you stayed with him.’
He’d hit the bullseye, and her heart started to thump hard inside her chest. The enchanting night receded, along with the heady scent of flowers and the chorus of insects making their nocturnal sounds in the background.
‘Yes … I stayed. Unbelievably, I was married to him for three years.’
‘You must have cared deeply for him if you were willing to sacrifice your own need for children to stay with such a man.’
There was a frown on his handsome face, and Laura wondered at the depth of interest in his eyes.
‘My feelings for him were … complicated.’ Tugging her shawl more securely around her, she felt suddenly far colder than the temperature dictated she should be. The fragrant wind lapped across her body like ice.
‘What does that mean, Laura? Tell me.’
Fabian’s long, unwavering gaze was like a flame licking at her, and it was hard to hold out against such a compelling force.
‘I … I was afraid of him.’
The gaze that scrutinised her features so closely narrowed, then he stared even harder than before. ‘Did he intimidate you? Hurt you?’
‘Yes.’
‘He physically hurt you?’ ‘Sometimes … yes.’
He bit out something that was clearly a savage expression of disgust. ‘I am very sorry to hear you say that. But I am not sorry to hear that such a man is no longer in your life! Accident or not, you are clearly much better off without him!’
Her throat starting to ache, Laura sensed the encroaching tide of anguished memory skirt too close for comfort, and mentally willed it to back off. It was a technique she’d learned to save her sanity. It was rare that she spoke about Mark and his treatment of her—to anyone. Not even her parents. Keeping the wounding memories at bay sometimes felt like a fulltime job, but she had no desire to wallow in pain and regret or even self-pity. Time and time again she told herself it was the future she should concentrate on … not the past.
‘Anyway … it’s a part of my life I try not to think about too often. I’m sure you can understand that? These things can either shape you or break you, and I’d take drastic steps before I let that happen!’ A small heartfelt sigh escaped into the fragrant air. ‘And what about you, Fabian?’ All Laura’s muscles clenched hard as she succumbed to her own curiosity about him … In the deepening dusk, his arrestingly sculpted face was thrown partly into shadow. Yet still the wariness that he wore like a shield was startlingly evident. ‘Presumably … with this estate to run and everything … you would like children too?’ she continued.
‘I have made you sad, reminding you of the past.’ Abruptly getting to his feet, it was clear that Fabian had no intention of answering Laura right then. ‘Let us continue our walk, and I promise not to upset you with any more difficult questions … si?’
As she stood up, her mind busy with pondering why he could ask her about her desire for children but she could not do the same to him, he put his hand against her back, and once again her skin registered his touch like a ray of heat that scorched right through her clothing to leave her tingling. ‘Okay …’
They walked on in silence for a while, and gradually Laura’s tension around Fabian began to ebb a little.
‘I’m trying to imagine what it must have been like, growing up in a place like this,’ she announced suddenly, drinking in the stunning vista all around her. ‘Your own enchanted forest!’
‘Enchanted?’ His voice was devoid of the pleasure she had half expected to hear in it. ‘I suppose to someone viewing it from the outside it might look like that.’
His tone hinted at bitterness and regret, and it made Laura wonder about the extent of his father’s cruelty. Her chest tightened in sympathy. Instead of pursuing her curiosity about his past, she decided to contain it for another day.
Turning his back, Fabian led her down a narrow winding pathway edged with a riot of colourful exotic blooms, and through an arbour of roses that led into yet another exquisite garden, bursting with colour and scent.
Laura drank it all in—the beauty, the night and the man—and the startling realisation came to her that she longed for these stunning moments never to come to an end.
CHAPTER FIVE
IT MADE sense that she was a widow. What else but a tragedy could have put that distant yet undeniable hurt in her pale grey eyes?
The following afternoon, watching Laura from the long windows of the office as she conversed on the lawn with the catering supervisor of the company they’d hired to provide the food and drink for the concert attendees, Fabian reflected on why he had held back on the proposition he had been going to put to her. Was two years long enough to get over the death of her husband and the cruel legacy of memory he must have left her with? Had she loved him, despite his cruelty? And had her experience coloured her view of all future possibilities of another relationship?
Last night had not been the time to quiz her on any of this. But, despite all his unanswered questions, it came to him that under the circumstances she might well welcome a partnership where there was no emotional expectation involved or required other than that she be a devoted mother and the kind of respectful wife whom not a breath of scandal would ever touch to shame him. In return Fabian could give Laura many things that would help make life good for her … a sense of security and stability, for one thing, and a guarantee that both she and their offspring would never want for anything. Would that be enough to persuade her to become his wife?
‘I can’t believe the concert is tomorrow night! It feels like everything is coming together at last—fingers crossed! And I’ve a feeling it’s going to be just wonderful!’
She breezed into the room, a clutch of papers in a see-through folder against her chest, her hair slightly tousled from the welcome breeze that had sprung up that morning. Fabian glanced up from the list of phone calls he had yet to make and spied a speck of white at the corner of her mouth. Getting to his feet, he wandered across to where she stood and inspected the mark more closely.
‘You appear to have some cream at the side of your mouth,’ he told her, and before Laura could do anything about it he reached towards her and smoothed it away with his fingers. Her eyes went round as dinner plates.
‘Maria gave me some cake a while ago. I should have checked in a mirror. I’ve been standing there talking to Signor Minetti from the catering company for the past twenty minutes!’
‘It was barely noticeable.’ Smiling, Fabian reflected that he liked her confusion, and the way she blushed so readily. But right then he had other, more important considerations to contemplate. His face turned suddenly serious. ‘We will take some time out,’ he announced, catching her by the elbow and guiding her back to where he’d been working. He nodded towards the padded seat on the other side of the desk that had been left there for visitors. ‘Sit down, Laura.’
‘Did I tell you that some of the stars from the opera are coming over this evening to rehearse?’ she asked him, still clutching the sheaf of papers against her emerald-green dress and clearly nervous.
‘Yes, you did … twice,
