A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [45]
And as soon as she had allowed the thought into her mind she knew, on a painful clench of her heart, just how much that hope had come to mean to her.
‘So this is goodbye?’
‘It doesn’t have to be.’
‘But that’s what you came to say? That you were leaving.’
‘Teresa…’
Gio pulled both strong hands from his pockets and raked them through the dark sleekness of his hair in a gesture that revealed the ruthless control he was struggling to impose on himself.
‘I have to go. I have to be there. It’s my son’s third birthday on Tuesday. I promised him I’d be home for that.’
Of course. Paolo.
‘Who’s looking after him now?’
She asked the inconsequential question simply in order to say something. Anything, to fill the silence that had descended as soon as Gio had stopped speaking. Because the truth was that she had no idea what else to say. There was nothing she could say. Gio had made up his mind. His plans were fixed, and he was determined to go and there was nothing she could say to stop him.
And did she want to stop him? The sudden rush of anguish that wrenched at her heart at the thought of watching Gio turn his back and walk out on her once more, for good this time, told her the answer to that. But it was an answer that solved no problems. Instead it only seemed to make matters immeasurably worse.
‘…in Taormina,’ Gio finished and to her horror she realised she hadn’t heard a word of what else he had said.
‘I’m sorry…’ she stumbled, past caring how foolish it made her look. ‘Who lives in Taormina?’
‘Paolo’s grandparents.’
His searching, probing glance made it plain that he wanted to know the reason for her distraction, her lack of concentration, but to Terrie’s relief he didn’t question her about it but answered her question equably enough.
‘My mother and stepfather. And sometimes he spends time with Cesare and Megan.’
‘Oh, yes, Megan—your sister-in-law.’
Terrie flinched inwardly as the name reminded her of the conversation she had had with Gio on that first night in the hotel. Just before he had turned to her and held out his hand.
‘Come here to me, belleza,’ he had said. ‘Come here…and let’s finish what we’ve started.’
‘S-so Cesare is your brother?’
She spoke hastily in an effort to erase the painful memories, to crush down the bitter acid that was rising in her throat.
‘Half-brother. My father died before I was a year old and my mother married again. Cesare is her son with her second husband, Roberto Santorino.’
‘And how long have you been away—from Paolo?’
‘Three weeks.’
Gio’s quick frown told her that this wasn’t the sort of conversation he wanted to be having, the topic he had planned to discuss, but she didn’t care. Each ordinary word that she spoke, each matter-of-fact statement or question, seemed like another brick inserted carefully into the wall with which she hoped to surround herself. The barriers that would serve as her defence against the moment when he said that he was leaving—and that he wasn’t coming back.
‘He’ll have missed you.’
‘He’ll be glad to see me again.’ Gio nodded. ‘I’ve talked to him every night on the phone, but it just isn’t the same. There’s no substitute for being able to hold someone in your arms.’
‘No…’
It was as much as she could manage and she had to gulp the words down in the same moment as she fiercely swallowed the tears she wouldn’t let fall. Couldn’t let flow in spite of the way they burned in her eyes, forcing her to blink back the stinging liquid. If she had so much as a phone call to look forward to from Gio, then it would be something, but this time with him, such as it was, was all there would be. Once he was back in Sicily, he wouldn’t contact her again. Probably wouldn’t even spare her a thought, in spite of all his protestations that he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. Once he was home, and back with his family, he would forget all about her.
While she would have nothing but memories. Memories that, if this past week was anything to go by,