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Dressed in a striking navy-blue suit with a crisp white collar, and almost at the marina, she admitted to herself that she wasn’t dreading this half as much as she’d thought she might.
Until the car came to a stop and she looked around, eyes automatically gravitating towards the berth that Benedetto’s boat had occupied, expecting to find it empty, only to see that Il Galassia was still in port.
Her chest rolled.
She felt as though she might be sick. Butterflies danced through her central nervous system and little tiny lights flickered in her eyes. She gripped the door of the car, closing her eyes and giving herself a stern talking-to. So his boat hadn’t left. That meant nothing. It wasn’t even necessarily the case that Benedetto’s crew was on board. Perhaps they’d flown somewhere else, to do something else, leaving the boat here to be maintained until he needed it again. Or perhaps Cassidy and Christopher were on board. Perhaps if she went to them, after the opening, they’d let her step inside. To sit for a while in the underwater lounge room and remember what it had been like to spend a week with him. Maybe even to pretend that she’d slipped back in time and they were still together, on the boat.
Her heart twisted painfully and she blinked open, eyes landing on the deck again.
The car door swung open and she knew she couldn’t indulge these feelings any longer. She was on display, here representing the royal family. She had a job to do, and Amelia was determined to prove to everyone how much she’d changed.
‘This way, Your Highness,’ one of the members of the royal guard said, then bowed and gestured towards the docks. There was only one other boat in sight and it was not new. She looked around, wondering if perhaps there was a larger craft further out at sea that she was to be taken to.
But the guard led her, not to any naval boat, but rather towards Il Galassia, and each step brought more confusion, not clarity, so that when they reached the plank that led to the back of the boat, she stopped walking, memories slamming into her now, hard and fast.
‘I’m sorry, there must be some mistake.’
‘No, Your Highness.’
A numb sort of curiosity had her moving forwards, her mind refusing to allow her heart to hope, concentrating impossibly hard on not imagining anything, on simply walking, one step in front of the other, until she was on the boat.
The guard didn’t follow. She looked around, frowning, then continued to move forward. ‘Hello?’ she called out. No answer.
Lips tugging to one side, she moved up the stairs, to the next deck, then around to the front of the boat, eyes widening when she saw that, instead of the pristine white deck with which she was familiar, there were tens of thousands of red rose petals scattered like a carpet, everywhere she looked.
Her eyes squeezed shut, as if to clear the image.
When she opened them, Benedetto was standing there. He wore a suit, but the jacket had been discarded and the shirt sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, one side had come untucked. He looked so incredibly good in this dishevelled state. Though he would have looked good to Amelia no matter how he presented because it was six long weeks since the wedding and every day had been filled with a yearning for Benedetto that had taken her breath away.
Nonetheless, she stayed exactly where she was, the hurt of the past impossible to ignore, and it served as a shield now, making her cautious.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
Benedetto didn’t move at first either and then, slowly, he crossed the deck, stopping when he was just a few feet away from her. Close enough for her to see every detail of his face, to touch him.
She crossed her arms quickly, to prevent her from doing anything quite so stupid.
‘You went to Crete.’
It was the last thing she expected him to say.
‘How do you even know that?’
‘I saw an article.’ Was she imagining the slight darkening on his cheekbones? A blush, from Benedetto? ‘Why did you go back there?’ His voice was so gruff.
She angled her face away, staring out at the sea, trying not to react, trying not to feel. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she said, eventually, aware that she was hedging the question. ‘I’m more interested in why you’re here now. In what all this is about.’ She gestured to the boat.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, moving a step closer, so she flinched. She had to be strong, but she was so tired, and had missed him so much. ‘Or is it that I know, and cannot put it into words?’
‘Well, why don’t you try?’ she snapped, frustrated and in so much pain she couldn’t believe it. ‘Because I’m going to walk off this boat in about one minute.’
‘I don’t want to do this any more.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘Do what? You’re the one who came back, who brought me here.’
‘I mean I don’t want to do this without you.’ His voice was a low rumble, like thunder. ‘Life. I have been miserable since I left here, miserable with missing you, wanting you, needing you, aching to talk to you, to see you, to hear you, to just be with you. I was so sure I could conquer those feelings, that it was better for me to stay away, because I don’t want what you want, because you deserve better than the future I can offer you. And yet here I am, discovering that, for you, I would do anything, go anywhere, be anything.’
Amelia’s lips parted in wonder and surprise, but her brain was there, quickly tamping down on her excitement, because surely there was the possibility that she was misunderstanding him in some vital way.
