She did her best to ignore the little jab of disappointment his words evoked. ‘I know what this is, Leandro.’
He moved his tongue around the inside of his cheek as if he was rehearsing something before he said it. ‘It’s not that I don’t care about you. I do. You’re an incredibly special person to me. As are all of your family. But this is as far as it goes.’
Miranda got off the bed, dragging the sheet with her to cover her nakedness. ‘Do we really need to have this conversation?’ she said. ‘We both know the rules. No one’s going to suddenly move the goal posts.’
His expression was as inscrutable as that of one of the marble statues downstairs. ‘You deserve more,’ he said. ‘You’re young. Beautiful. Talented. You’d make someone a wonderful wife and mother.’
‘I don’t want those things any more,’ she said. ‘That dream was taken away. I don’t want it with anyone else.’ Even as she said the words Miranda wondered why they didn’t sound as convincing as they once had. She had made that heartfelt promise just moments before Mark had died. There will be no one else for me. Ever. I will always be yours.
Mark’s parents had been there with her at his bedside in ICU. The heart-wrenching emotion of saying goodbye, of watching as someone she loved took their last breaths, had made Miranda all the more determined to stay true to her promise. But now, as an adult, she wondered more and more if she had truly loved Mark enough to sign away her life. Or had his illness given her a purpose—a mission to follow that gave her life meaning, direction and significance?
She didn’t know who she was without that mission. That purpose. It was too frightening to live without it. It had defined her, shaped her and motivated her for the last seven years.
Leandro made a sound of derision that scraped at her raw nerves. ‘You’re a fool to throw your life away for a selfish teenager who should’ve known better than to play with your emotions like that. For God’s sake, Miranda, he didn’t even have the decency to satisfy you in bed and yet you persist with this nonsense he was the love of your life.’
Miranda didn’t want to hear Leandro vocalise what she was too frightened to think, to confront—to deal with. She drew in a scalding breath as she turned for the door. ‘I don’t have to listen to this. I know what I felt—feel.’
‘That’s right,’ Leandro said. ‘Run away. That’s what you do when things cut a little close to the bone.’
She swung back to glare at him. ‘Isn’t that what you do, Leandro? You haven’t been back here since you were a child. Your father died without you saying a proper goodbye to him. Doesn’t that tell you something?’
His jaw clamped so tightly two spots of white appeared either side of his mouth. ‘I wasn’t welcome here. My father made that perfectly clear.’
Miranda dropped her shoulders on a frustrated sigh. How could he be so blind about his father? Couldn’t he see what was right in front of his eyes? He was surrounded by everything his father had treasured the most: rooms and rooms full of wonderful, priceless pieces, paintings worth millions of pounds. Not to mention Rosie’s things—her clothes and toys, the life-like statue in the garden—all left to Leandro’s care. ‘And yet he left you everything,’ she said. ‘Everything he valued he left to you. He could have donated it all to charity as you’re threatening to do but he didn’t. He left it all to you because you meant something to him. You were his only son. I don’t believe he would’ve left you a thing if he didn’t love you. He did love you. He just didn’t know how to show it. Maybe his grief over Rosie got in the way.’
Leandro’s throat rose and fell. He turned away to plough his fingers through his hair, the silence so acute she heard the scrape of his fingers against his scalp.
It seemed a decade before he spoke. ‘I’d like to be alone.’
Miranda’s heart gave a painful spasm at the rawness of his tone. What had made her speak so out of turn? She knew nothing of the heartbreak he had been through. She didn’t know his father. She had never met him. She had no idea of how Leandro’s relationship with him had operated. She was an armchair survivor. Leandro had every right to be furious with her. What right did she have to criticise his decision to stay away from his childhood home? He had suffered cruelly for his part in his sister’s disappearance. A part he wasn’t even responsible for, given he had been so young. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I should never have said what I said. It was insensitive and...’