It wasn’t her cold feet she was worried about but Rico’s icy heart. Quickly she slipped out of the dress and handed it to the assistant. ‘Thank you.’
‘You are sure...?’
‘Yes.’ She was sure about the dress, if nothing else at this moment.
Halina dressed quickly, as Rico was planning to meet her for lunch at a new upscale restaurant off the Via dei Condotti and she didn’t want him sensing that she was worried or upset. He would just harangue her, demanding to know what was wrong and how he could fix it. Touching at times, but he couldn’t fix this. He wouldn’t want to.
‘Did you find a dress?’ Rico asked when she walked into the restaurant fifteen minutes later. He stood up as she came to the table and kissed her cheek.
‘Yes, I have found one.’ Halina sat down and smiled. ‘I think it’s very pretty.’
Rico scanned her face, a slight frown settling between his brows. ‘What’s wrong?’
He was so irritatingly
perceptive, Halina reflected. A strange quality for man who claimed to have no use for feelings. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she said and picked up her menu. Now that thankfully her nausea had gone, she found she was ravenous.
‘Something’s wrong, Halina. I can tell.’
Halina looked up from the menu, her eyebrows raised. ‘How can you tell?’
Rico shrugged, seeming slightly discomfited by the question. ‘I just can. There’s something about you...it’s like a sixth sense, I suppose. We’re attuned to each other.’
Which could have been heartening, but wasn’t. She didn’t want to be attuned. She wanted to be loved. The realisation solidified inside her, although she’d been trying to talk herself out of it for weeks. Why did she care if Rico loved her or not, when he promised her so much else?
The answer came suddenly in a tidal wave of amazement and despair.
She loved him. She’d gone and fallen in love with him, even though she’d known it was foolish, the stupidest thing she could ever do. Yet she’d still done it. Her heart hadn’t been able to resist because Rico was gentle, kind and fiercely protective, because he made her laugh and ache and sing.
This was love, then, that ephemeral emotion Rico dismissed out of hand. And it was so much more than that, because Halina knew what it meant. It meant she would love him no matter what; it meant she would love him even if he didn’t love her back.
She’d wondered what love felt like, if she’d really know when it was missing or whether she’d found it, and now here was her proof. She loved Rico, and it filled her with both joy and despair because she knew, no matter what she felt, that he utterly refused to love her back.
‘Well?’ Rico demanded. ‘Has something happened? Has someone said something? Tell me.’
‘I don’t want to, Rico,’ Halina said wearily. She knew he wouldn’t let it drop, just as she knew he’d hate to hear what was really troubling her—the realisation that thudded through her, a wonder and fear.
Rico’s frown deepened. ‘Why don’t you want to?’
‘Because there’s no point, and it will just annoy you.’ As much as it hurt her to say it. ‘You don’t have to be such a bull dog about everything, you know? I’m allowed to have some thoughts I can keep to myself.’ Because it would horrify him to know she’d fallen in love with him. That much she knew.
‘I’m hardly asking you to tell me your every thought,’ Rico protested. ‘But, if something is troubling you, I want to fix it.’
‘Trust me, you can’t fix this.’
That, of course, did nothing to appease him. ‘There must be something I can do,’ Rico insisted, and Halina almost smiled. Her husband-to-be hated the thought that he was not all-powerful.
‘There isn’t,’ she informed him firmly. ‘Shall we order?’
Rico looked unconvinced but he beckoned the hovering waiter over and they ordered their meals.
‘You are happy with the dress?’ Rico asked once the waiter had left them alone.
‘Yes, it’s very nice.’ Although now she could barely remember what it looked like. It wasn’t the way she had wanted to buy her wedding dress, alone and anonymous in a boutique. If she’d been at home, her sisters would have surrounded her, jabbering excitedly, and her mother would have been there to offer benevolent and wise advice. Even her father would have wanted to see the dress, and offer an opinion.
Sudden tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back rapidly, but not before Rico noticed.
‘Halina,’ he said, his voice low and urgent as he leaned forward. ‘You must tell me what is wrong. I can’t stand to see you so obviously unhappy.’