopped, and looked at him, leaning back and smiling patiently at her. ‘Oh God, I’m talking too much, aren’t I?’
‘No, I could listen to you all night. I wish I had been there more for you, Bella.’ Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have ended up so lost himself … ‘I should have done more.’
She shrugged. ‘Come on, Raoul, how could you? The last thing you needed was to be bothered with a girl barely in her teens. And I was fine. I actually liked boarding school. It was hard at first, but in a way it took my mind off things. Besides, what could you have done? You were busy with your own life.’
Busy? That was one way to put it. And, realistically, what could he have done? He’d spent the two years after his parents’ death either drunk or aiming for it, playing every casino he could find, throwing money at every game and every horse it was possible to lose on and finding himself a new family into the deal. A family that loved someone who could splash money around and not care, a family who had adopted him for one of their own, if only to suck him dry.
And then, emerging out of the bleakness of that time, he’d found Katia—or she had found him. Playboy of the year, bachelor of the year; he’d been awarded so many of those meaningless titles he couldn’t remember them all. But she had wanted him above all others and they had been so absorbed in their own special world that nothing else had mattered. Or so he had thought. Not until much later when the foundations of his world had once again been torn apart …
He shook his head, wondering at the insanity that had driven his actions then, knowing he should know better now. For it had to be a form of insanity to be contemplating what he was doing, to be undertaking what he was doing.
Even now he’d primed Gabriella perfectly; she was still thinking about Venice even though he’d said nothing to encourage her after that first exchange. Even now she was still thinking it through, working out the angles, making it possible in her own mind, making it her own decision.
Even now it could still happen—and he could get her to Venice and clear of Paris before the news of Consuelo’s inevitable arrest broke. For Consuelo would be arrested, nothing was surer.
But right now, looking into Gabriella’s eyes flickering brandy-gold in the lamplight, he wasn’t so sure of anything else. The way she looked at him …
She wasn’t the girl she had once been. She was a woman now, and his body was reacting the way a man’s body did to a woman he desired.
He shook his head, trying to dispel those images. ‘You were no doubt better off without me.’ As you would be now.
She reached over, took his hands in hers. ‘I’m sorry. How about we make a deal? How about we don’t think about the past? Maybe it’s time we let it go. You yourself toasted to a new beginning, so can’t we just leave it at that? Can we let the past go and start again?’
If only it were that easy!
His past was him. It was his past that had made him, shaped him and moulded him, even broken him along the way. It had made him who he was now.
How could he let that go without losing himself, without losing who he was now?
He didn’t know how.
He wouldn’t know where to begin.
And, promise or no promise, suddenly he couldn’t do this—not to himself and definitely not to her. It was suddenly too hot, the air like poison as the walls of the bistro closed in on him. He knew he had to get outside into the fresh air, into a world where he could disappear and be alone and where she would be safe from him.
‘Are you finished?’ he asked, already standing, his voice like gravel as he threw some notes onto the table.
She blinked up at him in surprise, grabbing her coat as he moved like a dark cloud past her out of the restaurant and into the night.
It was raining, the lamps along the Seine throwing jagged zigzags of colour sliding along the wet pavement and across the dark water. ‘Raoul,’ she said, as she skipped to keep up with his long stride. ‘What’s wrong? What did I say?’
‘It is nothing you have said, nothing you have done.’
‘Then, what?’
‘It is me, Gabriella.’ It stung like a slap to her face that he had dropped the use of Bella, dropped the endearment. ‘You are better off without me.’
‘No, Raoul, how can you say that?’
‘Because I know! You were right to decide not to come with me.’
He hailed a taxi and bundled her and she thought he would follow until he rattled off her address and made to close the door. She threw out her hand against the door to stop him. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Sending you home. Good bye, Gabriella.’
She shoved open the door and stood up to him, face to face, the door—and a world, it seemed—between them. ‘No. Not until I know when I will see you again.’
‘You do not want to see me again.’
‘Don’t tell me what I want!’ There was a spark in her eyes he hadn’t seen before, a hint of rebellion about that sharp chin he hadn’t seen since she was a child. Not that it would do her any good.
The driver uttered a few impatient words and she turned and let go with a torrent of French of her own before she turned back. ‘I don’t want to wait another twelve years to see you again, and I damn well won’t.’
‘Who can say how long it will be?’
‘So, what time do you leave? We could still meet for lunch if it’s late enough.’
‘No.’
‘Then maybe breakfast at your hotel?’
‘That is not possible. I leave mid-morning.’
‘Can’t you change it?’
‘I told you, I have business to attend to.’
‘And it cannot wait?’
‘No.’
Infuriating! He was like a mountain made out of a single piece of solid granite, She could pound her fists against his chest except she knew he would not feel a thing. ‘Then maybe I was too hasty before. Maybe I could come with you after all, even just for a day or two. Like you say, the library will not expect me back immediately.’
‘I’m sorry, Gabriella, but I was too hasty with my invitation. I should have realised it would not work.’
‘But you asked me. Why would you do that?
