“Thank you for entrusting your pain to me,” Charly said. “I know it isn’t easy for you to let people in.”
His hand reached out and clasped the back of her head to draw her in for a slow lingering kiss. “You are the most precious surprise in my life, Charlotte Bennett. I’m not willing to let you go.”
She arched a brow.
“Do you have a problem with that?” He raised his own arrogant brow.
“Does that mean you’re coming back?” she asked, her mouth a hair’s breadth away from his.
The grip of his fingers behind her head tightened. “Is that even a question?”
“Honestly, things have been happening so fast between us that I don’t even know what we are,” she said.
“That needs to be rectified on my part. But I need to fix a few things in my life before I’ll be worthy of you.”
She frowned. “How can you think you’re not worthy? I have some skeletons in my own closet.”
“Minha querida, you know it’s nothing compared to what I’ve done.”
“I don’t care what you’ve done in the past.”
Antonio smiled briefly, but there was doubt in his eyes. “Once I come back there will be no questions what we are and who you belong to.” His eyes turned fierce. “In fact, I want you to know you’re mine. You’re already mine.” He squeezed his eyes shut and then he wrenched himself away from her and sat on the edge of the bed, head bowed, fingers raking through his hair over and over. “Fuck. I hate this.”
Not understanding his exact problem, Charly got to her knees and knee-walked toward him, putting a hand on his shoulder. He brought his own on top of hers, clasping it. “Tell me what’s wrong?”
“I can’t bear the idea of leaving you. Not like this when things are unsure between us.”
“Antonio, I’m sure about you … except …”
“Except what?” He straightened, twisted from his torso and glanced at her.
She looked away. “It seems so irrelevant now, but I didn’t know what to think when you shut down on me and then went to see Claudette.”
His attention singed the side of her face. A finger touched her chin to gently bring her gaze to his eyes.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel that way,” Antonio said. “I let John get to me with his taunts and I was pissed at myself for putting you in that position.”
“He was an asshole about it,” Charly agreed.
“It had the desired outcome. I made a clean break with Claudette.”
A breath of relief escaped from her lungs. “You did?”
Antonio nodded. “Now that the subject of the unsavory prison visit is out of the way, is there something else you want to tell me?”
Charly thought back to what she’d told him. “I said I was falling for you.”
His mouth tightened. “You haven’t said anything about love.”
“You haven’t either,” she replied, looking at him beneath her lashes. “Were you waiting for me to say it first?”
“I don’t believe in love. I never have.”
Well then … Charly thought, not sure if she could hold the intensity in his eyes which belied what he just said, because he surely looked in love with her.
“Until you, Charly.”
Her eyes widened and she searched his eyes for any mockery. There was none. Charly could even describe it as bemusement. A glimmer of hope glowed inside her.
“Why can’t I stop thinking of you?” he said roughly and this time there was a bit of irritation on his face that actually made her want to laugh. “Why does the thought of putting a continent between us strike fear in my heart, that you’ll forget me, that I won’t matter once I’m out of sight?”
“I could say the same about you,” she murmured, but her heart was soaring. There was solace in knowing Antonio’s feelings of insecurities echoed her own.
“Never,” he said fiercely. “But I won’t be at peace until I do this for my friend.”
Charly nodded. “You owe it to Luis.”
“You understand this, right?” he asked. “You’re not going to think that I put him ahead of you?”
Bewildered, Charly asked, “Why would you think that?”
He glanced away. “Because I don’t want you to think anything matters more than you.”
“Antonio.” She sat on the bed beside him and hugged him. “Luis was your mentor and friend for twenty-five years. What would that say of you—and of me—if we thought he didn’t deserve your time right now? That would haunt you for the rest of your life.”
He crushed her to him and delivered a toe-curling kiss. When he pulled away, he said, “You’re the most important person in my life, Charly Bennett. If what I’m feeling is love, then I’m madly, utterly, and insanely in love with you.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
Antonio frowned. “Too much? Am I scaring you? I don’t want to sound like a psycho.”
The soaring in her heart spilled over, and tears filled her eyes. “No, you silly man,” she laughed lightly. “I love you too. Madly, utterly, and insanely.” She smiled brightly at him even as tears tracked down her cheeks.
He carefully wiped them away, his expression tender. “I love you. It seems I won’t get tired of saying those words to you.”
“You better not.
“I’m sorry for everything.”
Antonio kept his expression neutral as he stared at Renata’s face on the screen. He was in a room designated for two-way conferencing with patients in the negative-pressure rooms.
“Are you responsible for the virus?” he asked bluntly.
“No! Of course not,” she denied. Her eyes were looking everywhere but at him. Antonio knew Renata enough that she was not outright lying, just not telling the whole truth.
Antonio pushed back from the console and stood. “I don’t have time for your lies.”
“I’m not lying. I mean—“
“Did Pierre Hudson do this?”
“He’s part of it. That much I knew. We were both angry that you had plans to get rid of XZite. You knew that was Pierre’s baby.”
“Was he responsible for framing Anriotech?”
“He planted the information.”
“Motherfucker,” Antonio growled. “And you lied baldly to my
