Page 162 of A Diamond Deal
‘The fact the room is still being hired by you is no guarantee that you’re using it.’
She shook her head. ‘You are making no sense. Where did you think I was?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘All I could think, on the drive over here, was that for the last four weeks, I have had no idea about your days. No idea what you’ve been doing, who you’ve been seeing. No idea if you’re safe, happy, if you’re okay.’
She blinked quickly, hating the acid that burned her throat, threatening tears. ‘Why do you care?’
He stared at her long and hard, his eyes dark with feeling.
‘Because you were right. You were right.’ He walked back towards her, standing so close he could touch, but not. Not reaching for her, so her insides twisted with a desire to sway forward and feel him once more.
‘What about?’
‘This. Us. Everything. Me, and what’s holding me back. That I’m a goddamn coward. That I’d prefer to deny myself the pleasure of you, and the life we could share, rather than risk losing you unexpectedly. That I have been hiding my head in the sand my whole adult life, because I didn’t want to get hurt. But I am hurt. I am hurt in here,’ he said, pushing his hands to his chest. ‘I have been hurting every second of every day since you left. Letting you go tore me apart, Amelia.’
His words were like honey on her frazzled nerves, but she shook her head, unwilling to completely trust them. Even when she knew he was finally being honest—with himself, and her.
‘What are you saying?’
‘That I love you,’ he said now, no hesitation, no holds barred. ‘And that you love me.’ He frowned quickly. ‘Or you did. It was wrong of me to question that, wrong of me to try to make you think that you didn’t know your own heart. Not when you were wise enough to perceive what I refused to accept.’
He reached for her hands then, but took them slowly, carefully, giving her time to pull free if she didn’t welcome the touch. She stayed right there, close to him, engulfed by him, comforted beyond words by what he was saying.
‘It’s the last thing I expected to happen, when I suggested this marriage. But in you, my darling, I found my other half. In you, I found my soul, my completion, my everything. And I will walk through the fires of hell before I let anything come between us. I will love you with all that I am, for all time, if you will come home to me.’
‘Home,’ she whispered, on an uneven sigh. Because ‘home’ had become his penthouse almost as soon as she’d moved in.
‘I never want to stand in your way,’ he said. ‘I know you have big dreams, and I want to be by your side as you fulfil them. We can live anywhere, do anything. I just want you in my life, as my wife. My real wife, in so much more than name.’
She let out a sob, but, this time, of complete, exhaustive happiness and relief. She nodded quickly, wrapping her arms around his waist and standing on the tips of her toes, hugging him so his warmth and strength could soak into her. ‘I love you,’ she whispered, glancing up at him.
‘I know.’ He smiled then, a bright smile that told her so much. Because he’d grappled with this. With letting someone love him, with accepting that love, and letting it become a part of him, and now, finally, he got it. He was right there with her. They were unified in how much they loved, how much they needed each other, and they always would be.
Much, much later, when they were curled together in Amelia’s small hotel bed, Massimiliano’s fingers found her ring. ‘I’ve been thinking about this,’ he said, so she glanced down at the fake diamond. ‘Oh?’
‘You asked me to have a replica made, so I did.’
She nodded once.
‘But it’s not cut glass, darling. It’s real diamond, real gold.’
She gasped. ‘Massimiliano, I have been wearing this thing around as if…as if it didn’t matter if it got lost or taken…’
‘It’s just a ring,’ he reminded her. ‘But my point is that it’s real. That it’s been real all along. Just like us.’
Her heart turned over in her chest and she blinked up at him through watery eyes. ‘I believe I told you that, some time ago.’
‘And you’ll have the rest of our lives to hear me tell you that you were right.’
‘The rest of our lives sounds pretty good, you know.’
‘It sounds like heaven.’ And he kissed her with all the love in his heart and the hope of their future. He kissed her like a man who had found his way home, to his love, his life, his wife, and never planned on letting her go.
And he didn’t. Not for all the years of the rest of their lives, which were long, happy and blessed, in total, with four children—a son, a daughter, and twin sons to follow. In due course, Amelia’s career aspirations took a slight twist. Rather than working as a doctor, she managed their foundation, which was exclusively for the funding of medical treatments and research. Her work was tireless and rewarding. The same could be said of parenting.
Marriage, though, was effortless. For all she’d heard about ‘ups and downs’, with Massimiliano, it was one perfect day after the next, one sensual night after another, so that her heart was for ever and always bursting at the seams, just as she deserved. Just as they both did.
