he had been waiting for her at the church. She had asked her father to ensure that Valente was informed and brought to see her, but Joe Hales had passed on that responsibility to Matthew instead. Matthew had, in turn, refused to leave the hospital until Caroline was out of danger.
Reeling in shock from what he had learned, Valente plunged upright and strode off to find Caroline straight away. He did not know what he was going to say to her. He only knew that it was of the utmost importance that he talked to her, as he had never talked to her in the entirety of their relationship, and that was a challenge he was not even sure he could meet.
He glanced into her workshop before he went upstairs. The glass cats still sparkled in the light coming through the window. He was touched that she had kept them all these years.
A floorboard creaked in the master bedroom and Caroline’s lashes swept up: Valente was stationed at the foot of the bed, rather like the Grim Reaper in a designer suit. ‘Have you got a migraine?’ he asked.
‘No, I think it was just the tension getting to me.’
‘I never read that letter you sent me five years ago,’ Valente admitted harshly.
‘There were at least six of them.’
‘I dumped them without reading them-but I kept the first one you sent.’
Her smooth brow indented. ‘Why would you keep it and not read it?’
‘I was like an addict resisting temptation,’ Valente confided, squaring his chin. ‘Even as recently as two months ago I was proud of my ability to resist opening that letter. I didn’t want to read your excuses for fear that I would mellow towards you, and my pride wouldn’t allow me to run that risk.’
Conscious that Valente had to be in a very strange mood to be talking about such promptings, Caroline slowly levered herself up from her prone position. ‘You resisted my letter as if it was a dangerous drug?’ she rephrased, wondering if she could possibly have heard him right-because she had never dreamt that he might suffer from such quixotic thoughts and reactions.
‘I didn’t read it until tonight. It was a…a devastating experience,’ he confessed in a jerky undertone, his strain pronounced. ‘You were sick. I wasn’t there when you needed me.’
‘Nobody told you I needed you or that I was ill.’
‘But I should have considered the possibility.’
‘I tried to phone you that evening-’
Valente rested tormented dark eyes full of regret on her. ‘I chucked my mobile phone off the bridge into the river beside the church because I didn’t want to be tempted into phoning you. I wanted to be strong.’
‘Well, you were certainly that,’ Caroline conceded. ‘Why didn’t it occur to you that something had to be badly wrong?’
Dark colour had flushed his stunning cheekbones. ‘I believed that you loved me, but I also knew that you had doubts and insecurities. Perhaps I expected too much from you.’
Sadness filled her. ‘It was a big challenge to face leaving my family and everything I knew to live in a foreign country, but I would have done it to be with you. In hospital that morning I wondered if my illness was fate intervening, and I waited too long to ask Dad to give you a message. But if you’d come back, tried to see me or speak to me even…’
Valente grimaced. ‘I’m obstinate. I’m very proud. At many times when my life has been difficult those were the strengths that carried me through,’ he explained. ‘But I should have had more faith in you. That is what finished us-my lack of faith. I was convinced you had wronged me, that your family had persuaded you to just leave me at the church. I blamed you for it all.’
Caroline wanted to cry. She wondered how she could have expected him to have faith in such circumstances, when so many people in his life had hurt him. ‘I believed you had received my message before you went to the church. Matthew lied about that. He threw the truth at me after we were married, when he was annoyed with me, and admitted that he had made no attempt to get in touch with you.’
‘As you learned too late, Matthew had a mean side,’ Valente quipped.
‘But you didn’t?’
‘No, I always had a ruthless streak,’ Valente contradicted. ‘I wouldn’t have survived or prospered in my world without it. The only person I ever allowed to see me without that armour was you.’
The tears overflowed from Caroline’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Valente came down on the side of the bed and reached for her. She slapped away his hand in rejection. ‘No, don’t you dare touch me! How could you not read even one of my letters? How could you be dumb enough to see that as a test of how tough you could be?’ she wailed at him furiously.
Valente gazed back at her with dark, strained eyes. ‘It was that macho streak you don’t like. You made me vulnerable and I didn’t like it. This time around I wanted everything to be different.’
‘And it certainly was that,’ Caroline agreed, sliding off the far side of the bed and smoothing down her crumpled linen dress. ‘You blackmailed me into bed with you.’
‘And you blackmailed
Caroline shifted uncomfortably. ‘That wasn’t how I saw it. I knew that once you found out I was frigid you’d ditch me and forget all your promises.’
Valente lifted a sardonic brow. ‘Isn’t it strange that I stuck by you instead of going for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation?’ he prompted. ‘Why do you think that was?’
Caroline wore an uncertain look. ‘Because you would have found that an embarrassing way to end our marriage?’
‘My reputation is such that it would not have caused me embarrassment. I wanted more than your body, even if I wasn’t prepared to admit that to myself at the time.’
‘Well, you did a very good job of convincing me that all you wanted was sex,’ Caroline told him, unimpressed.
Valente stood up. Lean, darkly handsome face intent, dark eyes brilliant, he strolled towards her. ‘Don’t you get the slightest vibe when a man loves you? You know I spent years plotting to get you back. You know I married you even though that wasn’t part of my plan. You know I stayed with you even though it didn’t immediately work out in the bedroom. Can’t you see what all that has to add up to?’
‘Are you trying to say that you love me-even though you rejected
‘I was doing that macho thing. But I’ve taken off the armour again. Tonight I finally appreciated that I love you more than anything in my life…even business,’ Valente confided. ‘And I know that’s not a romantic comparison, but business is very important to me.’
‘And I’m even more important?’ Caroline felt out of breath, as though she had just run up a hill too fast.
‘The very centre of my world,
Valente closed his arms round her slight figure with caution, for she was tense and wide-eyed, everything about her stance suggesting indecision. ‘I held on to my memories of you long after I should have done, and unfortunately I held on to my bitterness as well. I love you very, very much,’ he breathed softly. ‘I was never able to forget you or replace you.’
Sheer excitement made her heart feel as if it was jumping for joy inside her chest. ‘And you already know how I feel about you.’
‘I didn’t believe you when you said you loved me. I didn’t believe you for a second,’ Valente hastened to explain. ‘I thought you were just using words to try and soften me up.’
As his beautiful, sensual mouth drifted downward in the direction of hers, Caroline took a hasty step back from him. ‘I may love you, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive you for setting up Bomark Logistics and blackmailing me into your bed.’
‘Even though I promise that I will never do anything like that again?’
‘Easy to say, when you know you don’t need blackmail any more in the bedroom,’ Caroline replied squarely.
‘As proof of my good intentions, we could be celibate for a while,’ Valente suggested silkily.
