Escaping pain. Escaping betrayal. Protecting himself...
Ah, Dio, that was what he’d been doing all this time, wasn’t it? Running from his fear, running like a coward for decades. Using his justice as his shield and righteousness as his sword.
But he wasn’t just or righteous. He was a man cowering in fear. Afraid of his own emotions. Afraid of pain and betrayal. Afraid of the most powerful emotion of all: love.
‘I think you love me as much as I love you.’
Vincenzo took a ragged breath, his heart raw, chewed up and spat out, scarred and full of holes, beating hard in his chest as the greatest truth of all settled down inside him. His skin was sensitised, as if the slightest breath of air would cut him to shreds.
Yes, he loved her. He’d loved her for days, for weeks. The entirety of his life had been spent waiting for her and the rest of it would be spent aching for her. She was his fate and his destiny. She was his truth.
And he’d been afraid of her. Afraid of her honesty. Afraid of her strength. Afraid of her courage, because she had more courage and strength in her little finger than he had in his entire body.
And when he’d sent her away he’d been afraid of her love. Afraid of the power of it, of the acceptance and understanding in it. The absolution he could sense it would give him and the happiness and peace it promised him.
He didn’t deserve any of those things, but she thought he did. She thought he deserved happiness. She thought he deserved peace. And really, in the end it was a simple choice. He either trusted in her belief, or he didn’t.
Ah, but was that even a decision to make? He knew the answer. It lay in his heart, in his soul.
Of course he trusted her. He loved her.
This time, Vincenzo didn’t run. He faced his fear. And he accepted her love. Felt it flow through him like a purpose, like a vocation, a calling. Yet so much stronger, so much deeper. So much more complex.
And it wasn’t a flame, burning through dry paper, only to crumble to ash when there was nothing to feed it. It was a glow, steady and bright and unending, self-sustaining. True strength in its purest form.
It would never flicker and it would never die. It would be with him always.
Peace came over him, easing the anger, dissipating the last remains of the blaze, cool and soft like Lucy’s touch on his skin, a balm to his wounded soul. Bringing with it an absolute certainty.
He would find her. He would lay his heart at her feet. He would give her everything she ever wanted and if what she wanted was to never see him again, he would leave and count it a privilege to have even known her.
It would hurt and he might not survive it, but then, he wouldn’t survive without her anyway.
She was more important than justice and she was certainly more important than fear. She was the most important thing in his life and he couldn’t let another day pass with her thinking that she wasn’t.
Vincenzo reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone, punching in a number, his hands now steady, the path before him clear and true.
‘Get the helicopter now. I’m going to New York.’
Lucy had eventually found herself a little house by the sea in Cape Cod. It wasn’t Capri, of course, or the Mediterranean, but the wild Atlantic wasn’t far from her door, and there was a beach. And she could walk along that beach, have sand under her toes.
It was a lovely place and she had a job with a small finance firm that enabled her to work from home. It wasn’t the most challenging of positions, but she was able to earn a living, which was all she required. She was starting to think longer term, now she had a future ahead of her, and had been toying with the idea of a financial crime consultancy business, but that was still to be decided.
She might even have been happy if it wasn’t for the fact that she was missing one thing.
Vincenzo.
She had everything she’d promised her mother she would have. A life away from her father, a life of safety, of freedom.
But she didn’t have him. And because she didn’t have him, she could never be truly happy. Her heart remained broken and always would.
It was late in the day, the sun going down, and Lucy walked along the beach as she did most late afternoons, her feet sinking into the sand.
She shouldn’t give in to these long, solitary walks, because they gave her too much time to think. Too much time to remember how she’d let him turn his back and walk away a month earlier. How she’d collected her things and followed his security staff out to the helicopter, not even watching as it lifted off and flew away because she’d been blinded by tears.
She couldn’t force him to see what he didn’t want to, and, though love had given her strength, it didn’t shield her from the pain of her heart breaking.
Pain for him and what he couldn’t allow himself to have.
She remembered the flight to the States and the tears she’d cried for him, weeping herself into sleep at last. Then arriving in New York with an aching throat and gritty eyes.
A kind woman had met her after she’d got off the jet, giving her all the information she needed and showing her to some accommodation in the Village where she could spend a couple of days acclimatising.
She didn’t remember that either.
All she remembered was the hollow feeling inside her. Which made sense in a lot of ways, since she’d left her heart in Capri, in Vincenzo de Santi’s strong and capable hands.
You just let him have it. You gave it to him and then you walked away.
Lucy bent and picked up a shell, brushing the sand off it.
Of course she had. He’d wanted her to leave and even telling him that she loved him hadn’t changed his mind. And not because he didn’t want her, but for all those lies he was telling himself. About keeping her safe. About being distracted. About justice.
It was fear and she knew all about fear, how it could get inside you, trap you. And she’d confronted him with his own. But he’d refused to see it. And if he refused to see it, what more could she do? There was nothing.
She stared at the shell, her chest aching. Her throat tight with grief for the lonely path he’d chosen and the life he’d trapped himself in. He was a prisoner just as much as she’d once been, but his cell was one of his own choosing.
It made her ache.
She lifted her wet face to the sky, letting the tears dry on her cheeks in the wind. And then her gaze narrowed as she saw the tall figure of a man coming down the beach towards her.
It looked like... But no. It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t be Vincenzo.
She should walk on. The sun would be going down soon and she needed to get home. Yet she didn’t move, watching the man walk towards her instead.