There was barely room for the two of them. He refused to sit, his wide frame shrinking what little space there was. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, knowing what it must have cost him to leave the castle—knowing what it must have cost him in the stares and whispers of strangers, in the camera flashes of the paparazzi. ‘Why are you here? Someone will have seen you.’
His tortured eyes confirmed it, but he shook his head, as if dispensing with that mentality. ‘You once said to me that I should not define myself by my scars—’
‘No—please. I had no right. I had no idea of what had really happened.’
‘Grace,’ he said, taking one of her hands in his own, ‘you had every right. You were right.’ He took a breath, and then another, and she could see how much it was costing him to tell her this. ‘Don’t you see? I became my scars. I hid behind them because it was easier to live in the dark. Because it was easier than facing the light.’
‘It’s okay,’ she said, wanting to spare him any more pain, knowing what it must have cost him in media attention to get here, suspecting there was a pack of photographers waiting outside right now to see him. ‘You don’t have to explain it to me.’
‘But I do. Don’t you see, Grace?’ He took hold of her other hand, held them both up in his. ‘You brought me back the light. You were the one who chased the darkness away. You made me see it was all right to live again.’
Her heart skipped a beat, and then another, because she didn’t want to believe what it might possibly mean. ‘I did?’
He smiled. ‘You did. You turned up in my dark world and showed me what life could be like with your enthusiasm, with your joy of discovery. At first, I admit, I hated you for it, because you reminded me of all the things I had lost and of all the things I would never know again. But bit by bit I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to share your light. I wanted to share your joy.’
She thought back to the disastrous dinner and his cruel comment about the dress. ‘You were protecting yourself.’
‘I couldn’t let myself crumble. It took me years to recover after the accident. I couldn’t let anything like that happen again, even if it meant losing the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was desperate to find some kind of outlet. I hadn’t played the piano for ten years until you came. It was something I associated with her. It was part of my former life and I couldn’t bring myself to touch the keyboard until wanting you drove me to it. Drove me back to something I loved. Just as you drove me back to life and living and I realised it didn’t have to be the same.’
Tears leaked from her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest.
‘You kissed my scars, Grace. I was shocked and I overreacted, but do you have any idea what was happening to me? You broke something free inside me, something dark and poisoned and toxic. And bit by bit you chased the blackness away.’
For the first time she noticed the moisture glazing his eyes too, as he brought her hands up to his mouth, closed his eyes and kissed them.
‘I had to come,’ he said at last. ‘I knew it from the first day you left. I knew I had missed an opportunity so golden that it might never come again. But still I couldn’t do it. I told myself you were busy becoming famous, that you could not possibly have any place for me in your life. Fear bound me to the castle, just as you said. But as the days and weeks went on I had to know. I had to find out for myself, whatever it took.’
He hesitated then, as if searching the depths of his soul for words. ‘Grace, you once told me you loved me. Is there any chance you might love me again? Love a man who was too blind to recognise his own love when it stared him in the face?’
Her heart swelled so large with his words she thought it might explode with happiness. She threw herself into his arms, drinking in his scent, relishing the hard plane of his chest. ‘I will always love you, Alessandro. Always.’