Swept Away by the Venetian Millionaire

by Nina Singh

  Longing pulled at Maya’s heart. She’d missed them. All of them. Her aunt, uncle, Zelda and Lexie.

  She missed the tiny little infant she considered her nephew more than a little cousin. A deep feeling of homesickness rushed through her core, surprising her with its sudden intensity.

  “Here, I’ll put you on speaker. Say hey to Lexie. And to little Owen.”

  “Hey, Lex. Hello, little O-man.”

  “Hi, cuz. We miss you.”

  “You can’t hear it, but he’s cooing at you, Maya.” The image made her smile even more.

  “So, tell us. How is Italy treating you? Were you unable to call until now ’cause you were busy with a hot Roman lover?” Lexie asked, her voice teasing.

  Maya bit down on her lip to keep from crying out loud. “Oh...um...”

  Zelda immediately read into her response. Or lack thereof.

  “Maya? Tell us what’s wrong. Is this about Matt? He keeps calling here, you know. Asking how to get a hold of you.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to spare a single thought for Matt right now. He simply wasn’t worth it. “No. It’s not about Matt.” The last word came out with a strained hiccup.

  “Sweetie, please talk to me.” The genuine concern and affection she heard in Zelda’s voice served to finally break the last string of control Maya had been holding on to.

  On a shaky breath, she began to tell her cousins the whole complicated story, the words rushing out of her like an overflowing river delta. Beginning with her discovery of Matt’s dalliances with a colleague at work and ending with how she’d fallen for a handsome and charming Italian artist who’d turned around and shattered her heart after she’d so willingly and completely given it to him.

  When she’d finished, a long silence ensued. For a millisecond, Maya thought maybe the connection had dropped. But then both her cousins started speaking at once. It was impossible to make out the words, though she heard “bastard” thrown about more than once, with a few other choice expressions that would have made Aunt Talley glare in disapproval.

  Debatable exactly which man they were referring to.

  Finally, the line went silent again.

  “Listen to me, Maya.” It was Zelda’s voice. “Just come home. Come back to Boston.”

  Maya sniffed and wiped her cheek with the back of her arm. “But Grandmama paid—”

  “Grandmama will understand,” her cousin assured her. “She cares more about you than some silly trip she paid for.”

  Maya couldn’t argue with that. When Gran knew all she was dealing with, the woman would waste no time gathering Maya into her arms and consoling her with gallons of tea and mountains of chocolate cake.

  “Yes,” Lexie added, her voice firm. “Come back here, Maya. As soon as you can.”

  “Just come home,” Zelda repeated. “Come back and let us all take care of you. We’ll help you get through this.”

  Maya couldn’t hold back any longer. At the risk of further upsetting her dear cousins, she finally let all the sobs and tears loose. They were right. She had no business traveling through Italy by herself any longer.

  She needed to be back in Boston. She needed her family.

  * * *

  Vito’s gaze, as well as his focus, kept drifting away from the folded newspaper he had sitting on the table at the outdoor café he frequented. The same café where he’d first laid eyes on Maya Talbot, right before she toppled out of a gondola and fell into his life.

  His eye kept wandering to the same spot where he’d first noticed her, as if somehow time might turn back and he’d see her there once more.

  She’d said she’d fallen in love with him. And he’d responded by crushing her heart and her spirit.

  Vito would have to find a way to live with that knowledge. He’d have to deal with the fact that he’d been a selfish bastard who should never have let things get that far between them. But his callousness had come through yet again.

  A shadow suddenly fell over his line of sight. “I thought I’d find you here, cousin.”

  Leo pulled over a chair from an adjacent table and sat down across from him. Normally, Vito might have groaned with annoyance at the interruption of his solitude by his boisterous, noisy cousin. Today he found he could use the company. Still, he couldn’t resist a sarcastic retort. “Please, have a seat, Leo. I’d love it if you’d join me.”

  Leo reached over and took a sip of Vito’s espresso without asking. “You appear to be more mopey than usual. I take it you missed your opportunity to retain something special in your life.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You let Maya leave, didn’t you? Yesterday was her last day in Venice, yes?”

  “Yes. To both questions. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Leo signaled to the waiter who gave him a nod. Both men were regulars who didn’t need to actually place their drink order.

  “Of course you don’t want to talk about it. You’d rather not hear me tell you what a fool you can be.”

  “I presume you’re going to tell me anyway. In detail.”

  Leo rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hand. “Vittorio. Believe me when I say I wish I didn’t have to.”

  “Then don’t. I told you, I don’t want to discuss Maya. She’s gone and will not be returning. The conversation will be moot. Don’t waste your breath and my time.”

  “Fine. Let’s talk about you, then.”

  This time, Vito didn’t bother to suppress his groan. Leo ignored it and continued. “How long are you going to beat yourself up about an event that may or may not have happened? An event you weren’t the cause of, regardless of how often you try to convince yourself otherwise.”

  Vito had half a mind to leave the table. But he had no doubt Leo would simply follow him. If they hadn’t been out in public, things could very well have turned physical. Vito was all too tempted to head in just such a direction—between the stunt Leo had pulled with the fake engagement at Nonna’s and the way he was pressing Vito right now.

  He clenched his fist on the table. “I will beat myself up for as long as it takes to come to terms with all that has happened.”

  “Is that really what you think you’re doing? Coming to terms with what happened?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly what I think,” Vito said with finality, hoping against hope that Leo might get the hint and finally drop the subject.

  He should have known better.

  “Really? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re using the past as a reason to hide from the future.”

  Vito flinched in his seat. The other man’s words were nearly identical to the ones Maya had thrown at him. “You go too far, Leo.”

  But his cousin wasn’t ready to back down. He leaned closer over the table between them, bracing his elbows on the glass surface. “You forget I was the one who first saw you after you got that tragic phone call, Vito. I saw the self-loathing you punished yourself with when you had no reason to do so.”

  The reminder of that night served to temper Vito’s anger with Leo. He didn’t know what he’d have done if his cousin hadn’t shown up to console him moments after Vito had received the news.

  “What would you have me do, Leo?”

  “Stop punishing yourself,” Leo immediately answered.

  Vito started to argue. But what would be the point? Leo couldn’t understand. Leo had never let his wife down on such an unforgivable level. Lynetta had never felt unloved or ignored. Unlike Vito, his cousin hadn’t failed so devastatingly as a spouse.

  “Your stubbornness is draining you of all your passion. And all of your will,” Leo continued. “You haven’t created anything in three years. It’s destroying you from inside out to be so dormant. It has to be.”

  He was wrong about the creating part, Vito mused, thinking of
the painting currently sitting on his easel. A painting he’d covered with a drop cloth, unable to bear looking at it now that its subject was gone. Though now he was at a loss as to what to do with it. He died a little inside every time he walked by it. But neither could he bear to throw it away.

  “It’s not a switch I can flip on and off, Leo.”

  “Of course not. But you have to have seen over this last week that you can gradually move past your grief. The way you were with Maya reminded me of the man you used to be. Before...” Leo leaned back, not completing his sentence.

  He didn’t need to. But the man Leo was referring to was gone. Vito had long ago buried him deep within his soul. “I’m not meant for relationships, Leo,” he tried to explain. “I learned that the hard way. I can’t risk so much again with another woman who might end up paying too steep a price for having loved me.”

  “Everyone pays a price for love, cousin. You are no exception.”

  “Nevertheless, I can’t give a woman like Maya what she needs. She deserves stability, steadiness. A full commitment from a man to love and cherish her without limits or conditions. I know for a fact that I’m not capable of being that man.”

  He thought of the way he’d lashed out at her that last day. The look of sheer hurt on her face when his dagger-like words had found their intended targets. What he’d done that day only proved his point: he was unworthy of the love someone like Maya had to give. And incapable of providing all that she deserved.

  He slammed his paper down on the table in disgust. This whole conversation was so terribly pointless. “What difference does it make in any case? She’s gone. She’ll be in Florence by now, then off to the rest of her adventures through Europe.”

  Leo frowned. “Florence is less than a day’s travel.” Then he glanced at his watch. “And it’s still fairly early.”

  Vito slowly shook his head. “No. I’m afraid it’s too late, Leo. I said some things I can’t take back. I doubt very much that she’ll forgive me for them.” Vito cringed when he thought again of how he’d hurt her in order to ultimately spare her.

  “Don’t decide that for her, cousin,” Leo said. “And it’s never too late.”

  * * *

  “I’m afraid you’re too late, sir. You’ve just missed Signorina Talbot.”

  Vito cursed out loud so viciously, the poor young woman at the Grand Hotel Firenze took a startled step back.

  He muttered a clipped apology before turning away. Maya was gone. This time for good. She must have altered her plans and left Florence several days early.

  Before she returned to Boston, Vito had no way of locating where she was.

  He had no choice but to turn around and go back to Venice. Alone.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HER AUNT WAS waiting for her at the luggage turnstile at Logan International Airport when Maya deplaned after leaving Florence half a day earlier. A wealth of emotion immediately had tears pooling in Maya’s eyes when she saw her. Maya swiped at them before they could fall. She had to resist the urge to run into the older woman’s arms and make a spectacle of herself in front of all her fellow travelers.

  “Aunt Talley, what are you doing here? I had a car service arranged.”

  Her aunt gave her a warm smile. “I canceled it, dear. You know you could have asked any one of us to drive you home. Why did you arrange for a car and driver?”

  “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

  Her aunt took her by the elbow and walked her to some of the more isolated seats in the arrivals area. “Maybe it’s time we had a little talk about that.”

  “About what?”

  “This notion you have that you might be a burden in any way, shape or form to any of us.”

  Uh-oh. Maya could guess where this was coming from. In her anguish and sorrow when she’d spoken with her cousins over the phone from Florence, she’d overshared all that Vito had said to her. Clearly, word of it all had gotten to her aunt.

  As annoyed as she was at her cousins for spilling the proverbial beans, Maya had to concede they’d only had her best interests at heart. She must have sounded like a mess during that call for Zelda and Lexie to have called in the big heavy. As much as Maya loved and respected her uncle, Aunt Talley was the true guiding force behind the Talbot family.

  “I was just upset the other day, Aunt Talley,” Maya began as they sat down. “I shouldn’t have said all that to Zelda and Lexie. I wish they hadn’t burdened you with any of it.”

  Her aunt sighed. “There you go again. Using that word.”

  “Oops.”

  “But is it true?”

  Maya started to deny it. But Vito’s harsh words echoed in her head. How could she deny that she’d taken up an area of study that she otherwise might not have if her uncle hadn’t needed help with his business? Or that she might have pursued a different career with a bigger company after graduation considering how heavily she’d been recruited? Or even whether she would have started dating Matt if her uncle hadn’t been so fond of him?

  The truth was, she didn’t really know anymore how to answer her aunt’s question. In so many ways that she hadn’t even acknowledged to herself, she supposed she had considered herself something of an unwanted burden upon the family that had taken her in. Subconsciously, she’d been trying most of her life to make sure they never felt that way about her.

  “I don’t know,” she finally answered truthfully. Then she wanted to kick herself at the expression of utter distress on her aunt’s face at her response.

  “Oh, Maya.” Her aunt gently cupped her chin in her hands. “My dear, sweet girl. I will never forgive myself for not reassuring you often and vehemently that you were always a loved and cherished child. Even before your parents were gone, your uncle and I loved you from the moment you were born.”

  This time, there was no stopping the tears. Maya bit her lip to avoid making a spectacle of herself.

  “Forgive me, my dear,” her aunt continued, “for not knowing that you might have felt that way for even one minute.”

  “Please don’t say that,” Maya pleaded. “I should have known better. I should have come to you.”

  Aunt Talley gathered her in her arms and held her tight. “Well, allow me to clear the air right now. Uncle Rex and I are both beyond impressed with and fiercely proud of the woman you’ve become. And we would feel that way no matter what you chose to do with your life. Because we love you, sweetheart. I’m sorry if we didn’t say that to you often enough.”

  Maya couldn’t help herself; she leaned into her aunt’s embrace and accepted all the love and comfort the woman offered.

  It may have been years in the making, but Maya finally felt a warm sense of acceptance and belonging that she’d only been denying herself for far too long.

  And she knew she had Vito to thank for it.

  * * *

  Maya jumped in her seat at the booth as Lexie slammed a plastic-coated drinks menu on the table in front of her. “Pick something to order, already,” her cousin directed. “We’re on our second round.”

  Maya made a show of opening the menu and pretending to peruse it. What she wanted to drink wasn’t available at the popular, trendy Mexican spot that had just opened in Southie. She didn’t need to look at it to know that this place didn’t carry a rich, fruity Valpolicella like the one she’d been poured the night Vito had kissed her for the first time.

  “Hey, come on now.” Lexie settled into the seat next to her and nudged her shoulder. “It’s been two weeks, Maya Papaya. Try and have some fun tonight.”

  “I’ll try,” Maya lied. She was being so unfair and beyond what could be described as a party pooper. This was supposed to be Lexie’s first real girls’ night out after having the baby and she didn’t want to cast a cloud of gloom over her cousin’s first outing as a new mom.

  “You’re still thinking about hi
m, aren’t you?”

  Maya could only nod. “I’m sorry, Lexie. I should have just stayed home and not risked raining on everyone’s good time.”

  Lexie wagged her finger at her. “We wouldn’t have let you. You’ve been doing enough staying at home since you got back. You go from work to home with a visit to the museum in between. We would have dragged you out if we had to.”

  Maya leaned her head against her cousin’s shoulder. As much as she wanted to, she just couldn’t get into the party mood. More than one flirtatious man had tried to approach the table with the four laughing and drinking women. None of those men had even come close to evoking a spark of attraction. She couldn’t help but compare them to a dark-haired, charming Italian who’d stolen her heart only to crush it. Each guy had fallen way short in comparison.

  “I take it you haven’t heard from your man yet?” Lexie wanted to know.

  It struck Maya as more than a little funny. She’d been engaged to Matt for close to two years. But every time one of her cousins referred to “her man,” they meant the one she’d known for less than two weeks in Italy. A man neither of them had even met.

  Not that the term was accurate. “He isn’t my man, Lexie. And, no, I haven’t heard from him. He hasn’t called or emailed. The sketch was delivered but his assistant’s name was listed as the sender.”

  “What about you?” Lexie asked.

  “What about me?”

  Lexie performed an exaggerated eye roll at the question. “Why haven’t you called him?”

  Maya straightened in her seat. Calling Vito was out of the question. She’d said what she needed him to know the day he’d sent her away.

  “Because he made his feelings very clear,” she answered. “I bared my soul and told him I’d fallen in love with him. And do you know what he said?” Maya asked despite the fact that Lexie knew full well the answer to that question. Both of her poor cousins had been made to listen to the whole sordid story almost daily since Maya had landed back at Logan.