“You heard it all?” Amanda asked in a hushed tone.

Emma nodded. She felt sick to her stomach. “He left,” she whispered. “I . . . I didn’t think—”

Amanda was suddenly pulling her off the wall and walking her down the hallway, her arm around her.

“He left,” Emma repeated again dazedly when Amanda urged her to sit on the edge of her bed and sat down next to her.

“I know,” Amanda said, looking miserable. “But I thought . . . I mean, after everything you told me earlier about how he proposed this no-strings-attached affair with you, did you really expect he wouldn’t?”

Emma just stared at her sister, her mouth gaping open. The truth hit her full force.

No. I didn’t really believe he’d walk away, in the end. I still held out hope. I’m such an idiot.

“Oh, Emma,” Amanda said miserably, obviously seeing the truth displayed on her face . . . the crushed hope. She hugged her tightly.

When Emma had arrived home earlier after that toxic encounter with Vera Shaw, Amanda immediately knew something terrible had happened. Emma had only to open her mouth and a partial explanation came spilling out, her agreement to an affair with Vanni, her caveat of a specific time limit to keep her safe, and her tearful admission that it hadn’t worked. She was far from safe. She’d fallen in love. Deeply and irrevocably. Emma hadn’t told Amanda about Vera Shaw, though, or any of the specifics about Vera’s threats or Cristina. That all seemed like too tender a topic to expose.

In truth, it’d shocked her to the core that Vanni had listened to Amanda’s reasoning. She was willing to do her part to make sure that Vera didn’t spill that poison truth to him about Cristina, but she hadn’t thought he would walk away so easily.

Here it was: firsthand proof that his feelings for her hadn’t altered since he’d first suggested a sexual affair. Or if they had changed, Emma realized with a wave of dizziness, they hadn’t altered enough to make him fight for her. His suffering and his fear of letting another person get close had triumphed. It left her stunned, her entire being vibrating with shock.

Emma wasn’t used to letting doubt and fear triumph. But it had. That victory was not sitting well with her. It was constricting her spirit . . . dimming it.

“Maybe it’s best,” Emma said after a moment through numb lips. The pain would have come sometime. She knew that now for a fact. Whether Vera Shaw had made her ultimatum or not, Emma would have eventually sat here, bereft and empty. She now knew firsthand that he wouldn’t have fought for her, because his fear of losing another was too great.

There was nothing to act as a stopgap. Loss crashed into the vacuum that had opened inside her with tidal wave force, stealing her breath.

For the next several days, Vanni went through his waking hours like an automaton. The feeling wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him. He’d gone through a good part of his adult life on automatic mode, after all. He hardly slept, but he was alert and he responded when people spoke to him. When a few crucial issues came up associated with work, he’d responded decisively and coolly.

On the inside, however, some sharp kernel grated, causing the ice inside him to splinter. Finally the pressure grew too great, and he felt the cracking of his brittle control.

He rose from his bed one night about an hour before dawn and walked down to the beach, naked.

He stood at the edge of the lake as the waves lapped around his bare feet. The water stretched out before him, as black and eternal as the night sky. The contrast between the thick, suffocating darkness of this shore and the warmth and brilliance of the beach at La Mer struck him . . . Emma standing on the beach, naked and beautiful, waiting for him . . .

He plunged into the frigid water. It hit him like a slap, ruthless and stinging. The farther away from shore that he swam, the clearer his brain got. Ever since he’d heard Emma’s flat voice on the phone so many days ago, he’d been fogged. Now shards of memory cut through his awareness like slicing glass.

Emma’s deadened voice on the phone: I thought I could do this, Vanni, but I can’t.

Amanda: Because that’s what Emma realized tonight. That she can’t be with a man who has so little to offer.

Cristina’s dying words: No child should have been left to feel so much. No man forced to feel so little.

A man who has so little to offer.

Those words taunted him most of all. He cut through the black water angrily now, swimming farther from shore. When he sensed he was just past the breakers, he paused, lifting his head. Water surged up and hit him in the face.

The memory of Adrian’s pale, frightened face leapt like a lion into his consciousness.

Help . . . Van . . . I can’t . . .

And then Adrian was sinking beneath the slate-blue, churning water, and so was Vanni, pulled under by the strength of his hold on Adrian’s hand, sucked beneath by the force of his love for his twin. He and Adrian were one there. Under the waves, it’d been shockingly peaceful.

He hadn’t been afraid.

Vanni never understood what had happened next or how. He hadn’t let go . . . but suddenly he’d broken the surface, oxygen burning his lungs as he gulped it greedily.

And they were two.

He gasped and sputtered in the present, the lights of the Breakers sparkling on the distant horizon. He had a crystal-clear image of Emma with the Mediterranean sparkling behind her, an ocean of compassion in her dark eyes.

Adrian may have died, but part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni.

And then . . .

When the time came, he wasn’t afraid. Please believe me. I’m sure enough for both of us.

He remembered Adrian’s hand letting go . . . releasing him. For the first time, Vanni realized it hadn’t been a weakening gesture, but a firm, decisive one. He’d grasped for Adrian desperately, but only water filled his hand, and he was rising to the surface like a buoy.

Why hadn’t he recalled that until now?

Vanni realized he could make out the outline of the bluffs and his house now. Dawn was breaking behind him. He took a shuddering gasp and plunged into the water again, swimming toward shore.

He walked back into the Breakers, soaking wet and naked. His mind was clear, though. He’d find Emma. He’d make her understand. It was different now than it had been when he’d tried to see her and Amanda stopped him several nights ago.

He was different.

He was shivering when he stepped into the kitchen to make himself some tea for fortification. It was Emma’s drink, and just that thought warmed him.

What if I can’t convince her that I really can offer her more?

You’ll do it. One step at a time.

He took heart from that steady, patient voice in his head. It was new, and yet it was achingly familiar.

Part of him is in you. It always has been, Vanni.

He opened the refrigerator to get some milk while the kettle heated on the stove. His gaze landed on the bottle of champagne on the shelf. He withdrew it and just stared at the label for several seconds, his brow furrowed.

A moment later, he flipped off the burner on the stove and strode out of the kitchen determinedly.

Realizing it was too early to go to Emma’s yet, he stopped at a coffee shop in Evanston. He dialed Vera’s number as he sat at a booth.

“Vanni?” his aunt answered on the second ring.

“Did you see Emma? Last Tuesday night?” he asked without a greeting. “Did you talk to her at the Breakers before I got home from France?”

There was a long, pregnant pause. “Why?” Vera asked finally. “What did she say to you?”

“I asked you the question, Vera. Did you see Emma or not?”

“Yes. We spoke briefly.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked you on Wednesday? You claimed you hadn’t spoken to her at all, that she’d never arrived there to your knowledge. What did you say to her?” he seethed.