Secrets of Castillo del Arco (19 page)

‘Maybe it’s not so bad, what you did. Or maybe why you did it.’

He turned towards her, trying to find a meaning to her cryptic comment. But she was looking ahead, avoiding his gaze, staring at the buildings now turning softly golden with the lowering sun. ‘They called me, you know, several times—Consuelo’s lawyers.’

‘What did they want?’

‘Money. I turned twenty-five last week. Consuelo thought I might like to donate to his defence fund.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘That I had better things to do with my money. You were right; he would have sucked me dry.’

She looked at him then. ‘I went to the hospital where Consuelo’s foundation was based. I went to talk to the director to see what I could do about providing for a new foundation to support those children undergoing chemotherapy, those left in the cold without funding after the collapse of the foundation. He told me that someone had already taken care of it. That someone had already covered what they had lost in the foundation and more.’

She hesitated and looked up him with tears in her eyes. ‘That was you, Raoul. You funded the programme, so no child’s treatment would be interrupted. So those children’s lives might be saved.’

He saw the setting sun in her eyes, saw the golden light dance in her tears. ‘I felt responsible.’

Moisture tracked down her cheeks. ‘And for two months I have been trying to find a reason to hate you, to believe you had no heart—but everywhere I look, everything I remember, makes the pieces fall another way. And then, with learning of one generous act of kindness, I knew I was wrong. How could I hate a man who did such a thing?’

He smiled, her words a balm to his soul. ‘I am glad you don’t hate me, Bella. I have lived in hell these past months thinking that.’

She sniffed. ‘And so I was wondering …’

He lifted her chin with one hand and rubbed the tears from her cheeks with the thumb of the other; his touch made her catch her breath. ‘Tell me,’ he said, his voice a
husky, deep whisper that carried an urgency that rippled through her bones.

‘You once said that you loved me. I threw it back in your face. I thought you were lying. But did you mean it? Was it true, Raoul?’

‘That I love you?’ He exhaled in a rush. ‘Oh, Bella, I know I have betrayed your trust. I know I hurt you so much. And God knows I didn’t want to fall in love with you. I didn’t think it was possible. But every time we made love, every time I looked at you, I couldn’t help but fall in love with you that bit more.

‘And it scared me, Bella. I knew you would leave me one day, and I knew it would kill me—so I tried to push you away, but it didn’t work.

‘Because I do love you, Bella, and I always will. And, if there is ever a way to make up for the way I have treated you, so help me I will track it down, I will pin it to the ground and I will spend my entire life making it up to you.’

‘Oh, Raoul.’ She put a hand to his cheek, felt the familiar brush of his blue-black beard against her palm, never wanting to have to remember what that felt like again. ‘I love you so much, Raoul.’

His mouth found hers and they kissed as the gondola slipped silently beneath the Bridge of Sighs.

‘About those papers …’ she whispered when finally they had come up for air.

‘What about them?’

‘Do you think it would hurt if we didn’t fill them in? If we gave our marriage another go? With just you and me this time. Nobody else. And no ghosts from the past.’

He smiled at her and her heart flipped over. ‘Definitely no ghosts from the past. Just you and me, starting again.’ He picked up her hand and kissed it. ‘You have made me the happiest man in the world, Bella. You have given me something I thought I would never have, something I thought I had forfeited any right to for ever: you have given me your love. And I will treat it like the treasure it is.’

He dipped his head and kissed her again, so sweet and rich with feeling this time that her head spun and the blood fizzed her veins until she was dizzy on bubbles and the hot taste of him in her mouth.

And that night, in the big bed in the lover’s alcove, they solemnly repeated their marriage vows, with the sirens, satyrs, gods and goddesses as their witnesses, smiling this time. Knowing this time it was for real.

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