Orsino groped for a response, but his brain was too busy trying and failing to process what she’d said.
She’d thought he hadn’t loved her?
Why would he
marry
her if he hadn’t loved her?
He’d had women chasing him since his teens. Women who wanted a chunk of the Chatsfield family fortune, or a celebrity husband who could provide a luxury lifestyle to boot.
Surely the fact he’d chosen Poppy, instead of one of the hundreds of others, was proof enough!
‘The sex was fantastic, of course, but there was always a part of you closed off from everyone else. Behind the charisma and the charm was someone I knew I couldn’t reach.’
She paused and he wondered dully what had possessed him to ask for the truth.
Hadn’t he known probing the past was a mistake?
‘Like your trips away.’
‘What about them?’ Impatience tinged his tone. Those climbing trips had been part of his life since
his teens. They had kept him sane and functioning in a dysfunctional family, in a society where everyone wanted something and nothing seemed to have real value or depth.
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘But they were important to you and whenever I asked about them you clammed up. You didn’t want me involved.’
Great! According to her he’d screwed up their marriage because he’d continued to enjoy outdoor treks she hadn’t a hope of keeping up with. And because he hadn’t said ‘I love you’ enough.
Orsino’s mouth flattened.
Typical of her to blame him when the reason for their marriage crashing and burning was her lust for another man. He opened his mouth to give her a blast but his brain seemed to have no control over his tongue.
‘I’m sorry you felt that way, Poppy.’
It was true. Despite the anguish she’d caused, regret seeped through him.
He’d had to be resilient and self-sufficient from an early age and his predilection for extreme sports had honed his ability for intense personal focus.
Had he really shut her out by clinging to what had been his lifeline—his escapes to the wilderness?
It seemed impossible. Yet he’d learned in the past years that people and their needs were anything but simple.
Against his shoulder she nodded, sliding her
long, soft hair in a caress across his skin. ‘It’s over, Orsino. It doesn’t matter. I don’t even know why we’re discussing it. There’s no going back.’
She took the words out of his mouth.
He told himself that was good. She wasn’t expecting this affair to go anywhere once it reached its natural conclusion.
It was only much later, when the sound of Poppy’s even breathing told him she’d finally fallen asleep, that he found himself wondering.
In the days when it had still been true, had he ever told Poppy he loved her?
Or, it struck him suddenly, had he, the man renowned for reckless courage, been too scared?
T
HE WHOOSHING ROAR
of the burners made conversation impossible but Poppy didn’t mind. From here, suspended high above fields and forests, she watched the peach-gold dawn glaze the landscape. Long shadows stretched inky blue as if retreating from the light. Pale patches of frost hadn’t yet melted.
Threads of mist clung to the river as it meandered around a bluff topped by a moated fairytale castle that bristled with round towers.
Below was an ancient town with steeply tiled roofs and narrow streets. Poppy craned her neck over the edge of the basket in fascination.
The pilot switched off the blast of heat firing the hot air balloon and in the blissful silence she heard the cry of a lone bird.
‘It’s nothing like being in a plane.’ She felt her smile spread across her features. ‘This is so … real. Looking out a plane window it all seems so far away. But this—I can almost smell the earth and the wood smoke.’
Orsino moved behind her, his big frame solid at her back. She leaned into him, luxuriating in his nearness. A secret smile curved her lips as his hand rubbed her arm. Even through the heavy coat his touch was magic.
‘Totally different,’ he murmured. ‘I’m glad you like it.’
‘How could I not?’ She swung around. ‘It’s glorious.’
He didn’t smile back, but something that looked like pleasure lurked at the corner of his mouth and a long dimple grooved his cheek. With his dark, unshaven jaw and wind-tousled hair, and the early sun highlighting the tiny creases beside his eyes, he looked exactly what he was: an adventurer. Like the highwaymen and pirates she’d fantasised about in her girlish dreams.
Poppy’s heart careered as her eyes met his and she saw a glow of warmth.
‘Not everyone appreciates the solitary splendour of it. Some prefer bright lights, glamour and bustle.’
‘Is that what you think of me?’ Their focus had always been on the present, never what had gone before.
Orsino shrugged. ‘We met in the city. You lived and worked there the whole time I knew you.’ Poppy swallowed, wondering why his use of the past tense saddened her. ‘We were always going out to clubs or opening nights.’
Poppy nodded. Their marriage had been a whirl
of activity. Until it had fallen apart. Who’d have guessed they could talk so amicably now?
She kept her voice low, aware they weren’t alone. ‘I was brought up in the country. I loved getting up as the sun rose to go for a long ride.’ Until her father sold her old pony, trying to pay debts.
‘What else did you enjoy?’
Poppy turned and looked at the slowly drifting landscape. In the distance she saw their chateau straddling the river, surrounded by its geometrically patterned gardens and the forest beyond. The scene’s delicate beauty stole her breath.
‘Would you believe, fishing?’ It had been so long, she’d almost forgotten. ‘Our neighbour was an expert. I used to tag along.’ Those were the days she found any excuse to get out of the house and away from her father.
‘Somehow I can’t imagine you in waders.’ Orsino’s breath breezed the back of her neck and she shivered, pulling her warm jacket closer.
‘You’d be surprised.’ She smiled. ‘The first time I actually hooked a fish I was so stunned I stumbled and ended up drenched from head to toe.’
Orsino chuckled. ‘I’d never picked you for a lover of the great outdoors.’ He paused and when he spoke again his voice was sober. ‘Maybe I should have brought you somewhere like this five years ago. I love the peace up here. It’s like climbing. Just you in the vast wilderness. It’s … cathartic, pitting yourself against nature. There’s something clean
and real about it. No room for falsehood or empty words. No pretence. What you see is what you get, however harsh.’
Poppy swivelled around but it was hard to read his face. He’d donned his dark glasses as the sun rose and the light intensified. Every instinct clamoured that here was something absolutely vital to Orsino. These adventures weren’t just fun for him. They were
necessary.
‘I would have liked that.’ Poppy swallowed, wondering how different things would have been if he’d shared some of this with her years ago. ‘I didn’t know you were a balloonist.’
Orsino turned and gestured to the lanky Frenchman piloting them. ‘Thierry is the balloonist. I was always just along for the ride.’
‘I’m glad you admit it at last, Orsino,’ Thierry said in accented English, his smile flashing. ‘That trip across South America you were pure baggage, except when we landed and you got to pose for the cameras.’
Orsino laughed, the sound far too appealing, and the mood lightened.
Thierry poured mugs of rich hot chocolate from a large thermos and passed them around. Poppy wrapped gloved hands around hers and inhaled the fragrant steam.
She looked from one man to the other, reading the camaraderie and genuine respect behind their banter as they relived past trips with anecdotes that
grew more and more outrageous. ‘You two shared a balloon for
weeks
?’
‘It was for charity, you understand, and Orsino brought the media attention.’ Thierry winked. ‘I suppose he was useful in his own way, but if I do something like that again, perhaps you’d consider coming with me instead, Mademoiselle Graham.’
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Orsino drawled. ‘Try your fabled charm elsewhere, Thierry. She’s taken.’
Poppy’s eyes bulged.
Taken?
Did Orsino realise that implied longevity in a relationship that was due to end soon? Or was it part of his joking rivalry with his friend?
The roar of the burners stopped further conversation and Poppy turned to lean against the basket and gaze at the view.
She was glad she’d agreed to come with Orsino today on her day off.
Maybe it was the thrill of being up here, or perhaps because they’d reached some sort of understanding, but she knew what he meant about a sense of peace. She felt like she’d left her troubles down on the ground.
Ever since agreeing to Orsino’s demand that he stay with her, doubts had racked her about the wisdom of getting too close. About getting hurt again.
But here she felt exhilaration and pleasure. She understood why he loved this. Man against the elements. Adventure and, yes, peace.
She sipped her hot chocolate, feeling its warmth trace down her insides.
As it did an outrageous thought struck her. She almost choked on her drink.
Orsino wasn’t just taking her on a pleasant outing. He was sharing his private world. The world he’d barred her from all those years ago.
She swung round to find him braced against the other side of the basket, his gaze fixed on her. A frisson of excitement tiptoed over her nape and down her backbone.
Ballooning was part of his world of challenge and outdoor adventure. Yet here he was, not only sharing the experience but introducing her to one of his friends.
What had changed?
Poppy read the tension in his straight shoulders and wondered with a crazy skip of her pulse why he chose to share now. And why it mattered so much that he did.
An hour later, after smiling farewells to Thierry, the driver Orsino had organised delivered them to a small
manoir
, nestled in private parkland. It was the property of absent friends, Orsino explained.
Now he and Poppy enjoyed a champagne brunch in a sun-drenched conservatory. The friendly housekeeper who’d served had left them to their privacy.
Poppy found herself chuckling over another of
Orsino’s unlikely stories, this one about Thierry, a disabled hot air balloon and an enormous python somewhere over the Amazon. Wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, she realised she hadn’t enjoyed herself so much in weeks.
No, she realised abruptly. Months.
Her smile faded. It couldn’t be years, could it?
That was impossible. She’d been happy pursuing her career goals. Hard work brought its rewards, like financial security—so important to her after her father’s profligacy had turned him sour and destroyed their family. Work gave her independence. Success meant she’d never have to rely on anyone, especially a man, the way her mother had.
But looking back on those years since Orsino, Poppy realised she’d been so busy building her career she’d done precious little else. At the back of her mind was always the fear that if she failed she’d lose that precious control over her life. She’d taken on job after demanding job, forever focused on the next career goal.
When was the last time she’d taken time out to laugh with a friend?
And since when did Orsino qualify as a friend?
She raised her crystal flute and swallowed vintage champagne, letting it trickle down her throat. It was a decadent delight in her life of perpetual diet consciousness.
‘Poppy? What is it?’
She looked up through veiling lashes, shocked at
how the hint of concern in Orsino’s voice evoked feelings she should have buried ages ago. Tiny furrows pleated his tanned forehead. The scar above his eye was paler now, less confronting.
‘Nothing at all.’ She pinned a smile on her features.
Since that night when Orsino had put himself between her and danger, she’d been puzzling over the sense that he
cared.
It would drive her mad trying to fathom what was going on between them.
Their short-term, no-holds-barred sexual relationship with no future had veered into something fragile and new. She refused to analyse it.
All she knew was that with Orsino she felt more alive, more authentically herself, than she had in ages.
And now, having him share these glimpses of his life with her …
‘You asked about my childhood before,’ she said impulsively. ‘How about you? What was your favourite thing as a child?’
‘Sports days,’ he said promptly. ‘I liked winning.’
Poppy grinned. Why didn’t that surprise her? The combination of athleticism and challenge would have suited Orsino to a T.
‘What about earlier? What do you remember when you were little?’ She couldn’t resist the opportunity to probe. Orsino was rarely so talkative.
He shrugged. ‘Hot drinks and adventure stories
in bed. At boarding school they gave us younger ones cocoa before lights out.’
‘You must have been young.’ It didn’t sound like her school.
‘Lucca and I boarded from the age of seven.’
So young! Poppy had been a teenager when she’d boarded.
‘Don’t look so horrified.’ Orsino swallowed the last of his wine and put his glass down. ‘Boarding school was everything I needed back then.’
‘Everything?’
He snagged the wine bottle and leaned across, topping up her glass before she thought to protest. Then he refilled his own before turning back to her.
‘You think I missed home?’ His mouth twisted bitterly and sadness snaked through her. Poppy couldn’t remember caring for her father, but she’d loved her mother and missed her warm cuddles when she went away to school. Hadn’t Orsino felt the same?
‘My father sent us away the week after my mother abandoned us.’ Orsino reached out and twisted the stem of his wineglass on the white linen cloth. ‘We were too much of a handful to stay home.’
‘What, all of you?’ She knew he had older siblings.
‘Maybe he blamed us twins.’ Orsino shrugged heavily as if shedding a burden. ‘Our mother was apparently a vivacious, gracious woman, full of joy and life. But after delivering Lucca and me
she slumped into severe postnatal depression. She withdrew from everyone and never recovered. In the circumstances you’d think it foolhardy of our parents to have another child after us, but eventually they did.’
He lifted his glass and took a long swallow. ‘When Cara was born our mother’s depression got worse. She just left one day and we’ve never heard from her since.’
Poppy gaped. She’d heard that Orsino’s mother wasn’t around but she’d never imagined this. ‘But didn’t she—?’
‘There was no more contact.’ His mouth was grim. ‘Clearly she didn’t want to be found. I tried myself some time ago, but the trail had gone cold years before. Wherever she is, alive or dead, we’ll never know.’
Poppy leaned forward and covered his hand with hers, her heart contracting at his bitterness and the pain she sensed behind that stern expression. ‘I’m so sorry, Orsino.’
What had it been like, believing your father blamed you for the loss of your mother? That’s what Orsino implied and the notion horrified her. They’d been tiny, innocent children!
‘Your father must have been distraught.’
‘Must he?’ Orsino’s hand clenched on the table beneath hers. She felt the vibrating tension in each sinew. ‘I suspect he was busy with other … diversions. Whatever the case, he wasn’t interested in
us. He wasn’t the sort of father to fly kites or kick a football with his sons.’
Orsino’s hand turned, his long fingers threading between hers. ‘Our mother rejected us from the day we were born. She rarely spent time with us so I have few memories of her. At least she had a reason, given her depression. But our father? He left it to staff and our older siblings to bring us up. Antonio and Lucilla tried their best but they were only teenagers themselves. As soon as our mother walked he packed us off.’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words were inadequate but they were all she could manage.
How could she not have known this? What did it say about their brief marriage that this was new to her? The thought of those two little boys, alone and unloved, scraped at something raw and painful inside.
‘Don’t be sorry.’ Orsino drew her hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to her fingers. He turned her hand over and laved the sensitive skin of her wrist till she shivered and delicious excitement rippled through her.
‘School was a relief. It had rules and structure and routine that we’d never had before. And no matter how fierce some of the teachers were, I always knew they’d notice if I disappeared.’
Poppy blinked at that devastating assessment.
Orsino believed his father hadn’t noticed his absence? What sort of man
was
Gene Chatsfield?
She’d give a lot to tell him just what she thought of a man who abandoned his children.
‘Are you and your father closer now?’ He hadn’t been at their wedding, but as they’d eloped with no family or fanfare, that meant nothing.