Reclaimed by the Tycoon - Chapter 8

He’d suggested a meal as a way to keep them distracted. If he was in the kitchen, ordering food, and wrapping ice in a tea towel, he wasn’t in his bedroom, looking at the most desirable woman on earth, wanting to sink into her to hell with their past, to hell with her injury. He wasn’t opening a whole can of worms it was better to keep sealed shut.

The problem was, only a couple of hours in her company had shown him that he was just as vulnerable to Isabella’s effect on him as he had been before. The independence he’d sought as a way of protecting himself was always threatened by Isabella, and two years apart hadn’t changed that a bit.

He took the ice to her and placed it on the sore ankle, said something about waiting for the food delivery, and then left the room swiftly.

If he thought it was strange that the famously ruthless and unfeeling Salvador Rialta was literally hiding out from a five-and-a-half-foot woman with a sprained ankle, then he didn’t let it take up too much space in his brain. This was just how it had to be.

Yes, he wanted her, but first, he had to get over the way his insides were zipping and lurching. The way her softly voiced question in the back of his car had made him want to tell her everything. To open himself up to her in a way he’d never done to another soul, exposing his deepest fear, asking her to tell him he was wrong. That he was worthy of love, after all.

But how could he admit that knowing she might reject him? Rejection in any form wasn’t pleasant, but to be rejected by Isabella all over again was a hurt impossible to imagine.

So why did you bring her here? a voice in his mind niggled. Why not take her to her apartment, see her settled, then leave? He could have organized a nurse, from the hospital. Anything other than this. Only…he’d wanted to be the one to care for her. He’d taken one look in her eyes and known he couldn’t turn his back on her again. Wasn’t that what all this had been about? Kissing her, touching her, insisting on taking her to the hospital, on bringing her back to his home?

Everything seemed to shift around him, so the colours of his home appeared bold, and adrenaline was flooding his body.

When the food arrived, he brought it, along with two plates and some water, into the bedroom. She was propped up with her phone, and when he walked in, she said, ‘Answering festival emails,’ by way of explanation, before putting the device down on the bedside table.

He hardly heard, though. His mind was running over the question of Isabella. Their past, the present, and most vitally, the future. ‘Do you still like Italian?’

Her stomach grumbled in response, and she nodded. Still distracted, he pulled out the food, all of her favourite dishes. Arancini, parma wrapped asparagus spears, crab linguine, and tiramisu.

As he opened the containers to reveal the meals, she whispered his name, and when he glanced at her, he saw Isabella’s eyes heavy on his face.

‘These are my favourites.’

He swallowed past a throat that felt constricted. ‘I remember.’

She closed her eyes then, as though she were battling within herself. ‘Why do you remember?’

It was a moment of truth. He knew he should step away from it, make some throwaway comment about his ability to recall unimportant details. But this was Isabella, and suddenly, he couldn’t keep her at arm’s length anymore. He didn’t want to. He was still terrified of what that meant, of what the future might hold, but meeting her like this, by chance, had been some kind of kismet. He couldn’t let it be nothing.

‘I remember everything about you.’ The words were like the banging down of a door, an admission that he wanted so much more than he’d allowed himself to realise, until today.

‘I don’t think I can do this.’ She shook her head to underscore those words. ‘It’s too much.’ Her voice sounded so choked with emotion, concern immediately burst through him. It wasn’t new for them to be overcome by feelings, but usually that was passion, or anger. Not this.

‘Isabella?’

‘I— Walking away from you last time was almost the end of me, Salvador. I’ve said goodbye to a lot of people, I’ve walked away a lot, or been pushed away, but that was by far the worst. And I think we’re just…opening up old wounds here. I can’t do it.’

His gut lurched. Her pain was so obvious, and he’d done that to her. He’d hurt her, because he’d needed her to leave him. So, he’d let her live the last two years believing she’d been a participant in an extra-marital affair, when that was a serious distortion of the truth.

‘My marriage never was a marriage in the true sense of the word.’

A single tear slid from her moist eyes.

His gut churned worse now, because he finally saw things clearly. He’d often thought they fought as two sides of the same coin but now he understood, that’s how they’d lived too. They were different people with the same pain points, the same vulnerabilities, and those vulnerabilities had made them push and push, seeking out loneliness rather than becoming victim to it. He’d thought it was for the best, but seeing Isabella again made him realise what a mistake he’d made. Life without her in it was safe, sure, but it was also barely worthy of the word: life. For a brief time, every single part of him had become vibrant and real. He’d protected himself from the possibility of hurt by letting her go, hiding in the falsehood of his marriage, but he'd done such a disservice to them. The second he’d seen her again, he’d started to realise that.

‘My wife and I cared about each other, once upon a time, but the main reason we married was because her parents wanted it so badly. Her father had been a mentor of sorts to me—it just made sense. But we were not in love, and after about six months, we gave up on even trying to make the marriage work. By then, her father had had a stroke, and neither of us wanted to worsen his condition by telling him we were getting divorced.’

Isabella sucked in a sharp breath. ‘What?’

‘We were legally married, but had been living separate lives for a long time before I met you, knowing we would divorce, when—’

Isabella pressed a hand to her lips, and the tears fell freely now. His own wounds, doubts, and hurts lashed him for being so selfish—for failing to see that they both needed something they were terrified to admit.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she whispered, from behind her hand.

He couldn’t stand the distance any longer. He picked up the tray of food and placed it on the ground, so he could sit at her side and caress her face in his hands. ‘Why do you think, Isabella? Everything about you terrifies me. I have never known a woman like you before. I have never wanted someone like I wanted you—’

‘Sex?’ she whispered, frowning.

‘Sex was only the beginning of my addiction to you. You were a fire in my blood—all of you, in all of me. You took me over, body and spirit, mind and soul, I was yours. But can you understand—I think you can—how much I fought that? I have been alone so long, protecting myself for so long—’

‘You were scared to love me. Scared to let me love you.’

‘Scared of what I would feel when you stopped loving me,’ he admitted, gruffly.

Now it was Isabella’s turn to cup his face, holding him so she could look deeply into his eyes. Through a sob, she whispered, ‘But I never stopped loving you. Choosing to walk away from someone is not the same thing as shutting off your heart, and you moved into mine the moment we met.’

‘Well,’ he murmured, amazed by how right it felt this time around, how easy it was to believe her words, to know that she meant them. Perhaps it was because he knew the alternative, and didn’t want to live like that anymore? ‘That might just be the best news I’ve heard in my lifetime.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘You see, I never stopped loving you, either. I have been lying to myself this whole time, telling myself it was for the best that you ended it. But I was so tempted to come to you anyway, to at least explain about my marriage…’

‘If you’d come for me, I would have been yours,’ she whispered. ‘I might have fought it, at first, like I did today, but love is strangely powerful.’

‘Thank God for that, mi amor. And now, you’re home, where you belong.’

Her eyes sparkled back at him. ‘Home?’

‘Please, tell me you’ll stay.’

‘I’ve already agreed to stay tonight.’

‘Yes, but I mean this night, the next night, every night after, for the rest of our lives. I cannot lose you again.’

She sighed, and lifted one shoulder, but her smile showed the true joy in her heart. ‘You know, that sounds like a good plan to me.’

And it turned out to be the very best plan of them all, for they lived as they promised in that moment, jubilantly, happily ever after.

THE END