Breathe (8 page)

She bit down on her lower lip, still tasting him there. No. It was impossible.

She didn't know what had possessed him and she'd been unable to utter a single word after she'd gotten out of the car. There was too much to say and so she'd been unable to say anything at all.

She formed the meat into a rectangle and put it in a pan, then washed her hands before sliding the dish into the oven to bake. If wishes were horses and all that. A family wasn't what Jace had wanted then and it still wasn't. She only had to look around this place to see that. So why had he kissed her? Especially now, when she was a widow with two small children he'd never wanted? Was he playing with her feelings? She didn't want to believe it. But what else was she supposed to think? He had to know she wouldn't take such a thing lightly.

Maybe she should. It was only a kiss after all.

But there wasn't such a thing as
just a kiss
with Jace. She sighed. Maybe she should just go back to the Island. She still had her job and the house.

But the very thought made her stomach curl with anxiety. Her father with his long looks and pronouncements. Stefano's family. Stefano's
mistress
. And all the whispers behind the hands of their friends and associates. All the sympathetic faces and words of condolence about a senseless tragedy when none of them knew the truth. She picked up a peeler and began viciously peeling potatoes. No, she couldn't face that again. She didn't know what her life was, or what it would become, but she knew it wasn't
that.

The door opened and shut and she held her breath. What could she say to Jace now? She didn't want to talk about the kiss, and she didn't want to talk about
that day
,
the one single day in her life that had changed everything. She definitely didn't want to talk about Stefano. Yet they couldn't continue on for long the way they were.

“You're cooking?”

She tried a smile. “It's been known to happen a time or two.”

His face relaxed slightly. “You have people for that,” he teased.

“My father has people,” she corrected. She held out an olive branch. “I thought I'd make
polpettone
.”

“No one makes
polpettone
like…” Eagerly he went to the oven and opened the door a crack, eyeing the Italian version of meatloaf.

“Francesca.” She named the cook the Morellis had employed while she and Alex were growing up. “I know. It's her recipe.”

“It is?” He shut the oven door and straightened, staring at her hard.

“I did stay in touch with her, you know, after she retired. She gave me her recipe. Also showed me her secret to potato puree.”

“You surprise me.”

The words warmed her. It was nice that for once she wasn't completely predictable. “I'll take that as a compliment. Though I can't guarantee it will taste like hers. I would never presume to aspire to such heights.”

He wiggled his eyebrows. “I often ate it cold.”

“Yes, you always claimed it was better the second day.”

He smiled as the memory drew them together. It was a genuine smile, and her heart caught.

“Jace,” she began, putting down the potato and drying her hands on a towel. She desperately wanted to put things back on a practical footing. “I'm sorry we've put you in this position. I was feeling so stifled that I needed to get away, and I just descended on you without warning. I think…I think I was afraid you'd say no if I asked first. I'm glad you've decided to let me repay you by helping with the guesthouse.”

The kitchen was quiet, only the distant sounds of the television marring the perfect peace.

“It is very hard to say no to you.” The admission was soft and telling.

“It wasn't always.” The answer came automatically and she wanted to cut out her tongue. What had happened to making sure they didn't talk about their past relationship?

“It means a lot to me that you felt you could come to me. I know I've been difficult the last twenty-four hours.”

“Who wouldn't be? We took you completely by surprise.”

“Yes, you did. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't prepared for children. But I didn't mean you weren't welcome.”

She bit down on her lip. Not welcome was exactly how she'd felt. Until the moment their mouths had touched. Then it had felt very, very welcoming.

“About what happened in the car…”

He cleared his throat. “I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. Your idea for the guesthouse is a good one. I got carried away, that's all.”

It was what she'd wanted to hear and yet it still deflated her. But now, like then, she preferred keeping the friendship between them. The friendship was what would sustain them. She had to focus on that.

“We go back a long way, don't we?”

“Yes, Anna, we do. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you.”

She swallowed heavily. It had been years since she'd heard him speak her name in just
that
way, and warmth curled through her insides. Did he have any idea how much she'd missed him over the years? How she'd needed him only to have him treat her like she was his best friend's baby sister?

“I could have used you on my side.”

She lifted her eyes and lost herself in the regret she saw reflected back to her. “I let you down,” he admitted. “It's not something I like about myself.”

How could she answer without getting embroiled in the one topic they never discussed? She chose her words carefully. “You were honest. I understood why you kept away.”

For moments their eyes clung. Questions hovered on Anna's lips, but she was too afraid to hear the answers so remained silent. She begged him to forgive her with her eyes. Hoping he understood without words what it was she wanted to say.

“I'm here now,” he said gently. “And I hope I'm not too late.”

He came forward then and put his arms around her, enfolding her in a hug. She closed her eyes as her head rested against the inside of his shoulder. Her arms curved around his back and she held on, drawing strength from him. He felt so good. He hadn't held her for many years, and it took her back to the rolling green hills of the Morelli estate. The feelings rushed through her and she tried to ignore most of them and concentrate on what she really needed right now. Strength and support. Her champion back. Even if they were both more than a little flawed.

She pushed away a little, feeling better but still realizing he deserved to know the truth about Stefano's death. It wasn't fair to keep it from him any longer. There had to be some measure of trust, of honesty between them. Despite their fights, they'd built bridges the last few days. He had to hear it from her.

“I need to tell you about Stefano, and what brought me to Two Willows.”

“I am sorry about your husband. I can't imagine how you must feel. Of course you would want to get away from reminders of him.”

His chocolaty eyes held her motionless and she knew she had to explain. It was as good an opening as any to tell him how things had really been. It wasn't fair for her to let him go on thinking she'd had a perfect marriage. Or that she was nursing a broken heart. And if he thought less of her in the end, so be it.

“They aren't the kind of reminders you think. I certainly didn't run because of a broken heart. I ran because being home made me feel like an imposter. All the looks and words made me feel guilty for not grieving more. Oh, Jace, I couldn't breathe.”

“You did love your husband, didn't you?”

It was a question for which she had no clear answer. She had to keep her hands busy. She gave him a pot and the two potatoes she'd already peeled, so he could wash them. She picked up another and began peeling. He worked beside her without a word of protest, somehow understanding that in the difficulty she had to keep occupied.

“I did, but not as I should have. I loved him for
what
he was at first. Then I found out
who
he was and I hated him.”

“I don't understand.”

She handed over another potato.

“Stefano was a wonderful catch on paper. My father knew it. I knew it. So did Stefano. He was from a good family, an Italian family, and that was important to Papa.”

“I remember.” The bitterness bled through Jace's voice. Roberto Morelli had looked down his nose at Jace's family. Mike Willow had looked after Morelli's stables, an expensive hobby of Roberto's that made him look good. Jace had worked part-time there as soon as he was old enough. Roberto hated that Alex and Anna were friends with someone so beneath them.

But Alex and Anna weren't such snobs as children. Jace had spent hours with them, roaming the vineyard, sneaking into the kitchen, playing in the stables. All the places where Roberto wasn't. Jace had never truly felt the difference between them until he'd come back and found Anna engaged to Stefano.

“Please,” she begged him softly. “You have to understand. Papa was very…persuasive. Stefano had money and security. We had a perfect life and in my way I thought I loved him. But I did it with my head, and not my heart. And my head was very, very wrong. It was more of an alliance than a marriage. He'd wanted a connection with Morelli.”

“And you wanted…”

The air seemed to still all around them. What had she wanted? She'd given up on love and happy ever afters. Everything she'd wanted had crumbled around her. She'd hardly cared. Stefano had seemed as good an idea as any. He had been older, and charming and attentive at first. And in a way it had been her final act of defiance. She'd wanted to hurt Jace the way he'd hurt her. Only she'd ended up being the one hurt in the end. Jace had come through without a scratch.

Now he seemed to be holding his breath, waiting for an answer. For some odd reason she almost felt like she was being tested. But why, she couldn't comprehend. When she'd met Stefano, she and Jace had been over. Alex had gone to Kelowna to study another wine operation and he'd taken Jace with him. They stayed nearly two months, while she'd been alone, heartbroken and angry.

“I don't know what I wanted. I thought he would give me a comfortable life. And for a while he did. Then I found out he was having an affair with our nanny just after Alex and Melissa were married.”

The potato dropped, unwashed, into the pot, and Jace turned a quarter turn. She could feel him staring at her profile but she didn't dare look up.

“What did you do?”

“We didn't have a great love affair, Stefano and me. It was…it was understood that it was based greatly on appearances. But the one thing I refused to tolerate was infidelity. He never even attempted to deny it. Nor did he take any great steps to hide it. Honestly, I think my pride could have taken it if it had been anyone other than the woman I entrusted with my children. I confronted him with it.”

The peeler scraped at the potato furiously. “I demanded he stop. He wondered why he should. Then he asked what I was going to do about it.”

“Good for you. What did you say?”

“I didn't have an answer. I guess I thought being caught would be enough. But no. So in the end I threatened to divorce him.”

Jace's braced his hands on the edge of the counter as he let out his breath in a whoosh. She could sense his shock. Divorce wasn't something taken lightly and she couldn't escape the feeling that her answer disappointed him as well. He was going to think even less of her, if that were possible. She blinked, determined to get through to the end so she could get it over with once and for all.

“I know,” Anna continued weakly. “He laughed at me. He came right out and asked what I thought my father would say to that. Papa clings pretty tightly to what he calls ‘the old ways'. But Stefano took it too lightly. It made me mad. I swore to him I'd end our marriage if it was the last thing I did.”

“And Roberto? What did he say?”

The hurts piled on top of one another, weighing Anna down. “He expressly forbade it. No daughter of his would disgrace the family with divorce.” Finally, she put down vegetable and peeler. She stared out the window. This was what her charmed life had become. Away from the home she'd known and loved, away from the people and places that were familiar just to escape her own guilt. “I couldn't stay at Morelli, so I stayed in our house and contacted a lawyer.”

Jace cursed. “Damn your father and his narrow mindedness. What kind of man would turn his daughter away?”

Anna couldn't help but smile a little as her heart warmed. This was why she'd come to Jace. Despite their past, she knew deep down he'd be on her side. “I really didn't expect anything else, Jace. Anyway when Stefano found out I'd hired a lawyer, he took his mistress—the nanny who had rocked my children to sleep, supposedly loved them—on a trip on the sailboat. He was arrogant and complacent. And wooing her with Morelli's finest, it would seem.”

She tried to keep the loathing out of her voice, flattening it to calm the awful emotions churning inside her. “There was an accident, and he died. We just kept the mistress part quiet, and everyone considered it a horrible tragedy. If people knew, they said nothing to me about it. Only me, Papa and Alex knew the marriage was already ending. But it is hard to keep it a secret that she was there with him. She went into hysterics with the coast guard.”

“Bastard.” Jace spit out the word and spun her around, his hands firm on her shoulders. “And now what, you feel guilty?” His gaze burrowed into hers. “You feel responsible?”

“Yes, yes, I do,” she answered quietly. She eyed the pot of potatoes, most of which were unrinsed. She reached over, took it off the counter and ran it under the water. Anything to keep her hands busy. They wanted to reach over and grip his, to find strength in his fingers, but she knew she couldn't rely on that too much. “I didn't create the storm, but when it comes right down to it, I was the one who provoked him. I was the one who hadn't been attentive enough, hadn't seen the signs. And yet I couldn't stand the sight of him, knowing what he'd done. You must understand, never would I have wished him dead.
Never
. But playing the sorrowful widow, knowing what I knew, was impossible. I couldn't take it another minute. And that's why I'm here. I'm not here to recover from some broken heart. I'm here because I have to find a way to face up to all the mistakes I made.”