by Kate Hewitt
‘Just...’ Mia shrugged helplessly. ‘Someone so...rigid and in control. You’ve done nothing but order me around since I met you, Alessandro, and I can’t live like that. I can’t let myself live like that.’
Alessandro absorbed her words, as well as the despairing conviction behind them. ‘I understand your concern,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t want you to feel as if you’ve been railroaded into anything. We can leave the discussion about marriage for now. I’m not about to force you to the altar.’ The very thought was distasteful. ‘But I hope you can see the rightness of coming to Italy with me.’
‘For ever?’ Mia flung at him.
Startled, Alessandro shrugged. ‘At least for an...interim period.’
‘How about three months?’ she challenged. ‘I can just about live with that.’
‘Three months,’ he repeated. It wasn’t so long, but hopefully long enough. ‘So we can get to know one another and make sure a relationship between us will work.’
‘A relationship?’ She frowned. ‘Are you saying that we’re...dating?’ She sounded disbelieving.
‘If you are asking if there will be a physical relationship between us,’ Alessandro said after a moment, feeling his way through the words, ‘then I shall leave that up to you.’ He could certainly give her that choice.
‘You will?’
‘I won’t force you to the altar, and neither will I force you to my bed. You will come to it when it’s your choice, not my decree.’
Colour touched her cheeks. ‘So the offer’s open whenever...?’ she queried a bit sardonically.
‘I won’t deny that I still find you attractive,’ Alessandro said, meeting her gaze boldly. Perhaps if she remembered just how explosive their chemistry had been, she would be less reluctant to go along with his ideas. ‘What we shared was brief, I admit, but it was good, Mia. It was very good.’ He held her gaze, felt his own heat, and saw that she remembered just how good it had been... just as he did.
‘And what happens after three months?’ Mia asked after a long, heated moment. ‘If I decide it isn’t working?’
Everything in him resisted such a notion, but he still made himself say the words. ‘Then we will have to consider alternatives. But I hope, for Ella’s sake, such a drastic step will not be necessary.’
‘You call that a drastic step?’ Mia let out a huff of humourless laughter.
‘I do,’ Alessandro returned evenly. ‘Because it would be drastic for Ella, unable to have two loving parents in her life.’ His voice rose with the strength of his emotions. He’d only held Ella once, had barely spent any time with her, but she was his and he wanted to raise her right, give her the stability and security and yes, even the love that he’d never had growing up. ‘Why should I be content with seeing my daughter only on occasion, a deadbeat dad, and not by my own choosing? Why don’t you want Ella to have two parents fully involved in her life, loving and taking care of her? Who doesn’t want that for their child?’
‘Is that...is that what it would be like?’ She sounded so surprised that Alessandro felt stung.
‘You don’t think I would love my own child?’
‘I’m not saying that, it’s just...you’re so focused on work, Alessandro. As far as I can tell from the tabloids, you’ve never had a serious relationship.’
‘This is different.’
‘How?’
‘Because of Ella. I admit, I’ve never been interested in serious relationships before now.’
‘And I’m still not,’ Mia interjected, surprising him. ‘I’ve never wanted to get married, be tied down—’
‘Too bad you had my baby, then.’
They stared at each other, an emotional standoff, and then Mia let out a ragged sigh and sank back onto the sofa. ‘I can’t keep arguing about this.’
‘Then be reasonable. Three months. That’s all I’m asking. You wouldn’t be going back to work before then anyway.’
She stared into the distance, her expression remote and a bit weary. Then, to his immense satisfaction, she slowly nodded. ‘All right. Three months. I can give you that.’
‘Good. We can make this work,’ he said, with conviction. Mia did not reply. She stared out of the window, her expression so distant and despairing that Alessandro felt something in him shift, turn over. It was as if an emotion he’d long kept buried was stirring to life, and he didn’t like it. He realised he wanted to comfort her. He didn’t like seeing her sad, but he had no idea how to make her happy. Both realisations were disturbing. She’d given in to his demand and seen the sense in his plan. He should be triumphant, and instead he felt...unsettled.
‘You look tired,’ he said abruptly. ‘Why don’t you have a sleep?’
She turned to him, blinking slowly. ‘A sleep...?’
‘Yes, have a nap. Ella is sleeping, and I can keep an eye on her.’ He gestured to the huge bed on the other side of the suite, made into its own cosy enclave with bookshelves and potted palms to give the area privacy without compromising the stunning view. ‘Have a rest. You look exhausted, Mia.’
And we fly to Rome tonight.
He didn’t say the words, but he had a feeling she heard them anyway.
‘All right,’ Mia said after a moment. ‘I am very tired.’
‘Good. Rest.’
He watched as she rose stiffly from the sofa, exhaustion apparent in the slump of her shoulders, the lines on her face. Compassion stirred inside him. She needed help; she needed him. He just needed to make her realise it.
Mia bent over Ella’s car seat, tenderly touching her daughter’s cheek before she straightened and looked straight at Alessandro.
‘I don’t like any of this, Alessandro, even if I recognise that our being together is best for Ella. But no matter how you spin it, I still don’t feel as if I have any choice.’
‘I’ve given you a choice,’ Alessandro protested, and she nodded.
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘You’ve given me.’ Without waiting for his reply, she turned and walked towards the bed, everything about her seeming both proud and defeated. The unsettling combination made Alessandro ache. It also made him feel guilty, as if he were doing something wrong, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
For Ella’s sake, this was how it had to be. Mia would come to accept that in time. He would make sure of it.
CHAPTER NINE
MIA STARED OUT of the window of the private jet as it lifted into the sunset sky. Her stomach clenched with nerves, her insides swooping as the plane rose and then levelled out. She was doing this. She was really doing this.
Because she had to. For Ella’s sake, for Alessandro’s sake. She’d recognised that this morning, when Alessandro had spoken oh-so-reasonably, but she still resisted. Still hated the thought that she was being backed into a corner.
Three months. She could manage for three months. She could get to know Alessandro. She could try to get along. After that...
Mia had no idea what happened after that.
She glanced across the teakwood table that separated her from Alessandro in the jet’s sumptuous living area. Since waking up in Alessandro’s penthouse that afternoon, she’d felt as if she’d fallen into a fairy tale, unsure if she was with the prince or the big bad wolf. A little bit of both, perhaps. Alessandro was certainly solicitous of her every need; she couldn’t fault him even if she was still on edge.
While she’d been sleeping, something she hadn’t even thought she’d be able to do, he’d arranged for all her things to be packed up from her apartment and put onto his private plane. He’d had bags packed for her and Ella with everything they could possibly need for the flight. They’d gone directly from the hotel to the airport, which meant Mia hadn’t been able to say goodbye to anyone.
She hadn’t made many friends in LA yet, but she still resented his high-handed manner. She didn’t think he was
even aware of it, which made it worse. Somehow, against everything she believed and hoped for her life, she was ending up with a man like her father. Maybe not in the needless cruelty or sneering manner—Alessandro was certainly better than that. Yet the result was the same—being controlled by a man.
Alessandro, at least, was showing himself to be an attentive father. When she’d stumbled from the sumptuous bed back in the suite, she’d found him on the sofa, cradling Ella in his lap as he cooed down at her, his face softened and suffused with love. Seeing him in that unguarded moment had given Mia the hope that maybe, just maybe, she really was doing the right thing by going to Italy. That maybe it could even be a good thing.
She glanced again at Alessandro, his profile both handsome and hard as he gazed down at his tablet, a faint frown bisecting his patrician brow. He’d shed his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing powerful forearms, muscles flexed.
Looking at him now, Mia remembered how irresistible she’d once found him. How Alessandro had informed her it was her choice whether or not she shared his bed. Her choice...and yet she was afraid to make it, afraid of feeling even more under his control, because she knew when he touched her she’d lose her sense of reason completely. And yet she couldn’t get the images, the memories, out of her mind.
As if sensing her looking at him, Alessandro glanced up, his frown deepening as their gazes met. ‘Is everything all right? Do you need something?’
She shook her head. She’d just fed Ella, and her daughter was asleep in her car seat. ‘No, I’m all right.’
‘Why don’t we have champagne?’ Alessandro suggested. ‘To toast our future.’
‘The next three months, you mean,’ Mia couldn’t help but correct. She needed to remind herself of that safeguard as much as him. ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t drink too much whilst I’m breastfeeding...’
‘Surely a sip won’t hurt.’ Alessandro motioned to an aide, and then barked out a command in Italian. Mia watched him silently; he wasn’t even aware of how once again he’d exerted his will. It was a small matter, seemingly insignificant, and yet she felt it.
She also felt how, after just one day, she was too weary and defeated to challenge him. What would she be like after a month, a year, a decade? Would she become as worn out and ghost-like as her mother had been, drifting through life, half-heartedly defending her choices, or lack of them?
The staff member came back with a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. Alessandro dismissed the man and then expertly opened the champagne, the cork giving a stifled pop before he poured them both glasses.
‘To Ella,’ he said as he handed her a glass. ‘And to us.’
Dutifully Mia clinked her glass against his before taking a tiny sip. The bubbles fizzed through her, pleasantly surprising; it had been over a year since she’d had any alcohol. In fact...
‘Do you remember the last time we had champagne?’ Alessandro murmured, and Mia stiffened.
‘I’m sure you’ve had champagne last week, if not sooner.’
‘I haven’t, but I meant when we had it together.’
Together. The word held memory as well as promise. Intent. Mia took another sip of champagne, just to steady her nerves. ‘I didn’t expect you to talk about that,’ she said after a moment.
‘Why not?’
‘The last time we were together, you wanted to forget it, just like I did.’ Her voice was unsteady, as was her hand as she put her flute of champagne on the table in front of her.
‘Things have changed,’ Alessandro answered with a nod towards a still sleeping Ella. ‘Obviously.’
‘They haven’t changed that much,’ Mia protested. ‘You said I had three months to get to know you...to decide.’ Something flickered in his face and she leaned forward. ‘Did you mean that?’
‘Of course.’
She scanned his taut expression, dark brows drawn together, gaze slightly averted. ‘Alessandro,’ she said slowly, ‘what will happen after three months?’
‘My hope is we’ll get married.’
‘Married...’ Was she a fool to think he might have relinquished that notion? ‘And if I refuse?’
His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward. ‘I will make it my life’s mission for the next three months to make sure you don’t want to refuse.’
His voice was a sensuous caress, yet to Mia the words felt like a threat...and one she suspected he could carry out all too well.
‘And how will you do that?’ she asked, her voice wobbling. She hadn’t meant to direct a challenge, but she realised she had as Alessandro smiled knowingly, his lingering gaze as tangible as if he’d touched her.
‘I think you know how.’
‘By seducing me?’
‘Do I need to remind you how explosive our chemistry was?’
‘No, but perhaps I need to remind you there is more to a relationship—to a marriage—than what happens between the sheets.’
‘Or on a desk,’ Alessandro murmured, his eyes glinting.
Mia’s cheeks heated and she looked away. ‘Indeed.’
Alessandro settled back in his seat. ‘Like I said, we have chemistry, Mia. Let’s build on that.’
‘That’s hardly the foundation for a good marriage.’ In fact she feared it could be a disastrous one. What about shared values, aspirations, ideals? And besides, she had never wanted to get married, anyway. She’d never wanted to be so in thrall to another person, so under their control...and yet here she was. It filled her with a feeling of fearful hopelessness.
‘Chemistry and a shared love of a child is plenty,’ Alessandro returned. ‘More than many, or even most, have, and something we can build on.’
‘Did your parents love each other?’ she asked bluntly, and he stilled, clearly surprised by the question, before he gave a terse shake of his head.
‘My mother loved my father, but he did not love her in return.’
‘So would our marriage be one of love, eventually? Is that what you would hope for?’
Alessandro stilled, a guarded look coming over his face. ‘Our love of Ella...’
‘You know that’s not what I mean.’
‘What do you mean, Mia? Yesterday you told me you had never intended on marrying. Are you now telling me you want something different out of your marriage?’
She deflated, wondering why she’d pursued the point. ‘No, I’m not saying that. I’ve never wanted to fall in love.’
‘And neither have I, so I think we’re a good match.’
Yet why did that make her feel so despairing, so hopeless? She’d never wanted to marry, yet now that she might, she didn’t think she wanted a marriage devoid of affection. She felt trapped, choiceless, and she hated that. At least it was only for three months. It felt like the only silver lining to an otherwise towering, dark cloud.
‘My parents’ relationship was stormy and difficult,’ Alessandro said after a moment. She had the sense he was telling her something he didn’t relate often. ‘They never married, and, as I told you once before, my father walked out before I was born. My mother spent the next fifteen years beaten down by life, working dead-end jobs, moving from grotty flat to grotty flat, all in pursuit of some man or other...toxic relationships with wastrels or drunks or men who only wanted one thing.’ He sighed heavily, his gaze turning distant, as if he was lost or even trapped in a memory. ‘And she gave her heart every time, or so it seemed to me. It was no way to live.’ Mia heard a raw note of sadness in his voice that she’d never heard before, and it touched her, made her see him in a new and surprising light.
‘That must have been difficult for you,’ she said quietly, the aggression gone from her voice.
‘It wasn’t easy,’ Alessandro agreed, a dark note in his voice that made Mia’s heart ache. She had an image in her head of a little black-haired boy watching with wide, grey eyes as
his mother invited another man into their lives, as they were forced to move, as life upended for him again and again. His childhood had been as challenging as hers, if not more so, just in a different way.
‘And so this is the alternative?’ she asked after a moment.
‘It’s an alternative.’ Alessandro met her gaze directly, his expression now one of firm purpose. ‘Give us a chance, Mia. I’m willing to. We can have a marriage of companionship and compatibility. It doesn’t have to be some terrible truce, or a sorry stalemate.’
‘A loveless marriage?’
‘Love is overrated. You must think that yourself, with your own background. Why fall head first into something that spins out of control when you can have something so much better?’
He made it sound so reasonable. So possible. Still Mia hesitated. ‘We still don’t even know each other, Alessandro.’
‘Which is why we’re giving it three months.’ He smiled and downed the rest of his champagne.
Three months, Mia thought, and then he’d expect her to marry him. And at that point, she had a terrible feeling she’d be the subject of another hostile takeover...impossible to refuse or resist. Alessandro would make sure of it.
Ella stirred in her seat, and Mia rose from where she’d been sitting. ‘She needs a top-up,’ she said. ‘And I’m really tired. I’ll feed her in bed and then go to sleep, if you don’t mind.’
‘All right.’ Alessandro had a thoughtful look on his face as he tracked her movements. She unbuckled Ella from her seat and scooped her up, breathing in her sweet baby scent, savouring the innocence of it. All this was for Ella’s sake, she told herself. Fighting Alessandro at every turn would only end up hurting Ella. For her daughter’s sake, she had to get along with this man. She had to give this—them—a try, even if everything in her still railed against it.
‘Please let me or a member of staff know if you need anything,’ Alessandro said solicitously. ‘Anything at all.’
She nodded, knowing she needed to make an effort even though part of her resisted. ‘Thank you, Alessandro,’ she said stiffly.