“You weren’t offering me any reason to stay. I knew after one night how easily I could become addicted to you. How easily I could even fall in love with you.” She jutted her chin out, and now she dragged her gaze to his. “But that wasn’t on offer, was it?”
“Love?” He repeated, as though she’d suggested he don a pink feather boa and go catch an El train.
“Anything other than sex,” she clarified.
“I don’t know, Grace. Who can say? I just know I offered for you to stay.”
“You offered to make me your mistress!” She said the word with distaste. “To set me up in your home, make my life like something out of a movie. But what then? What would have happened when you grew tired of me?”
“You were so sure I would?”
“Of course!” She said with a humourless laugh. “Your prowess with women is legendary. You’re a perennial bachelor. Never an empty bed for long, never the same girlfriend for long. That’s who you are. I didn’t want any part of it. I still don’t.”
His sardonic grimace dismissed the final part of her assertion easily. After all, her body had betrayed her on that score.
“And so you told me about your wonderful fiancé and left. Of course I was furious.”
“We weren’t engaged,” she stressed.
“But he had proposed, and then you married him…”
“He proposed, yes, but that’s when I broke it off. I didn’t love him like that.” Loyalty to Steve made the discussion unpalatable, and beyond that, the agreement they’d reached. Secrecy had been core to their terms – he never revealed the truth about her past, and she would never tell anyone that their marriage had been a sham. “He was a wonderful man.” Her voice cracked on the words. “But I wanted to travel and explore and I just knew I couldn’t do that if I was engaged, or married, to him.”
“So you came to Rome, had some fun, and then you settled down. When you were pregnant with my baby.”
Her eyes shimmered and she blinked away her tears. “It wasn’t like that. You’re making it sound like I had some dastardly plan. I didn’t. I tried to do the right thing for everybody.”
“Bullshit!” He roared, and she flinched away from him, her heart stilling in her chest, blood gushing through her veins. “How is keeping Ben from me right?”
“I’ve told you, I’m sorry…”
With effort, he composed himself, pushing past his frustration and sense of loss. “Did he know the baby was mine?”
“Yes.”
“So when he came to see me, and sat opposite me, he looked me in the eyes and told me that he was marrying you. That he was willing to forgive your ‘indiscretion’ because you were in love and planning to start a family, all the while knowing my flesh and blood would be that family. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I …” She bit down on her lip, training her eyes on the view beyond the enormous windows. “I didn’t know he did that.”
“So you’ve said. The problem, Grace, is that I find it hard to know if you’re being honest or not. Telling lies seems to be second nature to you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No?” His voice had a sharpness to it. “You keep saying you tried to tell me. But that’s a lie, isn’t it?”
“No!” She spun around to face him and found him closer to her than she’d realized, his enormous frame just behind her. Close enough she could see the few dark freckles that danced on the bridge of his nose. “I did try. I called but you were so …”
“No.” He shook his head once. “Nothing should have stopped you from telling me the truth.”
“Everything about you terrified me. It still does. I’ve known volatile relationships and I know they’re something I will always run a mile from. You made me feel like my heart was being burned - like I was falling off a building - all at the same time.”
His eyes narrowed at her description but his face was implacable. “This was not about you, or me. It was about our baby. I had a right to know about him just as he had a right to know me from the day he was born.”
“I know you don’t believe me, but when I called, I did intend to tell you.”
“Then you lost your nerve and what? Fell into a marriage with another man?”
His judgment though was making it impossible. She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. I thought, after our conversation, that you had made your feelings clear. If you didn’t want me, then you wouldn’t want our baby.”
“That is both egotistical and incorrect.”
She ignored the criticism. “I was scared.”
The small statement did something strange to Marco. Something unwanted. He railed against the softening in his heart; the tenderness that was sweeping over his anger and frustration. His voice was gruff and deep when he spoke. “You must have known I would have supported you.”
“I didn’t want support. Not financial support,” she rushed to add. “I knew it would be tough as a single mom, but that’s not why I married Steve.”
“No?” He moved closer, just a tiny amount, but suddenly they were almost touching and her stomach was flopping as though she’d fallen off the side of a cliff. “Why then?”
She was so close to admitting the truth to him – that she had married Steve because of safety and security and the lure of family. All the things she’d never had. The things she knew Marco wouldn’t have provided. She’d married Steve because he knew her worst secrets, the truth of where she’d come from, and he still loved her. He still wanted her.
“Why do you think?” She murmured. Did promises made to people no longer living still hold sway? She’d given Steve her word that their marriage would, to all intents and purposes, be a real one. At least, to everyone else. Why now did she hesitate to break that trust? Because she’d promised, she reminded herself. And he wasn’t there to release her from that commitment.
His smile was dismissive. “It doesn’t matter.”
And that hurt almost as much as everything else. She nodded, her body strangely heavy as she stared up at him. He smelled like pine trees and citrus, just as she remembered.
“And when he was born, and you looked down at his face, did it occur to you then to tell me? When you looked at our child and saw how like me he is, did you think of me?”
“Of course I did,” she groaned. “I’ve thought of you every day since I left Rome.” At his look of surprise, she quickly added, “How could I not? Our child is, as you say, your spitting image. So much of you is in him.”
There was pride in his face then; a sharp twisting of his features that made her heart thump. “Yes. I’m glad.” But then, a mask of frustration was back in place. “And if your husband was still here? Would you be passing Ben off as his son?”
Grace swallowed. The lump in her throat was heavy. Sharp. She spun away, her mind filled with cotton wool, but Marco caught her wrist and pulled her back to him.
“You cannot run away from this anymore.”
“I wasn’t running.”
“Of course you were,” he contradicted, his finger stroking her inner wrist as his eyes sliced through her.
“I was…”
“How could you live with this decision?” He interrupted, a frown tugging at his lips. “I thought I knew you. But the Grace who worked for me for three months, who took the blame for her colleague’s mistakes, the Grace who was brave and came to me for help because she knew something needed fixing… she would never have done this.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate the fog of Grace’s mind. “You knew about Maria?” She said, when the pieces slid into place.
“Of course I did. You would never have made such a stupid error.”
Her cheeks flushed pink with the unexpected compliment, so easily given. “Please tell me you didn’t fire her.”
“Cristo! Is that what you think of me?”
She looked away, her eyes landing on a painting across the room. It was in the impressionist style, all blotchy, pa
le colours forming a beautiful still-life of flowers. One of the roses had wilted over the side, and the weight of its once-beautiful blooms was causing petals to fall. The artist had captured the exact moment of abandonment, as they tumbled towards the tabletop. Grace could identify with that feeling of helplessness. Weariness, too.
“Maria couldn’t afford to lose her job. It wasn’t worth the risk.”
“She has worked for me for a decade. You think I would sack her for a clerical error?”
“I didn’t know,” she mumbled. “And it was more than a clerical error.”
“You came to me for help then. Why didn’t you when you discovered you were pregnant?”
“It was different,” Grace said softly. “Everything was different.”
“Why?”
“Because then it was just me. As soon as I learned of my pregnancy, I started to think about Ben. What would be best for him? I wanted him to grow up with more than I had.”
“You made the decision to keep me from his life because of money?”
“No. We both know you’re worth a fortune. If I was in any way financially motivated, don’t you think I’d have come running?”
He tilted his head at the sense of her response, but it sat heavily on his chest.
“I wanted Ben to have a family. A real family.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I wanted him to grow up knowing two people loved him more than anything. That he would never be able to hurt us or lose us. I wanted him to have that.”
“Because you didn’t?” Marco prompted thoughtfully, the chasm of his knowledge on this matter something he didn’t like.
He was too intuitive. She was remembering, belatedly, how sharp his mind was. How quickly he filtered through information to discover the pertinent facts.
“Because all children deserve that,” she deflected awkwardly.
Marco stared at the woman he’d seduced; the woman he’d taken to his bed even when he’d known he should have stayed away. The woman who’d overridden every single bit of common sense he possessed. And frustration gnawed at his gut because he could feel the same stupidity guiding his hand now. “Do you still want him to have a family?” He prompted, the trap easy to lay.
“You know I do.” She swallowed. Did she realize what she’d admitted?
“So? I am his father. You are his mother. The path forward is blindingly simple.”
“Simple?” She scoffed, jerking her wrist away and taking a step backwards. “I can’t marry you.”
His eyes narrowed. He could almost have felt sorry for Grace, except for what she’d done. It was something that he would never forgive. There was no justification for keeping their child a secret.
“You do not have the choices you did yesterday.”
Grace swept her eyes closed, his words thundering against her temples. “Why not?” And though she knew, she needed him to say it. She needed to hear his coldness from his own mouth, to inure herself against the dangers that still lurked in their relationship. She needed to hate him, as he did her.
“I will not leave him here. I will not leave him with a woman who saw fit to act as you did. I will not leave him.”
“You can’t just take him,” she pointed out quietly.
His smile though was full of arrogant certainty. “I don’t intend to take him. But I suspect the last thing you want is a drawn out custody dispute with all the nasty facts available for public consumption. Facts that our son will be able to access online for himself, when he is old enough…”
Grace blanched visibly. “You don’t want that either.”
“No.” He shrugged, as though it barely mattered. “But it is the lesser of two evils, for me. If the alternative is not having him in my life, then I’ll do whatever the hell I need to. Even discredit you publicly.”
Grace gripped the sofa behind her for support, but her shoulders slumped and her head dropped forward. She was the picture of despondency, just like the rose she’d been empathizing with earlier.
“You can be in his life,” she whispered, but she knew he’d never go for the role of passing friend. Someone who was in and out. He wanted the whole thing. He wanted Ben. And she supposed she should be thankful he was willing to include her. The idea of sharing custody filled her with ice-cold dread.
She didn’t want to see Ben only half the time! That wouldn’t be her son’s life.
Marco ignored her statement, perhaps interpreting the play of emotions across her features, for when he spoke, it was as though her complicity was a fait accompli.
“I will have one of my executives fly out and take over your role at Aztec immediately. You’ll need time to brief him. We’ll leave for Rome in a week.”
* * *
Eight days later, Grace stared out at Rome with a sense of bewilderment.
“It’s glorious.” Emma approached quietly, Ben on her hip, a smile on her face that showed none of Grace’s own concerns and agonies.
Grace nodded, because she could vaguely recall feeling that same sense of wonderment the only other time she’d come to the villa. When it had been new and marvelous and the sheer scale and size had overwhelmed her. Then there’d been the marble tiles, the decorative frescos, the ceiling roses, chandeliers, sweeping staircases and the fragrance of history heavy in the air.
She’d been almost as in love with the grand old property as she had been with Marco Dettori.
“Yes,” she murmured belatedly, when she realized Emma was waiting on a response.
“I mean, your place in Chicago was big, but this is like … a whole other level of bigness.”
Grace nodded. Yes, it was that, too. Of course, her time had been spent in Marco’s bedroom and the lovely little Juliette balcony that protruded from it. The city sprawled in front of them now, but she knew that the back rooms all offered glimpses first of his garden, and then the hills that surrounded Rome.
She twisted her fingers around the balustrade, trying to get her bearings as she studied the ancient city.
“You’ll have more free time here,” Grace said quietly, her eyes creased in the corners by worry, not happiness. “I won’t be working. At least, I won’t be working initially. So please make the most of that and explore.”
“I’ve already looked into some groups little master Ben and I can join. Some baby yoga classes and an art club for toddlers. I’ll get plenty of exploring done.”
Grace nodded, but emptiness chasmed inside of her.
The life she’d carefully constructed had been blown apart. No Steve. No Chicago. No job. And her son, her son, suddenly felt a little less hers. She had to share him.
But there was Marco.
I hate that I want you, even after this. I hate you for what you have done. I want you in my bed, but I will never forgive you for keeping my son from me.
Did he still want her? Did she want him? And would she ever act on those feelings, even if she did?
Six
TWO WEEKS AFTER ARRIVING in Rome and Grace had to wonder what she’d ever worried about. Far from feeling like she’d jump at the chance to join Marco in bed, she’d barely had the opportunity to say ‘hello’ to him, let alone fight the desire that was swarming through her body.
As before, she had to make do with dreams. Vivid dreams that recreated his every caress. The way he’d kissed her. Touched her. The way he’d felt. Her body was pure flame when she remembered.
She knew from Emma that Marco was making a point of seeing Ben often. Her heart ached for that, but she stayed away, purposefully maintaining a distance when they were together.
It hurt too much to see them as a pair. To know what she’d denied them both for so long.
Despite the lateness of the season, and Autumn’s retreat, the morning was warm enough to sit outside and stare longingly at the pool – a pool that would, come Summer, glisten and shine. Only it wouldn’t be still. She could just imagine Ben splashing his little arms through the water, ruining its placidity with his enthusiasm.
The s
mile that touched her lips was the first natural expression of happiness in weeks.
“Ciao.”
She startled out of her reverie, her eyes lifting from the water to the figure to her left. From her position in the pool lounger, her legs crossed at the ankles, he seemed almost to loom over her.
Her mouth was instantly dry.
Marco Dettori was devastatingly handsome at any time and in any clothes, but with a fortnight’s deprivation under her belt and with him wearing a pair of casual jeans and a black polo shirt he was mouth-wateringly hot. Her stomach lurched as she dragged her eyes from his head, down to his broad chest and lower still, to the bulge of his pants.
God, this was impossible.
When she lifted her gaze to his eyes, she saw sardonic amusement there. Embarrassment heated her cheeks but she didn’t look away.
“I have given Emma the weekend off.”
“Oh.” Grace nodded, partly resenting the way he’d developed total control of her domestic situation and partly welcoming it. Was it penance that she allowed him to do so? “Why?”
“Because she works very hard and because she will not be needed.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I am taking Ben to visit my family.”
I am taking… it was all she heard. Panic rose in her chest like a bubble that would pop at any point. “No.”
“It is arranged,” he said, and the words, while firm, were somehow gentle, too. Compassionate. “He is my son. It was only a desire to allow him to adjust to his new surrounds gradually that has stopped me arranging this trip sooner. They are eager to meet him.”
It was natural, of course, but Grace felt the sting of grief lace through her. He was no longer just hers. The child she’d grown and whom she would love forever; the child she had cuddled and kissed and nursed and cherished, was now Marco’s, and the whole Dettori family’s, as well.
She had to come to terms with that.
Her nod was clunky and she turned away from him, in case grief gave way to tears. She’d never been away from Ben. Not for more than a day, anyway. A whole weekend without him? Her arms ached; her heart throbbed.
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