by Jane Porter
Tears surged to her eyes and she blinked rapidly, denying them now, just as she had denied everything else these past three years.
It was going to be rough getting through this, making the visit work, accomplishing what she’d set out to do.
Lunch over, Marco stood and said something about spending time with Marilena before returning to work. Payton heard the girls say goodbye to Marilena, their little voices chiming together, as they often did and Marilena leaned forward to kiss the girls once on each cheek before Marco and Marilena walked away from the table, arm in arm.
An hour later, Payton quietly stepped from the girls’ bedroom having tucked them in and reassured herself that they were truly resting.
She stood in the doorway and watched them sleep. Their dark curls spread across the pillowcase. They slept facing each other as if they’d whispered themselves to sleep.
They had so much Marco in them. She’d always found it bittersweet that she’d lost Marco and yet she’d been given these daily reminders of him. It wasn’t just one thing, but many…the way Gia arched an eyebrow, Liv’s tilt to her head, both girls impatience and pride. The girls might look delicate but on the inside they were tough.
Just like Marco.
Marco had fascinated her from the start. She worked at d’Angelo three weeks before she got her first glimpse of him. He was there with a circle of others and yet he seemed different. Distinct.
He might have taken over his father’s famous company, but he was a true designer in his own right and his work preoccupied him.
Payton loved watching him sketch. She found excuses to be near the salon when he directed a fitting. She listened to him as he talked, absorbing everything, wanting to know more. Always eager to learn more.
She’d call her mother on the weekends. They were brief calls, so expensive, but she was determined her mother be part of her great adventure.
“Fabric has masculine and feminine qualities,” Payton would breathlessly repeat. “The perfectly designed suit is a blend of male and female, structure and softness, power and restraint.”
Her mother loved it. And Payton had loved hearing her mother laugh. Had loved knowing she was doing something that made her mother proud.
Mothers and daughters…Payton swallowed around the lump in her throat. Daughters became their mothers.
Daughters replaced their mothers.
Fighting tears, Payton slipped from the girls’ room and closed the door gently behind her. Fighting emotion, she headed back to her room only to discover Marco waiting for her.
“Does it usually take so long to put them down?” he asked.
She blinked, willing the tears to quickly dry. “I was just sitting with them a while. Sometimes I forget to slow down. Forget to just be there with them.”
His dark eyes searched her face. “You seem different, Payton. You’re not the same.”
“It’s been a long year.”
“Working too hard?”
Her mouth twisted. “Doesn’t everyone?”
His head inclined. “Probably.” Marco glanced down the hall. “Do you think they’ll sleep for a while?”
“An hour at least.”
“In that case, maybe it’s time we sat down and talked. Marilena’s gone, the girls are napping. We can have a proper conversation without interruption.”
Proper conversation, Payton repeated as she followed Marco downstairs to the smaller salon. She knew what proper conversation meant. Marco was going to do the talking. It was all about control. He was determined to control his environment; he was a master at controlling himself.
Only that one time…that one time he lost control changed everything. Just one lapse in judgment and his secure, preordained life exploded.
Downstairs Marco didn’t sit. He jammed his hands into his trouser pockets as he faced her, black eyebrows flattened, expression tense. “Marilena and I had our first fight today.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say at all. Payton pressed her hands against her lap and drew herself a little taller.
“It was about you,” he continued evenly, no emotion in his voice. “She knows I’m uncomfortable with you here. She knows that I’m feeling angry and she—” he broke off, jaw flexing “—she defended you. Said she liked you. She asked me to be kind to you.”
Marco looked away, swallowed, muscles popping in his jawbone near his ear. “I lost my temper with her. I lost my temper because I thought she didn’t know you. She didn’t know how dangerous you are.”
“I’m not a threat,” she contradicted quietly. “I’m not here to drive a wedge between you. I’ve already told you that.”
“So why do I fear you’ll destroy everything?”
She couldn’t look away from his dark smoldering gaze. “I don’t know.”
He laughed softly, laughed without mirth. “I have a million things on my plate at the moment and I can’t focus on any of them. It’s the fifty-year anniversary of d’Angelo. I’m getting married in less than two and a half months. I’m working feverishly to prepare for a Spring collection that has no backbone, no life to it. Dammit, Payton, I didn’t need this now.
“I love Marilena,” he continued. “I can’t allow you to come between us. I don’t know what to do with you, I don’t know if I need to send you to a hotel or send you home, but I can’t have Marilena caught between us.”
Payton felt a hint of panic. Marco couldn’t send her home, at least, not yet. They still had so much to settle first. “I’ll stay out of the way. I’ll work harder at being invisible—”
Marco’s laugh cut her short. “You, invisible? Payton, you’re fire personified. You enter a room and it goes up in flames.”
“I’ll try harder—”
“But it’s not just you,” he interrupted again. “That’s the thing you don’t understand. Payton, I don’t know what it is but you change things, you change something in me. I can’t ignore you. I…” He swore beneath his breath and shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
Payton’s eyes widened and her heart slammed into her rib cage. She’d thought he was so indifferent. She’d thought he was oblivious to her. “It’s just because we were married once,” she answered huskily. “It’s because we were…involved.”
His laugh mocked her. “I’ve been involved with lots of women before and felt absolutely nothing when they entered the room.” His dark gaze slid over her, and heat sparked in his eyes, heat and anger. “But I can’t let this happen. I can’t let the attraction destroy everything again. And it would destroy Marilena. She deserves so much better.”
He was warning her. Warning them both and their eyes met from across the room and held.
A door slammed in the front of the house. “Marco!” Marilena’s tremulous voice echoed in the entry. “Marco, are you here?”
Marco and Payton’s gaze remained locked for another moment before he abruptly turned away.
Marilena appeared in the salon. “I was so stupid,” she choked, rushing to Marco’s side. “I was upset and not paying attention.”
Marco lifted a hand to her temple. “You’re bleeding.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What happened?”
“I ran a light. Wasn’t thinking—I was upset, about us, crying, I think—and went through the light. I didn’t even brake.”
“Santo Cielo! Come sta?”
“Bene. I’m fine, but the car—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I love that car. You gave it to me.”
“So I’ll get you a new one. Stand still. Let me look at you.” He was lifting her chin, scrutinizing her pale face. “How did you hurt your head?”
“I bumped it on something. The window, or the steering wheel. But it’s nothing.”
“You need to see a doctor. I’m going to take you to the hospital.” Marco turned and caught sight of Payton.
They stood there a split second, eyes locked, both remembering what had just passed between them and t
hen Marco slipped an arm around the princess and steered her through the front door to his waiting car.
Payton waited for Marco to call. The girls played with their dolls, dressing and undressing the baby dolls with Velcro fasteners in their nightgowns, while Payton stared at the phone.
Waiting, she thought, was always the hard part.
The days used to seem endless when Payton first left Milan for San Francisco.
The first six weeks had been the worst. Time took on a life of its own, time stretching, weighting, consuming her until Payton felt possessed by loss.
She had fixated on the phone. Maybe he’d call. Maybe he’d write. She checked her messages a dozen or more time a day. When he didn’t call she ached inside, the pain so bad she thought she’d do anything to escape it.
If days were long, nights were even longer. The tears she hid from the girls during the day fell all night. Hours of silent tears, hours of inexplicable grief. She and Marco hadn’t been together that long. She couldn’t explain why she felt such desolation.
She’d cry so long she’d soak her pillow and then when she couldn’t bear it any longer, she’d go to her desk and try to put it in a letter and yet all that came out, all that filled the page were the words
I miss I miss I miss
I love I love I love
You—
Payton jumped at the sound of the front door opening.
The girls squealed and ran out to see who’d arrived. Marco.
“How is she?” Payton asked, joining the girls in the hall. Gia was practically dancing around Marco while Liv stood on one foot and stared anxiously up at him.
“Resting. She hit her head on the steering column. The doctors want her to spend the night at the hospital for observation.”
“Concussion?”
“Mmmm.” He ruffled his hair. “I imagine they’ll release her in the morning but I’ve promised her I’d go back later. It’s no fun being in the hospital. She doesn’t really have family around anymore.”
“I understand.” And she did. Payton had no one left, either.
Marco glanced at his watch. “I’m going to take a quick shower and change before dinner. The four of us can eat as family and then I’ll return to Marilena.”
Dinner was almost absurdly normal, Payton thought, prompting Gia for the fifth time to please sit down and eat her dinner. Liv wasn’t as wriggly, but she needed direction, too.
“A couple more bites, Liv,” Payton encouraged. “You don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night with a hungry tummy.”
Marco chatted with the girls, mostly in English, although now and then he switched to Italian and appeared gratified that the girls understood him. When it came to speaking the language, Livia was more fluent than Gia but both girls could carry a simple conversation.
“How have they learned so much?” Marco asked Payton.
“They have an Italian friend. She’s been wonderful with the girls.” Payton didn’t bother to tell him that she’d taught the girls the first two years until she found an Italian professor at the university to come and work with them in the afternoons and every other weekend.
Dessert was just being served when the doorbell rang. One of the housemaids appeared and whispered something softly to Marco. Marco told the maid to invite the guest in.
Moments later a young woman in a black traveling coat appeared. With a smile she reached into her leather bag and triumphantly pulled out a pale blue blanket edged in an even paler satin ribbon.
Gia screamed. Liv jumped up in her chair as Gia went racing toward the blanket.
The guest handed the blue blanket over and Gia hugged it, pressing the fuzzy blanket to her cheek.
Payton glanced at Marco. He was leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, watching Liv and Gia dance. Gia danced because she had her lovie back. Liv danced because her sister was happy.
Payton knew happiness was fleeting, but in this moment of time, everything made sense. “Thank you, Marco,” she whispered gratefully.
He’d heard her. He turned and looked at her and after a moment he smiled. “It’s my pleasure.”
And it was, she thought. It made him happy to bring joy to his children.
But once dinner was over, and Marco prepared to return to the hospital, Payton immediately felt loss. Even after all they’d been through, she still enjoyed Marco’s company, still liked the way he made her feel on the inside.
“I must get back to Marilena,” he said, heading toward the door. “Do you need anything before I go?”
“No.” Then suddenly Payton realized she was denying the truth again. Not need anything? She almost laughed at the irony of it. No, she didn’t need anything. She needed everything.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS beginning to get complicated, Marco thought early the next morning, as he returned to the exclusive hospital for the third time in less than twenty-four hours.
For the past two years he’d blamed Payton for the failure of their marriage and the demise of the family. He’d told himself she’d destroyed their family; she’d selfishly torn it apart by moving back to California with the girls. But he knew deep down it wasn’t all on her. He was just as responsible for the broken relationship as she. Yes, she’d moved back to San Francisco but he had let her.
Now the girls were back and he loved having them in the house again. But Payton was another matter. He knew she had to be under his roof—but under his skin?
She shouldn’t still have the power to upset him. She shouldn’t have any impact on him whatsoever. But she did.
He still felt such strong emotions around her. He felt intensely. He felt out of control.
Just like always.
The night he rescued Payton from Carlo Verri’s clutches he lost his way for a while. He fell hard for Payton and he wasn’t even available. At least, his heart wasn’t supposed to be available. He and the Princess Borgiano had a long-standing agreement. They were to marry eventually—everyone knew—and yet when Marco asked the young American redhead with curls spilling halfway down her back to dance, everything changed.
And life had never been quite the same since.
Marco checked Marilena out of the hospital and drove her home. Marilena had a maid to help her with her elegant town house and today Marco gave the maid instructions to keep a close eye on the princess.
Assured that his fiancée was comfortably settled, he returned to the office and was met by the hustle and bustle of the BBC film crew shuffling furniture and setting up lights and microphones.
Marco had thought they were interviewing him in the afternoon but apparently the fashion historian that was scheduled to come that morning never arrived so the journalist asked Marco if he’d mind getting started early.
Actually he didn’t mind a bit. It would free up his afternoon and give him a chance to drop in on the perfume advertisement being shot today across town.
He sat down for the interview and the hour passed quickly. He enjoyed talking about his father. He and his father had worked well together and even now his late father’s original vision continued to inspire him.
The cameraman stopped filming and literally seconds later two little heads popped around the door, dark curls dancing. “Ciao, Papa!” It was Livia who spoke, and she sounded so shy and yet excited. “Sono io! It’s me, Liv.”
Grinning he unfastened the microphone from his shirt, handed it back to a technician and crossed the room to scoop her up in his arms. “Si, I know.” He kissed her, and turned to Gia who was giving her father a critical once-over. “Buongiorno, Gia.”
Gia’s hands went to her hips. “Buongiorno, Papa. How are you?”
“Bene. And how are you?”
Her lips curved a little and yet she was determined not to smile. “Non male,” she answered, eyes glinting.
Not bad. Marco checked his smile. She would be a handful one day. Beautiful and high-spirited. Just like her mother. And suddenly he was turning, looking fo
r Payton, wanting to see her.
Payton was there behind the girls, half-hiding in the stairwell. “I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said, moving forward and placing a hand on Gia’s dark head. “The girls were anxious to see where you worked, and it’s a beautiful morning for a walk.”
She looked sexy, stylish, dressed in a black mock turtleneck with three-quarter sleeves and an orange and cream striped skirt that reminded him of an American Popsicle. She was wearing black heels—high pumps—and her long curls had been pulled back in a low, smooth ponytail.
“You walked in those shoes?” he asked in disbelief.
She smiled. “Partway. And then we called a cab.”
“I should think so.” He liked the bold colors and strong graphics on her. The intense colors might overwhelm someone else, but the look suited Payton. She had the bone structure for it, not to mention the attitude.
“You look Italian,” he said, moving forward to kiss Payton on each cheek. She smiled faintly and he saw a dimple flutter near her mouth. She smelled even better than she looked and her cheek had been satin smooth.
“Thank you.” Her smile widened, her blue eyes sparking with amusement. “My design. Last Fall’s collection.”
“Very nice.” He liked the flash of dimple yet again, and the wry twist of her lips. He also liked the way he remembered her fragrance, the soft but distinctive scent lingering in his mind. What was the top note? Licorice? Anise? “But did it sell?”
The blue of her eyes deepened. “Couldn’t keep it in the stores.”
“Horizontal stripes aren’t supposed to be flattering.”
Payton almost laughed out loud. “It’s not a problem if you alternate the width of the stripes.” He was teasing her, playing with her and she was surprised by how much she enjoyed it. He used to be so serious with her. That one night at the opera, that first night, he’d been light, engaging, but after that he changed.
“We should go,” she said, conscious that everyone in the room was watching them, listening in. In fact, one of the cameramen was filming. “We’re keeping you.”
“Actually, you’re fine. We’ve just wrapped up here. I was going to head across town in a few minutes to check on an ad.”