Her heart ached for him.
And for herself.
And for their baby.
‘I’m going inside,’ she murmured, turning and moving back into the villa.
* * *
A week after the loss, Skye was no longer in any physical discomfort. Her body was itself again. But her mind and heart would never be the same. She woke early one morning and went to the terrace, diving into the water of the pool wearing only her underwear. She swum for an hour, up and back, up and back, hoping that she would exhaust herself to the point of sleep finally. Real sleep, not sleep tormented by dreams of what their baby might have been like, and the certainty that she’d lost something she’d never replace.
A week after that, and she had learned to numb herself to the grief. At least, some of the time.
And she had accepted that she had to move on.
All the while, Matteo had watched her, had been close to her without invading her space, had accepted her state of non-communication and had waited for the time when she would open up to him again.
His waiting was futile, though, because she never would.
Later that night, once Melania had set the table for dinner, Skye poured herself a large glass of Pinot Grigio. She sipped almost half of it, placed it at her setting at the table, and went in search of Matteo.
When she found him, her heart almost cracked open once more.
He was in his study, holding the stupid stuffed toy he’d bought for the baby.
The ground lurched beneath Skye and it took every ounce of strength she had been trying to rediscover not to break down in tears.
‘I’ve booked a taxi,’ she murmured. ‘It will be here soon. I thought we could discuss the logistics of our divorce before I go.’
God, the words had sounded so clinical and professional when she’d rehearsed them, but now they just seemed discordant and wrong.
His eyes, hollow and almost looking suspiciously moist, lifted to hers. ‘Why?’
Skye didn’t know if he was talking about the baby, or about her, or any of it. She shook her head, staring across at him, the cavern of the room opening before her.
She smiled, a weak smile that was almost impossible to unearth. ‘I don’t belong here. I want to go home.’
‘You’re my wife.’
Skye ignored the statement. He’d said it often enough, and she knew that the words meant nothing. ‘Only until our divorce is processed.’ She swallowed past the pain in her throat. ‘We lost the baby, Teo.’ She said it as though perhaps he hadn’t realised. ‘There is nothing left here.’
He moved quickly, sweeping across the room, dropping the toy as he went. ‘Yes, there is!’ He spoke with urgency. ‘There’s us. You and me.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘I don’t want you to go. I need you...’
Skye swept her eyes shut; her heart was twisting painfully in her chest, despite her certainty that she had no more grief left to feel. ‘Why? Why do you need me?’
‘Why do you need me?’ he pushed, lifting a hand to her chest, feeling her heart beating, feeling her goodness.
Because she loved him.
Because he was a part of her.
She stiffened her spine, mentally holding herself at a distance from him. ‘I don’t.’ And she didn’t want to. ‘I need to start forgetting.’
‘Please, don’t.’ He lifted his hands to cup her face, and she saw all the grief he was feeling. She felt guilt for it. For the baby she’d offered him and then lost. ‘Don’t forget.’
‘Why not?’ She sniffed, focusing on a point over his shoulder. ‘I look at you and I just remember...everything. I don’t want to remember.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I don’t want any payment for the hotel. It should never have been taken from you.’ She reached up and cupped her hand over his, allowing herself to be weak for a moment. She closed her eyes and breathed him in. ‘When it’s finished, I might come back and stay in it for a night.’
It was something she had no intention of doing, though. When she left, she would never again set foot in Italy.
‘This is madness. You are grieving now, we both are, but that doesn’t change anything about our marriage. Even before I knew about the baby I didn’t want you to go. You are my wife and you love me.’
Skye shivered softly. Was there any point in denying it? To him, to herself? She did love him. It was an incontrovertible fact. ‘You don’t love me, though.’ She looked up at him. ‘Do you?’
He stared down at her, and for a moment she thought he was actually going to say it. She wondered how it would sound, to hear those words on his lips and know they were meant for her. But then he turned away from her and scooped the toy up off the floor.
‘You mean more to me than any other woman ever has.’
Skye’s lips twisted at the faint praise. ‘Let’s talk in the dining room,’ she said quietly.
‘A last supper?’ he queried, turning around to pin her with his gaze.
‘It is better that we sort out the logistics now. So that we don’t need...’
‘To speak again?’ He swore under his breath. ‘I don’t want that! I don’t want you to go!’
‘I can’t stay.’ She spun away from him and stalked down the corridor away from him, her heart breaking, her anger rising, her feelings rioting. He was just behind her, reaching for her, pulling at her hand so that she stopped and collided with him.
‘Why not?’ He was right there, his chest moving hard and fast as he sucked in air and expelled it angrily.
‘Because there’s no baby! And no love. This marriage is just a cruel joke.’
‘I know nothing of love,’ he said, the words rasping inside him. ‘The one time I thought I felt it I was so wrong. I know nothing about how hearts are meant to feel. And I am so sick of hearing people talk about a heart as though it is the beginning and end of what a man is supposed to give to a woman! Do I love you? Do you have my heart?’ He stared at her and she held her breath, her eyes clinging to his.
‘No, cara. You have all of me. My blood. My body. My mind. All of me is yours, and has been since the moment I met you. When I tell you I need you, I do not mean it in the way you think. It is not sex that I am referring to. I need you as I need air, and I need water. You are no less important to me and my survival than these things. I thought I married you for the hotel.’ He lifted a finger to her lips, silencing anything she might be going to say. ‘But somewhere in those early days, while you were falling in love with me, I was doing the exact same thing.’
His words ripped through her; they were everything she’d needed to hear a fortnight earlier. Now, they only compounded her grief. ‘Don’t say that! You don’t need to lie to me, Matteo! You can have the hotel. You can let me go. You can get on with your own life...’
‘You are my life! Yes, I wanted the hotel. I spent so much of my life wanting it that I did whatever I could to finally have it. But that changes niente about what I want now.’ He cupped her face, holding her still so that he could stare down at her, his eyes boring into hers.
‘How can you not see what you are to me? Why do you need me to define how I feel about you by the way other people feel? Nothing about what we are has ever been experienced before. Do you truly believe this is just love? Such an insipid, boring, common description for what I feel! I despise that word, as though saying it changes a damned thing! Love is a feeling that can be transient and cheap, that many claim to have felt. The word is thrown about like emotional confetti. That’s not what we are! No one has felt this! Ever! I have told another woman that I loved her, and yet I never felt for her what I do for you! It cheapens what we are, to use that same word. You are my everything. You are like a universe that lives in my chest. Is this what you need to hear?’
She stared at him and could scarcely breathe for the flood of feelings rioting inside of her. ‘You have never, not once, told me any of that. How can I believe you truly mean it? I’d be stupid to trust you again.’<
br />
‘Believe me, cara, I would have told you sooner if I had understood my own feelings.’ His face was pale, and she didn’t doubt the truth of what he was saying. ‘I did marry you for the hotel. I didn’t care about you, or what you wanted. Not at first. I can’t tell you when that changed. I only know that, now? Now you are all I care about.’ He shook his head angrily. ‘Dio, when you talked about a pre-emptive custody arrangement the other day, I felt like you were bludgeoning me. Even then, I didn’t understand why I should have such an irrational response to your very logical suggestion. But I see now, Skye. I have been so in love with you this whole damned time that the idea of losing you again was impossible. Impossible.’
He stared at her for a long moment. ‘The first time you left, I was so angry. I was angry because I didn’t want to feel anything else. And when you came back, you wanted a divorce, and I thought I should give it to you. I see now that I signed the papers out of shame and guilt, out of a wish to undo the pain I had caused you. Out of a need for you to be happy, because I loved you. Because I loved you with all my heart.’
Skye shook her head, instinctively railing against his version of events that didn’t fit with how she’d felt.
His voice became more urgent, as he felt her pulling away from him despite everything he was offering. ‘And we were given a baby. A reason to fight. To fight for what we have.’
‘But the baby is gone...’
‘Yes.’ Emotions passed over his face. ‘And we will grieve that loss for ever. For the rest of our lives. But we will grieve together, because we are meant to be so.’
Oh, but her heart. The heart he held, the heart he’d broken, the heart that was now ripped into tiny pieces, the heart that was empty. It rejected everything he said. It had learned, at last.
‘You were right,’ she whispered, pulling back, away from his touch, standing straight. ‘Love is a lie. It’s all a lie.’ She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘I can’t stay.’
He squared his strong jaw, his eyes warring with hers, his natural tendency to overrule and dominate combated by his newly discovered need to comfort his wife. ‘This isn’t.’
She bit down on her lip. ‘There’s too much pain here.’
‘But so much good,’ he murmured.
‘Not enough.’ She blinked, stepping away from him. ‘I have wanted love all my life, and I fell in love with someone who doesn’t even know what it means.’
‘I told you...’
She swallowed, trying to make sense of her thoughts. ‘I know it wasn’t just about the hotel. And I know it wasn’t just about the baby.’ Her voice cracked on the single word, as her dreams and hopes sped away from her. ‘You don’t like losing, Matteo. And if I walk out that door, you’ve lost.’
‘I don’t care about losing. I care about losing you!’
The distinction was an important one, but Skye was becoming more convinced of what she needed to do with every painful moment that passed.
‘You’ve already lost me.’ She blinked, but tears still filled her eyes. ‘You lost me the day you proposed, knowing it was just for the hotel.’ She lifted a hand, her trembling fingers running over his cheek. ‘You lost me the day you stood in front of me and vowed to love me for the rest of your life, knowing you didn’t feel that way. You lost me all the times you’ve told me that all we have is sex. You lost me a long time ago. I’m just making it official now.’ She pulled away from him, her heart no longer breaking. It simply ceased to exist. ‘I have to go.’
There was disbelief and desperation etched on his face. ‘Give me a chance. Another week...’
‘You need to understand, Matteo.’ The words echoed with the strength of her intent. ‘I don’t want to give you a chance. I don’t want you to change my mind. I don’t ever want to trust you not to hurt me, because I know that you will. You’re incapable of love, and love is all I really want.’ She cleared her throat and rallied her emotions as best she could. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d pass my best onto Melania. Explain that I couldn’t stay.’
Matteo’s skin was pale beneath his tan. ‘Skye, I do love you. With all that I am...’
Her eyes were defiant but her voice was soft. Gentle. ‘It’s okay. No more lies. You can let me go. Let’s both pretend this never happened.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SKYE STARED AT the flowers. She admired the lilies with their pristine white petals. He says you are very soft. Like a petal.
Instinctively, she looked away. Towards the daffodils with their bright-yellow colour so like the sunlight of Venice. Her heart lurched and her eyes skidded onwards.
‘What’ll it be, miss?’
She blinked at the man standing like a flower-worshipping troll deep in the cave of his floristry van and tried to smile. She suspected it came off as more of a wince, as most of her smiles had done for a while.
Her eyes dropped back to the collection of blooms.
The red gerberas were beautiful, but the second she looked at them she saw only the geraniums that had grown rampant at Matteo’s villa, and she couldn’t bear to have a substitute for the flower.
‘Miss?’
She nodded and reached for a thick collection of gladioli, choosing them at random.
But, as she walked home and held them in the palm of her hands, she had to acknowledge that their long, spiked stems somewhat matched her current mood. They were still barely budding. Just a streak of colour along the length indicated that, one day soon, they would be bright and glorious. For the moment, they were simply a beginning.
She moved through the streets of Fulham, weaving through people, breathing in as she past her favourite dim sum house, enjoying the intoxicating combination of soy sauce and spices that permeated the air.
It was a nice day, given that autumn was now upon them, and the local pub had people spilling out onto the footpath. Their noise was loud. She kept her head averted, refusing to look at the flower pots that had, yes, geraniums, but also pansies and stocks. But in twisting her face away, she looked across the street and saw...
Her heart thumped. She froze.
Matteo?
His back was to her, but he wore the navy suit she loved and his dark hair was brushing against its collar. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. Sweat beaded across her upper lip and she held her breath.
A woman emerged from the bakery, her smile wide. God, she was pregnant, her stomach rounded as though she were due to have the baby any moment. Skye’s gut twisted. The man turned to embrace her and Skye saw his pale skin and slightly tipped nose.
It was not Matteo. She pushed her head down and hurried onwards, turning off the main road after a block and moving down the little side street on which her townhouse stood.
‘Hi!’ One of the little boys from the house next door called to her, his public school uniform in a state of disarray that Skye suspected would earn him a talking to when his mother and father got home. His tie was wonky and his shirt pocket was almost completely torn loose.
‘Rugby,’ he explained with a shrug, and she nodded, turning away and moving quickly towards her gate. She unclipped it and pushed up the stairs, unlocking her door and heaving it open as though it weighed a ton.
Simple tasks such as opening a door had become onerous since leaving Italy, but she knew that wouldn’t last. One day she would feel like herself again.
Flowers would help.
Her house was dark and cold, despite the mildness of the day. She frowned as she moved deeper into it, stepping over the mail on the floor, resolving to tend to it later, as she had done for the last week or so.
She arranged the gladioli in a slender vase and turned the television on, raising the volume until noise and conversation filled much of the downstairs of her home. She liked the company.
She liked that the television expected nothing of her.
The afternoon dragged.
She made a cup of tea at some point around dark.
And then a piece of toast nearer to n
ine.
And, finally, she decided she’d done enough. She’d made it through the day. She could sleep, and start all over again in the morning.
Her expression was grim, her skin pale like moonlight as she moved back through the house. Her eyes caught the stack of mail on the floor as she turned to move up the stairs.
With a resigned sigh, she changed course, crouching down and scooping it up.
It would make for bedtime reading at least, she thought, wishing she’d thought to pick up some new books while she’d been out. Maybe other people’s lives would provide the distraction she needed.
She tossed it unceremoniously on the bed and began to undress for the shower.
The water was warm. She luxuriated beneath it, wiping her mind clean, refusing to think about Italy, about Matteo and about their baby. She refused to think about the things he’d said to her on her last afternoon in Venice.
But none the less, his words rolled through her, spinning around her and making her gasp.
‘You are my everything. You are like a universe that lives in my chest.’
She moaned softly, reaching for the loofah and running it over her body.
‘When I tell you I need you, I do not mean it in the way you think. It is not sex that I am referring to. I need you as I need air, and I need water.’
She had been right to leave him. She could never trust him, and what was love without trust?
Memories of their days walking through Venice flooded her—of his sharing his gelato with the little Romani boy, of the way he’d held her hand and talked about the history of the city and his time growing up in it—and she sobbed, unable to hold her heartache at bay a moment longer.
It was here, in the night time, alone in her enormous house, that she finally allowed herself to admit that the pain wasn’t easing. That the ache inside her chest was growing wider with each day that passed. With each day she spent away from Matteo.
It was here that she always came to question her decision, even though she was certain, really, that she’d been right to leave him. To protect herself from the dangers of loving a man like Matteo and living in fear of when his favour would cease to exist.
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