Next time? ‘Does that mean you are planning to get further involved?’ He stilled. Surely his father didn’t think he could just roll in and become CEO after a lifetime of not doing anything?
His father shook his head, humour glimmering in the hazel eyes so like Matteo’s own. ‘I’ve no intention of starting a nine-to-five at my age, coming into the office every day. But I do want to have more purpose to my life.’
Matteo couldn’t have been more staggered if his father had announced that he had superpowers and was saving the world in his spare time. ‘Purpose?’
‘I’m barely past fifty,’ his father pointed out. ‘Maybe it’s time to grow up a little. I’ve met someone...’
Here we go again. Matteo fought to keep the sardonic sneer off his face. Any revelations his father had were usually because he’d met someone. How many times had he been married now? Five or was it six? To say nothing of the series of uniformly lovely girlfriends who seemed to accompany him between marital adventures.
‘I see.’
‘I don’t think you do, not this time, Matteo. Claudine is different. She’s nearly my age with children of her own and a thriving business. She likes me, she may even love me, but she doesn’t respect me. And maybe she has good reason not to. It’s made me take a good long hard look at myself, realise I need to make some changes.’
‘By getting arrested for bribery?’
His father laughed. ‘As I said, that was an unfortunate misunderstanding. It’s all been cleared up now. Look. We need to figure out the best place for me to be. I’m not quite ready for nine-to-five, but surely I could be of use. I have a lot of connections; people do seem to think I’m charming, you know. Besides, my brain may be a bit rusty but every school report I ever had said I had a lot of potential, I just chose not to use it. Maybe it’s time I did use it. What do you think, Matteo? Could we be a team?’
Matteo picked up his coffee and took a sip. He was wary where his father was concerned, wary of his whims and his passions. Could this time really be different? Was he really ready to start again—and if so was Matteo ready to give him a chance? Give them a chance?
‘We’ll see. Let’s talk once we know this arrest business has really been cleared up and things aren’t quite so fraught.’ He managed to resist adding, See if you’re still interested in a few weeks’ time.
Silence descended for a while, unusual for his father, who was usually a fount of small talk. Finally his father sighed. ‘I know it’s up to me to apologise, it’s up to me to make things up to you. I let you down badly when you were a child—and just because I was barely more than a child myself then that doesn’t make it okay.’
Taken completely aback, Matteo had no idea how to respond. While he was still figuring out a reply his father spoke again. ‘Have you seen your mother at all while you’ve been in Italy?’
Matteo knew that his parents spoke more to each other than they did to him and had always found that disconcerting. ‘I haven’t had time.’
‘You blame her more than you blame me, don’t you?’
This was such an unexpectedly insightful thing for his father to say that again Matteo could only sit and stare. ‘I don’t blame either of you for anything. Things are what they are.’
‘We weren’t good parents to you, I know that. We were just so young and wild, our lifestyles so excessive. We lived for the moment, which is fine at twenty-one, but not when you have a year-old child needing you to grow up. It seemed easier—and admittedly more fun—to leave you with your nanny, and at your grandfather’s, to ignore our responsibilities, but it wasn’t right. Matteo, you should know that when we split up your mother did want you. Your grandfather...’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know if I am doing the right thing telling you this. I promised your mother long ago I wouldn’t, but you have a right to know. Your mother wanted you, but your grandfather persuaded her to give me custody, which meant giving him custody. He said he’d take her to court, that he had evidence that she was unfit to care for you and he would make that public and she would never see you again. Or she could give in and have you for a few weeks during the summer. It took a long time for her to recover from that; she went off the rails badly for a while, as you know, which, of course, justified your grandfather’s point of view as far as he was concerned. But he wasn’t worried about your well-being; he was just determined to hang on to his Harrington heir.’
Suddenly half-remembered memories began to make some kind of sense. His mother’s silences and tears, overheard snippets of conversation, his grandfather’s jeers. And with that sense came the beginnings of a peace of mind he hadn’t even realised he craved.
‘But why?’ Matteo managed.
‘I suppose you were his chance to try again. I was never good enough for him; he made that clear my whole life. He’d washed his hands of me totally by the time I was eighteen. But with you he got to try again—and I allowed him, despite knowing that he wasn’t exactly paternal. I should never have let that happen. I’m sorry.’
Matteo stared at his father in disbelief. His mother had wanted him all along? His grandfather had kept him from her. This changed everything he thought he knew about his life, about who he thought he was.
‘Why did no one ever tell me this before?’
His father shrugged. ‘I wanted to, but your mother didn’t want to come between you and your grandfather. She said you’d made your choice when she remarried and she tried to get you back. She was stronger then, prepared to go to court, no matter what was thrown at her—it helped, of course, that her husband was influential. But you didn’t want to live with her; you made it clear that you blamed her for leaving you and that you were bonded with your grandfather. She said it would break your heart if you knew what your grandfather had done; she put your happiness first. But you’re no longer a child and you need to know the truth. So call her, Matteo. Go back to that lovely wife of yours, spend some time in Italy and call your mother.’
Matteo didn’t ask how his father knew that he had been in Italy; his father always knew more than he expected.
‘Your mother was sorry not to have been invited to your wedding,’ his father added, ‘not to have met your wife. I think it’s opened up some of those old wounds. That’s why I wanted to say something. It’s not too late to right some of those wrongs. I’m realising that myself.’
‘Nobody was invited to the wedding,’ Matteo said. ‘Charlie’s parents couldn’t get away and so I promised her that we would have a big party, renew our vows in front of everybody who loved us. But somehow I never found the time and then it was too late.’
‘Too late?’
‘She left me,’ Matteo said, and as he said the words he realised that maybe he had been waiting for that ending all along. He’d always thought Charlie loving him was too good to be true. Part of him had known he was never enough for her, the boy whose mother didn’t want him, whose father didn’t want him. The boy not good enough for his only parental figure, always trying to live up to expectations. The boy condemned to boarding school, an ever-changing series of nannies, abandoned by all who knew him. How could that person be worthy of anyone, especially someone like Charlie? At some level, Matteo had been waiting for Charlie to realise she had made a mistake since the day they’d met.
The question was, had he been pushing her away, not willing to live waiting for her to realise she’d made a mistake any longer? Was that what had happened? Because when she’d left he felt almost vindicated, alongside the devastation. She’d proved him right.
But this time he had decided to fight. He’d put his grandfather’s expectations first as a teenager and nobody knew what it had cost him to turn his mother away. He’d never even admitted it to himself. This time he’d realised that he had to risk himself, to make himself vulnerable, to ask for another chance. And fate had given him that chance. So why was he here in a gentlemen’s club in Mayfair with h
is father, not back in Italy? Charlie had a gala in just two days’ time and he had promised to be there. Just this morning it had seemed impossible that he’d ever be able to keep that promise; now he knew it was impossible not to.
He had to prove to her that he meant it, meant that she was the most important thing in his life and that if his life didn’t have space in it for her then he needed to make changes and find that space. He needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t scared. That he could be all in, publicly, privately, emotionally and for ever.
He had to be vulnerable. Matteo took a deep breath and looked up at his father. ‘I need your help,’ he said.
* * *
‘Charlie, don’t look so worried.’ Lucia patted Charlie reassuringly on the arm. ‘I’m sure it will all come together tomorrow.’
Charlie groaned. ‘I have put on literally countless shows,’ she said. ‘And I do not recall a single dress rehearsal that has gone as badly as that. I hope you are right; I don’t know what else I can do...’
Everything that could have gone wrong during the dress rehearsal had. The sound system had broken and Charlie had ended up playing the music from her phone, which barely made enough sound to reach the stage. Three girls had tripped over their costumes, four had cried because they didn’t like the colour they were wearing, countless had forgotten their cues, their spots and which way to turn.
She’d hoped for a straightforward run-through; instead she had endured four hours of tears, tantrums and children threatening to quit. Mentally, she’d also indulged in all three, but her job was to try and stay calm, unflappable and keep everything together.
Why was she doing this again? This wasn’t her home, she didn’t really know these children, this wasn’t even her family. It was Matteo’s family, and he wasn’t here. Again.
She summoned up a weary smile. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she said, not knowing who she was trying to convince most. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
The walk back up the hill towards the villa seemed to take for ever. The footpath seemed long and lonely and deserted when it was just her, steeper than she remembered when she had thoughts weighing her down, not conversation distracting her. Things didn’t improve when she got back. Maria was popping in to clean, but Charlie had reassured her that she didn’t really need her services when she was out most of the time rehearsing. This meant she came back to an empty building and what felt like an endless lonely evening to dwell on everything that might go wrong the next day.
Some salad was waiting for her in the fridge, along with a chilled bottle of wine, but she wasn’t really hungry, nor did she want a drink; she just knew it would make her thoughts churn even more.
It had been four days since Matteo had left. He’d managed a few quick texts and just one hurried, distracted call. She’d known taking care of the bribery business would be time-consuming, but his very presence back in London seemed to have unleashed a storm of unrelated and equally urgent work and he had been inundated. He’d mentioned that his grandfather seemed ill and he needed to clear some of his workload before he could return.
Charlie didn’t want to dwell on what had happened before and be pessimistic about the future but history seemed to be repeating itself in a pattern she was already familiar with and she didn’t know how to handle it any better this time than she had last time.
Maybe they were kidding themselves that this marriage could work. They were too different, wanted different things, had different values. Love and desire could only get a marriage so far; there also had to be shared goals, communication—and actually spending time together couldn’t hurt either. She hadn’t made a fuss when he’d returned to London, nor had she made it some kind of test, but it was turning into a test anyway. And one they were failing. He was absent and she was becoming increasingly resentful. They were turning full circle.
She stared bleakly out of the window, no longer seeing the glorious view. The gala was tomorrow and he was going to miss it. Again.
Last time she’d left him out of anger, to make a point, to show him she wasn’t going to sit at home and wait for him to let her in. She wasn’t angry this time, just bone-weary and tired. Because this time they had tried, they had talked and confided and learned and grown and it still wasn’t enough. There didn’t seem to be a compromise, a middle way. They worked here in Italy, in courtship, but the whole thing collapsed as soon as reality intruded. It would be better for them both to make a clean break. To keep the last couple of weeks as the idyll it was, a sweet memory, not taint it with a long-drawn-out withering.
Charlie slowly climbed the stairs. She’d moved her belongings from the cosy room she’d first occupied into Matteo’s spacious suite after they’d returned from Rome. The bed seemed far too big for one, every empty corner full of ghosts. She opened her wardrobe and her gaze fell onto her suitcase. The divorce papers were in the front pocket. All she needed to do was instruct her solicitor to submit them and in six weeks they would both be free.
It would be the right thing to do. The mature thing to do.
It would be the hardest, the most painful thing she had ever done. Because this time she wasn’t fuelled by anger or self-righteousness. It would break her heart—literally, it felt like—and, worse, she knew it would break Matteo’s. But they had to move on from this stalemate. She had to be the bigger person, whatever the cost.
Charlie swayed, and for one moment she felt the weight of her decision almost overwhelm her. She summoned every ounce of courage she possessed, swallowing back the regret and devastation and pain. That could come later. Slowly, methodically, she changed into her swimsuit and, pulling a wrap around her, she collected her book and phone and headed back downstairs and outside, plonking herself down on a sun lounger, determined to try and relax.
But as she opened her book her phone rang, disturbing her attempts to calm her thoughts. Her heart jolted, hope shooting through her, only to disappear when she saw Lexi’s name on her screen.
Picking up the phone and pressing the Accept Call button, she tried to figure out what time it was over in Vietnam. ‘Hey, how’s it going?’
Her friend sounded her usual exuberant self. ‘It’s good—you should see this place, Charlie. It’s paradise.’
‘Still paradise with a bronzed New Zealand surfer?’ she managed to tease. Some part of her marvelled at her ability to hide her feelings.
Lexi laughed. ‘Oh, yes, it’s going well. Most of his friends have moved on, there’s just a small group left so it’s a much more chilled vibe. You will love it. When are you coming out? You said a week or so and it’s been more than three. We’ll be moving inland soon and I’d hate for you to miss this place. The snorkelling and diving are amazing.’
Charlie lay back and stared out at the horizon. Backpacking, sightseeing, sea and surf and partying. She’d met Lexi a few years ago through mutual friends, a teacher like herself wanting a travelling companion for the summer holidays. The two of them had hit it off, both enjoying a balance between sightseeing and partying, tourist places and exploring off the beaten track.
Lexi was obviously having a great time and Charlie could be out there with her. What was she doing agonising about someone who would always have priorities other than her?
She’d always followed every opportunity offered to her in the past—and now here was an opportunity staring her in the face. Maybe she should just do what she always did and head off.
‘It does sound amazing...’ She couldn’t hide the longing in her voice.
‘Then come,’ Lexi said. ‘I’ll send you the details of where we are. We’ll be here for at least two more weeks. Get a flight and join us. Look, I have to go; there’s a cocktail with my name on it. But don’t overthink it, book a ticket and let me know when your plane gets in, okay?’
‘I’m not quite promising anything,’ Charlie warned. ‘But I will let you know either way.’
‘You do that. Hope I see you soon.’
Charlie put the phone down, then shucked off her wrap and dived into the cold, clear water, surfacing with a splutter and striking out across the pool. With each stroke her mind spun faster and faster, replaying the short conversation with Lexi and her decision to leave Matteo. She couldn’t deny how much part of her wanted to cut her losses and run. But what would that achieve? She was no longer a teenage girl with no control of her own destiny. She couldn’t spend her whole life jumping into the next thing, could she? At some point she would need to put down some roots.
If what she and Matteo had was worth fighting for, then maybe instead of giving up she should fight.
She’d married a man with commitments. She had married a man who was responsible for thousands of jobs and she had married him knowing both of those things. She wanted him to recognise her own achievements, of course she did, but there had to be some kind of give and take. She wanted him to change? Well, maybe she needed to change as well, maybe she needed to grow up and support him the way she wanted to be supported.
Did it really matter if he was standing by her side for this gala? Did it really matter if he had to disappear off with no notice? It wasn’t all about his actions; it was also about her reactions. She sped up, welcoming the burn in her muscles. The problem was she had never allowed herself to need anyone before. She’d always been so proud of her independence, of doing her own thing, and then, in true Charlie style, she’d thrown herself wholesale into marriage in an all-or-nothing kind of way, with the result that she’d felt hard done by playing the role of the barely noticed little wife at home.
But what if she did things differently? Stood up for herself, made sure Matteo knew her boundaries, got a job, her own friends, as she should have done from the start. But if she did stay, did try again, then she needed to mean it. No more impulsive walking out when things got tough.
Winning Back His Runaway Bride Page 14