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And there it was.
As pleasure exploded through her and she felt all the pieces of her fall apart at the seams, her brain forced comprehension to dawn on Amelia, so finally she understood exactly what her mother had been talking about that morning.
She loved him.
It had happened perhaps immediately, or maybe that had just been lust, but without Amelia realising what was going on, without her understanding the basis for her behaviours, and in contravention of everything she’d promised Benedetto, she realised it had all been about love.
That was why she’d felt panic at the thought of leaving him in Crete.
That was why she’d stayed. Because loving him made her brave and powerful, because, whether he was with her or not, knowing that she loved him made her strong, and whole. She hated the concept of needing any other person to be whole; she’d certainly never felt it before. It wasn’t that she’d been lacking in anything prior so much as, having met Benedetto now, she realised she would never be complete without him.
And the thought terrified her, because it was the exact opposite of what he’d said he wanted, what he felt about life and relationships and his future. How many times had he reminded her that this was just sex? That he was leaving after the wedding?
‘Amelia?’ His voice was raspy, his own explosion having coincided with hers, so his chest was racked with heavy, sharp breaths but his eyes were watchful, contemplative. ‘Are you okay?’
What choice did she have but to answer that she was? She couldn’t tell him how she felt. At least, not yet. The realisation was so fresh for her, Amelia needed time to interpret her feelings, to be sure she wasn’t imagining this, because of her conversation with her mother.
There was no sense complicating everything, and before the wedding, when it might turn out to be nothing.
She smiled at him brightly, collapsed onto the bed beside him and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I’m glad you came to see me.’
‘As am I.’ He caught her hand, lifted it to his lips. ‘Anton was hard on you today.’
‘He always is.’
Benedetto frowned. ‘I didn’t realise. In the past, when he’s mentioned you—’
‘You saw it from his perspective,’ she said with a lift of one shoulder, then pushed up onto her elbow to see him better. ‘That’s because you’re a very good friend.’
‘As he has been, to me.’ He hesitated. ‘I didn’t like the way he spoke to you.’
Her heart lifted. She cleared her throat. ‘Why is that?’
‘Because you don’t deserve it.’ He responded so quickly, she knew the answer was honest. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘Ah. So your sense of justice is offended on my behalf?’
‘You’re laughing at me?’
‘No.’ She leaned forward, brushed his lips with her own. ‘I just thought you might be being defensive of me, that’s all. I don’t think I’ve ever had a man, or anyone, be like that. I kind of like it.’
He frowned, and she realised she’d gone too far. ‘You don’t need me—or anyone—defending you. You are more than capable of defending yourself brilliantly.’ He kissed her back.
Her heart thundered and she felt the sting of tears cloying at the back of her throat, but she pushed them aside. There would be time to understand her feelings later. For now, she just wanted to feel, and no one made her feel better, physically, than Benedetto.
He hadn’t intended to stay the night. Not because he didn’t want to, but because there was a greater potential for discovery if they started acting like that and they both knew this had to be kept secret.
Or was it, he wondered, early the next morning as he lay awake beside Amelia, naked and reluctant to leave her bed, that he didn’t know how to define this, even to himself?
He’d known for as long as he could remember what he didn’t want in life.
Even as a boy, he’d formed the strongest belief in a need to be on his own, never to put his life, heart, future in anyone else’s hands, because that was where true happiness and freedom lay. And then Sasha had come along, and he’d experienced the wonder of loving someone—and the intense, awful vulnerability of losing them, and every lesson he’d ever learned as a child had rammed back into him at warp speed.
Nothing with Amelia changed his feelings on this score. If anything, she’d reinforced them all over again, because she was the one person he’d ever met he actually perceived as a threat.
She threatened him, with her very existence.
She made him vulnerable, just by being her.
