THE PHONE LINE was dead.
With clammy hands Marietta put the receiver back in its cradle on Nico’s desk.
This is just some bad weather, she told herself for the umpteenth time—then jumped as the entire house shifted and groaned under the onslaught of the powerful wind. She looked out of the window at the angry sky. Dark. It was so dark. Yet it was only late afternoon. She tried the light switch in the study, then a couple out in the hall—nothing. The house had no power.
Dio. Please let Nico be safe, she prayed. He wouldn’t do anything crazy, would he? Like try to fly in this weather?
She wheeled herself to a window in the living room, looked out at the sea, which had been whipped into a seething grey-green frenzy, then back at the clouds—which looked wilder, even blacker now if that were possible.
No. Of course Nico wouldn’t try to fly in this. He was too safety-conscious. Too sensible.
If only she had been sensible. If only she hadn’t argued with him. If only she hadn’t been so stubborn and proud and oversensitive about her independence. She could have been warm and comfortable with the Bouchards right now. Instead she was here. Alone and, yes—she’d swallow her pride and admit it—just a tiny bit terrified.
Rain came down—thick, horizontal sheets of it lashing the glass—and the wind roared like some kind of vicious animal howling for blood. It raised the hairs on Marietta’s nape. Made her want to curl up in Nico’s bed, pull the covers over her head and breathe in his scent. Pretend that he was there and she was wrapped in his strong arms, protected and safe.
She pulled in a deep breath.
Nico wouldn’t travel in this storm. She was alone—at least for tonight. Which meant she’d need to be calm, practical. Prepared. She’d start by looking for a torch, she decided. Then she’d recheck the windows and doors to make sure the house was secure, and hunt out some candles and matches.
She found a lantern torch in the utility room and started her check of the house in the study. She wheeled to the window and glanced out—just as the large terrace table at which she and Nico had shared so many meals by the pool started to slide across the limestone pavers. Her eyes rounded with disbelief. The table was heavy—a solid piece of outdoor furniture—yet it might as well have been plastic for all its resistance to the wind.
Her heart surged into her throat as another wild gust shook the walls—and then the table simply lifted into the air like a piece of driftwood and flew towards the house.
Marietta backed her chair away as fast as she could and spun around. But the torch slipped off her lap and caught under her wheel. Her chair lurched and tipped and she threw her arms out to break her fall, crashing to the floor at the same moment as the table slammed into the study window. She locked her arms over her head, protecting her face from the splintered glass that showered all around her.
Fear clawed at her chest and a sob punched out of her throat. Clapping her hands over her ears, she tried to block out the violent cacophony of wind and rain. And started to pray.
* * *
Nico paced the floor of his hotel room in Toulon.
The room was tiny, compared to the hotel suites he normally stayed in, but the city was full of stranded travellers and last-minute accommodation was scarce. Not that he cared one iota about the room. He barely noticed the tired decor and frayed furnishings. Barely registered the cramped confines that forced him to spin on his heel every ten steps and pace in the other direction.
The floor beneath him shook and the glass in the windows shuddered. The wind was gaining strength, becoming brutal in its capacity for damage even with the full force of the storm yet to hit the mainland. Toulon and the other coastal cities and towns were in a state of lockdown; in this part of Europe storms of this category were rare and people were cautious and nervous.
A cold sweat drenched his skin.
He was nervous.
He stopped. No. Nervous didn’t do justice to what he was feeling right now.
He picked up his phone from the floor, where he’d thrown it earlier in a fit of fury and frustration. But he still couldn’t get a connection; the network was either down or overloaded.
He tossed the phone aside.
His house was strong, he reminded himself. Architecturally designed and built to withstand the elements. And yet bricks and mortar were no match for Mother Nature at her worst. If she was so inclined she would demolish everything in her path.
Hell.
He resumed his pacing. Josephine. Josephine and her family knew Marietta was alone at the house. He’d called his housekeeper yesterday, before he’d left, to let her know—just as a precaution. The Bouchards would check on Marietta, wouldn’t they? If they’d been forewarned of the storm...
But the weather predictions had been wildly off—the storm was hitting land two hours sooner than expected...
Nico’s head threatened to explode. He felt useless. Helpless. And he knew this feeling. He knew it. Remembered it. Had sworn he would never feel it again.
Suddenly Julia’s face swam in his mind—laughing, eyes dancing...and then glassy, lifeless, her pale skin streaked with dirt. And cold. So, so cold.
His legs buckled beneath him and his knees slammed into the cheap carpet, the impact jarring his entire body.
Loving Julia had made him weak, left him open and defenceless, so that when the worst had happened—when she’d been taken from him—he’d had nothing inside him to fight the pain. And the pain, the agony of losing someone he’d loved, had nearly destroyed him.
Mon Dieu.
He couldn’t do this again.
His mother.
Julia.
Marietta.
A wild, rage-filled roar tore from his throat and he picked up an ugly vase from the coffee table and hurled it across the room.
* * *
Marietta navigated her chair around the tree branches and clumps of debris strewn across the Bouchards’ front yard and cast yet another anxious look towards the hills.
She couldn’t see Nico’s house from the village, but every so often throughout the morning she’d taken a break from helping in the kitchen to come outside and scour the skyline for signs of his chopper. Thankfully power had been restored to most of the village, but the phone lines were still down and mobile coverage was intermittent.
A gentle hand squeezed her shoulder. She looked up, and Josephine smiled down at her.
‘He’ll be fine.’
Marietta nodded. ‘I know.’
Josephine gave her an understanding look. ‘It is too easy to worry about the ones we love, oui?’
Marietta felt her smile stiffen. Was it really so obvious that she loved him?
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Josephine.
‘Fine, thanks.’
And she was fine. She had a cut on her forehead, scratches on her arms and some bruises from falling out of her chair. But otherwise she was healthy and safe—thanks to Luc and Philippe, who had driven into the hills as the storm had descended on the island and rescued her.
She cast another look at the sky—a clear vivid blue in the wake of the storm—and then returned with Josephine to the kitchen. They’d been baking all morning, preparing a mountain of food to sustain the men who were tackling the massive job of cleaning up the village.
It was good to feel useful, to do something constructive, but her thoughts kept drifting back to Nico.
She wanted more time with him. Wanted to explore the possibility of seeing him once she was back in Rome. It was crazy, and extending their affair would only delay the inevitable heartbreak, but she wanted it all the same. Because as much as her feelings for him frightened her, the thought of tonight being their very last together frightened her even more.
A commotion outside the house pulled Marietta from her thoughts. She paused with a tray of pastries in her hand and heard car doors slamming, then male voices speaking in rapid French. She thought she recognised Philippe’s voice, deep and firm, and then another, even deeper but louder—and agitated.
Marietta almost dropped the tray.
Nico’s voice.
Josephine had hurried outside and now Nico appeared in the doorway. And he looked—terrible. Bleary-eyed and unshaven, his hair and clothes rumpled. A hint of wildness in the blue eyes that instantly zeroed in on her. He reached her in three strides.
She put the tray down. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, hurriedly, because she could see that he wasn’t and it was scaring her.
He didn’t speak. He just tipped up her chin and examined the cut on her forehead, then lifted her arms, one by one, scrutinising the many nicks and scratches she’d sustained when the window had shattered over her. His mouth thinned.
‘Nico, I’m fine,’ she repeated, wanting to erase the awful bleakness from his face.
Still he didn’t speak and his silence unnerved her.
‘I’m afraid there’s been some damage at the house,’ she said. ‘Your study—’
‘I don’t give a damn about the study.’ Finally he spoke but his voice was harsh. Angry, even. ‘I’ve already seen the house. I thought—’ He broke off. ‘Mon Dieu, Marietta,’ he resumed after a moment. ‘I thought...’ He dragged his hand through his hair, stepped back, his expression shuttering. ‘Do you have any belongings to collect before we leave?’
‘Just my clothes,’ she said, referring to those she’d arrived in last night.
There’d been no time to grab anything else. When the men had found her in the study, Luc had scooped her off the floor while Philippe had grabbed her chair, and then they’d driven at once to the village. The clothes she wore now had been borrowed from Josephine who, minutes later, hovered as Nico bundled Marietta into the Jeep, followed by her chair and a bunch of supplies from Philippe for the house.
Marietta thanked the other woman—for everything—then sat in silence as Nico drove them back up the mountain.
* * *
Several hours later Nico’s gut still churned with a mix of emotions, some clear-cut—like relief and anger—others not so easy to distinguish.
It had taken him two hours to clear the debris from the pool and terrace, another two to get the study back into some semblance of order. The repairs he’d made to the house were only temporary; he’d need a glazier to install a new window, some furnishings replaced and the flooring fixed, thanks to a fair amount of water damage.
The antique desk that had belonged to his wife had survived mostly unscathed, but in truth he had barely spared it a thought when he’d arrived at the house this morning and discovered the carnage. And—worse—Marietta gone. The violent punch of fear and panic had almost doubled him over. Until rational thought had resurfaced and he’d realised the only logical explanation was that she was in the village with the Bouchards.
He’d felt raw, volatile with emotion. So much so that he’d struggled for words when he’d first clapped eyes on her in the Bouchards’ kitchen. On the drive back to the house, when she’d asked him what had happened in Rome, he’d managed to clip out a brief, sanitised version of events, but then he had kept his jaw tightly locked, afraid of what would spill from his mouth if he opened it again.
Since then he’d largely avoided her, rejecting her offer to help with the clean-up and suggesting she pack her things in preparation for leaving tomorrow. The hurt in her eyes had cut him to the bone, but it was safer this way. If he got too close to her he’d drag her into his arms and never want to let her go. And that terrified him.
Now, showered, wearing jeans and a fresh shirt, he stood in the living room and studied Marietta’s painting of the old stone fortress. It was a stunning piece of work. Beautiful and evocative, he surmised. Not unlike the artist herself.
‘Nico?’
He stiffened... God help him. Even the sound of her voice challenged his resolve. Made him think twice about what he must do.
‘Nico, please...’
Her tone was plaintive and it tore at something inside him.
‘Talk to me.’
He turned, hands jammed into his jeans pockets. ‘What would you like me to say, Marietta?’
Long shafts of late-afternoon sunshine streamed in through the tall windows, gilding her olive skin, picking out the amber highlights in her mahogany hair. She’d changed out of the borrowed clothes into long black pants and a sleeveless white blouse and she looked beautiful. She always looked beautiful. She rolled closer and he clenched his jaw, fisted his hands to stop himself from reaching for her.
‘You could start by telling me why you’re angry.’
He shot her an incredulous look. Did she really have no idea what she’d put him through?
‘I went through hell last night,’ he bit out, his resolve to remain calm, impassive, flying out of the window. ‘Knowing the storm was approaching and you were here alone while I was stuck on the mainland—’ He broke off, jerked a hand out of his pocket and thrust it into his hair. ‘Mon Dieu, Marietta!’
She pulled her lower lip between her teeth. ‘I can imagine how worried you must have been,’ she said, and for some reason her placatory tone of voice only riled him further. ‘I was worried about you, too,’ she added. ‘But we’re both fine—aren’t we?’
He begged to differ. He did not feel fine. He felt as if someone had mashed up his insides with a chainsaw. ‘You could have been seriously injured—you were injured,’ he ground out.
‘A few scratches,’ she dismissed. ‘Nothing more.’
‘Thanks to Luc and Philippe rescuing you—which they wouldn’t have needed to do if you hadn’t been so damned stubborn and insisted on staying here by yourself.’
She bit her lip again, her eyes clouding. ‘I’m sorry, Nico...’
She reached out, closed her fingers around his wrist, and he thought that simple touch might be his undoing.
He forced his hand to hang by his side. ‘Forget it. It’s over now,’ he said. And he didn’t mean only the storm. He watched Marietta’s face, saw the flicker of understanding in her eyes.
She withdrew her hand.
‘Does it have to be?’ she asked after a moment.
He stared down at her. ‘I told you—’
‘I know what you told me,’ she interrupted. Her chin lifted. ‘And I’m not suggesting any kind of commitment. I’m just suggesting that maybe...once I’m back in Rome...we could see each other occasionally.’
An uncomfortable pressure built in his chest. Had he not contemplated that very arrangement just yesterday? He suppressed a humourless laugh as an even greater irony occurred to him—having Marietta on a casual basis wouldn’t be anywhere close to enough.
He hardened his voice. ‘I don’t do relationships—casual or otherwise.’
‘Why?’
Her soft challenge poked at something inside him. Something that already felt bruised. Raw. ‘Don’t push, Marietta,’ he warned. ‘I made it clear from the outset that I couldn’t offer you anything more. I thought you understood.’
She rolled forward and he stepped back.
‘I understand that you’re afraid, Nico,’ she said softly, and stopped in front of him, meeting his gaze with another firm lift of her chin. ‘I understand that you’ve loved and lost and now you’re afraid of getting close to people, afraid of caring for anyone—because if you do you might lose them.’
Nico’s blood ran cold. He felt as if she’d crawled inside him. Into the darkness he tried so hard to keep hidden.
It was shocking. Exposing.
Anger rose, swift and defensive. He paced away, turned back. ‘Are you calling me a coward, Marietta?’ He stalked towards her. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’
Marietta’s head snapped back. Nico’s comeback was harsh, unexpected, landing a sharp dent in her bravado. Not that her courage had been bulletproof to start with. Mustering the nerve to seek him out and talk so frankly with him after he had avoided her all afternoon hadn’t been easy.
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘You don’t see it, do you? You’re so goddamned proud, so independent—you wear it like a suit of armour so that no one can get inside it.’
She stiffened. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry about last night—’
‘I’m not just talking about last night!’ He cut across her, a vein pulsing in his right temple as he stared down at her. ‘You accuse me of being afraid—’
‘It wasn’t an accusation!’
‘But what are you afraid of?’ he finished.
She gripped the arms of her chair, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. ‘Nothing.’
‘I think that you’re afraid to admit you can’t do everything on your own,’ he carried on, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘To admit that you might actually need someone.’
Her stomach twisted. His words sliced too close to the bone. Except she wasn’t afraid of needing. She was afraid of wanting. Or was there really no difference?
She wheeled backwards, but he followed. ‘You use your independence to isolate yourself,’ he said. Relentless. Ruthless. On the offensive now because she’d pushed and he had warned her not to. ‘To cut yourself off from what you really want.’
She balled her hands into fists. ‘You don’t know what I want—and you’re a fine one to talk about isolation. This from the man who chooses to sit up here in his house all alone and wallow in his misplaced guilt.’
Fury darkened his features. ‘You know nothing about my guilt.’
‘Don’t I?’
A fierce ache ballooned in her chest. This exchange of harsh, angry words wasn’t what she’d imagined for their last night together. She dropped her shoulders, defeat and weariness washing over her. How had they ended up here? What were they doing? The sudden urge to retreat tugged at her, but she loved this man—too much not to serve him a final painful truth.
‘I survived a car crash that killed three of my friends,’ she said. ‘So I do know something about guilt, Nico.’ She paused, took a moment to choose her next words carefully. ‘What happened to Julia was tragic and horrific but it wasn’t your fault—and it wasn’t your father-in-law’s.’
His frown deepened ominously but she forced herself to finish.
‘I think it’s sad that you haven’t spoken to each other in ten years, and while I never knew Julia I can’t believe it’s what she would have wanted—nor can I believe she would have wanted you to spend the rest of your life blaming yourself for not saving her.’
Nico was tight-lipped, but the emotion she knew he tried so hard to suppress swirled in his eyes.
‘You need to let go of your guilt,’ she said gently. ‘And if you can’t do it for yourself—then do it for her.’
And for me.
She turned her chair and wheeled away from him—before the tears threatening to overwhelm her could spill.