thing she had admitted to him over the last few months.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ he asked, stroking her hair. ‘For support?’
‘Bless you for asking, but no. I can do this.’
But her expression was grim. She was clearly dreading this. ‘Melinda, you’re not on your own,’ he said softly. ‘You have me. And if there’s anything I can do, all you have to do is say so.’
‘Right now, just hold me. Please.’ Her voice sounded hoarse, broken—as if she was trying to hold back her tears. Typical Melinda, being brave and not leaning on anyone else.
‘Let the tears come, piccola,’ he said softly. ‘They will help.’
She dragged in a breath. ‘Right now I feel like the most selfish, horrible woman in the world.’
‘Why?’ He really didn’t follow. Ignoring the fish and chips, he led her over to the sofa and settled her on his lap.
‘Because you…you’ve lost your family. And you were close to them. I’m not close to mine—and I feel horrible telling you that, because I have what you’ve lost and I don’t want you to think I’m just…oh…not appreciating it, throwing it all away like a toddler having a tantrum with her toys.’
‘Of course I don’t. I’d already guessed you weren’t close to them. But it doesn’t make me love you any less. Not all families are like mine—I see plenty of difficult relationships in my job,’ he reminded her. ‘Let me go with you, tesoro. So at least you have someone on your side.’
For a moment he thought she was going to say yes. But then she shook her head. ‘I won’t drag you into all this mess. And I…I could strangle Raffi for being so reckless, so stupid. And my parents, for not letting me say goodbye to him. The accident happened days ago. He died yesterday. And they didn’t tell me until today, until after he was dead and it was too late for me to say goodbye.’
‘Maybe it was grief,’ he suggested. ‘Maybe they couldn’t find the words to tell you.’ It had been hard for him to tell people after his family had been wiped out. Most of the time it had hurt too much to articulate. And when he had managed to say it, the pity on other people’s faces had choked him.
‘It’s not just them. I’m so angry with him.’
Anger was one of the stages of grief, he knew, along with denial and bargaining and depression. And finally there would be acceptance. But she really needed to talk about this. As she’d said to him so recently, bottling things up made them worse. ‘Why?’ he asked softly.
‘He always had to have the fastest car. And he always drove like a maniac. He knew Papà was expecting him to take over—but would he be careful? No. Scrape after scrape after scrape. And I always had to bail him out.’ She shook her head. ‘The day before my Finals started, he expected me to go back to Contarini and sort things out with our parents. He’d been stupid and lost a lot of money in a card game.’
So her parents were wealthy? Dragan wasn’t that surprised. She had an air of breeding about her. Though he’d just bet she’d been like him and worked her own way through college—not because she’d had to but because she was too independent to rely on a silver spoon.
Maybe that was why she’d reacted so badly to his teasing ‘princessy’ comment.
‘But I said no. I’d worked too hard for my exams to give it all up for something I knew would just happen again and again—because Raffi only ever did what he wanted and he never stopped to think things through before he acted.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘And he barely spoke to me afterwards, because I made him stand on his own two feet for once.’
‘He probably still knew you loved him.’
‘And that’s another reason I don’t like myself. Because I’m not so sure I did love him.’
‘You can love someone without liking them,’ Dragan pointed out, stroking her hair.
‘I don’t fit in with my family. I never have. And I know the second I step off that plane the pressure’s going to start.’
‘Pressure?’
‘To go back to Contarini. To do what they want me to do. Give up being a vet—but I can’t. This is who I am, Dragan.’
‘Then let me come with you. Take some of the flak for you.’
‘You can’t.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s really not fair to you.’
‘Carissima, you didn’t ask. I offered. Look, I’ve lived through a war. Nothing scares me any more because I know there is always a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark things seem at the time. And I can help you through this.’
‘You can’t,’ she repeated. ‘We’ve got that appointment lined up with Reverend Kenner tomorrow.’
‘He won’t mind putting it back. Besides, I can’t discuss the wedding without you.’
‘Yes, you can. Otherwise it holds everything up.’
He frowned. ‘What difference does a couple of days make? Why the hurry?’
‘Because I don’t want to wait for the rest of my life to start.’
Something was going on here, and he really wasn’t sure what it was.
‘Dragan. I love you,’ she said softly. Urgently. ‘I want to marry you and I don’t want my family interfering.’
He didn’t understand why they’d interfere. At twentyseven, Melinda was more than capable of making her own choices. ‘So you haven’t told them yet? About us, I mean?’
She shook her head. ‘And now isn’t the right time. Not with Raffi’s funeral.’
‘But if you want to get married as soon as we can, you’ll have to give them some notice. Surely they’ll want to come to the wedding?’
‘I’ll tell them when we’ve set a date. Which you and Reverend Kenner can sort out tomorrow.’ She twisted her hair round her fingers. ‘At least I’ll be able to come home to you and to happy news.’
He rested his cheek against her hair. ‘All right. If that’s really what you want me to do. But at least let me drive you to the airport tomorrow. And I can pick you up when you get back.’
‘Thank you.’ She held him tightly, almost as if she were drowning and he was the only thing keeping her afloat. ‘Dragan. There is something I should tell you about, something we need to discuss. Something…’
She sounded worried sick, and he dropped a kiss on her forehead. ‘Not now. You’ve just had a horrible shock. Whatever it is, it can wait until you’re back from Contarini. Everything’s going to be fine.’
‘I love you. And I don’t deserve you.’
He scoffed. ‘Of course you do.’ Or was this why she wasn’t close to her family? Was this why she’d chosen to move to another country, because they were
