Maya felt the book she was holding slide out of her hands; she barely registered the little thump as it landed on the carpeted floor at her feet. ‘Giorgio?’ Her voice came out as a whisper of dread.
His eyes looked hollow as they connected with hers. ‘He’s gone,’ he said in a flat emotionless tone. ‘He died two hours ago. He went very peacefully.’
Maya felt her lip quiver and her eyes filled with tears. She scrambled to her feet and half stumbled, half fell into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, as if she could take some of the pain away from him and carry it for him. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, struggling to keep her emotions in check. ‘He was such a wonderful person. He will be missed so much.’
Giorgio rested his head on the top of hers, his arms going around her to hold her close. ‘Yes, he will,’ he said. ‘But he wanted us to move on. He didn’t want us to feel sorry for him or wallow in grief. He wanted us to live life to the full, like he did.’
If only life wasn’t so capricious, Maya thought. Living it to the full was fine for some people, but once you had been hit from the left-field a couple of times it made one rather cautious about living in the moment.
Giorgio put her from him after a little while, still anchoring her with his hands curled around her upper arms. ‘So how are you feeling, cara?’ he asked. ‘What did the doctor say? I am sorry I couldn’t come with you. Did you get my text message? I got caught up with my grandfather’s palliative care doctor. I couldn’t really get away in time.’
Although Maya was a little surprised by his rapid change of subject, she was starting to see it was his way of coping, to move on with life as if nothing had happened. He would grieve but he would do so in private. ‘Yes, I got your message and I totally understand. It was just a check-up, in any case. Everything is fine. Dr Rossini thinks the nausea should settle in another few weeks.’
He smiled and placed his hand on her still flat belly. ‘No one would ever know you are carrying my child in there,’ he said. ‘How soon before you will start to show?’
‘Bronte said it might not show for another month or two,’ she said. ‘She said she was almost five and a half months before she did with Ella.’
‘I think we should make an announcement to the press once my grandfather’s funeral is over,’ he said. ‘Look at how much attention Luca and Bronte got over their love-child and then the wedding and now a second pregnancy. It’s what people want to hear. They thrive on it.’
Maya frowned at him. ‘But I thought you wanted to keep the press out of this for as long as possible?’
He dropped his hands from her and moved across to the bar area. He poured some iced water in a tall glass and handed it to her before he made himself a brandy and dry. ‘My grandfather wanted the Sabbatini name to be associated with growth and success, not illness and death,’ he said. ‘We owe it to our investors and the staff and guests in all of our hotels to remind them life goes on, business as usual. The announcement of our much anticipated child will draw attention away from the family’s loss at this time.’
Maya was incensed. She hated the thought of the press hounding her, chasing her, perhaps even putting her life and that of her baby in danger as they shoved and crowded her for a photo. ‘So this is all a business strategy to you, is it?’ she asked.
Giorgio took a deep draught of his drink before he answered. ‘You are overreacting, as usual, Maya. I am merely saying we need to stay focused on the positive, not the negative. I manage a huge global corporation. I don’t want anything to have a negative impact on it and nor did my grandfather. Those were some of the last words he spoke to me.’
Maya turned away, putting her glass down with a loud thud on the coffee table. ‘I will not agree to have the news of my pregnancy splashed over every paper and gossip magazine in the country, if not all over Europe, just so you can make money out of it.’
‘Maya—’
She turned on him like a snarling cat. ‘Don’t patronise me with that I’m-the-one-in-charge tone. You know how much I hate the intrusion of the press. It’s one of the reasons our marriage crumbled.’
His mouth became tight-lipped. ‘The reason our marriage crumbled was because you were not mature enough to face the reality that life doesn’t always go according to plan. You acted like a spoilt child who couldn’t have what she wanted right when she wanted it. You stormed out of our marriage pouting all the way.’
Maya’s mouth dropped open in outrage. ‘You’re calling me a spoilt child? What about you, with your private jet and Lamborghini and Ferrari, for God’s sake. You know nothing of what it’s like to struggle. All your life you’ve had everything handed to you on a silver family crest-embossed platter.’
He put his now empty glass down. ‘I am not going to be drawn into an argument with you. You are upset over my grandfather’s death. I shouldn’t have even brought up the subject of the press announcement.’
Maya refused to be mollified. She folded her arms and glared at him.
Spoilt child, indeed.
Pouting all the way out of her marriage.
What the hell did he mean by that? He would have divorced her as quick as a wink if it hadn’t been for what he stood to lose in a settlement.
She watched as he poured himself another drink, a double this time. He wasn’t a huge drinker, which made her realise with a little jolt that he was feeling his loss rather more deeply than he was letting on. He had said she was upset about his grandfather’s death but, as usual, he had not said anything about how he was feeling.
‘Giorgio…’ She curled her fingers around each other, uncertain how to progress.
‘Leave it, Maya,’ he said, raising his tumbler to his lips.
She waited for a beat or two. ‘How is your mother taking it?’ she asked.
He didn’t even bother to turn around to face her to answer. His left shoulder hiked up and down in a shrug. ‘She is upset, of course. It will no doubt bring back the pain of the loss of my father, but she has her family around her. Luca’s with her now and Bronte and gorgeous little Ella. She will be the best distraction for Mamma—for all of us, actually. Nic’s due to fly in tomorrow. He’s in Monte Carlo, probably gambling or sleeping with some wannabe starlet or both.’
‘You disapprove of his lifestyle, don’t you?’ Maya asked after another little pause.
Giorgio turned around and looked at her, glass in hand. ‘You think I have had every privilege and certainly, compared to you, that is indeed the case, but don’t for a moment think I don’t appreciate or value what I have been given as a birthright. Luca had to grow up and grow up fast when he almost ruined his own and Bronte’s life. Nic has yet to learn to take responsibility for his actions. But I have a feeling he is about to.’
‘Oh?’ she asked. ‘What makes you say that?’
He gave her a grim look. ‘My grandfather talked to me briefly about his will. Nic is not going to like some of the terms, let me tell you. If he doesn’t toe the line within a year he will be disinherited.’
Maya flinched in shock. ‘Salvatore stated that in his will?’
Giorgio nodded and took another generous mouthful of his drink. ‘The feathers are about to fly, or at least they will when Nic finds out when the will is read. If he wants to contest it he will have a lengthy and very expensive fight on his hands. I am hoping he won’t go down that path. The press will make a circus of it, for one thing. Also, it could mean trouble for the Corporation if Nic defaults.’
‘I’m not used to these sorts of things,’ she said. ‘When my mother died she hadn’t even left a will. She didn’t have anything to leave in it, even if she had gone to the trouble of writing one.’
Giorgio put his glass down on the bar. ‘You must have missed her when she died so suddenly. You’ve hardly ever talked about it.’
Maya tried not to think of that time. She hated being reminded of her lonely childhood, how much of a burden she had been made to feel by her penurious great-aunt, how much
she had longed for a cuddle or a word of praise and encouragement from a woman who loathed all forms of affection and who thought words of affirmation would unnecessarily inflate a child’s ego.
Maya’s school days had been the worst. Watching as all the other kids had one or both parents come to assemblies or end of school prize nights. Her great-aunt had not attended a single event. Eunice Cornwell didn’t believe in competition of any sort, so when Maya had taken out the Headmaster’s Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement at her Leaver’s Assembly no one had been there to see it.
‘It wasn’t a great time in my life,’ Maya said. ‘My great-aunt resented having me thrust upon her. I resented being there. I left as soon as I possibly could.’
‘Poor little orphaned Maya,’ Giorgio said, coming over to where she was standing so stiffly. ‘No wonder you were attracted to me with my big family.’
‘I was attracted to you, not your family,’ Maya said.
He lifted the hair off the back of her neck, sending the nerves beneath her skin into a frenzy of delight. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘And you still are, aren’t you, tesore mio?’
‘I can hardly deny it when I am currently carrying the evidence in my belly,’ she said in a wry tone. Long may it continue, she tacked on silently.
His other hand went to her abdomen, pressing against it gently but possessively. ‘I want to make love to you,’ he said, his voice deep and sexy and irresistible. ‘Now.’
Maya felt her insides flip over. That dark smouldering look in his eyes sent her heart racing and when he traced a fingertip down over the curve of her breast, even though she was still fully dressed, she felt her nipple instantly engorge with blood. ‘Are you asking me or telling me?’ she said in a voice that wobbled with anticipation.
His head came down, his brandy-scented breath skating over her upturned mouth. ‘Do I need to ask, cara?’
She gave him his answer in actions not words. She met his mouth with hers, sliding her tongue to join his in a sexy duel that got more and more heated the longer it continued. She was breathless by the time he had her locked in his arms, her dress in a pool at her feet, her breasts bare and aching for his mouth. She gasped as his lips closed over her tightly budded nipple, the pleasure so acute she felt her senses spin out of control.
The passion became an inferno, consuming everything in its path. There was no time for moving upstairs, no time for lingering over kisses and caresses or murmuring sensuous promises.
Giorgio pressed her down to the carpeted floor, his body joining hers, covering her with his weight balanced on his arms. His mouth came back to hers, taking it in another steamy assault of the senses, thrusting and probing with his tongue in a delicious and erotic mimic of what was to come.
Maya writhed with want beneath him. She wanted him naked and slick with her moisture and his inside her. She wanted to feel that hard pumping of his body she had missed so much. She became totally wanton with her need. She clawed at his clothes, popping buttons and pulling out his belt from its loops like a madwoman on a mission.
He worked on her clothes with a little more finesse, but not much. He kissed each part of her body he exposed, his lips and tongue lighting fires all along her flesh. He feasted on her breasts, sucking and pulling, swirling his tongue around each nipple, making them pucker even further.
Maya took him in her hand, relishing the turgid potency of him. He quivered and throbbed and then tugged her hand off him, pressing her back down and entering her with a stabbing thrust that sent a shockwave of rapture throughout her body.
He immediately checked himself, retreating a little in case he had gone too deep, but she dug her fingers into his buttocks and urged him even deeper. He groaned and thrust again and again, harder and faster, his breathing becoming ragged, fine beads of perspiration springing up over his flesh and hers as she too felt her control slipping in the heat and fire of the moment.
The friction was just right, catching her swollen pearl of need, the secret heart of her that responded to him so wantonly. She arched her spine and gave herself up to the orgasm as it swept her up into its vortex, swirling and tossing her about like a ragdoll. She shook and quaked with the power of it, the reverberations of her body sending Giorgio into his own powerful release. She felt every muscle in his body tense in that split second before he finally unleashed his control. The quick hard pumps of his body spilling hotly into hers made her feel another wave of pleasure, her inner core pulsing with it until she was as limbless and sated as he.
Maya lay beneath him, her heart still hammering with the thrill of having him possess her totally. She didn’t want to talk and spoil the moment. She wanted to cling to this special closeness for, even though she suspected it was more physical than emotional for him, for her it was all about the feelings she had for him, and that was the way it had always been. She couldn’t separate the lust from the love like other people did. Even the night of Luca’s wedding, when she had fallen into bed with Giorgio, it had been less about lust and more about love.
Fate had brought them back together, fate and circumstances that meant she would have to think very carefully before she took it upon herself to walk away again.
Sabbatini men played for keeps. Losing was not in their vocabulary. Giorgio’s relationship with her had nothing to do with love. It was all about pride and ownership and continuing the blue-blooded line of the family.
But that might be the one and only thing Giorgio could not control, even though Maya dearly, longingly, prayerfully wished it were.
Chapter Eleven
THE funeral for Salvatore Sabbatini was large but the service was still deeply meaningful and poignant. Salvatore had lived a good life, a long life marked along the way with a lot of success and a measure of tragedy. Outliving his son Giancarlo was something he had grieved over in his own way, and when Maya saw the PowerPoint presentation Giorgio had put together of his grandfather’s life she too, along with most of the other mourners, had to wipe tears from her eyes as she witnessed the moving sweep of his life, from that of a small child to his last days, holding his much anticipated great-grandchild Ella on his knee.
The celebration of his life continued at a private function in the Sabbatini hotel. It was mostly attended by family and close friends but somehow one or two members of the press had sneaked in. While Maya was watching everyone from the sidelines she suddenly found herself face to face with a large camera lens aimed at her.
‘Signora Sabbatini,’ the paparazzi man said, ‘is it true you are expecting a child?’
Maya was caught off guard and, after too long a pause, mumbled, ‘No comment.’
‘Word has it the child could be that of Howard Herrington, the man you had a brief affair with during your estrangement from your husband. Everyone knows you and your husband had issues with fertility over the past few years. Do you have anything to say about that?’
Giorgio suddenly appeared at Maya’s side, his expression infuriated beyond anything she had witnessed before. ‘There is absolutely no truth in those rumours,’ he said. ‘The child is mine; there is no doubt about it and there never has been. Now, leave, before I ask Security to escort you from the premises.’
The journalist sloped off and Giorgio took Maya’s elbow and led her to one of the vacant rooms off the main function room. He closed the door and looked down at her with concern etched on his features. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘I thought you were going to faint for a moment there.’
Maya placed a shaking hand to her forehead. ‘I should have been more prepared…I felt like a stranded fish, standing there with my mouth opening and closing before I could think of something to say.’
He rubbed the side of his face with one of his hands. ‘I was hoping to avoid this,’ he said. ‘That’s why I wanted to make a proper announcement before the press got in first with their stupid speculation. It’s much harder to control the rumours when they come from unknown sources.’
Maya studied his brood
ing expression for a moment. ‘There’s no doubt in your mind that this is your child, is there, Giorgio?’
‘No, of course not.’ He pushed his hair back where it was falling forward. ‘Not now.’
‘What do you mean, “not now”?’ she asked. ‘Has something or someone confirmed my side of the story?’
His dark eyes met hers, holding them for a beat or two before he answered. ‘I ran into your date, Howard Herringbone.’
Maya didn’t bother correcting him this time. ‘Ran into him?’ she asked with a sceptical lift of her brows. ‘I can’t imagine under what circumstances you would…’ she put her fingers up like quotation marks ‘…run into him.’
‘All right, I admit it,’ Giorgio said after a tense pause. ‘I tracked him down and paid him a visit. He confirmed that you and he had met once for a meal that was set up by a mutual friend.’
Maya was beyond anger. She stood with her blood roaring in her ears at his audacity, at his lack of trust, at his arrogance and bullheadedness. ‘So you didn’t believe me,’ she said through tight lips. ‘You could only do that when you had confirmation from another source.’
‘Think about it from my side, Maya,’ he said. ‘It would have been the perfect payback. You left me when I failed to get you pregnant. What else was I to think when I discovered you were carrying a child?’
‘I didn’t just leave you because you failed to get me pregnant,’ she shot back. ‘I left you because our marriage was dead.’
‘Even so, you didn’t exactly rush to tell me,’ he said. ‘I only found out by chance when I opened that drawer in search of a toothbrush.’
‘I was going to tell you,’ she said.
His expression was cynical. ‘When? Like Bronte did to Luca? When the child was over a year old?’
Maya sprang to her new friend’s defence. ‘That was Luca’s fault, not Bronte’s. He was the one who cut her from his life without a single explanation as to why. He didn’t trust her enough to tell her the truth about his situation.’
Shock: One-Night Heir Page 10