choose from, but this one was different. This one spoke to her. A paperweight. And at its base it swirled with darkness, clouds of purple to black, like the dark, dank sea. As it rose, the colours shifted and turned, still complex and rich in density but with the promise of light captured in the darkness. At the very top it was the clearest, sparkling crystal while at its heart sat a brilliant splash of red.
It was Raoul, she realised as she picked it up and held it in her hand. It was Raoul and all his complexities, all his moods. And his heart, locked away somewhere deep inside it all, the heart he had shown her these last few days—the heart he had all but given her last night.
Maybe she would leave and he would not follow her, be able to live without her—but she could leave him with this, and maybe one day he would understand.
GABRIELLA found him in his office, already back from Paris on their return. ‘Raoul?’ He turned at her voice. ‘Am I interrupting? Is this a bad time?’
‘No, of course not,’ he said, closing down his laptop. ‘Come in.’ He rose to meet her, kissing her cheeks, warming her senses with his signature scent, bringing back last night’s memories in a rush that had her cheeks flushing and her body preparing all over again for their coupling. ‘You are a sight for sore eyes, Bella. I’m sorry I could not have been with you today.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, only a half lie. While it had mattered at the time, now it merely increased her resolve that what she was doing was right. Time and distance were what she needed, despite what her body kept trying to tell her. ‘How did your business go?’
He waved his hand as if dismissing it. ‘A nuisance, nothing more, but unfortunately it had to be dealt with today.’ He took her hand. ‘I hated to leave you like I did but I was loath to wake you, knowing how little sleep you got. Can you forgive me?’
She tried to ignore the flush of heat that flowed into her arm at his touch but there was no ignoring the heat that infused her face. They both knew he was the reason she’d had so little sleep. ‘I found you a present,’ she said, wanting to change the subject before she thought about what he could do to her to earn her forgiveness. ‘While we were in Murano.’
He stilled, sensing something was not quite right. She was nervous and distant, as though she’d erected a wall between them in the hours since he’d left her sleeping. He cursed the impulse that had seen him take off for Paris rather than handle what was happening here. But then, something had changed last night, something that he had not planned, and he had needed the space to deal with it.
‘You do not need to buy me gifts,’ he said. You would not want to, if you only knew …
‘It’s nothing. Here,’ she said, holding out the package to him.
He regarded it solemnly before taking the surprisingly heavy gift, strangely touched by this unexpected gesture.
‘Open it,’ she urged. Once again he caught a glimpse of that enthusiasm she had, that bright spark of life he’d once found so challenging, a quality he now associated with her and that he looked for—because it would mean his dark heart had not extinguished that spark, despite his early moodiness. ‘Unless,’ she added, a little sadly, he thought, ‘You would rather open it later?’
‘No,’ he said with a shake of his head, not wanting her to be sad now, knowing that there was enough disappointment and sadness ahead of her. Cursing himself, because with Garbas free he could see no way around it. ‘I want to see what you have found me.’
So he slipped off the ribbon and peeled open the tissue paper until he held the cool, glass weight of her gift in the palm of his hand.
‘It’s a paperweight,’ she said unnecessarily. ‘I thought you could use it in your office. It reminded me of you.’
He lifted it to the light, examining the mix of dark and light, the skilful melding and weaving of the different levels of colour with a core of intense red at its centre. With an electric charge up his spine, he saw what she so wanted to see.
She was wrong, of course.
‘Do you always see the good in people, Bella?’ he said, looking at her. Even when they are not good? Even when they want something from you that you should not have to give?
She looked confused. ‘I just wanted to give you a gift, Raoul. I’m sorry if you don’t like it; I just wanted to get you something to remember me by.’
And suddenly every hair on the back of his neck stood up. ‘Why would I need something to remember you by? You’re not going somewhere?’
‘I have to go, Raoul. I’ve had the best time—really I have—but I’m in your way here; I know. And besides, I have a job to go back to. I can’t stay here for ever, after all.’
He had blown it. There was a tightness in his throat, but it was no match for the ball tearing its way through his gut. She had been eating out of the palm of his hand and he had blown it by leaving her alone because he had had to go to Paris.
No, that wasn’t true; he could have handled his business from here, over the phone, could have given his contacts new leads to follow up in their investigations. It was because he had been afraid of getting too close—and now it had cost him. ‘When are you planning on leaving?’
‘Tomorrow. I’ve booked my ticket. Marco said he’d take me to the airport.’
So soon!
‘Are you mad at me, Bella, for abandoning you today? I knew I should not have left you that way …’
‘No, Raoul. It is more than that. This has been a lovely escape, truly, but I need to get back to my life. It is not like we won’t see each other again, surely?’
‘Of course,’ he said, knowing there was no way he could let her return to Paris. Not yet. Garbas would need funds and plenty of them if he was to mount any kind of serious legal defence against the criminal charges already laid against him. He would have his dogs watching. He would know the moment she returned home. And then he would make up some excuse for her about why the charges had been laid in the first place, and ask if she could lend the money from her inheritance to fund his defence.
It wasn’t going to happen.
Which meant he could not let her go.
‘I’m sorry you feel you must leave,’ he said cautiously, careful not to overplay his hand. ‘But if that is what you believe you must do …’
‘I must go, Raoul,’ she said, though her eyes were tinged with sadness, as if she was half-disappointed that he did not argue the point. He took heart from the observation, realising that maybe all was not lost after all. ‘My stay in Venice has been wonderful, but I have to return to the real world at some stage.’
‘In that case,’ he said, knowing that he only had one more shot at this, ‘We must not waste a moment of tonight.’
Raoul had suggested formal for the dress code, so she decided on the golden gown Natania had admired that first day that now seemed so long ago. They took a vaporetto
