‘I want us to leave this helicopter without fear,’ she said.
‘I am not—’
‘Shh...’ she said gently, and watched his lips stretch and thin. ‘I want you to choose to be the man you are with me, because I’m not going anywhere without him. We are going to go into that house and make it a home. Fill it full of feelings.Ourfeelings. We can write our own history, starting now, if you trust your instincts the way you showed me to trust mine. It frightened me in the storm. Frightened me that I’d made all the wrong choices and that the woman I was becoming was the wrong woman for me to be. It was the feeling of fear I’ve had since you came back to me.’
‘And now the fear is gone?’
‘Because of you.’ She leaned in, bringing her mouth millimetres from his. ‘You let me talk, feel, touch. Explore myself without judgement. However chaotic—however illogical my feelings were...’
She flicked her tongue over her trembling lips.
‘You showed me the man you are.’ She stroked a hand across the tightness of his left shoulder. ‘The man beneath this suit. I need to be claimed bythatman. The man desperate to be inside me. Because he has wants—needs—just like me. He isn’t cold or indifferent. Choose to behim. If you want to be with me, choose instinct, Raffaele. Let go of the list.’
She feathered her lips against his and he trembled against her.
‘Let go of this façade the way you did in the storm. Because I see you, Raffaele,’ she said. ‘And you see me. So let’s not stop looking at each othernow, when everything is about to change.’
She pulled away, dropping her hands from his body, and met the blazing ethereal blue of his.
‘What do you want, Raffaele?’
For a long heartbeat he didn’t move. Then he did. He bent down and picked up his handwritten list. He opened each fold with careful precision.
‘I want to let go,’ he rasped, and tore the list in two and let the pieces flutter to the floor. ‘I want to let go of everything butthis. Butyou.’ He grasped her hand, threaded his fingers between hers. ‘I want to marry you. I want this day to end with the woman you are being bound to the man you make me want to be.’
‘For us?’
His Adam’s apple bobbed above the knot of his tie. ‘Forme,’ he said. ‘Marry me because...’
Her breath hitched. ‘Because...?’
‘Because I can’t imagine starting tomorrow without you in my bed. In my arms. I need you there. Beside me.Withme.’ He reached up, brushed his thumb along her cheekbone. ‘Looking at me with those all-seeing brown eyes.’ He gripped her face, pulled her into him, and asked, ‘Will you marry me, Flora Bick?’
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his. She pushed down her need for the words—for Raffaele to choose this moment to confess that this, what they were feeling, was love. He still wasn’t ready. She was, but she would wait until he could hear the words. Understand that she wasn’t an illusion. That her love wasn’t a lie. They had fallen in love.
What if he can’t hear it? Understand? What if he doesn’t want to learn what this means?
She slammed the door on those questions because they came from a place of fear, and she wouldn’t let fear chase her away from what she wanted ever again. Because the first time she had put fear aside she’d met him. And now they were going to be a family.Herfamily.
How could it be a bad thing to set aside all those raging doubts when they’d given herhim?
Flora met his gaze. Both of them were searching, both looking. And she said, ‘Okay.’
She swallowed the exhalation against her lips. The relief mirrored in her smile shook, but she smiled through it. Through any lingering doubt. This was the right decision.
‘I’ll marry you, Raffaele Russo.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘IHAVECOMEHOME.’
Raffaele stared at the grave, yet to be marked with a tombstone. There was only a white cross, etched with her name.
Maria Russo
Flowers were delivered from the gardens surrounding the house every week, cut and collected by the hands of the people he paid to keep her company even in death.
He delivered them today. Placed the white-headed blooms on the deep rich soil.
