by Kate Hewitt
‘Maybe not quite revenge, but...’ Maisie hesitated, then lifted her chin, her emerald eyes flashing. ‘Antonio, you’re known as a ruthless businessman. You’re nicknamed “The Destroyer”! You take apart buildings and companies and dismantle people’s lives without a flicker of regret or compassion.’
‘You’ve seen me at work, then?’ Antonio said. He felt cold with a sudden rage but also, he realised with a twinge of shame, with hurt. He didn’t like that she had such a low of opinion of him, but he would not stand here and defend himself against such baseless accusations.
And were they really baseless?
Maisie thought she knew him from his business, but she didn’t at all. And yet... And yet she knew him all too well. It was an impossible situation, and a tiny, treacherous part of him was tempted to walk away. Easier all around, and Ella would be well cared for.
But he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t just abandon his daughter. Maybe it would be the best thing, he acknowledged grimly, because heaven knew he didn’t have the best example of a father to follow, but he still wanted to try, whatever that looked like. Felt like.
Except right now it seemed as if Maisie didn’t want him to.
‘Of course I haven’t seen you at work,’ Maisie said, two spots of colour appearing high on her cheeks, ‘but I’ve heard—’
‘Judged without a trial,’ Antonio remarked sardonically. ‘You read an article or two, I suppose, most of them written by journalists who will create dirt when they can’t dig it up?’
‘Are you saying you didn’t knock down an apartment building in Rome that houses a thousand low-income residents?’
His mouth compressed as he stared at her. ‘You’ve done your homework, I see.’
‘You don’t deny it?’
‘That I knocked the building down? No.’ It had been a fire hazard and a death trap. But he wasn’t going to trip over himself explaining.
She nodded slowly, as if he’d confirmed her worst suspicions. ‘In any case, Antonio, you can’t deny your lifestyle—working all hours, a different woman every week, most of them looking as if they’ve only got a handful of brain cells.’
‘You’re sounding quite judgemental—’
‘The point is,’ she cut across him determinedly, ‘your life isn’t suitable for raising a child.’
He took a slow, even breath, mainly to keep hold of his temper. She had a point. Of course she did. And it was absolutely idiotic of him to feel hurt by it all. He hadn’t had a serious romantic relationship in his entire life. ‘What if I’m willing to change?’
She looked incredulous. ‘Are you?’
‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ Antonio retorted, nettled despite his best efforts not to be. ‘You obviously were. Do I have to be so different?’
‘Antonio, we are different.’ She looked a bit exasperated and also far too sad. Antonio looked away so she couldn’t see the guilt on his face. They were different; as far as he could tell, she’d saved her brother, while he’d ruined his. And he had no idea if he was able to change, never mind whether he wanted to or not.
When he considered all that, he didn’t deserve to be in her life, or demand to be in his daughter’s life. And yet to walk away felt intolerable. Impossible. Here was a chance, if not for redemption, then at least for atonement.
‘We’re not that different,’ he said stubbornly, even though he knew it was a lie. They were completely different. Even during their one night together, he’d seen Maisie Dobson for what she was—an open, generous, loving person. Someone who would put another’s life before her own. So, so different from him.
Maisie stared at him for a moment, the freckles standing out on her nose as her face paled. ‘So what do you want, then?’ she asked slowly, and he knew the question cost her.
‘I want,’ Antonio answered with slow deliberation, ‘for you and Ella to come with me to Milan.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘MILAN?’
Maisie could do no more than gape for a few soundless seconds as Antonio levelled her with a look that was both implacable and assured.
‘You mean,’ Maisie finally said, struggling to get her thoughts straight, ‘you want us to visit...?’
‘No, to live.’ Antonio folded his arms. ‘It’s the only option that makes sense.’
‘How on earth does that make sense?’ Maisie’s voice had risen and Ella stirred in her stroller.
‘How does it not?’ Antonio countered, and Ella started to cry.
He looked so stricken, as if it was his fault, that Maisie almost smiled despite the shock and terror battering her senses.
‘She’s just hungry. I need to feed her.’
‘Then why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable, such as my hotel suite? I have a limo waiting by your apartment.’
Maisie hesitated, unsure whether she wanted to negotiate with Antonio on his turf, as she had been last night, but also recognising that she needed to choose her battles. This certainly wasn’t a crucial one, whereas moving to Milan was. She’d save her strength for that.
‘All right,’ she relented. ‘But we’d better go quickly. Ella doesn’t like to wait for her dinner.’
Antonio took control of the stroller as they hurried back towards her apartment, a limo meeting them right outside the park. Fifteen minutes later they were pulling up in front of the luxurious hotel where Maisie had waitressed last night, which felt like a lifetime ago. Then they were soaring up to the penthouse suite, a fussy Ella clutched to Maisie’s chest.
She stepped into the suite, amazed at the sheer opulence of the place she had been too stunned to notice last night. Antiques and expensive art vied for space on the walls and floor, and competed with the floor-to-ceiling windows that afforded a view of the city.
‘This is amazing,’ Maisie said with a little, incredulous laugh. She’d waitressed in plenty of luxury hotels but apart from last night she’d never been in one of the guest rooms, never mind the penthouse suite. ‘Do you always stay in places like this?’ Antonio shrugged in reply. Of course he did. This was the norm for him. They really were from completely different worlds. And yet it seemed Antonio wanted her to join his. But Maisie knew she wasn’t ready to think about that yet, not when Ella was hungry and grizzly and everything felt so precarious and strange.
‘What do you need?’ Antonio asked, nodding towards their daughter.
‘Just a quiet space and a comfy chair,’ Maisie answered. ‘And maybe a glass of water.’
‘I can manage all those things,’ Antonio said with a small smile, and something inside Maisie lightened. This felt strange, but it also felt the tiniest bit nice, being taken care of.
A few minutes later she was sitting comfortably in a squashy armchair in one of the suite’s bedrooms, Ella guzzling happily at her breast. Outside the city stretched out, Central Park a haze of green in the distance. Maisie leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes—she hadn’t slept much last night.
A sound startled her out of her doze. She opened her eyes to see Antonio standing in the doorway, a glass of water in his hand and an odd expression on his face.
Belatedly Maisie realised how exposed she was, her shirt hiked up so Ella could nurse.
‘Sorry,’ she said, uncertain if she should apologise.
‘There’s nothing to be sorry for.’ Antonio crossed the room to place the glass of water on the table beside her. ‘It’s a lovely sight.’
‘It feels like she’s always hungry.’ Maisie lowered her gaze as she stroked her daughter’s head.
Antonio frowned. ‘Always hungry and never sleeping. It sounds as if she makes many demands.’
‘She’s just a normal baby,’ Maisie protested. ‘I don’t mean to complain.’
‘You aren’t. I’m just concerned for you. You look tired.’
Maisie prickled instinctively
. ‘If you’re implying that I can’t manage—’
‘Maisie, I am implying no such thing. Why do you think I want you to come to Milan? Because Ella needs you.’
Maisie leaned her head back against the chair. She knew they had to talk about Milan—that was why she was here in his hotel suite—but she felt as if she couldn’t even begin to get her head around it.
‘Antonio, how can I just move to Milan?’
‘Easily.’
‘I don’t even have a visa.’
‘That could be arranged.’
For a man like him, undoubtedly. Still her mind spun. ‘What would I do? I don’t even speak Italian.’
‘Many people speak English, and you could learn Italian. I’d be happy to provide a tutor.’
He was dealing with her concerns as soon as she’d verbalised them, but that still wasn’t enough. The whole thing was impossible. Unfathomable. And the last thing she wanted was for Antonio to brush aside her concerns, to treat them as if they weren’t important. The last thing she wanted, she acknowledged hollowly, was to feel like this man’s doormat.
But what if it’s best for your daughter?
‘I can’t,’ she said firmly. ‘I have a life here in New York.’
Antonio cocked an eyebrow. ‘Yet your only work is waitressing a few nights a week, and you’ve dropped out of school.’
Stung, she snapped, ‘That’s not my whole life. I have friends, my brother, a life. Maybe it doesn’t seem like much to you, but—’
‘I’m not saying that, Maisie. Only that perhaps you could consider a change, for the sake of our child.’
He made it all sound so reasonable, but Maisie knew it wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t. How could it be? People didn’t just move countries without knowing a soul, or having a job, simply because someone said they should.
‘I can’t afford to move. I can barely afford the rent on my apartment as it is.’
Antonio drew back, affronted. ‘Of course I would pay for all your expenses, including your accommodation.’
Now, that was the first thing that sounded tempting. Not having to worry about money for the first time in for ever? And yet, to be dependent on one person, a man she didn’t know and certainly didn’t trust. A man who didn’t seem to be very concerned with her, just her—their—daughter.
‘You’re asking a lot of me,’ she said after a moment.
‘For Ella’s sake.’
Maisie glanced down at their daughter. She’d fallen asleep, her rosebud lips slackening, her dark eyelashes fanning her plump, pink cheeks. She was beautiful, and Antonio had never even held her. Could she really be so unfair, so unreasonable, to deny him his daughter? Yet how could the alternative be to move to another country?
‘There has to be some compromise.’
‘Where? In the middle of the Atlantic?’
‘What about when she’s older...?’
‘So I’m completely absent from her early life?’
‘You could visit...’
‘I don’t want to be some sort of doting stranger, Maisie,’ Antonio snapped, a savage note entering his voice. ‘I’m her father.’
She stared at him helplessly, swamped by guilt and uncertainty. ‘Can I think about it?’ she asked at last.
‘I leave for Milan in two days.’
‘Two days! Antonio—’
‘I’ve already lost three months, Maisie. What’s really holding you here, besides an aversion to falling in with my plans?’
‘Lots of things!’
‘Name one, then.’
She stared at him, infuriated that he would reduce her life to a list that could be ticked off and discarded. ‘I have friends, you know.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m sure you do. But I also imagine that they are friends from school, and you don’t see them very often.’
Maisie bit her lip, not wanting to admit how close to the truth that was. Besides her old college friends, she’d made a few friends through a local baby group, but the relationships were new and she could hardly claim they were worth staying for.
‘And what about Max?’ she countered, because her brother was of course the biggest reason for her to stay. ‘How could I leave him?’ She could hardly imagine it.
Antonio stared at her levelly for a full minute, the look in his piercing blue eyes turning strangely gentle, which made Maisie even more nervous. She felt nervous just looking at him, as if she was approaching a magnetic force field, about to be sucked in. She’d never met such a compelling man before, never felt that relentless and exciting tug inside her as she had with Antonio, and it was all magnified when he was looking at her with such kindness.
‘What?’ she demanded, her voice coming out in little more than a squeak.
‘Don’t you think,’ Antonio said, ‘it might be better for Max if you came with me to Milan?’
Maisie jerked back as if he’d slapped her, and Ella stirred against her breast, opening her eyes to gaze up at her mother in sleepy frustration. She screwed her face up, about to let out a howl of protest, and Maisie quickly soothed her, bending her head so Antonio couldn’t see the expression on her face. How hurt she was. How afraid she was that he might be right.
‘What do you mean by that?’ she asked in a low voice when Ella had settled again, although she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.
‘Only that Max is twenty-three years old, a single man in the city with a steady job and good prospects. He’s given up a lot to support you, just as you gave up so much to do the same for him.’
Maisie stared down at Ella miserably, a lump forming in her throat. She knew Antonio was right, and she hated it.
‘You don’t want him to sacrifice so many years the way you did, Maisie, do you?’ His voice was so very gentle. ‘You want more for him than that. That’s why you made the sacrifice in the first place.’
How could a man whose professional reputation as a ruthless destroyer of businesses and people’s lives have so much compassionate perception? It seemed unfair somehow.
‘There’s a difference between giving Max a bit of space and moving halfway across the world,’ Maisie finally said, the words feeling as if they had to be dragged from her.
‘Perhaps,’ Antonio acknowledged, ‘but only one of those options would truly give Max his freedom. He wouldn’t agree to give you the space you both need unless he was sure you were cared for. You know that.’
Maisie flinched and looked away. Yes, she did know that. But did that really mean moving to Milan with Antonio? With every word he spoke she felt the walls closing in. She didn’t want to move to Milan...and it had nothing to do with Max, or her friends, or her life in New York. It had to do with the man in front of her, a man who affected her now as much as he had a year ago. A man who would hold her life and her happiness in his hands, and it was that prospect that terrified her.
* * *
Antonio watched the emotions play across Maisie’s lovely, open face. She couldn’t hide anything—not her fear, her misery, or the realisation that he was right. He felt sorry for her, but he also felt a surge of satisfaction and triumph. She was going to agree. It was simply a matter of time.
‘So I’m doing this for Max,’ Maisie said in a shaky voice. ‘And you. And Ella.’
‘And you,’ Antonio said swiftly. ‘This doesn’t need to be a sacrifice, Maisie. Heaven knows you’ve made enough of those in your life.’
‘Right.’ Her lips trembled and she looked away, out at the azure sky and bright lemon-yellow sun sparkling over Manhattan’s midtown. Ella stirred again, her eyes opening, showing them to be a piercing, vivid blue, just like his. His daughter. The realisation hit him afresh yet again, making his heart tumble in his chest. He didn’t have space or time to feel sorry for Maisie. Not now, when his daughter’s life was at stake. His life.
‘You could
have a better life in Milan, you know, if you wanted to.’
She turned to him, her green eyes wide. ‘How?’
‘You’ll have better living accommodation, certainly,’ Antonio said. ‘And there might be more opportunities for music, who knows? Without having to worry about money, you could be free to pursue your own studies or ambitions.’
‘So,’ Maisie answered slowly, ‘you’re willing to pay child support if I do as you say and move to Milan, but not if I stay here in my home?’ Her eyes flashed and her lips trembled before she pressed them together. ‘That doesn’t seem exactly fair, Antonio. It feels like blackmail.’
‘And does it seem fair that I pay for you and Ella and never get to see her?’ Antonio countered, quashing the flicker of guilt Maisie’s words had caused to ripple through him. Was he strong-arming her into this? Why couldn’t she just see sense? ‘There has to be some compromise.’
‘I don’t see much compromise with me moving to where you are,’ Maisie snapped.
‘What’s really keeping you here, Maisie?’ Antonio tried to gentle his tone. Riding roughshod over her feelings wasn’t going to accomplish his goal, and right now all he wanted, all he needed, was for Maisie to agree to move to Italy. Then he could see Ella; he could maintain control and order and distance in a way that satisfied them both. ‘If it’s Max, I’ve already said he needs his freedom. But I’ll be happy to fly him to Milan to visit as many times as you both want.’
Maisie rocked Ella as she shook her head. ‘It’s not just Max.’
‘Then what?’ Antonio demanded.
‘Everything, Antonio,’ she cried. ‘You’re asking me to put my life, and my daughter’s life, in your hands. And, while you might be Ella’s father, you’re still a stranger to me. I can’t help but be more than a little nervous about dropping my entire life to follow you to a foreign country where I don’t know anyone.’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I think I’m a pretty strong person. After my parents died, and we found out there was no money, I soldiered on. I made a home for my brother and me, and I saw him through college. And when I found out I was pregnant I did the same thing. I made it work. But that doesn’t mean I want to walk into a difficult or even impossible situation, one I know little to nothing about, with someone I can’t...’