Текст книги "The Affair"

Автор книги: Beth Kery

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Текущая страница: 31 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

Chapter 40

His hand was throbbing with pain, but still, he beat on the door with it. Suddenly, the wood was no longer there and he was beating on air. Amanda Shore was standing inside the threshold, looking panicked and furious.

“I’m about to call the police, Vanni.”

“Is she in there?” Vanni demanded, stepping over the threshold. Amanda stepped in front of him, blocking his way. He looked down and met her stare. He blinked and came to a halt. He realized—reluctantly—that she was a human being and not merely an obstacle to Emma. Amanda’s blue eyes looked fierce, but beneath her anger, he saw her worry.

“You can’t just come bursting in here, Vanni,” Amanda bit out. He took a step back. He’d been about to knock over a woman, for Christ’s sake.

“Why won’t she see me?” he asked. Despite his earlier recognition that he couldn’t force his way past Amanda, he kept his hand on the open door. He wasn’t walking away, dammit. How was it possible that he’d last seen and touched a soft, warm woman who was as eager for his presence as he was for hers, and suddenly be faced with an Emma who was telling him she’d decided not to see him again? It didn’t compute in his short-circuiting brain.

When he’d arrived home at the Breakers an hour later than his scheduled flight, he’d found it empty. He’d immediately tried to call Emma, assuming she hadn’t received the messages he’d left on her voice mail or the one he’d left with Vera that he’d be late. He’d reached her by phone, but what she’d said in her uncharacteristically cold, flat voice was still being rejected by his spirit wholeheartedly.

After France, she’d decided that it was too painful to continue seeing him.

Had she been planning on walking away when they’d kissed good-bye that last time in his bedroom at La Mer? No. That truth hadn’t been on her lips or tongue or in her warm, supple body pressing against his.

What was his truth when it came to Emma? He only knew he didn’t want to let her go. Life without Emma? Could he go back, once he’d known her indescribable warmth, her sweetness and touch?

He suspected he must, at some point. He feared it. Needing her was such a horrible, sweet risk. The only thing he knew for certain was that there, in that moment, the thought of losing her was like having his lungs ripped out of his chest.

“What’s happened to her? It doesn’t make any sense,” he told Amanda angrily.

“Really?” Amanda asked sharply.

He stilled and peered at Emma’s sister. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Amanda crossed her arms at her waist and drew herself up, giving him a very hard look. He’d never been a huge fan of Amanda, given what she and that jerk Colin Atwater had done to Emma, but at that moment, he saw a resemblance between Amanda and her sister.

“Emma told me what you proposed: an affair of a purely sexual nature. She told me all about it.” He felt himself withering a little under Amanda’s condemning, disgusted gaze, but he didn’t flinch. “You proposed something like that? To a woman like Emma?”

“That’s only how it started out,” he bit out.

“You’re right. That’s how it started out, but it’s not how it ended. Not for Emma. She’s not built like that. Surely, despite your . . . cold-blooded plans for her, you must have realized she’s not cut out for this kind of thing.”

“That’s rich,” he said with quiet, building, helpless fury. “You preaching to me about not being sensitive enough to Emma.”

Amanda paled. Regret and helplessness swept through him in equal measure. “Dammit, Amanda, just let me see her. I know I can clear this up.”

“How? By professing your undying love for her? By promising her you’ll always be there for her?” He met her stare, a snarl shaping his lips. In his unguarded state, her pointed words had felt like piercing missiles. Amanda’s eyes closed for a moment. “I’m sorry, Vanni. I know that you care about her, in your way.” She opened her eyes. “A person would have to be a complete robot not to care about Emma, right? But I saw when she came home tonight. She was . . . beyond belief. I’ve never see her like that before.”

Her trembling voice still ringing in his ears, Vanni started to walk past her again, intent only on one thing: seeing Emma.

Amanda was suddenly in front of him, looking royally pissed. “She’s not even here!”

He came to another halt, helplessness and fury now boiling inside him. “I pleaded your case to her before, Vanni, when you called me while you were in France. That was before I knew what you proposed to her. That was before I understood that you aren’t capable of offering her more. Unless you’re prepared to say you’ve completely changed your tune about that, unless you can give more of yourself to her than that selfish crap you dribbled out to her, I want you to turn around and go!”

The silence was deafening.

“Because that’s what Emma realized tonight,” Amanda continued shakily after a few seconds. “That she can’t be with a man who has so little to offer. Do the right thing, Vanni. Think of Emma, not yourself.”

For once.

Amanda hadn’t said the words, but they pulsed in his blood and his brain as if she had.

Do the right thing for once.

He inhaled, the air scalding his lungs, and walked out of the apartment.

Emma listened through the pounding of her heart. She heard the door slam. A few seconds later, Amanda walked down the hallway to where she stood, leaning against the wall. She’d needed the support, listening to Vanni out there. For a few seconds, they just stared at each other.

“You heard it all?” Amanda asked in a hushed tone.

Emma nodded. She felt sick to her stomach. “He left,” she whispered. “I . . . I didn’t think—”

Amanda was suddenly pulling her off the wall and walking her down the hallway, her arm around her.

“He left,” Emma repeated again dazedly when Amanda urged her to sit on the edge of her bed and sat down next to her.

“I know,” Amanda said, looking miserable. “But I thought . . . I mean, after everything you told me earlier about how he proposed this no-strings-attached affair with you, did you really expect he wouldn’t?”

Emma just stared at her sister, her mouth gaping open. The truth hit her full force.

No. I didn’t really believe he’d walk away, in the end. I still held out hope. I’m such an idiot.

“Oh, Emma,” Amanda said miserably, obviously seeing the truth displayed on her face . . . the crushed hope. She hugged her tightly.

When Emma had arrived home earlier after that toxic encounter with Vera Shaw, Amanda immediately knew something terrible had happened. Emma had only to open her mouth and a partial explanation came spilling out, her agreement to an affair with Vanni, her caveat of a specific time limit to keep her safe, and her tearful admission that it hadn’t worked. She was far from safe. She’d fallen in love. Deeply and irrevocably. Emma hadn’t told Amanda about Vera Shaw, though, or any of the specifics about Vera’s threats or Cristina. That all seemed like too tender a topic to expose.

In truth, it’d shocked her to the core that Vanni had listened to Amanda’s reasoning. She was willing to do her part to make sure that Vera didn’t spill that poison truth to him about Cristina, but she hadn’t thought he would walk away so easily.

Here it was: firsthand proof that his feelings for her hadn’t altered since he’d first suggested a sexual affair. Or if they had changed, Emma realized with a wave of dizziness, they hadn’t altered enough to make him fight for her. His suffering and his fear of letting another person get close had triumphed. It left her stunned, her entire being vibrating with shock.

Emma wasn’t used to letting doubt and fear triumph. But it had. That victory was not sitting well with her. It was constricting her spirit . . . dimming it.

“Maybe it’s best,” Emma said after a moment through numb lips. The pain would have come sometime. She knew that now for a fact. Whether Vera Shaw had made her ultimatum or not, Emma would have eventually sat here, bereft and empty. She now knew firsthand that he wouldn’t have fought for her, because his fear of losing another was too great.

There was nothing to act as a stopgap. Loss crashed into the vacuum that had opened inside her with tidal wave force, stealing her breath.

For the next several days, Vanni went through his waking hours like an automaton. The feeling wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him. He’d gone through a good part of his adult life on automatic mode, after all. He hardly slept, but he was alert and he responded when people spoke to him. When a few crucial issues came up associated with work, he’d responded decisively and coolly.

On the inside, however, some sharp kernel grated, causing the ice inside him to splinter. Finally the pressure grew too great, and he felt the cracking of his brittle control.

He rose from his bed one night about an hour before dawn and walked down to the beach, naked.

He stood at the edge of the lake as the waves lapped around his bare feet. The water stretched out before him, as black and eternal as the night sky. The contrast between the thick, suffocating darkness of this shore and the warmth and brilliance of the beach at La Mer struck him . . . Emma standing on the beach, naked and beautiful, waiting for him . . .

He plunged into the frigid water. It hit him like a slap, ruthless and stinging. The farther away from shore that he swam, the clearer his brain got. Ever since he’d heard Emma’s flat voice on the phone so many days ago, he’d been fogged. Now shards of memory cut through his awareness like slicing glass.

Emma’s deadened voice on the phone: I thought I could do this, Vanni, but I can’t.

Amanda: Because that’s what Emma realized tonight. That she can’t be with a man who has so little to offer.

Cristina’s dying words: No child should have been left to feel so much. No man forced to feel so little.

A man who has so little to offer.

Those words taunted him most of all. He cut through the black water angrily now, swimming farther from shore. When he sensed he was just past the breakers, he paused, lifting his head. Water surged up and hit him in the face.

The memory of Adrian’s pale, frightened face leapt like a lion into his consciousness.

Help . . . Van . . . I can’t . . .

And then Adrian was sinking beneath the slate-blue, churning water, and so was Vanni, pulled under by the strength of his hold on Adrian’s hand, sucked beneath by the force of his love for his twin. He and Adrian were one there. Under the waves, it’d been shockingly peaceful.

He hadn’t been afraid.

Vanni never understood what had happened next or how. He hadn’t let go . . . but suddenly he’d broken the surface, oxygen burning his lungs as he gulped it greedily.

And they were two.

He gasped and sputtered in the present, the lights of the Breakers sparkling on the distant horizon. He had a crystal-clear image of Emma with the Mediterranean sparkling behind her, an ocean of compassion in her dark eyes.

Adrian may have died, but part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni.

And then . . .

When the time came, he wasn’t afraid. Please believe me. I’m sure enough for both of us.

He remembered Adrian’s hand letting go . . . releasing him. For the first time, Vanni realized it hadn’t been a weakening gesture, but a firm, decisive one. He’d grasped for Adrian desperately, but only water filled his hand, and he was rising to the surface like a buoy.

Why hadn’t he recalled that until now?

Vanni realized he could make out the outline of the bluffs and his house now. Dawn was breaking behind him. He took a shuddering gasp and plunged into the water again, swimming toward shore.

He walked back into the Breakers, soaking wet and naked. His mind was clear, though. He’d find Emma. He’d make her understand. It was different now than it had been when he’d tried to see her and Amanda stopped him several nights ago.

He was different.

He was shivering when he stepped into the kitchen to make himself some tea for fortification. It was Emma’s drink, and just that thought warmed him.

What if I can’t convince her that I really can offer her more?

You’ll do it. One step at a time.

He took heart from that steady, patient voice in his head. It was new, and yet it was achingly familiar.

Part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni.

He opened the refrigerator to get some milk while the kettle heated on the stove. His gaze landed on the bottle of champagne on the shelf. He withdrew it and just stared at the label for several seconds, his brow furrowed.

A moment later, he flipped off the burner on the stove and strode out of the kitchen determinedly.

Realizing it was too early to go to Emma’s yet, he stopped at a coffee shop in Evanston. He dialed Vera’s number as he sat at a booth.

“Vanni?” his aunt answered on the second ring.

“Did you see Emma? Last Tuesday night?” he asked without a greeting. “Did you talk to her at the Breakers before I got home from France?”

There was a long, pregnant pause. “Why?” Vera asked finally. “What did she say to you?”

“I asked you the question, Vera. Did you see Emma or not?”

“Yes. We spoke briefly.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you on Wednesday? You claimed you hadn’t spoken to her at all, that she’d never arrived there to your knowledge. What did you say to her?” he seethed.

“Only the truth, Vanni.”

“What particular brand of the truth are you referring to?” he bit out, vaguely aware that the waitress cast a concerned glance his way. Anger was making him inappropriately loud.

“I told her I didn’t think things would work out between you two. Emma seemed to agree, after she’d given it some thought.”

He froze.

“You told her . . . you didn’t think things would work out?” he finally got out in disbelieving fury.

“She wasn’t right for you, Vanni.”

“Who the hell are you to decide that? Isn’t that for Emma to decide? And me?”

“I was just trying to be realistic. I thought—”

Vanni turned toward the window, trying to block the rage that blasted through him like an inferno from the other customers in the restaurant.

“I don’t care what the hell you thought. Emma told me you didn’t like her, but I never actually thought you’d do something this outrageous. You had no right. Stay away from her,” Vanni grated out, barely containing his wrath. “And stay away from me, too. It’s going to be a while before I can take looking at your face again.”

He hung up, immune to the muted sounds of Vera’s pleas and protests.

“Emma?” Amanda called, halting Emma’s exit from the apartment. Her sister caught up with her in the front entryway. Emma looked over her shoulder, her hand on the knob. Amanda’s hair was tousled and she looked sleepy and alarmed at once. “I thought I heard you out here. You’re not leaving already? It’s not even seven yet, and I heard you up last night. You can’t have slept much. Again,” Amanda added pointedly.

“I’m sorry if I kept you up,” Emma apologized woodenly.

“Don’t worry about it. But why are you leaving so early?”

“I have some paperwork I can get a jump on at the office,” Emma said. She reluctantly met Amanda’s stare. “It’s better than just lying in bed . . . thinking.”

Amanda’s mouth tightened. Amanda knew what her sister was thinking about, but Emma doubted Amanda knew how she was feeling. At times, she just felt numb, but at other times when she wondered if she’d ever see Vanni again, a great wave of pain would surge into the empty hole inside her.

And what if that witch told him about Cristina and Laurel, despite it all? The thought made her physically ill.

“It’s just better for me to keep busy,” Emma said, feeling that wave of misery rising even now. She turned and twisted the doorknob.

“But you look so tired,” Amanda protested.

“This is better,” Emma assured before she plunged out the door.

Much better than just lying there, stewing in my misery.

Ten minutes later, she paused at a stoplight in a right-hand-turn lane, preparing to turn onto the road where her hospice was located. She’d driven briefly on this very same road on the day she’d been with Vanni going to Cristina’s funeral. It must have been a hell on earth for Cristina to spend those final weeks in Vanni’s home, knowing her son was there in the house, living off his charity, knowing he refused to see her because of their tragic history. It’d literally been a hell, and yet she’d chosen her fate. Did she think she deserved to be punished? Is that why she’d done it? She needn’t have gone to the Breakers if she didn’t want to. She could have spent her last days alone in her condominium with someone like Emma or one of her coworkers dropping in on her for an hour or two every day.

No, Cristina definitely had chosen to spend her last days near Vanni, knowing it would be bittersweet and painful. She hadn’t been weak, in the end. She’d embraced the pain.

Was embracing the pain what Vanni did every day of his life? He certainly hadn’t run from it. If anything, part of him had thought he’d deserved that pain.

Because when he was struggling, and I was trying so hard to keep him above the water . . . he was very afraid.

The memory of Vanni saying those words made her flinch in agony. He’d blamed Cristina all these years for the loss of his other half, but he blamed himself perhaps even more elementally. His unrelenting anger at Cristina had been the surface, obvious emotion, a shadowy reflection of the deep fury he had for himself for not being able to save Adrian.

Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t seem to control them for the past few days and nights. They sprung up at the most inopportune moments.

The light turned green. She’d pull into the parking lot just past the intersection and wait until her tears had passed.

She didn’t know what hit her. One second, she’d been turning right, and the next she was jarred forcefully. She heard a loud bang, and everything went black.

Chapter 41

Vanni jogged up the stairs to Emma’s apartment and looked over the ledge on the second floor of the stairwell, getting a bird’s-eye view of the parking lot. He grimaced, not seeing her car. Had she already left for work? He rethought his strategy for finding her. He’d talk to Amanda first. This time, he was better prepared to talk to her than he had been several days ago, when he’d still been sideswiped by Emma’s refusal to see him again.

This time, he knew what Amanda needed to hear in order to become his ally in getting Emma to talk to him, and Vanni was ready to say it.

He approached Emma’s apartment and drew back his fist in order to knock. The door flew back before he’d ever made contact. Amanda stared at him, shock plastered all over her pale face.

“Oh my God, Vanni. How did you know?”

Alarm roared into his awareness, making his flesh tingle. He edited himself at the last second from saying How did I know what?

“Where?” he demanded tautly instead, his buzzing, shocked brain tightening its focus on Amanda’s leggings and T-shirt, haphazard bun, and clutched purse. She was clearly running out the door in crisis mode.

“North Shore Hospital. She’s in the emergency room.” He stepped back when she walked out and slammed the door. “Colin is coming to get me—”

“Emma?”

Vanni realized he’d yelled and that he was clutching Amanda’s arm. He loosened his grip with effort.

“Emma?” he repeated tautly, a cascade of chills going through him. Oh no. Please don’t let this be happening.

“Yes. The hospital just called. She was in a car accident. They’ve brought her there.” Vanni’s grip loosened when Amanda gave a desperate lurch. She started to jog toward the stairs.

Oh, Jesus. He’d dared to care about her. He’d fallen in love with her. Was this the inevitable result?

“Amanda,” he shouted sharply. “What did the hospital say?”

She turned, still jogging “I don’t know anything, Vanni. I have to go!”

The examining doctor said good-bye to Emma and pulled the curtain closed. She was in some kind of makeshift examining room in the emergency room, a square ten-by-ten-foot space set off by curtains, not walls. She could hear the doctor talking to Colin and Emma on the other side of the curtain, telling them what she’d already told Emma.

“She’s fine, but we’d like to keep her overnight for observation . . . just to make sure there’s no concussion. There isn’t any observable wound to the head. The air bag deployed, but she lost consciousness for nearly ten minutes following the accident. Her vitals are all good, but we’d like to watch her for the next twenty-four hours for any signs that there might have been a blunt head trauma.”

“Do you suspect there’s a brain injury?” Amanda asked anxiously.

“No, the stay overnight is just a precaution, I assure you. Your sister is going to be fine.”

“Can I see her?” Amanda asked.

“Of course. We’re running a little short-staffed today. She might not be moved to a room for an hour or so.”

Ever since Emma had regained consciousness, she’d experienced a strange sort of desire for action, an inexplicable restlessness. In fact, when she’d first come to in the ambulance, the first thing she did was swing her legs off the stretcher and start to get up.

“Whoa, whoa, where are you going?” the stunned EMT had asked her, urging her to lie down again.

Emma hadn’t been able to reply logically. She only experienced a deep, profound need to be somewhere. That sense of an inner push—or an outer pull—continued. She’d almost screamed in frustration when the doctor told her a few minutes ago they’d be keeping her overnight for observation. Her silent reminders to herself that she was being ridiculous, that she had nowhere to go with such a sense of urgency, were only minimally calming to her.

Was she disoriented? Had she hit her head harder than she thought?

She heard a murmuring as Colin and Amanda conferred, but couldn’t make out what they were saying.

A second later, Amanda was coming around the curtain. She and Colin had been there earlier, but had vacated the space when the doctor came to examine her. She gave Emma a bright smile.

“Where’d Colin go?” Emma asked when she absorbed that Amanda was alone.

“He, uh . . . went out to the waiting room,” Amanda said, setting her purse down on a chair and coming up next to the triage bed where Emma stiffly reclined. Energy surged through her. The last thing she felt like doing was lying around. Suspicion flickered through her at Amanda’s forced neutral tone and the way she avoided Emma’s eyes.

“Why’d he go out there?” Emma asked. “Amanda?” Her sister met her stare hesitantly. “What’s up? Why are you acting so weird?”

Amanda sighed and glanced reluctantly at the closed curtain and then back at Emma.

“He went out to the waiting room because Vanni is out there.”

“What?” Emma said incredulously, sitting up straighter on the bed, her skin tingling, her muscles shouting at her to move.

“I’m sorry . . . I didn’t want to bother you with it, but—”

“That’s all right, just tell me why he’s here,” Emma interrupted hastily.

Amanda explained about running into him as she left the apartment earlier. “I assumed he knew about you somehow, because of the timing and well . . . I was in shock myself. I told him what hospital you were at before I realized he wasn’t there because he knew about your accident,” Amanda admitted ruefully. “He arrived here just after Colin and me, but of course, they wouldn’t let him back. A couple security guards actually had to restrain him, and they threatened to call the police before Colin and I intervened,” Amanda said worriedly, her blue eyes huge. “Emma . . . he’s a wreck.”

“A wreck?” Emma asked in alarm. She swung off the sheet that covered her lower body and looked around the tiny space frantically. “What did they do with my clothes?” she demanded.

“Emma, lie back down! I knew I shouldn’t have told you.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you should have told me. Is Colin—”

“Yes,” Amanda said, her hand on Emma’s medical-gown-covered shoulder, urging her back onto the bed. “He went out to tell him you’ll be fine!” Amanda insisted.

Emma grabbed her sister’s wrist, forcing her to meet her stare.

“Amanda, listen to me. Go and get him,” she directed. “Go and get him and bring him back here.”

“But—”

“There’s no ‘but’ about it. You don’t know everything about Vanni. He’s lost a lot of people in his life. This must be hell for him. He needs to see for himself that I’m fine.”

“But you’re the one I’m concerned about,” Amanda argued.

“If you are, then you’ll go get him,” Emma said firmly. “Because I need to see that he’s all right, too.”

“But what about—”

“Damn,” Emma said, flipping back the sheet again in preparation to go herself.

“All right, I’ll get him!”

“Hurry,” Emma directed succinctly.

Amanda blanched. She looked highly uncertain as she grabbed her purse and left the curtained-off space, and Emma knew why. She was concerned because Emma had said she would never see Vanni again. She and Emma had both agreed it was for the best, given the situation. But Emma didn’t care about that at the moment. She didn’t care about caution, or Vera Shaw’s threats, or her vulnerable heart.

She only wanted one thing with every fiber of her being: to see Vanni’s face again.

It felt like an eternity, waiting, but Emma knew it was probably only a matter of seconds. She held her breath at the sound of rapid, firm footsteps approaching on the tile floor. She jumped slightly when the curtain whipped back.

He looked far too tall and large for the cramped little space when the curtain fell back into place behind him. She recognized the soft gray T-shirt he wore with faded jeans; she’d seen him wear it during their golden, heaven-sent days at La Mer. He looked both wonderfully familiar to her and fantastically new, like she was witnessing a miracle firsthand. Her gaze traveled over his tense, bold features with a frantic hunger. Something wild leapt into his sea-colored eyes.

“It’s okay. I’m fine—” she sputtered, but she was cut off, because suddenly he was stalking toward the bed, a blazing look in his eyes, and he was bending down and squeezing her against him.

“Don’t leave me, Emma,” he said roughly, his face pressed against her neck. Her face scrunched tight with swelling emotion. She dug her fingers into his thick hair and fisted it.

“No. I won’t,” she vowed shakily. She’d seen the truth there, bold and harsh and big as day on his anguished face just now. This was hurting him even more than she’d imagined the truth about Cristina would. She’d have to find a way to break the news to him. Better her than Vera Shaw. At least when he knew, she’d be there with him to help shield him from the pain.

She wasn’t sure how long they clung together like that in their desperate embrace. He did pull back after a stretched moment, however, his gaze searching her face. He palmed the back of her head gently, a tear spilling onto her cheek at the familiar, prizing gesture.

“They said you’re going to be okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she insisted. “They’re keeping me overnight, but it’s just for routine observation. I wish I could go now . . .” She swallowed thickly as she stared into his rigid, handsome face. She hadn’t understood until now that he’d been the target of her restless anguish since awakening from the wreck. She touched his whiskered jaw, and then smoothed back his longish, finger-strewn bangs from where they’d fallen on his forehead.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she whispered.

He shook his head, his gaze narrowing on her face. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you.” He leaned down and covered her mouth with his. Her heart seemed to seize and then renew its beating, stronger and faster than before. His taste and the sensation of him filled her like an elixir, sublime and wonderful because she’d thought she’d never experience it again. Warmth suffused her. When he broke their kiss, she held him against her, forehead to forehead.

“I’m so sorry,” she said in a pressured whisper.

“No. I am. I know Vera said something to you to upset you. I’m sorry I was so dense when you talked about how much she hated you. I know she can be difficult at times, but I usually just disregard her fussiness and territoriality. I’ve grown used to it, even if I don’t love it. I’ve built up a layer of protection against her, I guess. I had no idea she’d purposefully try to hurt you or sabotage something because I cared. If something worse had happened to you this morning,” he said, his voice cracking slightly, his gaze glacial, “I would have held her personally responsible.”

“No, Vanni,” Emma said. “The accident was just that: an accident. A stranger ran a red light. I know because the police officer investigating the crash told me the man who hit me had been treated at another hospital’s ER. He’s not seriously hurt, and is admitting he ran the light.”

He leaned back and peered at her closely. “So you didn’t wreck because you were upset or from unfocused driving?”

“No,” she said, sidestepping the truth a little and not feeling too guilty about it because she didn’t want to burden him further with rage. The fact of the matter was, she might have been hit whether she’d been distracted by thoughts of Vera, Cristina, and him or not. There wasn’t much you could do when someone barreled through a red light. Besides, she was going to have to tell him the truth about Cristina and how it related to Vera’s threats, she realized with a sinking sensation. He didn’t need any extra fury and helplessness in addition to that. “It was rotten luck and timing, that’s all.”

He nodded after a moment.

“Sit down,” she whispered, scooting over slightly on the cot. He perched his hip on the edge of the mattress. Emma curled around him, still holding his hands fast in hers, but wanting to feel him with as much of her body as she could.

“You’re sure you feel all right?” he asked quietly.

“I’m fine, Vanni. Please believe me,” she assured.

“And you meant what you said earlier?” he asked cautiously.

“About not leaving you?” she asked, squeezing his hand. “Yes. I meant it. That’s all past. I’ll stay with you, for as long as you want me.”

Her heart started to thrum in her ears as he looked down at her with a lancing stare.