Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

me in the hospital. Of course what you do has value and just because I might not always recognise that value is no excuse for not seeing that. What’s important to you should be important to me as well because you’re important.’

‘I…’ It wasn’t often that Charlie was at a total loss for words but she didn’t finish the sentence, just shaking her head in disbelief. ‘A bit of an idiot, maybe. I know things were difficult.’

Typical Charlie. One moment furious at him, the next minute giving him a get-out clause. Not this time. If they were to have any chance then he had to be totally honest, painful as that was. ‘I put myself first, my company first, expected you to fit into my life, and there is no excuse for that. All I can say is that I didn’t plan it that way. I had no intention of marrying you and then trying to change everything that makes you so special. It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t intentional—and the crazy thing is it’s definitely not even what I wanted. It’s not what I want. The truth is, the time I spent with you before we married, and those too brief days of our honeymoon, were the happiest days of my life. It was like stepping out of my confined reality full of expectations I never quite lived up to into a world I hadn’t imagined possible. Everything seemed brighter, sounds were more musical, even the smells were fresher…’

He laughed, slightly embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure what’s worse, that I sound like a terrible poet or that I mean every word. That’s the way it was. For the first time ever I questioned everything I thought real. I questioned my decision not to live with my mother. My decision to put work before everything, to try and live up to my grandfather’s standards even though I knew full well he would just keep moving the goalposts, that I would never quite be good enough. Even though I knew that somehow it was my job to atone for the sins of my father and to accept that role willingly. With you, all that melted away. I dared to be happy, really happy. But then Grandfather had his stroke…’

Charlie reached out and covered his hand with hers. ‘I know this,’ she said softly. ‘I do know this, Matteo. I am so sorry to have made you feel that I’m blaming you for everything. To think that I consider you a bad person in any way. I don’t; I wouldn’t be here if I did. I know that actually the opposite is true. That you spend your life trying to do what’s right. That you might never have put me first but you were never putting yourself first either. I know you have huge commitments, bigger than the two of us. But, selfishly, I wanted to be first for a little longer.’

‘That wasn’t selfish, Charlie. That’s just the way it should be. The way I wanted it to be. But when I got back to London and I saw my grandfather looking vulnerable for maybe the first time in his life, knowing he needed me for the first time, I couldn’t let him down.’

‘Forgetting all the very qualified and very well paid people you employ to actually help you run Harrington Industries? You have to trust in them.’

He smiled wryly. ‘I know that, my grandfather knows that, but he made it clear that he could only relax, only heal knowing I was taking care of everything. Part of me knew that he was playing me even then. He can’t help it. But at the same time he was the one constant, Charlie. I may not like the way I was raised. I might have cried myself to sleep those first years at boarding school, resented him when he made me choose between the company and spending the summer here with my family, but he was there, and there was no one else I could say that about.’

He took a sip of his tart beer and stared out at the square, filled with tourists and locals, couples and families, chattering, happy people, secure and together. ‘It might have hurt every time he made digs about my parentage, the expectations he put on me. It might have been infuriating, knowing that no matter what I did, what deal I landed, the profits I made, he would expect me to do better. That doesn’t stop me wanting to make him proud. And he needed me then, for the first time. How could I have let him down? Even though I knew at some level that he was using the situation to drive a wedge between us. Part of me will always yearn for his approval, Charlie, even though I know it will never come. Even now, sitting here, doing my best to convince you that you are the most important thing in my life, there’s a bit of me replaying the conversation I had with him earlier and hearing the disapproval in his voice, the dig underlying every single word. But I choose to stay here with you. I choose you if you’ll have me. I’ve learned my lesson.’

Charlie blinked, her eyelashes damp. ‘Let’s not make any decisions now,’ she said, lacing her fingers through his, her thumb circling the back of his hand. ‘Not today, not when the sun is shining, we have cold delicious drinks and even more delicious snacks and beer and we are sitting in one of the most beautiful villages in the world.’ She smiled at him, the gesture a little wobbly. ‘I don’t need to forgive you, Matteo. I just need to know that if we do try again things will be different. That I can be me, faults and all, a little impulsive, sometimes reckless. Of course you can tell me if you’re not comfortable, but don’t try and curb me. And in return I’ll be respectful of your work