The Medici Mistress: Nothing and no one would stop him from having her. by Clare Connelly Page B

, she silently answered. “Where do you live?”
    “New York. Though I travel a lot for business.”
    She nodded. “And you live with her, of course.” Her heart felt like it was splintering into a million pieces. It was an oddly delayed reaction, given that he’d been back in her life for weeks now. The reality of their situation was just making sense to Annie.
    “We are in the process of divorcing. I moved out, months ago.”
    Annie nodded, jerkily. “Do you still speak to her?”
    He scanned her face. “Yes.”
    “How long have you known her?”
    His gut instinct was to shut down the line of questioning, but he understood Annie’s dilemma. In the normal course of events, they would discuss significant parts of their lives. “I met Carrie when I was fifteen.”
    “Fifteen?” She visibly paled. “You’ve been in a relationship with her over half your life.”
    He pulled the shirt she was hanging out of her hands and threw it angrily onto the bed. “Would you leave the Goddamned laundry? Madre di Dio . We can have it sent out.”
    Her eyes were huge pools of green in her face, as she stared up at him.
    “I’m sorry,” he groaned, pulling her against his chest. “I just wish… I could go back in time and change how I behaved back then. The decisions I made. Everything.”
    “You can’t.” She bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t know how to trust you.” It was a whisper into the abyss. A question neither of them could answer.
    Giac knew that a full explanation was required, but he was only human. There were things he found almost impossible to discuss. His circumstances with Carrie fit squarely into that box. “Trust this.” He squeezed her tighter, holding her to him.
    “What would you change? What do you want for us, now?”
    He kissed the top of her head, and said the only thing he knew to be true, with any degree of certainty. “I want you.”
    Annie wondered how long he’d feel that way, and how he saw it working when they lived in different countries, but she stayed quiet and still in his arms. It was the only place she wanted to be.
    He kissed her on the lips, but it was inquisitive and gentle, so unlike his usual touch that Annie felt tears clog her throat. It felt like a parting. Like the beginning of the unraveling of what they had.
    She broke the kiss, stifling a sob, and blinked back tears. “I can’t.” She shook her head and pushed past him, into her bathroom. She pressed her palms against the cold ceramic of her basin, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She saw the worry and sadness there. It was not the face of a woman in love. Not one free to be in love, in any case.
    She ran the cold water and scooped her hands into it, flushing her face punishingly. The cold water was refreshing. She reached out, feeling for a towel.
    “Here.” Giac stood, implacable and strong, holding one out for her.
    “Thanks.” She padded her face then hooked it back on the wall.
    “I am not a man who likes to discuss feelings, and I fear I do not do it well. What I should have said, what I need you to know, is that I am completely in love with you, Annie Carlton.” He lifted her chin, so that she could see the truthfulness in his face.
    Her smile was touched with wistfulness. “But you loved me then, too, didn’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    Her unspoken question hung heavy between them.
    “I was wrong to be with you then. I had no business falling in love with you when I was committed to someone else.”
    “And now?” She demanded.
    “It is over between me and Carrie.”
    She nodded jerkily. It had been the most amazing time of her life, and he regretted it? She blinked furiously to hold the tears at bay.
    Giac exhaled heavily. “Carrie loved me before I had a penny to my name. When I was eighteen, her father told her to leave me, or she’d be disinherited. She stayed. She loved me when I was worth nothing. She has always been loyal to me. I owed her the same.”
    Annie liked the other