The From Paris With Love And Regency Season Of Secrets Ultimate Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

complete and utter sham. I want a divorce as soon as it can be arranged.’

      ‘Bella—Gabriella—please, give me a chance to explain. I left today because I was disgusted with myself. I had promised myself I would protect you. I would keep you safe, and when it was safe I would let you go where you could find the love of a good man—a worthy man. I would not stop you.

      ‘Except I did not realise I was already falling in love with you. I thought that, if I didn’t say it, it wouldn’t matter, that it wouldn’t count. But last night, when we made love in the storm, and afterwards in my bed, I could not deny what had already happened to me in Venice. And today, instead of fleeing, I had to turn around to tell you. I love you, Gabriella. I had to come back and ask for your forgiveness and to tell you I love you with my life.’

      She laughed. Insanely. Manically. Whether it was a delayed reaction to the shock of almost falling from the window onto the rocks below, or a reaction to the callous way he had treated her, she didn’t know. But the sound was cathartic, strengthening her, increasing her resolve. ‘And now, when everything else has come unstuck, you serve up with the one thing you know I have been waiting for. The one thing I have been begging for you to say all along.’

      ‘Bella, it’s not like that.’

      ‘Isn’t it? Isn’t this the last card you have to play, the final roll of the die? Your last feeble attempt to keep me prisoner in a loveless marriage? But it won’t work, Raoul. Not now. Because I don’t believe you. And, even if I did, it doesn’t matter any more because I don’t want your love. Not if this is the way you show it.’

      ‘Gabriella …’

      ‘No,’ she said, standing strong now with a new resolve. She’d been a fool but she had survived, and she would keep on surviving all by herself. ‘I don’t want to know. Just arrange that divorce, Raoul. I want to be free of you and I want it now.’

       CHAPTER TWELVE

      MARCO told him she was there, waiting for him at the sea door—with the signed papers, no doubt, though why she hadn’t sent them via her lawyer he had no idea. Maybe she thought she had left something here.

      He was on his way down to her when he spotted it, the paperweight sitting on his desk, the paperweight she had bought for him that day in Murano. He lifted it up to the light, watched the way its dark layers spun and floated around the blood-red core, the darkness lightening as the layers rose until they faded into the clear glass. He shook his head.

      Even Gabriella, who had always seen the good in people, would not make the mistake of selecting such a thing for him again.

      He remembered the way she had presented it to him, intending it to be a parting gift, except he had not been able to let her go. Not then.

      Except he had not realised why.

      What a fool he had been.

      He sighed, replacing it on his desk. It was all he had of her now, and even that was more than he deserved.

      She was waiting in the gondola, looking more beautiful than he had ever seen her, a soft pastel dress showing off her long, tan legs, her hair braided around her face, falling free around her bare shoulders. Just looking at her was enough to slice his broken heart anew.

      ‘Gabriella,’ he said, relishing the taste of her name on his lips. ‘Would you not come inside?’

      She smiled a little, or maybe she just pressed her lips together, and shook her head. ‘I thought we might meet on neutral ground. Or, in this case, neutral territory at least.’ This time she did smile and he noticed for the first time the strain lines around her eyes, the tightness in her features, as though she was battling to keep herself in control. ‘Will you join me?’

      She could have asked him to fly to the moon with her and he would have said yes. As he climbed aboard, he noticed the folio tucked by her side. ‘You brought the papers?’

      ‘I brought them.’

      And something inside him died, something unreasonable—because it was unreasonable to hope that she had changed her mind after all he had put her through, even if he wished it could be so. He had spent two months in his own personal hell, wishing he had done things differently, wishing he had never agreed to Umberto’s deathbed wishes, wishing he had been man enough to follow his gut and refuse.

      But he had not refused, and now she had come with the papers that would be the death warrant to their marriage.

      ‘How did you know to find me here?’ he asked as the gondolier gently negotiated the vessel into the wider canals, and she smiled again, easier this time.

      ‘Lucky guess. I figured that not even you would want to stay in that mausoleum of a castle a moment longer than you had to.’

      Even he had to smile at that. ‘It is good to see you, Bella.’

      She blinked up at him. ‘And you.’

      ‘You could have posted the papers.’

      ‘I know, but there were still some things I didn’t understand. I have spent two months trying to hate you. Two months trying to forget. But there are still some things that will not let me go.’ She shook her head. ‘I could not ask those things by mail.’

      ‘What things?’

      ‘Like the ghost story you told me that foggy night we were here in Venice—the story of the merchant who lost his wife to two brothers. That was no legend. That was your story, wasn’t it?’

      ‘It was mine.’

      She breathed out. ‘You made it sound like the merchant had killed them both. But it wasn’t like that, was it?’

      ‘It might as well have been.’

      The gondola slipped along the canals, turning this way and that, the movement of the boat strangely soothing despite the subject matter.

      ‘So tell me.’

      And it was his turn to pause. ‘I should have seen it coming. She was a ballet dancer, as you know, famous the world over. But she was at the end of her career, and she craved the adulation of the audience. I should have known she would never be happy with just one man when she was used to the adulation of a crowd. Everyone but me, it seemed, knew about her secret room. I think in the end she hated me because I didn’t know, that I was foolish enough to believe that she actually loved me.

      ‘And, when I found out it was true, I was in such a rage, it was no wonder that even in the midst of a storm they fled from me. I could not have saved Manuel—the railing was old and rusty and pulled away from the stone—but Katia …’

      He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘She cried out and I was so angry, so tortured, that for a moment I could not move. And when I did it was too late.’

      He felt her hand slide between his and he opened his eyes in surprise. She smiled sadly. ‘How do you know you would have reached her in time?’

      He shook his head. ‘That is my curse. I will never know.’

      She gazed up at him. ‘That’s why you feared you could not keep me safe, isn’t it? You feared you could not keep anyone safe.’

      ‘How could I keep anyone safe? I could never trust myself again.’

      ‘But you did save me, Raoul. Don’t you remember? When the wind caught that window and pulled me from my feet, you were there to stop me falling. You saved me, Raoul.’

      He shook his head. ‘I surprised you. I made you turn. If I hadn’t come …’

      ‘I could have fallen. But you saved me.’ She nodded then, taking a deep breath. ‘I think I understand now, at least some of it.’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘I