CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

D ANTE STAGGERED . It hit him in waves. A breathless rush of emotion. Adrenaline. Warmth.

It hit him square in his chest and suddenly he could breathe again after what felt like an eternity.

And he gulped in the air that was finally hitting his lungs.

For weeks he’d searched. He’d jumped out of planes in order to feel something, anything. He’d prayed for it. For air. She had it. She had his air.

His chest squeezed.

And it was guttural. The noise rising in his chest. The rumble of pain. It scraped against his throat, clawed at the insides of his mouth and burst through his lips.

He groaned.

She stepped forward on her bare feet and reached for him.

‘Dante.’ She said his name in anguish. In distress. As though she had been waiting for him to arrive on her doorstep.

He stepped back.

She dropped her hand. And he felt the thump of it on her thigh. The withdrawal of her offer of kindness.

He didn’t deserve it. Her touch. Her softness. Her concern.

‘Come inside, Dante.’

He couldn’t. He shook his head. Clenched his teeth. It hurt. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be in front of her and not inhale her. Press his nose into her skin and let her scent feed him. Revive him.

But he couldn’t reach out and touch the loose strands of hair falling from the knot on top of her head, couldn’t tuck them behind her ear. He couldn’t touch the pale flesh exposed beneath her burgundy camisole. The elegant column of her throat. Her naked shoulder. He could not trace his fingers down the beige lace sloping down her breasts. He could not get down on his knees and kiss her bare toes peeping out from beneath wide hemmed burgundy trousers.

Here he stood on the white stone steps, before the black door of the house he’d bought for her. To share with her. And he couldn’t go inside.

It wasn’t his house anymore.

He didn’t belong here.

He’d abandoned it all.

Abandoned her.

Backwards, he descended the steps. Until he stood at the bottom of the five stone steps looking up at the life he could have had. The woman he wanted. Still. Now.

Every adventure, every job, he’d come back to her. Back to this house. For her. She was his safe place. She was...

He searched her blue eyes, wide and watching him.

She was home.

She was warmth.

She was—

Waiting .

Regret clawed at his insides.

They could have made this house their place. A shared place of safety. Together.

A home.

Because home was her , he realised.

And he’d thrown it all away, something beautiful, a gift.

‘I won’t come inside,’ he told her, even though he wanted to. He wanted in. ‘This is your place now. Your safe place from the hardness, Emma. From the worry of surviving. And I will not enter it.’ Tighter, his chest squeezed. The muscle that gave him life pounded without mercy. ‘Unless you want me to.’

‘Is that what you want?’ she asked. ‘To come inside?’

‘I have no right to come in. I have no right to ask anything of you after Japan, after I—’ pain seared through his gut ‘—left you.’

‘You were scared.’

‘And so were you, but you still found the strength to tell me a truth you knew I didn’t want to hear. And I abandoned you. I left you alone with those big, scary feelings. I left you alone with all that love .’

He placed his open palm on his chest and kneaded it, because something was happening in his chest. Something—

‘Your love felt like a heavy thing, Emma, and I’m sorry I did not hold it gently. It’s such a precious thing. My hands didn’t know how to hold such a thing delicately. So I dropped it. I hurt you. I didn’t know another way. I didn’t—’

They were all excuses.

He raised his eyes to the grey morning sky, but he wouldn’t pray. No one could help him. Not the rules. Not the playbook. They were meaningless. Because never had they warned him about Emma. Never had they warned him about love.

And he loved her.

He needed her.

She was his air.

He would end this agony.

‘I was wrong,’ he hissed. ‘Wrong to compare you to my mother. You are nothing like her. You are not them , my parents. But they live inside me, Emma. They are my demons. I let them dictate my reactions, my responses, to you. You were right about so many things. The rules. The risks . I never should have put my demons on your shoulders. Your beautiful shoulders that have already carried so much. Too much. I too want to exorcise them. Exorcise all those who would make me live this life in fear. But I am afraid, Emma.’

He fell to his knees before her then. On the pavement. And he looked up the stone steps at the life he wanted.

The wife he would keep.

If she would let him.

If she would let him in.

‘What are you afraid of, Dante?’ she asked. Still she stood in the doorway, unmoved, keeping him out.

‘I’m afraid of you, Emma,’ he admitted. ‘I am afraid of myself. And I’m afraid when I tell you. When I confess what it is I have done. What I am doing. What I feel. You will send me away. You will lock the door. You will not invite me inside.’

‘And what have you done?’

‘I have fallen, Emma. Hard. And my body hurts from the impact. From the pressure on my chest. In my heart. Because it bleeds. With feelings. With love. My heart wants to love you. I want to love you,’ he confessed, and he felt raw. Exposed. But he would not stop. He couldn’t.

‘I want to be on the inside, Emma. I want to be with you. I want to make this house our safe place. I want to come inside and be alone with you beside me. I want to bring all those things inside with us I have been trying to keep out. Emotion. Attachment. Love . Because I can no longer close the door on them. Because they live inside me. And they are stronger than the demons. They are in the process of exorcising them from me.’

A lightness spread over him, as he finally let it all out. Because he did. By God, he wanted all of those things. Needed them.

‘I love you, Emma.’

And he waited for her to love him back.

‘I have loved you since the moment I saw you. I have loved you every day since. You are where I come when I want to be still. When I want to close the doors and lock the world outside. It is you I come to. You are home to me. And without you, these last weeks, before your fall, I have been lost. I am homeless without you.’

He spread out the divorce papers on the ground before him. ‘I came today to bring you the divorce papers,’ he said, and his body revolted. It trembled with this choice. But he had made it this way.

He could be inside right now. But he was here on the pavement, waiting, as she had every time he went away, every time he left her behind and alone, waiting for him.

‘I will sign them if that is what you want,’ he said, and his voice was tight. ‘If you want this, us , to end, I will do it. I will sign them. If you need more time to think, I will wait. I will wait for you forever.’

His chest heaved.

‘You are my soulmate, Emma. Destiny thrust us together. And it will do it again. In this life, the next. I will wait for it. But I do not want the next life. I want this life. I want you to be my wife. A real wife with a real husband. I want to be your husband. I want everything I never thought I wanted because of you. Before you, I was empty. And you filled me up, Emma. With warmth. With love.’

Still, she did not move.

And it hurt. Deeply. The understanding that he might be too late. She might send him away because her needs no longer aligned with his.

‘If you choose to sign,’ he said, and his mouth moved in awkward ways. His tongue was too heavy. It did not want to cooperate. But he would keep his promise. ‘If you choose to end us. I will keep my word. I will give you a divorce and I will...’

His jaw locked. His body hardened. But he would do it for her. He would sacrifice his needs to meet hers, because that was love.

And he loved her.

‘I will let you go, Emmy.’

Her heart fluttered as wildly as a million bees buzzing towards home. Towards their queen. And it didn’t matter to the bees where home was, because home was their queen.

Home was right in front of her.

Emma moved.

She let the bees carry her home. Until she stood in front of it. In front of him.

‘I choose you,’ she said. ‘I choose our marriage.’ She held out her hand. ‘Because I love you.’

And she waited with bated breath for him to take her hand. To accept her love. To trust her to lead him to a safe place. Because it was safe. Their love protected them. And she would protect him now. She would shelter him. She would—

‘Emmy...’ His hand reached for hers. His fingers slid between hers. Entwining his between hers.

He stood. His face twisted with contorted angles of uninhibited emotion.

He pressed his forehead to hers. ‘I love you. I love you with everything I am. Everything you have enabled me to become. I am changed because of you. And I—’

‘You will let me in, you will let me love you and you will love me in return.’

‘ Yes! I will love you. With my words. With my body. With everything , Emmy,’ he promised, and she knew he would keep his word. As he always had.

‘Let’s go inside,’ she said, and she felt the tremble rip through him. The shudder.

He nodded. And Emma led him by the hand, up the white stone steps.

And together they closed the black door behind them. They shut out the hardness, the noise, and found home.

In each other.