Bartering Her Innocence Read online

  She nodded and swallowed, her chin kicking high into the stiff wind. ‘Well, maybe...maybe also in part because I was in no hurry to see you again anyway after the way we had parted. But I knew I would have to tell you once he was born.’ She stopped and breathed deep as she looked down at the tiny grave framed in iron lace. ‘But when he came too early...when Leo died...I thought that would be the end of it. That there was no point...’

  She shook her head, the ends of her hair whipped like a halo around her head as she looked across at him, the pain of loss etched deep in her amber eyes. ‘But it wasn’t. And I’m sorry you had to find out the way you did. I’m so sorry. Everything I’ve done seems to have turned out badly.’

  ‘No,’ he said with a sigh, gazing down at her while another set of waves crashed into the rocks behind, almost drowning his voice in the roar. ‘I believe that’s my territory.’

  She blinked over watery eyes, confusion warring with the pain of loss.

  ‘Come,’ he said, tugging her by her hand to her feet. ‘Come and walk with me a while. I need to talk to you and I’m not sure Leo would want to hear it.’

  With the merest nod of her head, she let him lead her down through the cemetery, to where the cliff walk widened into a viewing platform that clung to the edge of the world and where the teeming surf smashed against the rocks with a booming roar.

  She blinked into the wind, half wondering if she was dreaming, if she’d imagined him here with the power of her grief, but no, just a glance sideways confirmed it was no dream. He stood solid alongside her, his face so stern as he gazed over the edge of the continent, it could have been carved out of the stone wall of the cliffs.

  It was good to see him again.

  It was good he’d come to meet his son.

  It hurt that he hadn’t said he’d come to see her but it was good he had come. One final chance to clear the air surrounding their baby’s brief existence.

  Maybe now they could both move on.

  Maybe.

  They stood together in a silence of their own thoughts all framed by the roar and crash of water while Luca wondered where to begin. There was so much he had to explain, so much to make up for. The spray was refreshing against his skin, salty like his tears, but cleansing too. Strange he should think that, when he couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried.

  And with a crunching of gears inside his boarded up heart, he did.

  When the news had come of his parents’ deaths that foggy night when their water taxi had crashed into a craft with a broken light.

  So many years ago and yet the pain felt so raw, unleashed by whatever had unlocked his heart.

  Whoever had unlocked his heart.

  Valentina.

  He watched the waves roll in, in endless repetition. Only to be smashed to pieces against a wall of rock so hard the sea seemed to be fighting a losing battle.

  Except it wasn’t. Here and there boulders had fallen free, or whole sections of cliff had collapsed into the sea, undercut, worn away and otherwise toppled by the relentless force of the water.

  Today he felt like that cliff, the seemingly indestructible stone no match for the constant work of time and tide. No match for a greater force.

  He turned to that greater force now, a force that had been able to come back from holding her dying child in her arms to confront that child’s father and seemingly accede to his demands, all the time working away on him while he crumbled before her.

  And suddenly he knew what he had to say. ‘Valentina,’ he said, taking her hands in his, cold hands he wanted to hold and warm for ever, ‘I have wronged you in so many ways.’

  She smiled and he, who deserved no smile and certainly none from this woman, thought his newly exposed heart would break. ‘I’m glad you came to see Leo.’ He noted that she didn’t dispute the fact that he’d wronged her. But there was no disputing it. He knew that now.

  ‘I came to see you too,’ he said, and her eyes widened in response, ‘to see if you might understand just a little of why I acted as I did, even if those actions are unforgivable. I know I could not hope for your forgiveness, but maybe a little understanding?’ He shrugged. ‘When I was a child,’ he started, ‘my parents were both killed in a boating accident. You saw their tombs.’ She nodded. ‘Eduardo and Agnethe took me in, gave me a home. I went to them with nothing. My father had just invested everything he had in a start-up company he would be a key part in. With his death, it folded and all but a pittance was lost.’

  ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Lily told me you had lived with Eduardo as a child. You must have felt that when Eduardo married Lily that you lost your inheritance a second time around. No wonder you wanted the palazzo back so desperately.’

  He laughed a little at that. ‘Is that what you think? I think I was too young to worry about any lost fortune back when my parents died. But it would have been useful later. I did worry about Eduardo and the palazzo. He was one of Venice’s grand old men, but no businessman, living on his family’s reputation while his fortune dwindled.

  ‘I knew as I grew older that the palazzo needed major structural work, but there was never the money and when Agnethe died Eduardo missed her dreadfully and I think he forgot to care.

  ‘I promised him then that I would pay him and Agnethe back for taking me in, by fixing the palazzo and restoring it to its former glory. I studied and I worked day and night to make it happen.’

  ‘And then he went and married Lily.’

  He smiled thinly at that. ‘You could put it that way. She refused to consider my plans to restore the palazzo, she made short work of the limited funds Eduardo had at his disposal.’

  Tina nodded, the strands of her hair catching on her lashes in the wind, and he ached to brush them away, but it was too soon, he knew. It was enough that she let him hold her hands. It was enough that she did not protest at the circles his thumbs made on her skin. ‘That does sound like Lily.’

  ‘Once the property was in her name, I tried to buy it. She refused again. But she came to me when she needed more money. It seemed the only way to get her out.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I can see it would have been hard to shift her otherwise. Thank you for telling me this, Luca. It does help me understand a little better.’

  ‘It is no excuse for the way I treated you.’

  ‘I guess you were still mad at me for slapping you and walking out.’

  ‘A little,’ he admitted, until he saw her face and he smiled ruefully. ‘Maybe more than a little. But I have a confession to make about that time.’ His hands squeezed hers, his fingers interlocking with hers. ‘You bothered me that night, Valentina. You got under my skin. You were too perfect and you shouldn’t have been—you were Lily’s daughter after all and I didn’t want to like you. I wanted somebody I could walk away from and I knew I couldn’t stay away from you, unless you hated me.’

  She shook her head, a frown tugging her fair brows together. ‘And yet you did hold it against me.’ But he took heart that her words weren’t angry. Instead they searched for understanding amidst the tangle of revelations, as if she was searching for the one thread that would pull the knots free. He took heart that she was still listening and tried to find her the key.

  ‘Because it suited me to. Don’t you see? By blowing it out of proportion, by making it your fault, it gave me an excuse to get you to Venice, and to legitimise it by calling it vengeance. And it was easy to be angry, because I was mad at Lily for letting the house fall into such disrepair, and I hadn’t forgotten you, and that made me even madder.

  ‘I am sorry I said what I did. It was designed to drive you away. It was hurtful, just as the words I said before you left Venice were designed to hurt. And why? Because I needed to believe the worst of you, that you had destroyed our child.’ He felt her flinch, as if reliving the pain of his a
ccusations but he just squeezed her hands and pressed on. ‘I’m so sorry. Because just as it worked that night we spent together, my ugly words worked only too well, and this time drove you from Venice.’ He shrugged and looked up the hill towards the grave. ‘I guess it is only just that I should be the one who paid some of the cost too, by never knowing of my son’s existence until now.’

  A wave crashed on the rocks below, sending spray high, droplets that sparkled like diamonds in the thin sun before spinning into nothingness.

  ‘I can never make up to you all the wrongs I have committed,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  For a few moments she said nothing, and he imagined that any time now she would pull her hands from his, thank him for his explanation and justifiably remove herself from his life once again. This time for good.

  But her hands somehow remained in his. And then came her tentative question. ‘Why did you need to drive me away so very badly?’

  He looked into her eyes, those amber pools that he had come to love, along with their owner. ‘Because otherwise I would have had to admit the truth. That I love you, Valentina. And I know you will not want to hear this from me—not after all that has happened—all that I have subjected you to. But I had to come and see you. I had to ask if there was any way you could ever forgive me.’

  She looked up at him incredulously. ‘You love me?’

  He wasn’t surprised she didn’t believe him. It was a miracle she hadn’t slapped him again for saying it. ‘I do. I’m an idiot and a fool and every type of bastard for the things I’ve said to you and done to you, but I love you, Valentina, and I cannot bear the thought of you not being part of my life. When you left Venice, you took my heart with you. But I know I am clutching at straws. That you are too good for someone like me. That you deserve better. Much better.’

  ‘You might be right,’ she said, fresh tears springing from her eyes, and his freshly opened heart fell to his feet. ‘Maybe I do deserve better. But damn you, Luca Barbarigo, it’s you who I love. It’s you I want to be with.’

  Could a man die of happiness? he wondered as he cradled her face in his hands, letting her words seep through his consciousness, all the way through the layers of doubts and impossibilities, all the way through to his heart. ‘Valentina,’ he whispered, because there was nothing better he could think of to say, not when her lips were calling.

  He loved her.

  Tina could see it in his eyes, could feel it in his gentle touch. Could feel it in the shimmer of sea salt air between them and in the connection of his heart to hers.

  Their lips meshed, the salt of their tears blending with the salt of the sea, and she tasted their shared loss and the heated promise of life and love.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘Oh God, it’s taken too long to realise it, but I love you, Valentina. I know I don’t deserve to ask this, but will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  His words, his rich voice, vibrated through her senses and her bones and found a joyful answer in her heart, her tears a rapturous celebration. ‘Oh, Luca, yes! Yes, I will be your wife.’

  He gathered her up and held her tight, so tight as he spun her around in the boom and spray from another crashing wave, that she felt part of him. She was part of him.

  And when he put her down on her feet again, it was to look seriously into her eyes. ‘Perhaps, after we are married, if you like, then maybe we could try again. For another child. A brother or sister for Leo.’

  She shuddered in his arms. ‘But what if...’ He looked down at her with such an air of hope that it magnified her fear tenfold. ‘I’m afraid, Luca,’ she said, looking up the hill towards the plot where their one child already lay. ‘Nobody knows why it happened and I don’t think I could bear it if it happened again. I don’t think I could come back from that.’

  ‘No.’ He rocked her then, wanting to soothe away her fears. ‘No. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘I don’t. I wish to God I could promise you that it won’t happen again, but I can’t. But what I can promise you is this, that if it did happen again, if life chose to be so cruel again, that this time you would not be alone, that I will be there alongside you, holding your hand. And this time your loss would be my loss. Your tears would be my tears. I will never let you go through something like that alone again.’

  The sheer power of his words gave her the confidence to believe him. The emotion behind his words gave her the courage to want to try.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said plaintively, lifting her face to his, ‘when we are married...’

  And he growled at the courage of this woman and he pulled her close and kissed her again and held her tight, against the wind tugging at their clothing and the spray from the crashing waves—against the worst that life could throw at them.

  And knew that whatever came their way, their love would endure for ever.

  EPILOGUE

  THEY were married in Venice, the wedding gondola decked out in black and crimson with highlights of gold. The cushions were made of silk and satin, the upholstery plush velvet. And while the gondolier himself looked resplendent in crisp attire, propelling the vessel with an effortless looking rhythm, it was to the bride sitting beaming alongside her proud father that every eye was drawn.

  It was the bride from whom Luca couldn’t tear his eyes.

  His bride.

  Valentina.

  She stepped from the vessel in a gown befitting the goddess that she was, honey gold in colour, a timeless one-shouldered design, skimming her breasts before draping softly to the ground, both classic and feminine, the necklace of amber beads Luca had given her at her throat.

  They married in the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista, the opera house where they had seen La Traviata, the night Tina had felt the ground move beneath her feet and realised she had fallen in love with Luca. Her father gave her away, passing her hand to Luca’s with a grudging smile, before taking his place in the front and curling his fingers possessively around those of his guest, none other than Deidre Turner. Tina smiled, happy for her father, happier for herself when the service began, the ceremony that would make her Luca’s bride.

  And if the wedding was magnificent, the reception was a celebration, held in the refurbished palazzo where Luca had grown up. Now restored to its former glory, its piers strengthened and renewed, its façade was as richly decorated as it once had been, befitting one of the oldest families in Venice.

  ‘It’s such a beautiful wedding,’ said Lily to her daughter with a wistful sigh as the pair touched up their lipstick in the powder room together. ‘But then you look beautiful, Valentina. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a radiant bride.’

  Tina hadn’t been able to stop smiling all day, but now her smile widened as she turned towards her mother. ‘I love him, Lily. And I’m so very happy.’

  Her mother took her daughter’s hands in hers. ‘It shows. I’m so proud of you, Valentina. You’ve grown into a wonderful woman, and I’m just sorry for all the grief I’ve caused you along the way. But I promise I will be a better mother to you—I am the same person, but I am trying to change, I am trying to be better.’

  ‘Oh, Lily.’ Tears sprang to her eyes and she blinked them away as Lily swung into action and passed her tissues before she tested the limits of her waterproof mascara.

  ‘And now I’ve made you cry! Sacre bleu! That will not do. So let me tell you something instead to make you smile—Antonio was so moved, he proposed to me right after the ceremony.’

  Tina gasped, her tears staunched by the surprise announcement. ‘And?’

  ‘I said yes, of course! I can’t hope to change everything about me at once.’ And then they were both reaching for the tissues, they were laughing so hard.

  ‘Lily’s agreed to marry Antonio,’ she told
Luca, as he spun her around the ballroom’s centuries-old terrazzo floor.

  Luca smiled down at her. ‘Do you think Mitch will agree to give her away too?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she reflected, as she watched her father spin past them with Deidre, their gazes well and truly locked. ‘There’s a good chance he might be otherwise engaged.’

  Luca laughed, and hugged her closer. ‘You don’t mind then, that you might lose your father to another woman?’

  ‘Not a chance. I’m happy for him. Besides—’ she turned her face up to his ‘—look at all I’ve won. I must be the luckiest woman in the whole world.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said, whirling her around. ‘I will always love you.’

  His bride beamed up at him, felt her amber eyes misting. ‘I love you too,’ she pledged, ‘with all my heart.’

  His eyes darkened, his mouth drew closer, but she stilled him with a fingertip to his lips. ‘But wait! That’s not all I have to tell you. There’s more.’

  She leaned up closer to his ear and whispered the secret she’d been longing to share ever since she’d found out, and Luca responded the way she’d hoped, by whooping with joy as he spun her around the floor in his arms until she was drunk with giddiness. And then he stopped spinning and kissed her until she was giddy all over again, but this time on the love fizzing through her veins.

  And both of them knew the day could not have been more perfect, and yet still it was nothing compared to what happened seven months later.

  Mitchell Eduardo Barbarigo came into the world bang on time and boasting a healthy set of lungs. True to his word, Luca was by Tina’s side, clutching her hand, sponging her brow or rubbing her back or just being there, the whole time. True to his word, she was not alone.

  And just as true to his word, her tears were his tears, except this time they were tears of joy. Tears of elation.

  Tears of love for this brand new family.