‘How did it happen?’ he asked, keeping his head bent, continuing the rhythmic stroking of her scar, back and forth. Back and forth.
She trembled. ‘I didn’t listen to my head.’
‘What did you listen to?’
‘Instinct...’ she breathed. ‘There was a storm. It moved some slats on the barn roof. They just needed to be pushed over. Back into place.’
‘And you wanted to fix it?’
‘I wanted to fix it,’ she agreed.
He placed her foot back onto the cold wooden floor and placed his hands on the armrests either side of her. She didn’t feel trapped. She feltcocooned. Cushioned from the world and its expectations of her. In a bubble where she could be free, surrounded by the strength, the power, of his presence.
‘I fell,’ she confessed. ‘My ankle...it was badly broken. And it was as if everything my mum and dad had feared happened in an instant. It only took one choice—one bad choice—to follow my urges and it ended badly. It endedverybadly, Raffaele.’
He didn’t push. He sat back on his heels and waited for her to tell her story, to give him her version of events in her own words.
‘My parents had always known the circumstances of my birth—the drugs in my system. It was in my medical records, too. The doctor at the hospital explained that I should be careful with the strong painkillers that he wanted to prescribe to me because of my history with addiction. That’s when my parents confessed that I was adopted. After that I did everything I could to find out how to locate my birth parents.’
‘And you ended up in London?’
‘Six months later,’ she confirmed. ‘To collect my adoption file from the local authority. And it said so much and yet so little.’
He frowned. ‘Why were you wearing a ball gown?’
‘I saw it and tried it on. I liked how it felt against my skin. I’d never had anything like that. And for once I didn’t want to stop myself from doing something that I wanted to do.’
‘And the hotel? Few farmer’s daughters visit The Priato.’
‘I wanted to step out of my life—just for a night—and experience things I never had. So I booked myself in and—’
‘Found me just when your world was imploding?’
‘Yes,’ she said huskily.
‘And now it is imploding again you want to take a minute? Work through your emotions before you make a rational decision?’
He understood her. He understood why she couldn’t accept his proposal right now, even though she wanted to.
Raffaele leaned into her, his height meaning they were face to face, with her sitting down and him on his knees. Eye to eye.
‘What are your instincts telling you to do?’
‘To marry you,’ she answered honestly—because she’d already decided. But she had to understandwhyshe’d made that decision. Was it impulse? Or was it logical? Did it have to be either?
‘Trust them,’ he said. ‘Your instincts.’
‘What if it’s the wrong decision?’
‘What if it isn’t?’ he countered.
Her heart thumped in her chest, because her real fear was that she was going to fall so completely into this man’s eyes she wouldn’t be able to see a way out. And how would he guide her when he didn’t know she was falling?
A question hit her. Announced itself loudly in her brain. So she asked it. ‘Why wereyouin London?’
His mouth compressed and his hands slid away from the armrests. He stood. ‘You know why.’
‘Because you were grieving.’
