The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride Of Convenience: The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child / Claiming My Bride of Convenience (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Yes, I suppose… But you were suitable to me.’

  ‘I don’t mind, Matteo. I’ve never had pretensions to grandeur.’

  ‘Which is one of the things I lo—like about you.’ Horrified, I realised what word had been about to slip out of my mouth. ‘But my grandfather doesn’t matter to us, Daisy. You never even need to see him. I hope that you don’t.’

  ‘I think he does matter,’ she returned sadly. ‘He’s obviously shaped who you are, whether you wanted him to or not. Is he still involved in the business?’

  ‘Only as a figurehead. When I married I gained the controlling shares, and I will keep them for as long as I stay married—which I intend to. So he really doesn’t concern us at all.’ I reached for her hand, lacing her fingers through mine. ‘And now you know.’

  ‘Do I?’

  She searched my face, clearly guessing there were things I hadn’t said.

  ‘You know enough.’ I leaned over to brush my lips against hers. ‘I really am sorry for being a jackass before,’ I whispered against her mouth.

  ‘Your apologies are so charming.’ She smiled at me and I deepened the kiss, need flooding through me sweeter than ever before. I couldn’t get enough of her—now or ever.

  ‘Matteo…’ Her voice became a mewl of urgency as she grabbed my shoulders, pulling me closer. We fell back on the terrace, barely aware of the hard stones beneath us as my hand slipped under her dress.

  Lost in the daze of our shared passion, neither of us heard the quick footsteps, or even the clearing of a throat until it was too late.

  ‘Mr Dias… I am so sorry to interrupt…’

  I raised my head, infuriated that a member of staff should accost me in this way. Daisy scooted up to a sitting position, her face flaming as she adjusted her dress.

  I straightened my tie, glowering at the young man. ‘It had better be for good reason.’

  ‘It is your grandfather, sir. He has just sent a telegram to the hotel. He requires your presence in Athens immediately.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I GAZED BLINDLY out at the city streets as the limo slid through Athens’ notoriously busy traffic. Next to me Matteo was glowering at his phone as he scrolled through emails, his jaw tight, his expression inscrutable.

  Everything had changed since last night, when Matteo had received his grandfather’s telegram.

  ‘What does the old bastard want now?’ he’d drawled as he’d glanced at the scant few lines. ‘Just to see if I’ll still come running when he crooks his finger, no doubt.’

  ‘Perhaps it really is urgent,’ I’d suggested tentatively. I felt as if I were swimming in deep water, having no idea of the emotional currents that swirled around us.

  ‘Of course it’s urgent,’ Matteo had said scornfully. ‘It always is with him. He’s assembled the board—I have no choice but to go.’

  ‘Do you have to do what the board says?’

  ‘I have controlling shares, but if it’s something to do with the business I need to know. We’re done here, anyway.’

  He’d walked away from me without looking back, and I hadn’t been able to help but wonder if his words were a portent—not for the business, but for us.

  We’re done here.

  But things had felt as if they were just beginning.

  And yet since that wretched telegram arrived Matteo had completely withdrawn from me, barely offering me two terse words together. I understood that he was focused on his grandfather and his business, but our relationship felt too new and fragile to be treated like this and survive.

  Perhaps he wasn’t intending it to.

  All the old doubts plagued me as they had before—despite all we’d shared, all Matteo had shared. I’d finally felt as if he were being honest and vulnerable with me, and when he’d told me his grandfather didn’t matter I’d chosen to believe him. How ill-timed that only a few minutes later his words were shown to be a lie.

  How much else was a lie? How much of this real marriage was real at all?

  Despair lapped at me like cold, dark water as I gazed blindly outside. I had no idea what was going to happen next.

  ‘Where does your grandfather live?’ I asked.

  Matteo didn’t even glance up from his phone as he answered. ‘On an estate on the outskirts of Athens. We’ll be there shortly.’

  I nodded, too miserable to try to make conversation. It seemed every time we made some progress in our relationship we were knocked back again. Could I keep living this way? Did I have any choice?

  Twenty minutes later we pulled up on the circular drive in front of an imposing and austere villa, its windows shuttered tight. I’d never thought a house could look unfriendly, but this one did.

  A dour-faced butler met us at the door, Matteo striding ahead while I instinctively lagged behind, unsure where my place was in this fractured drama.

  ‘Mr Arides wishes to see both of you immediately,’ the butler said in Greek.

  ‘Immediately?’ Matteo glowered. ‘He calls, I jump?’

  ‘He says it is urgent, sir.’

  ‘I’ll decide what’s urgent. My wife and I would like to wash off the dust of travel. We’ve been in the air for fourteen hours.’

  Matteo brushed past the man and I had no choice but to follow.

  Up in a soberly decorated guest room Matteo stripped off his suit and headed to the shower without so much as speaking to me. I sank onto a sofa and stared around miserably, unsure whether to rally or cut my losses.

  Are you really going to chicken out as soon as things get tough? Are you just going to slink away? My inner optimist was a persistent whisper. Is that the kind of wife you want to be?

  No, it most certainly wasn’t—yet something in me shrank to a shrivelled bit of nothing when Matteo adopted that remote, imperious attitude. It felt like a twenty-foot-high stone wall, or perhaps an electric fence.

  Do not touch. Do not even approach.

  Still, I told myself, I would try. For the sake of what I hoped we both felt, I had to try.

  I heard the shower being turned off and a few minutes later Matteo came into the room, wearing nothing but a towel loosely about his hips. I swallowed hard at the sight of him, all chiselled muscle and hard angles, but his eyes were like steel.

  A mere day ago he would have favoured me with a sleepy smile and then walked slowly over to me, dropping the towel as he went. We would have fallen onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and made love with leisurely enjoyment until the sun faded in the sky and we fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  Now Matteo turned away from me as he dropped the towel and unzipped his suitcase, pulling out fresh clothes.

  ‘Matteo, will you please talk to me?’ I asked, my voice wavering too much for my liking.

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’ He pulled on a pair of boxer briefs and reached for a shirt.

  ‘Ever since you received that telegram it’s as if you’re a different person.’

  ‘No, I’m not.’ His voice lashed out, striking me with what felt like a physical blow. ‘I’m exactly the same.’

  It sounded like a warning.

  Still, I tried not to panic. Not to give in to my ever-present fear. Because I was stronger and smarter than that.

  But not strong or smart enough to keep from falling in love with a man who does not feel the same way about you.

  No, I wasn’t going to think like that. Not yet, anyway. Not until I had to.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, trying for a friendly and reasonable tone. ‘Why do you think your grandfather called you so urgently?’

  ‘Because he can.’ One dark eyebrow arched as he buttoned his shirt and selected a tie.

  ‘But why can he?’ I pressed. ‘Is it something to do with the shares?’ I hesitated, unsure if I was wading into too-deep water…if I’d drown. �
�It almost seems as if he has some hold over you.’

  ‘Don’t be so utterly ridiculous,’ Matteo snapped. ‘Of course he doesn’t.’ He pulled on a suit jacket and started from the room. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be. Don’t wait up.’

  ‘I thought he wanted to see both of us—’

  ‘He’ll have to make do with me.’

  And with that he closed the door behind him, one note away from a slam.

  I sank back onto the sofa, deflated, defeated. That had gone well. Not. I was at an impasse, but I told myself to be patient. Matteo was understandably tense at seeing his grandfather again. I could appreciate that. But his own emotions about that meeting did not have to play to my insecurities and fears. I couldn’t let them.

  Still, as the hours passed, I knew that was exactly what was happening.

  I strode towards my grandfather’s study, hating everything about this situation. Hating myself.

  Daisy’s words were a mocking refrain in my mind: It almost seems as if he has some hold over you.

  Even she, after such a short amount of time, could see my weakness. Could sense that after thirty-six years of abuse and insult at the hands of a bitter old man I still came running. Still came begging, like a dog waiting to be kicked.

  It was an instinct that I couldn’t seem to get rid of, no matter how hard I tried. Oh, it wasn’t as painfully obvious as it had been when I was a child—working as hard as I could to impress him, waiting for his infrequent visits in the utterly vain and pointless hope that one day, one day, I’d do and be enough. Show him I was worthy of love, or at least some affection.

  He never gave me any.

  In my university days and early adulthood my method for impressing him changed, and I pursued a self-destructive course in a bid to get his attention, all the while pretending I didn’t care. I caroused and partied and picked up women, had my exploits splashed across the tabloids, knowing my grandfather would hate my playboy ways, so like his own son’s, and telling myself I didn’t care in the least.

  I had him over a barrel; he had to give me control of his company because not only was there no one else to give it to, but quite simply I was the best. I’d yanked a failing business out of red-lining mediocrity and made it the most powerful hotel empire in the world. Bastian Arides needed me, whether he wanted to or not—and he definitely did not.

  But this time, I told myself as I stood outside his study door, I would not look for his approval. I would not seek to aggravate him either; that would be simply another attention grab. No, I would be completely indifferent. Whatever he wanted, I wouldn’t care. I didn’t care.

  Because he didn’t have a hold over me. Even if this house was filled with ghosts and memories; even if I could practically feel Eleni’s pinching of my ear as she marched me to this very room. No, now I was going to be different.

  I rapped once on the door and then strode in, without waiting for his word.

  Bastian Arides was not standing behind his desk, the imposing and stern-faced giant of my childhood days. No, he was huddled in a rocking chair by a gas fire, even though the day was warm. He looked gaunt, almost skeletal, and there was a yellowish cast to his drawn and wrinkled face.

  ‘Matteo.’

  He said my name with resigned finality. I nodded my greeting and waited, not deigning to reply.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’

  ‘Now, that is surprising,’ I couldn’t keep from drawling. ‘A word of thanks?’

  I’d worked myself to the very bone saving his company, and he’d never once said a word to me. He’d only tolerated my presence as if I were a bad smell in the room and he had to put up with it.

  ‘I realise my request might have seemed demanding—’

  ‘Might have?’ I couldn’t keep myself from interjecting. My determination to remain coolly indifferent was failing at the first post. This man brought out the worst in me—the neediest and the angriest.

  ‘It did,’ he amended in an unusual about-face. ‘But the truth is, Matteo, I don’t know how much time I have left. The doctor has given me days.’

  ‘Days?’ I stared at him in disbelief. ‘Four months ago you were in remission.’

  ‘Sometimes, especially at my age, remission doesn’t last very long.’

  He smiled sadly, but I was unmoved. Did he actually think I was going to grieve for him?

  ‘I don’t see what any of this has to do with me,’ I said. ‘We’ve had little to do with one another over the years. As little as possible.’

  ‘I know that, and I want to rectify it.’

  ‘Rectify it?’ I let out a hard laugh. ‘Are you starting to regret your life now that you’re about to shuffle off this mortal coil?’

  Bastian Arides pressed his lips together and looked away. ‘Something like that.’

  Something in me hardened, and then crystallised. I finally had my grandfather where I’d always wanted him—and yet I found I didn’t want it at all. Certainly not like this, begrudging and almost angry. What was he afraid of? Judgement? A weighing of the scales? He wanted absolution, but I knew in that moment that he wouldn’t get it from me.

  ‘Sorry, old man,’ I drawled coldly. ‘If you’re looking for some kind of atonement to send you singing into the afterlife, forget it.’

  His face twisted in a grimace of acknowledgement. ‘I know it is much to ask.’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’ I gave him a long, hard stare. ‘What is this really about? I can’t believe that an old tyrant like you would quake at the thought of what happens after you die.’

  ‘It’s not so much the after,’ he answered quietly, ‘as the now.’

  I frowned, folding my arms impatiently. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Knowing death is near makes one look back on one’s life. See things more clearly.’

  ‘And what do you see so clearly?’ I couldn’t keep the scorn from my voice; I didn’t even try.

  Bastian Arides hesitated, and I saw—felt—the reluctance in him, seeping from every pore. Hard, proud man that he was, he didn’t want to admit anything to me. If he wanted my forgiveness it was for his sake, not mine. He still didn’t care a whit about me.

  ‘I’ve come to see that I was too hard on you,’ he said at last.

  I let out a laugh that was a bit too wild. ‘Too hard on me? That’s all you’ve got? And you want my forgiveness?’

  ‘I’m dying, Matteo—’

  ‘And I’ll see you in hell.’

  Without another word I turned and walked out, slamming the door behind me.

  Fury poured through me in a scalding acid rush, making my fists clench and my heart thud.

  How dared he? How dared he?

  After all this time, after all the abuse, he thought I’d take his I suppose I have to say sorry attitude and be thankful? Be cringingly, pathetically grateful? And the hell of it was he hadn’t even said sorry.

  I couldn’t go back and face Daisy; I didn’t even want to. I pictured her face when we’d spoken earlier, soft and sad in confusion, wanting to help, wanting me to let her in, and I both despaired and raged because of it.

  No, I couldn’t let her in. I wouldn’t. Because the horrible, humiliating truth was part of me wanted to accept Bastian Arides’s pathetic offer. Part of me wanted to crawl right up to him and thank him for finally taking the time to so much as look at me.

  And I hated that more than I’d hated anything else—except Daisy knowing.

  So I strode away from the house, down through the gardens, just needing to move—because if I didn’t I was afraid of what I might do.

  ‘Matteo.’

  I whirled around to see Daisy at the edge of the lawn; she must have followed me. ‘Don’t,’ I warned her. ‘Just don’t.’

  ‘Don’t what?’ she asked softly.

  Don’t as
k me what’s wrong. Don’t look at me like that, as if I’m breaking your heart when it’s mine that’s in agony. Don’t love me, because I don’t think I can bear it.

  ‘Just don’t.’

  She stared at me for a moment, and then she started forward. ‘Matteo, I want to help. I want to be with you—’

  ‘Don’t.’

  The word came out close to a roar, and I turned away from her, away from all of it, striding back to the house and slamming the door, as if I could actually outrun the demons that tormented me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘MAY I SPEAK with you for a moment?’

  Startled, I turned to see an elderly man who could only be Matteo’s grandfather standing in the doorway of the library, where I’d been waiting out a miserable morning. After I’d seen Matteo in the garden he’d disappeared for the rest of the day, and he hadn’t come to our bedroom—our bed—that night. I hadn’t seen him this morning either, and I was fighting off a dragging sense of despair.

  Why was he pushing me away so hard? When would he stop?

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  I rose from my seat, but Bastian Arides waved me back down as he shuffled slowly into the room.

  ‘As you can see, I’m not very well.’ He sat down in the chair opposite me with a quiet groan of relief.

  ‘I’m sorry…’

  ‘It happens to us all. I’m an old man. I’ve lived my life, for better or for worse.’ He eyed me with weary appraisal. ‘So you are the woman my grandson married?’

  I nodded, unsure how to respond, having no idea what this man thought of me. Looking at him now, I thought he didn’t seem the terrible tyrant Matteo had painted such a bleak picture of. He looked nothing more than an old man—a very ill old man.

  ‘I’m dying,’ he said abruptly, as if he sensed my thoughts. ‘Did Matteo tell you?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon,’ I admitted.

  ‘Ah. He is very angry with me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  Bastian gave a little shrug. ‘Because I asked him to forgive me, I suppose.’