The Italian's Final Redemption - Jackie Ashenden Page 0,61

not.’

She studied him, sensing the battle in him. He’d been at war with himself the whole time she’d been here, torn between his principles and his passions. But he didn’t have to choose, couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he know? He could have both. Love was big enough.

He’s afraid.

The insight came almost forcibly and she saw it, because she knew fear, knew it intimately. It was there in his eyes, in the lies he was telling himself and her. And they were lies. He was afraid of what was between them and he didn’t know what to do.

‘If you really wanted me, you could have me,’ she said quietly. ‘It doesn’t have to be a choice, Vincenzo. It’s not one or the other. It’s not black and white. And all this stuff about keeping me safe sounds good, but it’s just a convenient excuse, isn’t it?’

He said nothing, the tension around him almost humming.

The crack in her heart became deeper, wider, and her eyes prickled with tears. Because he was desperate, she could feel it. He was fighting so hard, her poor Vincenzo, and she didn’t know what to say to reach him. To show him that he had nothing to fear.

She took a step closer, but he didn’t move, towering over her, his gaze utterly forbidding. Intimidating. Yet she knew better now what that aura of menace actually was. It was his armour, his protection. His heart had been broken into pieces once before and now he was desperately shielding it.

‘It’s okay,’ she said softly, trying to calm him the way he’d calmed her days ago. ‘It’s all right. You don’t have to be afraid.’

His eyes glittered, cold as the depths of space. ‘I’m not afraid. You deserve freedom, Lucy. And what I deserve is freedom from you. You’re a distraction. You’re getting in the way and taking up my time. I have more important things to do than sleep with you.’

It might have hurt her badly if she’d been the same Lucy that had come to Capri days before. But she wasn’t the same Lucy. She was changed, and he’d changed her. He’d shown her where her true strength lay, and it wasn’t running and hiding, it was in embracing what was in her heart. And she knew he was lying. That what he was doing was protecting himself. He was a city under siege and he would do anything he could to keep the invaders out.

And she could storm those walls with anger and pain, but she knew that wouldn’t work. It would only make him call for reinforcements. No, if she wanted to crack his defences she was going to have to drop her own.

Lucy reached out and gently touched his cheek, the faintest brush of her fingers. ‘I’ve fallen in love with you, did you know that?’ The words were soft, yet the power of the feeling inside her vibrated in every syllable. ‘You make me so happy.’

And just for a second the walls around his city looked as if they might shatter as shock flickered through his black eyes. The defenders putting down their swords, the battle inside him pausing.

But only for a moment.

‘I don’t care,’ he said in a voice made of ice.

The crack through her heart became a chasm. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t understand. Because he didn’t want to.

Vincenzo de Santi was a man with an iron will and he’d made a decision and nothing was going to sway him, still less the woman who loved him with everything she was.

He was happy in his cage. He didn’t want to see that she was handing him a key.

Anger and pain would accomplish nothing. Only love could scale those walls. Only love would help him overcome his fear. But it was something he would have to come to in his own time. He would have to open the gates of his heart himself—she couldn’t force him.

It hurt. It hurt so much. But her pain wasn’t for herself, it was for him. This beautiful, powerful, passionate panther, stuck in a cage of his own making. Too afraid of the open door standing before him to take a step through it.

All she could do was give him what she always gave him: the truth. And hope that somehow it would stay with him. It would be her last gift to him.

‘If that’s what you choose to believe, then fine,’ she said quietly. ‘But know this. All the justice in the world won’t change the