by Pippa Roscoe
He wanted you to live. He wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he had not tried.
Long after Malcolm had left, Matthieu had sat gazing, unseeing, at Lake Lucerne. He had been shocked by the realisation that he had not been living. That he had not been trying. Maria had been right. He had hoarded his pain, hoarded the precious, sometimes painful, but more often incredible loving memories of his parents as if they had a portion of allotted time before running out, before disappearing from his mind. But the more he thought, the more he remembered. And the more he realised that he had made a terrible mistake forcing Maria from his life.
* * *
Nearly a month later, Matthieu stepped out of the limousine parked outside an estate in Siena, and knocked on the door, bracing himself for what was to happen.
It swung open and Sebastian Rohan de Luen took one look at him and swung. In truth, Matthieu had seen the punch coming from a mile away, but took the hit, feeling it was pretty much deserved at this point.
He cupped his jaw, rubbing at the small sting at the corner of his mouth with his thumb.
‘A friend would tell you to use your words,’ he said to Seb.
‘Yeah? Well. I’m more about actions. I warned you. Dammit, I bloody told you—’
‘I know. You were right. I deserved it and much more.’
Seb looked at him long and hard before stepping back and letting him pass through the door and into the dark living room of the estate Matthieu had last visited with Maria. That was when Matthieu noticed the glass of half-drunk whisky and empty bottle on the table. Seb had come to a halt in the middle of the room and was staring at a painting propped up on the mantelpiece above a large fireplace. It was only then that Matthieu really looked at the painting.
‘Wait...is that a—?’
‘Yes.’
Matthieu was struck by the image of the woman staring out at him, from one of Europe’s most famous and expensive painters.
‘Jesus, is that—?’
‘Our mother. The resemblance is remarkable, don’t you think?’
Matthieu chose not to answer, suddenly realising just how hard it must have been for Maria’s father to see the face of his wife in his child. Suddenly realising how difficult it must have been for Maria. ‘That painting must be worth at least one hundred million.’
‘You aren’t the only billionaire in the room, Montcour.’
‘Did you buy this?’
A pregnant pause filled the air before Sebastian reluctantly admitted that it was a long story. Matthieu looked sideways at Sebastian. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, genuinely concerned.
‘I don’t think you’re here to talk about me and my feelings, are you, Montcour?’
‘No, but—’
‘Don’t,’ Seb interrupted, slashing his hand through the air to cut off the direction of the conversation, and resumed his watchful stance over the painting.
Matthieu sighed. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘Only if you give me a good enough reason to,’ he replied, finally turning that powerful, predatory gaze on him.
‘I love her,’ Matthieu said simply. He let the truth shine from his words and fill the darkness in the room. In the last few weeks he’d spent hours thinking through his feelings, his fears and the darkest parts of him. Regretting almost every second that he’d not allowed Maria to help him in this way, but knowing that in reality it was better, healthier for him to have forged this realisation himself.
‘You might do. I might even believe that you do. But that doesn’t mean I will give you what you want.’
Matthieu couldn’t fault him for that. It took him nearly an hour to convince Sebastian to reveal where Maria was. As he returned to his car, he pulled out his phone and got his assistant to track down the telephone number for Theo Tersi. The conversation was brief and to the point and Matthieu put all thoughts of Maria’s brother aside the moment Theo promised to come to Siena as soon as humanly possible. Then, with his sole focus on Maria, he put the key in the car’s ignition and hit the gas.
* * *
Maria pulled into the driveway of the house she had rented in Umbria, both physically and mentally exhausted. She had visited with her father and Valeria and it had been...she shook her head at the direction of her thoughts. Difficult? Yes. Painful? A little. But better? Perhaps.
It had taken a good few weeks of soul-searching just to find the courage to face Eduardo. To be truly honest with herself. She had allowed her father’s withdrawal to dictate far too much of her life. She had allowed him to see her mother in her, not having the courage to stand and be Maria. And in the same way, she had sought only the idealised relationship she had dreamed of, not the father she did have. But it didn’t have to continue on that way, and it didn’t mean that there couldn’t be a relationship there. He might never have really been able to say it or show it, but deep down, despite his faults, she knew that he did love her. And for the first time in what felt like for ever, she had met with her father not beneath the blanket of pain at what he wasn’t capable of, or who she was not, but with the comfort of hope as to what he might be and who she was. And no matter how much devastation her argument with Matthieu had wrought that night, if this was the one good thing she could take away from it—she would take it.
She stepped out of the small rental car feeling both emotionally exposed from her visit, but also oddly stronger and more resilient, and walked towards the front door of the beautiful property she had found nearly a month ago. Using the money that Seb had set aside for her—the account she’d once sworn never to touch—she had fallen in love with it almost the moment she had seen it and leased it for at least one year. Settled in between sunflower fields and tobacco fields, the one-storey structure was everything Matthieu’s estate beside Lake Lucerne was not. Warm terracotta tiles sloped over the gentle roof topping ancient stone walls. Beautiful shutters held off the penetrating sun when it became too much and in the afternoon, as the sun passed overhead, a stunning pergola almost buckling under the weight of sprawling tendrils of clematis and honeysuckle provided shade for an outdoor courtyard that she had taken up almost daily residence in.
The villa was just under two hours from Sebastian, three from her father, and what felt like a lifetime away from Matthieu. She had thought at first that she would fall into a pattern of numb, exhausted moping—but she didn’t have the luxury to do that. Not to herself, not to her child. Instead of being drained by her separation from Matthieu, from the hurtful accusations they had thrown at each other that night, she had somehow been ignited by them, driven and determined in a way she had never encountered before. Driven, beyond all else, to discover who she truly was.
She had sat down with her accounts, with her wants and needs for both herself and her child, and made plans. And while it hurt that those plans were made in Matthieu’s absence, they formed a future that was created, not from fantasies and falsities, but the conversations they had once shared through nights where neither had been able to sleep. It was a future that honoured the desires of both parents.
But in the plans she was beginning to make for her own future, how she hoped to juggle parenthood with her jewellery making, for once not seeing the finances from Matthieu as a tie, but a gift that would allow her to explore both sides of who she was and what and how she wanted to be, she had found that inner sense of self, that sense of accomplishment she had felt had been missing.
For the first time in what felt like for ever, her future had a shape, had a solid direction that she had created for herself. And in that, she began to know herself. Her recent appointment with her new doctor had gone well, both her and her child flourishing here. She had even started to look at schools—which was a way off—and had bought a crib for her child. Yes, she had once imagined doing that with Matthieu and the thought of putting
it up herself without his involvement did hurt, but she would do it.
As for her thoughts of Matthieu, she didn’t seem able to touch them. To access them. They were sealed beneath the same closed door that she had accused him of shutting over his memories of the past. But now, she understood. Understood just a little of what and why he had been forced to do that. In time, she hoped that she’d have the courage to deal with them, as she had encouraged him to deal with his hurts. But this kindness she gave herself, because that door she had slammed shut was locked with a hope she barely dared acknowledge. Hope that he would come for her.
She had just poured herself a cup of lemon and ginger tea when the sound of a vehicle on the gravel driveway drew her attention back to the present with a little jolt of excitement. That would be the crib. She had spent far too much money on it, but for the first time she didn’t mind. Money didn’t have strings, or checks or balances that tied to a heart. Her brother had set her up with the fund out of love, not obligation, and she would embrace it for both herself and her child.
She put down the cup and made her way to the front doors of the villa, too busy pinning them back against the wall to see the form of the man standing in the middle of the entrance, blocking out all the light as if it was his right.
‘If you could just—’
Her words caught in her throat as she took in the sight of Matthieu, her quick, hungry eyes almost tripping over the features she’d gone to sleep imagining every night since she’d left Switzerland. The dark furrow of his brow, the strong jaw line, the impossible breadth of his shoulders and arms. All of it. She wanted it all.
Her gaze flew back to his eyes, shining a heady combination of hope, sadness and something she dared not put name to.
* * *
Matthieu felt the breath whoosh from his lungs with a sense of peace the moment his eyes finally rested on his wife. He knew, as sure as he knew anything, that he still had a mountain to climb, but allowed himself this one moment, because in all the days, nights and weeks since he had last seen her, he’d known only that a vital piece of him was missing. Something integral to his existence.
‘May I come in?’ he asked, promising that if she said no, he’d respect it. But also knowing that he’d come back every single day until she did let him in. Because he knew that he had hurt her. He knew that he didn’t even deserve a second chance, but he desperately hoped for one.
She looked at him for the longest time and just when he thought she was about to refuse him, she frowned.
‘What happened to your mouth?’ she asked, shocked.
He put his thumb to the corner of his mouth where Seb had caught him and smiled ruefully. ‘Nothing I didn’t deserve.’
‘My brother did that to you?’ she demanded furiously before disappearing into the dark hallway of the villa, muttering curses and dire promises of punishment.
‘Maria?’ he asked as he rounded the corner to find her stabbing at her phone in fury.
‘Hold on.’
He frowned in confusion. This wasn’t exactly how he’d planned this to be.
‘Maria...’
Her name on his lips felt like a balm and if she gave him the chance, he’d say it a million times a day.
‘What?’ she said, as he stalked over and gently prised the phone from her hands.
‘I don’t want to talk about Sebastian or anything else right now. I came here to...’
She cocked her head to one side, looking, for just a moment, the way she had that first night in Iondorra. But somehow even more. She just looked and felt so much more he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t explode from it. But she was still distracted by the phone, by Seb, clearly searching for anything that would buy her time, or postpone it, he couldn’t tell. This wasn’t what he’d wanted at all. He turned and stalked back down the corridor.
‘Where are you—?’ her voice came from behind him.
He bent to unhook the front shutters from where she had pinned them back and pulled one closed, before stepping out into the sunshine.
‘We’re starting this again. Because it’s important. I’m going to get this right,’ he said determinedly, pulling the second shutter too and taking a deep breath. He waited, took another. Composed himself and knocked on the door again.
When she pulled open the shutters there was an odd look on her face, part humour, part sadness and a large part confusion.
‘May I come in, Maria?’
This time she seemed to take the time to consider it. And in that moment, his heart nearly stopped in his chest. Because in the long shadows pouring from either side of the hallway, he could see how much bigger their baby had become. And everything in him wanted to drop to his feet, place his hands and head on her bump and beg and plead for her forgiveness.
She moved aside before he had the chance to actually do it and gestured for him to come in.
This time he followed her down the hallway, uncaring of the villa around them, and back out into the sunlight of the most glorious courtyard he’d ever seen. Huge swathes of white and purple flowers created a canopy hanging low above their heads and the sweet smell of honeysuckle rained down upon his senses. He marvelled because this was uniquely Maria. Warm, colourful, sweet...perfect. It was everything that he’d missed the moment he had thrust her from his life.
And he shook his head at the sea of thoughts crashing against his mind. He didn’t know where to start—and feared that it might all come out in a jumbled mess. He had thought this through. Had tried and tested the words over in his mind on his way here. But now, with Maria standing before him...
‘Pull up a pew?’ she asked. It was an olive branch and it was a chance. To start over. To get things right. But that would mean ignoring everything that had happened between them. Everything that she’d helped him see about himself, all that he’d been forced to realise was wrong within himself.
‘I’ll stand, but thank you.’ He let out a sigh, his gaze for a moment on the stunning riotous fields of sunflowers surrounding them, while he picked his words. ‘Maria, I cannot ask you to forgive me for that night. Leaving you at the restaurant was unforgivable.’ Finally finding the courage, he sneaked a glance back at Maria—terrified of seeing her agreement, not even thinking for a moment he would receive clemency for it. Instead, he saw patience—a patience he did not deserve, but would take with open arms. ‘You were right. About everything. I had not told you about the nightmares, or the fire, because, in truth, I didn’t want you to help me see through them. Because that would have meant that I would have had to face the fact that...the fact that you had become so precious to me that I could lose you and, having lost my family, knowing the very real pain of that, I honestly didn’t think that I would survive losing you or our child. And instead, I pushed you away, and lost you, all the while promising myself it would hurt less now, rather than more later.
‘And it was my fear of that, the genuine terror of just how much you mean to me, just how much I have come to love you, that made me cruel. On your birthday, I took your love for me and turned it against you and that is unforgivable. So no matter what happens after today, I want you to know that no amount of time apart will change the way I feel about you. If you choose never to see me again, that is absolutely your decision. But I will always love you. You brought light to a life I didn’t realise was dark. You brought truth to my soul when I didn’t realise it was shrouded in secrets and guilt. And love to my empty heart. I love that I can now accept and embrace and that...that will go to you and our child always.
‘The pain of the past is still there, but it is somehow...less. Honouring that pain, remembering it hasn’t taken away what happened, but bringing it into the light has allowed both the hurt and the joy, the love to become a part of me, not separate or isolated, but present, and it has made me realise how much more I am with love in my life.’
This time, when he looked at hi
s wife, he could see tears in her eyes, the slow roll down her cheek, that made him reach up and brush one away.
Maria’s gaze snagged on the glint of silver that had caught her eye when he reached for her cheek. He was wearing the bracelet that had meant so much to her when she had made it. And when her gaze turned from that to her husband, all she could see was the man she loved staring back at her, glorious and proud, exulting in his feelings, and it was a marvel.
‘When you first gave me this,’ he said, ‘all I could see was the past, was the pain, the guilt and shame that this represented to me. But, talking to Malcolm, remembering that night myself, allowing myself to remember more... You’ve given me back a part of me I thought long since gone and I am awed by it, by the incredible generosity of such a thing, and the beauty of what you brought me. And now I can have this with me every single day, wherever I go.
‘I can see now, that it not only represented my connection to the past, with my parents, and my future with you and our child, but more than that, it represents how the present could come from a past once thought damaged and burned by pain and loss, and be not only strong, and beautiful now, but hopeful and wondrous in the future.’
Tears fell freely from her eyes now. She was overwhelmed by his understanding of what she had tried to imbue into the gift, the sense of connection between them somehow even more powerful now. But she knew that she needed to speak, needed to say the words crying in her heart. She covered her hands with his.
‘I want... I need you to know that I heard you too.’ He tried to shake off her words, as if the memory of that night was hurtful and shameful. ‘No, don’t. I know that our words were angry and dark, but just as you found goodness because of them, I did too. I realised that much of what you were saying was right. I was so afraid of being rejected, of being unloved myself, that instead I wove fantasies around relationships, casting myself in roles that I could shake off, move on from if those relationships failed. And it wasn’t fair, to anyone, my father, brother, you or myself. I went to see my father,’ she confessed, with a small smile. ‘And, no...he’s not going to suddenly change, but reframing our relationship, not with what I wanted it to be, but how it was and could be...it was healing, and generous, and kind and hopefully one day loving. And I wouldn’t have had that without you or what you said that night.