Page 45 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

I’d missed him these past two days. He was so beautiful, he made me ache.

I’d come in here all set to demand things from him, demand he stop sulking like a little boy and talk to me. Then he’d taken all the wind out of my sails by asking what he needed to do to gain my trust.

At first, I’d thought it was another ploy, but no. He’d been genuine; I’d seen it in his eyes.

So I’d told him and, as soon as I had, all my hurt and anger had come pouring out. Hurt and anger that had been building ever since he’d walked away from me two days ago. Hurt that he’d walked away in the first place. Anger that I’d been prepared to agree to his offer and yet, for all his insistence, he hadn’t.

I’d spent the last two days trying to understand why he’d had such a reaction to my IVF suggestion, and it still didn’t make any sense. Because why should he care?

And now he’d completely upended things by talking about trust.

‘Why are we talking about this anyway?’ I asked when he remained silent. ‘You obviously didn’t like my answer. So I don’t know why my trust should be so important to you now.’

He stood behind his desk, his hands in fists. ‘Because I...I want your love, Olivia.’ That muscle in his jaw flicked again. ‘I told you that. I want us to have what we had all those years ago.’

At first, I didn’t understand that either, because why should one teenage relationship be so important to him? Then slowly, as I recognised the intensity that seemed to radiate from every cell of his being, I knew.

He and Constantine had been starved of attention and care by someone who should have given them both. They had been starved of gentleness and kindness—that was why Constantine was so cold and Val so manipulative. Both of them were protecting themselves the only way they knew how. They’d been starved of starved of attention, and most of all they’d been starved of love.

That was what Val wanted, what he was so desperate for. He was an endless pit of need trying to regain that one moment in his life when he’d been loved.

By me.

My eyes prickled, a surge of compassion and sympathy for him swamping me. It hadn’t been his fault he’d been so scarred—and he was. I could see it. There were deep fault lines that ran through his soul and had twisted his thinking. His upbringing and the past fifteen years had turned him into a dangerous man, but underneath that he was still that little boy.

A little boy who found pretty shells and driftwood for his study.

A little boy desperate to be loved.

My heart ached for that boy. And it was also aching for the man.

‘But we can’t have that.’ My own sorrow at the knowledge cut deep. ‘We can’t ever have that again. We were children. And we loved each other as children do.’

He was breathing very fast, staring at me as if I was his one hope of salvation. ‘Then you can leave.’ His voice was nothing but deep gravel. ‘I’ll get you a plane and you can leave. Whenever you want.’

‘What?’ I blinked in shock. ‘Do you mean that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what about Constantine?’ I couldn’t help asking. ‘You’ll let me marry him if I want to?’

‘Yes.’

I searched his face, my heartbeat thudding in my ears, looking for signs that this was another game for him, another way to get me to do what he wanted. Yet...I couldn’t see anything in his beautiful features but determination.

He meant it. He would let me go.

The ache behind my breastbone felt abruptly even more painful.

‘Why?’ I asked huskily. ‘After everything you did to get me here?’

His knuckles were white as he held his fists clenched at his sides. ‘I don’t want you to go. In fact, leaving is the last thing in the world I want you to do. But...if it meant you finally trusting me...then, yes, I’d let you go.’ A muscle flicked in his jaw. ‘And then I’d send you an email, asking if you wanted to meet me for coffee.’

My throat closed, a surge of some powerful emotion sweeping through me, and I was trembling, though I wasn’t sure why. ‘Val...’

‘You’re not a just thing to me, Olivia,’ he said with sudden ferocity. ‘You wereneverjust a thing. It’s true that I wanted the girl you once were, but I want the woman you are now even more.’

I could see the truth in his eyes. He wasn’t hiding it, but then he’d never hidden it from me.

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