‘ARE YOU SURE you want to do this?’ Grace asked as the driver pulled up outside Pepe’s Parisian home.
Cara nodded absently, gazing at the place she had called home. The place where she had spent the happiest months of her life. The place where the man she loved was holed up, alone.
‘You don’t have to do this.’
Cara attempted a smile. ‘I know that. I want to.’ How puny a word want sounded when describing the desperate yearning that lived inside her to be with him.
But Grace was right. She didn’t have to do this. She could get on the jet that was waiting for them and fly off to Rome. The world would still turn. In time she would heal.
But her heart wouldn’t. Without Pepe she doubted she would ever feel whole again.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?’
Cara shook her head. ‘No. I need to do this alone. I want to say goodbye to him properly.’ At the graveside Pepe had looked desolate. She’d had Grace on her arm, holding her up. He’d stood apart from them all, shunning even his brother.
She needed to satisfy herself that he was holding up.
Who was taking care of him? she wondered. His mother was in Sicily taking care of Lily. His brother was already en route back to Sicily, having returned for the funeral. Pepe had rejected his attempts to stay with him, assuring both Luca and Grace that he was perfectly all right, and throwing himself into his work.
But he wasn’t all right. He couldn’t be. The few conversations they’d had to discuss the funeral arrangements had been almost too painful to recall. He’d sounded empty.
His friends, as lovely as she’d come to accept most of them were, were too wrapped up in their own lives to see beyond the tragedy of what had happened between them on anything but a superficial level. And now that the funeral was over, she suspected those that had been there for him thus far—if he’d even let them be there for him, which she doubted—would fall by the wayside.
She’d held off for a full twenty-four hours before caving in to her need to see him. Her mind was tormented with worries for his state of mind. She’d phoned the house and been assured by Monique that he was working from home. She’d called at the right time—Monique had been put on leave with full pay until further notice. She was only at the house at that time with the ostensible excuse of having to drop some dry-cleaning off. She too was worried for him.
‘Make sure you take things easy,’ Grace warned kindly.
Two weeks had passed since Cara’s baby had been so cruelly taken from her. It would be another four weeks before she’d be allowed to lift anything heavier than a cup of tea. ‘I promise. I’ll call you when I’m done.’
‘No rush. I’ll wait at the house.’ Since her discharge, Cara and Grace had been staying at the home of a friend of Pepe’s who was away on business. ‘The jet’s ready to leave when we are.’
Swallowing her apprehension, Cara used her key to unlock the front door. The alarms were disabled, so she knew he had to be around somewhere, but only silence greeted her. Heavy, oppressive silence.
Slowly she walked through the ground floor. Everything was just as it had been when she’d last walked through this house, when the future had seemed full of hope, when they’d found a new level of intimacy and she’d believed that maybe miracles could occur.
But there were no miracles to be had.
Nothing had changed but the house felt like a shell of itself.
How could Pepe bear to live here all alone with only his own thoughts for company?
At least she had Grace. She would always have Grace and would for ever be grateful to her best friend for everything she had done for her and continued to do. But all Cara wanted was Pepe. It was his arms she wanted around her, holding her. Just holding her. Sharing their grief.
‘Pepe?’
No answer.
‘Pepe? It’s me. Cara,’ she added as an afterthought.
Where was he? Oh, please let him be okay.
There was another reason for her being here.
Taking a deep breath, she entered the garage.
All the stuff was there, exactly where she had left it, still in the boxes. The cot. The dresser. The pram. Even the baby bath. Everything.
The weighty nausea that had lined her stomach for the past two weeks began its familiar roll. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall for support.
Her baby would never sleep in that cot or ride in that pram.
Her chest heaved as she fought back another fresh wave of tears. So many tears. So much grief. And the man she wanted so desperately to cling to could hardly bring himself to look at her.
Heavy steps came into the garage accompanied by even heavier breathing.
‘Sorry, I was on a teleconference,’ Pepe said tonelessly.
She opened her mouth to say not to worry. Instead, bile and hysteria rose in her throat. The boxes ripped at her.
‘Are you healing well?’
She wanted to say yes, but all she could see were the boxes. ‘I don’t know what to do with this lot. I just don’t know what to do.’
At first he didn’t answer. ‘I’ll keep them here until you decide.’
She jerked a nod, and finally made herself look at him. ‘Thank you.’
He raised a shoulder. ‘No problem.’
Despite his casual air, she wasn’t fooled. Not for a second. Pepe was hurting every bit as much as she.
He looked wretched too, even more so than she’d seen at the graveside, when she’d been too heartbroken and scared to do more than cast him fleeting glances. Scared she would take his hand and offer the support he so clearly didn’t want. Scared his grief would make him reject her.
He couldn’t have shaved at all since it had happened. The man who took such pride in his trim goatee now had a fully fledged black beard. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. Even his clothes were all wrong. He hadn’t dressed. He’d thrown clothes on.
His feet were bare.
She longed to reach out but didn’t know...
She didn’t know anything. She didn’t know how to cross the bridge to him.
What did she think she was doing? Pepe didn’t want her there.
He didn’t want anyone.
She straightened and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes as she said, ‘I need to go.’
She took his lack of an answer as agreement.
Her hand on the door, she turned to face him one last time. ‘Be kind to yourself, Pepe.’
Tears blinding her, she walked through the living room, fumbling in her bag for her phone to call Grace, who’d likely not even made it back to the house yet.
‘Cara?’
Hastily brushing the tears away with the back of her hand and in the process clonking her nose with her phone, she stopped and slowly turned.
Pepe shuffled towards her, his hand outstretched. ‘Don’t go.’
Her brow furrowed in confusion.
Her legs too weak to carry her any further, her stomach feeling the strain of being upright for too long, she sank onto the chair right behind her.
When he reached her, he knelt down and placed his hand on her neck. ‘I can’t bear it,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I think I could cope if it was just the loss of our baby, but losing you too...’
A sound like a wail echoed in the room. It took the beat of a moment for Cara to realise the sound had come from her.
Pepe’s face contorted and he looked down to her belly then back up to her face, his eyes searching for...something. ‘I know what I’m asking is selfish but, please, cucciola mia, please don’t go. I’ll take care of you. I’ll help you heal. Please, just give me the chance to show how much you mean to me and prove how much I love you.’
When Pepe saw the confusion and doubt ringing in Cara’s eyes, he almost gave up. It was the tiny spark of hope he also saw that gave him the courage to forge on.
To put his heart on the line. Because if he didn’t say it now it would be too late.
‘When Luisa aborted our baby—and I believe with all my heart that child was mine—it was the loss of that child so soon after the loss of my father that ruined me. Her lies and deceit were supplementary. I never missed her. I’d been in love with a dream that didn’t exist—in my own family I’d always felt like a spare part. Luca was the brother who mattered; I was just the spare, and, no matter how much my parents loved me, I always knew that. With Luisa, I dreamt of having my own family where I mattered.
‘Cara, losing our baby has broken my heart. Our child was more than a dream. You were more than a dream, and you leaving...it’s broken me. I don’t know how to go on. I’m lost without you. I’m...’ His voice went. All the desolation he’d been sitting on for the past two weeks burst through and choked him. He didn’t even realise he was crying until Cara wrapped her arms around him and pulled his head to her chest.
She kissed his head, over and over, murmuring sweet words and cradling him with such love and compassion that for the first time in a fortnight a trickle of warmth cut through the ice in his chest.
‘Oh, my poor love,’ she whispered, her own tears falling into his hair. ‘I’ve been so desperate to be with you. I thought you wouldn’t want me here any more. If I’d known how you felt I would never have gone with Grace.’
He raised his head and found his face being rained upon with her tears. ‘I thought you wanted to be with her.’
She shook her head. ‘I wanted to be with you. Just you. I love you, Pepe.’
‘You do?’
What looked like a brave smile broke through her tears. ‘How could I not fall in love with you? I always thought love between a man and a woman was about sex and power and humiliation. I had no idea it could be about sex and friendship and support. You’re everything to me.’
‘I’m so sorry for the way I treated you when you first came to me about the pregnancy. And I’m sorry for the way I treated you in Dublin.’
‘I understand. You were helping your brother. While I don’t agree with your methods, I can see it was something you felt you had to do for his sake. I would have done the same for Grace.’
‘I was terrible,’ he stated.
‘It’s done,’ she said gently, ‘and if it makes you feel better then know I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago.’
Pepe hadn’t realised how badly he’d needed her forgiveness until another trickle of warmth seeped into his bones. It would be a long time before the cold left him, but with Cara at his side he didn’t have to freeze alone. And neither did she. Together they could bring the warmth back.
‘A part of me always knew getting involved with you would bring me nothing but trouble,’ he confessed.
‘Really?’
‘Sì. And I was right. It wasn’t just that you were a virgin or that I felt guilt for what I’d done: I couldn’t get you out of my head. The pregnancy came almost as a relief—it meant I had a legitimate reason to keep you in my life without having to acknowledge that my feelings for you ran far further than I could ever admit.’
Her bee-stung lip wobbled. He pressed a finger to it and then the tenderest of kisses. ‘I used to tease you about being my concubine or my geisha. I can see now how wide off the mark I was—I should be your concubine because your needs are all that matter to me. The rest of the world can go to hell. You are all that matters to me, and whatever it takes to get us through this whole horrific ordeal I will do. I swear.’
‘As long as you’re by my side, I know I’ll get through it,’ she said gently. ‘And part of that is you letting me help you. We can support each other.’
‘Do you really mean that?’
‘More than anything. I used to think wanting to be with a man meant weakness and that to fall in love would make me lose something of myself. But it hasn’t. My mum’s life is not mine—and you have shown me that. I know I can survive without you, Pepe. I know I can lead a fulfilling life on my own, but I don’t want to. I want to be with you. I want to support you just as you’ve supported me. I love you. Seeing you alone at the graveside tore me in two.’
‘Shall we go on our own tomorrow, to say goodbye together?’
Cara nodded through fresh tears then buried her face into his shoulder. Except these tears didn’t feel quite as desolate as all the others had. Pepe’s love had given her the hope and desire to see the silver lining on the dark cloud.
Together they would heal each other, and then who knew where their love would take them? All she knew with bone-deep certainty was that wherever they went, they would always be together, united. As one.
As love.