He shrugged, as if to say And I should care? “What brings you to my door, Chloe?”
“I hoped we could talk. There’s a lot I’d like to say to you.” She glanced around at the darkening street, at the couple loitering a few houses away. “But not out here where strangers might overhear. May I please come in?”
He lifted his shoulders in a faint shrug and stood back to allow her entry.
“Thank you.”
Stepping by him, so close that his dear, familiar scent pierced her senses, almost brought her to her knees. Clenching her hands around her purse, she stumbled into a wide entrance hall and waited, uncertain where he wished her to go next.
“I am in the middle of making myself something to eat. We will talk in the kitchen,” he announced, and led the way past a formal dining room and long, elegant drawing room, to the rear of the house.
Hurrying to keep up with his impatient stride, she caught only a fleeting impression of the decor, but the compilation of polished floors, thick, pale rugs, and silk-paneled walls suggested discreet expense combined with flawless taste.
The kitchen might have been lifted straight from the pages of a glossy magazine. Sleek built-in appliances, lacquered cabinets and granite counters swept around three sides of one half of the vast room stretching the full width of the house. The fourth, containing a free-standing breakfast bar and two stools, separated the working area from a family room furnished with deep, comfortable sofas and an entertainment unit. A brick-faced fireplace filled the far wall.
Gesturing to the open bottle of Bardolino on the bar, he said with chilly, perfect courtesy, “I was about to pour myself a glass of wine. Do you care to join me?”
“Oh, yes. Please!” Although she didn’t normally resort to alcohol to steady her nerves, at that precise moment, she’d have been happy to take a straw, stick it in the neck of the bottle, and drain the entire contents in one go. She hadn’t expected he’d burst into song and dance in unabashed pleasure at the sight of her, but nor had she been prepared for such a stony, indifferent reception.
Unaware—or more likely uncaring of the anxiety ravaging her, he reached up and removed two long-stemmed glasses from a brass rack suspended above the bar. “What is it you came to say, Chloe?” he inquired politely, pouring the Bardolino.
“I hardly know where to begin.” She climbed on one of the stools and cradled the bowl of her glass between her hands. Very fine crystal for everyday use, she noted absently. “After our last meeting, I’m not even sure how to begin.”
“Try speaking plainly. I assume something more pressing than visiting our son’s grave compelled you to travel halfway around the world.”
“You’re not making this easy for me, Nico.”
“I’m under no obligation to do so. You’re the one paying the unexpected visit, not I. The ball, as they say, lies in your court.”
She took a deep breath, followed it with a fortifying mouthful of wine, and plunged in. “I wanted to tell you, to your face, that you were right. My marrying Baron would have been a monumental mistake. I canceled the wedding the day before it was supposed to take place—the same day that you left the country without a word. I came to see you afterward, but I was too late. If you’d waited just a few hours more—”
“There was no point,” he interrupted. “We’d reached a dead end.”
“Yes. At that point, we had. But I’ve done a lot of soul-searching since then, Nico, and I thought…I hoped we might try to find a way out of that dead end, and start afresh.”
“It took you eight months to decide that?” he scoffed. “What happened, Chloe? Did you run out of other options and decide that making do with me was preferable to having no one at all?”
“No!” she gasped, recoiling from such a low blow. “You made it clear enough that you had no use for an emotional cripple, so what would have been the point in my showing up sooner?”
“No point at all,” he said flatly. “I meant what I said.”
“As did I, a moment ago,” she returned, with a flash of anger. “But I’m beginning to wonder why I bothered. If I’ve left it too late and you’ve moved on, just say so. I’m not going to slit my wrists in your bathroom and leave you to clean up the mess. I’ll be hurt and disappointed, but I’ve survived worse, and I’ll survive this.”
He leaned against the other side of the bar, hands lying flat on the tiled surface, arms braced. The knot in his silk tie hung loose, the top button of his shirt was undone, yet his pose was anything but casual. Although his dark glance never wavered, the air around him fairly crackled with tension. Finally, sounding almost ashamed, he said, “Did I really call you an emotional cripple?”
“Not in so many words, perhaps, but that was the message I received.”
He chewed that over for a minute or so, then said, “If being with me was really so important, why take a chance on waiting this long to say so? It’s been almost a year, Chloe. How do you know I’m not involved with someone else?”
“I don’t,” she admitted, “and the thought that you might be, has haunted me for months. But if I’d acted on impulse and come to you right after I ended things with Baron, would you have believed I was sincere?”
“Probably not. I’d have thought you were running away from the situation you’d left behind, rather than running to me.”
“Exactly. Which is why I took as long as I needed to heal myself first, even though that meant taking the chance that a third party might lay claim to your affections.” She stared at the dark red wine in her glass, unable to meet his gaze and painfully aware that she sounded more as if she were presenting a case in court, than speaking from the heart to the man she loved. “Is that what’s happened, Nico? Is there another woman in your life?”
“There have been others in the months since I saw you last,” he said.
Pain clutched at her heart and her palms went clammy with sweat. Worse, she knew a sudden dire need to use the toilet. Her bladder had always been her barometer for measuring mental stress, and at that moment it felt ready to burst. “And now?”
He swung away and went to the stove where a pot simmered. “I’m making fish soup,” he said. “If you’d like to stay, there’s enough for two.”
If it wasn’t the answer she’d been hoping for, it wasn’t an outright rejection, either, and at that point she was prepared to take whatever he was willing to offer. “Is it your mother’s recipe?”
“Sì.”
“Then I’d love to.”
He flung her a glance which seemed not quite as chilly as its predecessors. There was even the faintest trace of amusement in his voice when he said, “I can’t help noticing that you’re squirming around on that stool, Chloe. Will it help relieve your discomfort if I tell you the powder room is just to the left of the front door?”
She slithered off the stool with more speed than grace. “You know me too well,” she said, and made a beeline down the hall.
She wasn’t the only one who needed a few moments alone. He was in pretty rough shape himself. Finding her on his doorstep had rocked him badly. He’d had the devil of a time subduing the burst of hope which had flared through him. Maintaining an impassive front had stretched his control past human limits, but he’d played similar scenes with her too often in the past, not to be cautious now.
His experience last summer had taught him that she might turn to him when she was uncertain, when she was in a bind, when she needed to be rescued. Otherwise, she stayed away. That was enough for him to remain on his guard until he had solid reason to think this time would be any different.
There was a fine distinction, though, between holding something of himself in reserve, and being churlish. Whatever her real motive for seeking him out now, she didn’t deserve the ugly treatment he’d meted out. But the sad truth was, she terrified the wits out of him.
He could deal with thugs if he had to, wasn’t the least bit afraid to use his fists or whatever else came to hand, if he must. But her big,
anxious eyes and soft trembling mouth unmanned him in a way that was downright embarrassing.
She could fell him with a glance, a word, a sigh. One touch of her hand, a single faint whiff of her perfume, and he turned to putty, any memory of other women blasted to kingdom come so completely that, on pain of death, he couldn’t name one of them.
He drained his glass and debated pouring himself something stronger. He wanted to believe what she’d told him just a few minutes earlier. Dio, he’d never wanted anything as badly in his life! But he’d learned too much about his own frailty simply to take her at her word. He had to be sure; had to drive her to her own limits before he could be certain she wouldn’t push him past his.
“Let me do that,” she said, coming back to the kitchen as he was tossing dressing over mixed salad greens.
“No,” he said, the jutting angle of his shoulder denying her the right to invade his space. “You’re a guest here.”
“Well, at least let me set the table.”
“We’ll eat at the bar.”
Her sigh penetrated his shirt and rippled warmly up his spine. Dio!
“I thought we were making progress, Nico.”
“Perhaps so,” he acknowledged, steeling himself to remain distant, “but one small step at a time, yes? Where are you staying?”
“At the Due Torri Baglioni.”
“I used to wait on the street outside that hotel in the summer, and offer to act as a guide to tourists—one of my more enterprising adolescent get-rich-quick schemes.”
“Was it successful?”
“No. The people who could afford to stay there weren’t interested in having a fourteen-year-old tow them around town in a homemade cart attached to his old bike.” He shook his head and laughed bitterly. “Now, I could buy the entire place for pocket change, yet in some ways I’m no better off than I was twenty years ago.”
“I guess we’ve both learned that happiness isn’t something that can be acquired.”
“Have we?” He pinned her in a searching gaze. “Have you, Chloe?”
“Yes,” she said, on another sigh. “No one else can give it to us. It comes from within ourselves, or not at all.”
He placed the salad on the bar, and turned to give the fish soup one last stir.
She was saying all the right things, but how deeply did she believe them? “Are you happy?”
She gave the question a moment’s thought. “I’m content,” she finally said. “I’m at peace with myself, and with the past, and that’s worth a lot to me. If what I have now is the best I’m ever going to get, I can live with it. But I’d be happier if…” She drifted into thoughtful silence and stared at the darkening window.
“Yes?” he prompted. “If what?”
“I’ve tried to undo most of my mistakes…all except one, really. I have to try to put that right before I can say I’m truly satisfied.” She stopped again and bit her lip. “You know why I’m here, Nico. I’ve already spelled it out once. But if you need to hear me say it again, I will. I’ll say it as many times as it takes for you to believe me. I want you to give us another chance. I want us to be happy together.”
“On what terms?”
“No terms,” she said. “I’m offering unconditional surrender.”
“And if I tell you that I cannot be quite so generous? That I would exact a price?”
“You want more children.” She inclined her head. “I know.”
“I want the possibility of such. A fresh start to me means giving everything a second chance, and if that should mean more children, well—”
“I know, and I agree.”
“Just like that?” He tilted his head and regarded her askance. “You must forgive me, Chloe, if I’m somewhat cynical of such a complete turnaround. Is it perhaps that you’re so eager for us to be a couple again that you will agree to anything now, only to change your mind once you are assured that my heart is yours to trample on as you see fit?”
“No, it isn’t,” she replied, her eyes fixed on him unblinkingly. “But I don’t expect you to take my word on that, just because I say so. I’m not asking to move in here and pick up where we left off. I’m not asking you to marry me. But I am hoping that, in time, you’ll come to trust me enough to allow for both to become a possibility.”
“How do I do that, with you living thousands of kilometers away? A long-distance relationship isn’t my style, cara. Or have you forgotten the last time we tried such an arrangement?”
“Hardly,” she said, with the first inkling of a smile she’d shown all evening. “The phone bills were astronomical!”
“So how, then, do we enter into this experiment?”
“By my living here.”
“Here?”
“Not here here,” she amended. “Here in Verona. I’m back to stay, Nico, whether or not you want me.”
“You know that I want you, mia strega piccola! That is one thing that has never changed. But what you’re proposing is not practical. You have a career.”
“Had,” she said. “I had a career until I realized that I’d be better off solving my own marital problems, instead of other people’s. I resigned from the law firm, terminated the lease on my condominium, packed up the things most important to me—family photographs, a few heirlooms, my clothes, that kind of thing—and had them shipped over. They should be here by the end of next week. Meanwhile, I’ll stay at the hotel until I find an apartment. I’ve already been to the police station and applied for my temporary Resident’s Permit. That’s good for three months. If, at the end of that time, you’re still undecided about us, I’ll apply for a permanent certificate of residence and a work permit.”
“You cannot practice law in Italy.”
“Certainly I can, as long as I meet national standards and pass the bar exam. But I’m hoping that won’t be necessary.”
She sounded so sure of herself, so full of confidence, but he saw the uncertainty in her eyes and didn’t have the heart to leave her dangling a moment longer. “No wife of mine will work to support herself,” he informed her severely. “She will devote herself to her husband and children.”
A flush rose up her face. Tears filmed her eyes. “Exactly what are you saying, Nico?”
“That if you still choose to do so, you have come home, Chloe. At long last, we will become a couple again, and we will make it official with all due speed.”
“Are you saying that we’ll be married?”
He threw up his hands in frustration. “Sì, we will be married, if not tomorrow, then the day after! How much more plainly must I put it, woman?”
“Well, you could show me, instead of shouting at me.”
“And how would you like me to do that?”
She shrugged. “At the very least, you could kiss me.”
He came around the breakfast bar, to where she sat perched on the high stool. “And at the very most?” he said, daring at last to touch her.
“Oh well,” she murmured, batting her lashes provocatively, “that’s really up to you. You’re the boss, after all.”
“Will you give that to me in writing, Signorina L’Avvocato, to make a legally binding agreement of it?”
“Why not? I’m giving you everything else that I am.”
He gripped her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes, more beautiful and blue than the Adriatic in high summer. He saw truth there, and trust, and belief in the future. “That is good,” he murmured, “because without you, la mia inamorata, I am nothing.”
“I’ve been running for such a long time, for years away from sadness and loss, and, in the last few months, toward hope and happiness,” she confessed, leaning into his strength and letting him bear her weight, just as she used to, before they’d allowed tragedy to tear them apart. “To feel your arms around me again and know I’ve finally come back to the place where I belong…” She bowed her head and pressed her face against his shirtfront a moment. “Nico, you can’t begin to guess how good it feels to leave the shado
ws behind and step into the sunlight again.”
“I understand better than you might think, my angel,” he said, the slow burn of desire simmering through his veins growing fiercer by the second. “I let perfection slip through my fingers when I lost you, and came close to losing my mind also. Now that you’re back where you belong, I’ll never let you go again.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THEY forgot the fish soup was still simmering on the stove, that the salad, left sitting far too long at room temperature, grew warm and limp and inedible.
“Didn’t you say we should take small steps?” she asked, as he carried her up the stairs.
“Impossible,” he laughed. “A man my size doesn’t know how.”
“But I didn’t come prepared for seduction, Nico.”
He stopped at the threshold to his bedroom, a slight frown casting a cloud over his smile. “If you’re worried you’ll get pregnant, don’t be. I will protect you. There’ll be no baby conceived tonight, and you may be assured I do not intend to pressure you on this, Chloe. We will know when the time is right.”
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I’m not talking about contraception. If I conceive tonight, it will be because it was meant to be. But…” She touched her blouse, the wrinkled cotton of her skirt. “I would have liked to be prettier for you. After all the mistakes and near misses of last summer, I’d have liked our first time together in our new life to be romantic and perfect.”
“Cara,” he said, “in my eyes you have never been more beautiful and nothing can mar the perfection of this night. But if more romance is what you need, then more you shall have. What will it take? Tell me, and I’ll make it happen.”
“Oh, nothing too elaborate,” she said softly, winding her arms more tightly around his neck and pressing a kiss to his mouth. “A hot bath would do it very nicely.”
He set her on her feet and steered her toward a door on the other side of the room. “My home, such as it is, and everything in it, is yours to share, Chloe. Help yourself. I’ll be here waiting when you’re ready.”
The Moretti Marriage Page 14