The Millionaire Tycoon's English Rose

with me. When we’ve jumped, we’ll hold on to each other with both hands as we start the fall. Then we’ll release hands and pull the rings to release our parachutes.’

‘Nearly ready,’ said her guide from the ground. ‘Helicopter just coming into sight. All set?’

‘All set?’ Silvio asked her.

‘All set,’ Celia confirmed.

She felt Silvio’s hand tighten on hers, drawing her to the open door.

‘Now,’ he said.

A sudden pull and they were both free in the air. He seized her other hand and they began to float down, both at full stretch, supported on a blanket of air.

This was when it should happen-the feeling of glorious escape that always came as she launched herself into the unknown. This was her freedom.

But it didn’t happen.

‘All right?’ Silvio asked through the radio.

‘Wonderful!’

Silvio released her hands. Now-now it would come. The exhilarating sense of liberation, the thing she lived for. Now!

But no rush of joy possessed her. Instead, she realised that the wind was roaring past her, and it was time to pull the ring that would open her parachute.

She yanked, and felt the tug at her back as the parachute streamed up behind her.

‘Yeee-haaah!’ she cried up into the void.

It was good to be floating down through the fierce, blustering air, and perhaps if she shouted her joy aloud she would recapture the joyous freedom that had always possessed her before.

But then she had an alarming sensation, as though someone had seized her and was throwing her around the sky.

‘What’s happened?’ she cried.

‘The wind has changed course,’ Silvio told her. ‘Don’t worry. Pull the upper left ring and you’ll turn.’

She scrabbled for the ring, but the wind was fierce on her fingers, making it hard to take hold. She managed it at last, and felt her body swing in the other direction.

‘Pull the lower left ring,’ Silvio told her. ‘It’ll help you navigate.’

This time she managed better, and felt the parachute respond. Even so, she wasn’t safe yet. She knew that. It was going to take all her cool head to avoid a crash-perhaps a fatal one.

But that mustn’t happen. Because she’d promised. She’d given Francesco her solemn word, and she must keep it.

For herself she wasn’t afraid, but she was swept with a terrible fear for him. She’d promised him, and she was about to betray him.

And then something happened that she could never afterwards explain.

She saw him-not as others would understand seeing, but in a way that had never happened to her before. He was there behind her eyes, a presence so intense that he was visible as nothing else had ever been. She didn’t know what his face was like, but she did know the expression it wore at this moment- terrified, tortured with the effort of concealing his fear for her sake, facing a desolate future without her.

The desolation was there inside her head, too, all around her: a life that was empty because the only person who counted had gone. She had done this to him, and the knowledge of what she’d done was there, howling, shrieking at her, making her understand things to which she’d wilfully blinded herself before.

Come back to me.

Silvio’s voice through the radio made her calmer.

‘Lower left a bit more. You’re nearly there-A bit lower-lower-’

And then there was the blessed feel of the ground as she landed heavily, going down on to her knees at once and rolling over. When she stopped she could hear the sound of distant cheering. The whole family had been watching her, their hearts in their mouths. But there was only one who mattered.

Francesco. She must get to him.

Silvio, too, had landed. Now he pulled her to her feet, got her free of the parachute and drew off her mask, freeing her face.

‘They’re heading this way across the airfield,’ he said. ‘But it’s some distance.’

‘Can you see Francesco?’

‘He’s way out in front. Here.’ He took her shoulders and turned her slightly. ‘He’s right ahead, and there are no obstacles between you.’

‘Thanks.’

She began walking, carefully at first, then faster, faster, running at top speed, running with total abandon, as she’d never dared to run before.

And now it was there-the rush of intoxicating joy, the glorious freedom that she’d awaited in vain during the dive. It had come at last, possessing her as she hurtled confidently towards the arms that waited to enfold her.

‘You really mean it?’ he said, later that night.

They were curled up in their own bed, warm with satiated desire, and warmer still with the comfort of opening their minds and hearts to each other in a way that was new.

‘I mean every word,’ she assured him. ‘I’m finished with all that. No more diving, jumping and suchlike.’

‘You don’t have to give it up now if you’re not sure. I’ll wait until you’re ready.’

‘I am ready. I knew that today.’

‘I guess that would be about the time you were blown off course?’ he said, trying to make a joke of it.

‘No, it was when I landed and ran to you. I couldn’t see you, but I knew you were running to me, and we’d find each other. And then I knew I didn’t need anything more.’

After that there was a long silence as they held each other, not even kissing but absorbing warmth and comfort from each other’s presence

‘Always?’ he murmured.

‘Always.’

After a while he ventured to ask,

‘Does that mean-no more craziness?’

‘I didn’t actually say that,’ she said hastily. ‘But there’s more than one way of being crazy.’

‘Well, I guess if you were sensible all the time I wouldn’t know you.’

‘Mum and Dad used to take risks,’ she remembered. ‘But they stopped when I was born. After that Dad took up sending messages into other galaxies.’

‘Does he get anything back?’ he asked, startled.

‘Only stuff he can’t understand. He’ll tell you all about it when he comes for the wedding.’

He kissed her. ‘What did your mother take up?’

‘Me. She said I was mad enough for both of us. I’ll probably find the same.’

‘Are you telling me-’

‘Be patient.’

Just as she thought he’d gone to sleep he murmured, ‘I’m glad it happened this way.’

‘Glad we quarrelled?’ she asked.

‘Glad we quarrelled, parted and found each other again.’

‘Could it actually have been a good thing that I told you to get out?’ she wondered, and held her breath, for the answer was important.

‘Yes, or I might never have learned to confront it. You dispelled that darkness as nobody else could. And since then we’ve learned things about each other, and ourselves, that we needed to know.’

And solving problems was what would keep them together, she thought, glad of his wisdom.

But there was one more step before his darkness was finally banished, she thought. One more thing that only she could do.

‘So now the door’s open for us,’ she said. ‘The one that leads to the rest of our lives. Come in, my darling. Come in.’