A Sicilian Husband - Kate Walker [69]
‘Without wishing that you could tell her how much you loved her, just one more time,’ Terrie supplied, wonderingly, when his voice cracked embarrassingly, preventing him from finishing the sentence. ‘Yes. But I don’t see what—’
‘I’m not going to let it happen again,’ Gio told her, his eyes burning into hers, his voice ringing with a harsh desperation. ‘I’m not going to let another woman go out of my life and not say how I feel. If you go—if you insist on leaving, Teresa, amata mia—then I will do the only thing that I can. Even if you are thousands of miles away, I will have to speak to you. Have to tell you that I love you every night before I can sleep.’
‘What?’
The dresses dropped from Terrie’s hands and she sank down onto the bed, her legs suddenly unable to support her any more.
‘You have to tell me that…’
‘That I love you.’
It was low and deep and huskily sincere.
‘Is that the truth?’ Even though he had said it to her face, she still found it impossible to believe.
‘Why else would I say it, cara mia?’
‘Well—but you said to—to that woman…’
‘To Rosa? Lucia’s mother? Teresa, carina, you have to ignore anything I said to her. Do you truly think that I would tell her that I loved you before I even told you myself?’
‘And it’s true? I thought you would never love anyone the way you loved Lucia.’
‘And I thought so too.’
Gio crouched down in front of her, taking both her hands in his, folding his strong fingers tightly over them.
‘I thought that with Lucia I’d had my quota of happiness in my lifetime. After all, some people don’t even get the ten years we had together. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have it happen again.’
Lifting her hands to his mouth, he pressed a long, lingering kiss on them, and all the while his eyes locked with hers, never wavering, never hesitating for a second.
‘And I thought that, because I’d loved once, if it ever did happen again it would be in exactly the same way as it had been with Lucia. I fell in love with her through liking her, and knowing that I wanted to be with her. With you it was—different.’
‘How different?’ The words came out jerkily, made uneven by the fast, heavy pounding of her heart.
Gio’s smile was wry, slightly self-mocking.
‘You knocked me off balance right from the start. I wanted you so badly, I was blind, deaf and dumb to anything else. And at first I felt guilty. I felt as if I’d betrayed Lucia by wanting another woman—as if I’d somehow been unfaithful to her.’
‘I’m sure Lucia wouldn’t mind. I know she’d want you to be happy.’
Gio nodded his proud, dark head slowly in agreement.
‘And now I see that you’re right. But I had to come to that in my own time. That’s what last night was all about. Being here, with you, being able talk about her, to share Lucia with you, it helped me to come to terms with my loss at long last. And it helped me to say goodbye to her and be ready to move on to the next stage of my life—with you…if you’ll have me.’
‘If I’ll… Oh, Gio!’
Reaching forward, Terrie laced her hands in the jet silk of his hair, drawing his face towards her for her kiss. His mouth was so tender, so responsive, so giving that she felt tears burn at her eyes once more. But this time they were tears of the purest joy.
‘But you didn’t say. Even last night…’
‘Even last night I was still too much of a coward. Even when I knew how much I wanted this, wanted you in my life, I didn’t dare say.’
Gio sighed deeply, lifted a hand to touch her cheek with infinite gentleness.
‘My own son is braver than I am. He had no hesitation in telling you that he loved you, while I did everything I could to avoid it.’
Terrie’s smile of forgiveness was gentle, filled with understanding.
‘He’s only a child. He doesn’t really understand the pain that love can bring.’
For a moment the shadows of the past clouded Gio’s eyes, so that it hurt her to see them.
‘I was afraid of that too,’ he admitted. ‘I’d lost my love once; I was terrified that it would happen again. Then I realised that by being too much of a coward to