by Sarah Morgan
Fia gave a sad smile. ‘You had every right to say that. You cared about your son. You saw my family and didn’t want that for him. But what you didn’t know was that I’d been studying your family and envying your family all my life. When Luca was born I did my best to create what you had, not what I had. I wanted him to have that same network of people who loved him. I found Ben and Gina who are both warm, expressive, good people. I banned my grandfather from saying bad things. I tried to give Luca that web of support that you Ferraras take for granted.’
‘I see that now. And I also see that one of the reasons Luca is so friendly and trusting is because he has been surrounded by love since he was born. And to do that in such difficult circumstances…I do think that what you achieved was nothing short of amazing.’ He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her gently. ‘That still doesn’t explain why you suddenly agreed to marry me.’
‘You kissed him,’ Fia said simply. ‘That first morning in your apartment when you were giving him breakfast. I walked in, sure that marriage would be the wrong thing…and you were kissing Luca. And I realised that nothing I’d created could match that. I realised that what I’d been working to reproduce was right in front of me. You were his real family. And he has a right to that, and to his cousins, aunts and uncles.’
‘And do you regret that decision?’
‘No. Luca loves being with you. It’s only been a few weeks but his life has changed so much for the better.’
‘You are an incredible mother and Luca is lucky. And you? What about your life?’ His tone was unsteady. ‘How is this marriage working for you? How do you feel?’
How did she feel?
She felt slightly light-headed as she always did when she was with him. She felt warm inside at his unexpected compliment. She felt—
She felt glad that she was married to him. And not just because of Luca.
Seriously unsettled, she pulled away. ‘I feel fine.’
‘Fine? What does “fine” mean? That word tells me nothing of how you really feel.’
She loved him. Somehow, over the past few weeks, she’d fallen in love.
The sudden realisation was like a sharp blade twisting in her heart and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Oh, how stupid. What a crazy, dangerous, reckless thing to do.
His mouth tightened. ‘The fact that you don’t know how to answer tells me a lot. You are a very unselfish person. You married me because you thought it was the right thing for our son. And you should know that I am determined to make this marriage work. I truly want you to be happy. From now on we will do more together. Not just with Luca, but as a couple. I will make space in my day and so will you.’
He had misinterpreted her silence and she was grateful for that because the last thing she wanted was for him to know how she felt.
The downside was that now he felt he had to work extra hard to please her.
She was going on his ‘to-do’ list.
Spending time with her wasn’t a pleasure, but a responsibility.
Her pride shattered, Fia pulled away. ‘You’re very busy—’ she pulled her damp hair over one shoulder ‘—and I’m very busy. Let’s just carry on as we were. Honestly, that suits me.’
‘Well, that doesn’t suit me. If this marriage is to work it has to be about us as well as Luca.’
He wanted the marriage to work for Luca’s sake. He was spending time with her for Luca’s sake.
Humiliation piled on humiliation.
Switching off her own emotions, Fia tried to work out how she’d react if she weren’t in love with him.
What would she say if she’d entered this marriage purely for the good of her son?
Spending time with Santo wouldn’t bother her, would it? In fact it would probably seem like a good idea to get to know each other better. It made sense.
‘Sure,’ she croaked. ‘If you want to spend time together, that sounds great.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE following morning she was woken by a shaft of bright sunlight as Santo opened the blinds.
‘Buongiorno.’ Sickeningly alert and energetic, he ripped the covers from her and handed her a robe.
Still half asleep, Fia gave a whimper of protest and stuck her head under the pillow. ‘What time is it?’
‘Time to get up,’ he said smugly. ‘You mentioned that you never see me in daylight so we are rectifying that, dormigliona.’
‘Are you calling me a sleepy-head? Because, if so, you are to blame. You shouldn’t—’
‘I shouldn’t what? Make love to my wife for half the night?’ He removed the pillow and scooped her into a sitting position. ‘I can’t believe how bad you are in the morning. How did you manage when you were the one who got up for Luca in the morning?’
‘I was cranky, irritable and generally horrid,’ she mumbled and he gave a wicked smile as he smoothed her tangled hair back from her face.
‘Fortunately you weren’t any of those things last night.’
Fia turned scarlet. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Normally I will do the early shift, and that is another benefit to our marriage. We can share the load. But today we are going to have a family breakfast.’
He was listing benefits, she thought numbly, as if he had to constantly remind himself of all the reasons this marriage was a good idea. She’d never thought of herself as romantic, but she was starting to realise she was nowhere near as practical as she would have liked to be. She would have given a lot for him to have just said he was glad he married her because he liked being with her.
He glanced at his watch. ‘Breakfast first, and then I have one short meeting I can’t get out of. After that we are going shopping.’ Showered, shaved and dressed in a suit, he looked so indecently sexy that Fia immediately wanted to grab him and haul him back into the bed.
‘I have lunchtime service.’
‘Not today. I’ve rearranged your schedule. Don’t be angry with me.’ Anticipating her response, he dived in first. ‘Normally I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your business, but today is about us. I really want to spend time with you.’
No, he didn’t want to. He thought he ought to. Not because he found her company addictive, but because he wanted to invest time in his marriage for Luca’s sake.
That was item number four on his agenda. Spend quality daylight time with Fia.
Resigned to going along with that strategy, Fia forced herself out of bed. ‘I need to take a shower.’
‘No!’ He moved away from her so fast he almost stumbled.
Fia stared at him in confusion. ‘I can’t take a shower?’
‘Yes, you can take a shower,’ he hissed through gritted teeth, ‘but I’m not going to take one with you.’ He retreated to the doorway. ‘I promised myself that today is going to be spent out of the bedroom.’
‘Right.’
‘Meet us downstairs when you’re dressed.’ He fumbled behind him for the door handle. ‘I’ll make you coffee. You take it white. I know that about you.’
‘Thank you.’ She probably should have been touched that he was trying so hard but instead it just depressed her to think he had to make such an effort. A relationship should be a natural thing, shouldn’t it?
By the time she joined them on the terrace, Santo had removed his jacket and was engaged in conversation with his son. Warmth spread through her as it always did when she saw the two of them together.
‘Mamma!’ Luca’s face brightened and Santo rose to his feet and pulled out her chair.
‘Mamma is joining us for breakfast so we must both be on our best behaviour.’
Fia kissed Luca and lifted her eyebrows as she saw the traditional Sicilian breakfast of brioche and granita. ‘You made this?’
&nb
sp; ‘Not exactly.’ A rueful smile crossed Santo’s handsome face as he sat back down. ‘I ordered breakfast from the Beach Club. I want your opinion. We’re losing business to you. You’re going to tell me why. Is it the food? Is it the surroundings? I want to know what we’re doing wrong.’
Fia sat down. ‘I don’t know anything about running a hotel so I’ll be no help to you at all.’
‘But you know a great deal about food.’ He passed her a plate. ‘And given that my customers would rather eat yours than mine, I assume you’re in a position to have an opinion on that. I brought the menus down for you to look at.’
Fia took the menus from him and scanned them, wondering how honest she was supposed to be. ‘Your menu is too broad.’
‘Scusi?’ Santo’s eyes narrowed. ‘You are suggesting we don’t offer a choice? But choice is good. It means we can cater to a wide range of tastes.’
‘You asked for my opinion. If you don’t want it, don’t ask.’
He breathed deeply. ‘Mi dispiace. Carry on. You were saying—?’
‘It’s good to have a choice, but you don’t want to offer so many things that people don’t know what cuisine you’re serving. This is Sicily. Serve Sicilian food and be proud of it. In the Beach Shack we rely totally on local seasonal produce. If it’s not in season, we don’t cook it. We buy our fish fresh from the boat in the morning so we don’t even choose the evening menu until we’ve seen what is fresh.’ She reached across and took an orange from the bowl on the table. The skin was dappled dark red and purple and she picked up her knife and peeled it deftly, exposing the scarlet flesh. ‘It is the temperature variation that makes these blood oranges the best in the world. That and the soil, which is perfect for growth. Our customers can see them growing next to the restaurant. We pick them fresh and juice them and I guarantee that when our guests return home they will want to buy blood oranges, but they won’t be able to find anything that tastes like this.’
‘So you’re saying fresh and local. I understand that. But we are catering for larger numbers than you, so that degree of flexibility isn’t always possible.’
‘It should be. And what I don’t grow, I outsource from local producers. I’ll talk to my suppliers. See if they can cope with a larger order.’
Santo poured coffee. ‘I want you to look over the menu properly and make suggestions.’
‘Isn’t that going to hurt the feelings of your head chef?’ Fia handed Luca a segment to suck.
‘My concern is not the feelings of my head chef but the success of the business which, ultimately, is in everyone’s best interests. At the moment most of our guests prefer to eat with you.’ He handed her coffee. ‘Congratulations. You’ve just been appointed as Executive Head Chef, overseeing both the Beach Shack and the Beach Club.’
Fia gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘You’re a very surprising person, do you know that? All macho one minute and surprisingly forward-thinking the next. When you first mentioned marriage I assumed you were going to insist I gave up work and stayed at home.’
‘Do you want to stay at home?’
Fia picked up a napkin and wiped the sticky juice from Luca’s fingers. ‘I love being with him, but I enjoy my work, too. I like the flexibility of the life I have and I’m proud of the fact I can support my son without financial help from anyone. But I wouldn’t want to work if it meant I couldn’t see him. This is a perfect compromise and I admit it’s nice to have your chef helping out. I like him.’
‘Now you are working with me, which means you can take off as little or as much time as you like. But not until you’ve told me how to improve the restaurants. Try the food.’
Fia tore a piece of the warm, buttery brioche, automatically studying the texture. ‘I thought you’d be very traditional about a woman’s role.’
‘I think we have already established that we don’t know enough about each other,’ he said softly, ‘but that is slowly changing. Now tell me what you think of the brioche.’
‘It’s good. A little greasy, perhaps.’ She nibbled the corner, testing the flavour, and felt a glow of satisfaction because she knew hers was infinitely superior. And it should be. She’d worked herself to the ground perfecting the recipe. She kneaded and baked and tested until she was satisfied that it couldn’t get any better. ‘As we’re married and I have a vested interest in your success, I’ll share my secret recipe with your chef.’
Aware that he was watching her, she picked up her spoon and tasted the granita from the tall glass. ‘Elegant presentation.’ She made a mental note to review the way she served hers in the restaurant. ‘It’s difficult to make the perfect granita.’
‘It’s just water, sugar and, in this case, coffee.’
‘The Arabs first introduced it when they flavoured snow from Mount Etna with sugar syrup and jasmine water.’ She took another spoonful. ‘But if it isn’t frozen to the right consistency then it tastes all wrong.’
‘And does this taste wrong?’
‘It’s not bad—’ This time she scooped granita up with the brioche and tasted both together. ‘I’ve had worse.’
He winced. ‘That is not the accolade I was hoping for. So when and where did you learn to cook?’
She put the spoon down slowly. ‘I taught myself. When my mother left, I was surrounded by men who expected me to cook for them. Fortunately I loved it. I made lots of mistakes and plenty of food ended up in the bin, but after a while I started to get a lot of things right and when they turned out right I wrote them down. Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘You had no formal training?’
‘Of course not. When would I have had formal training?’ She poured milk into Luca’s cup. ‘I would have loved to go to college, to travel and spend some time with other chefs, but that was never an option.’
He gave an incredulous laugh. ‘The chef who made that brioche trained at two of the best restaurants in Italy.’
‘He probably hasn’t made as many bad batches of brioche as I have. It’s about experimenting. And it isn’t all about training. Sometimes it’s about the quality of the raw ingredients and giving the customer what they want.’
‘And what do you think my customers want?’
‘I only know about my own.’
‘Given that a high percentage of your customers come from my hotel, they’re one and the same thing,’ he drawled. ‘I’m surprised your grandfather let you run the restaurant. Cooking for him is one thing, but running a business is another. He is very traditional.’
She wished he’d remove his sunglasses. With those dark shades obscuring his eyes she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. ‘My grandmother always had a few tables on the water’s edge. Nothing fancy, but the food was always fresh and local. I suppose because she cooked for others, he was more accepting of me doing the same thing. But he does complain. He thinks I’ve turned it into something fancy.’
‘You have had a very difficult life,’ he said quietly. ‘Losing both your parents and then your brother…and yet you’ve managed to hold it all together. Not just hold it together, but you have a thriving business, a happy child and a more mellow grandfather. You didn’t repeat the pattern you saw, you created your own pattern.’
‘The way you live your life is a choice,’ Fia said. ‘I chose to copy your family, not mine.’
‘And you did that without any support. I want you to know that I do have enormous respect for what you have achieved. And I owe you an enormous apology for being so hard on you when I found out about Luca.’
‘You don’t have to apologise,’ she muttered. ‘I understand. You’re very, very focused on family. I’ve never really had that so we sort of came at the whole thing from a different place.’
His dark eyes raked her face. ‘Yes. I think we did. But we’re in the same place now and
that is the way it’s staying.’ He stood up abruptly. ‘I have a meeting that will last about an hour. Then I’ve asked Gina to take Luca so that we can have some time alone.’
Alone sounded terrifying to Fia. Alone meant concentrating really hard on not showing him how she felt. Respect, she could take, especially from a man like Santo who didn’t give it readily. Pity didn’t interest her.
‘Why don’t we take Luca with us? Make it a family day out?’
Santo paused in the process of putting on his jacket. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of something more romantic.’
‘Romantic?’ She managed a light-hearted laugh. ‘Really, you don’t need to do that. I appreciate the thought but it isn’t necessary.’
‘It is necessary. Apart from your wedding dress, I haven’t bought you a single thing since we got together. You’re my wife. You deserve the best.’
Oh, God, she was an embarrassment to him.
Why hadn’t that occurred to her before?
She was married to Santo Ferrara and she was dressing the same way she’d always dressed. Mortified that he’d had to broach the topic in such a way, she caved in and nodded quickly.
‘Yes, of course. Let’s go shopping. Whatever you think.’
‘Finish your breakfast. I’ll pick you up in an hour. It’s important that we spend time alone together. And you—’ he bent to kiss Luca’s dark hair ‘—are having a day with Gina. Be good.’
With a final glance at Fia, he strode off the terrace towards the hotel, leaving her staring after him in despair.
‘He wants to spend the day with me because he thinks he ought to. And he’s going to buy me clothes so that I look right and don’t embarrass him in public. Your Auntie Dani has already told me he hates shopping so the fact that he’s determined to take me must mean I’m not just a bit embarrassing but extra embarrassing.’ Fia handed Luca another piece of brioche. ‘Name one good thing about our relationship apart from you. Go one. Just one.’
‘Sex,’ Luca chortled helpfully and Fia gave a moan of despair and dropped her head into her hands.