by Sarah Morgan
If she still didn’t attract his interest then that was it, wasn’t it?
And if that part of their relationship was over, then the rest of it was over, too.
Whatever he said about marriage being for ever, there was no way a physical guy like Santo would want to stay with a woman he was no longer attracted to.
She was going to be the first Ferrara in history to be granted a divorce.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I’M sorry if you found the weekend overwhelming.’ Santo was formal and polite as they arrived home the following day.
‘I didn’t. Your family is lovely and it was a treat for Luca to spend time with his cousins.’ She kept her voice bright and breezy and was so grateful for Luca, who kept up a running commentary about his cousins.
When Santo’s phone rang, she almost moaned with relief, a feeling that doubled as he told her he was going to have to go straight to his office at the hotel and do a few hours’ work.
And if there was something slightly cagey about the way he was behaving, she told herself that it didn’t matter anyway. Even if he was lying about the work part and was actually seeing a woman, it was irrelevant.
When she made no response, he sighed. ‘I might be late. Don’t wait up for me.’
Of course she wouldn’t wait up for him. He’d made it clear enough that he didn’t want her. ‘No problem at all,’ she said quickly. ‘Luca and I will have a swim in the pool and an early night.’
His mouth tightened and he started to walk away when he appeared to change his mind. He turned, uncertainty flickering in his eyes.
‘Fia—’
He was going to tell her that this wasn’t working. He was going to tell her that he wanted a divorce and she would make a fool of herself because she wasn’t ready to hear it yet. She needed to get her head round it. She needed to make plans.
‘Luca, don’t do that!’ Using their son as an excuse, she shot across the terrace and relieved a startled Luca of a toy that was offering no threat whatsoever.
She fussed over him for a few moments and then Luca looked past her and his face fell.
‘Papà gone.’
‘Yes,’ Fia whispered. ‘He’s gone. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do.’
‘Sex,’ Luca said stoutly and she pulled him into a hug.
‘Tried that,’ she croaked. ‘Didn’t work.’
Somehow she stumbled through the day. She and Luca spent some time with her grandfather and then Gina took him back to the villa while Fia worked late at the Beach Shack.
Knowing that all that was waiting for her at home was a huge, empty bed, she was in no hurry to return to the villa. Instead she did something she hadn’t done for years. Not since the night when Luca was conceived.
She went to the boathouse.
The approach took her along the stretch of private beach that belonged to the Ferraras. As a child she would have been guilty of trespassing and she realised with a lurch that she was now walking on her own land.
The main doors opened straight onto the sea, and a side door allowed access from the land. Fia had always slid in through the window, but this time she paused with her hand on the door, wondering whether it was just going to make her feel worse to visit somewhere that held so many emotional memories. It wasn’t an accident that she hadn’t been back here. This had been her escape in bad times.
The moon sent shimmers of light across the calm sea, providing sufficient illumination for her to see what she was doing.
It occurred to her that it would have been sensible to fetch a torch, but she reasoned that she didn’t need a torch to just stare at a collapsing old pile of planks.
The boathouse had been in a state of disrepair for so long that there was always a risk of injury, but as she pulled open the door she noticed that it opened smoothly. No creaks. She slipped quietly inside. In the past her routine had been to simply sit on one of the old lobster pots that were stacked by the door and stare at the water.
Her foot slipped on something soft and she frowned down at the floor. Oil? Fabric of some sort?
She was about to bend down and investigate when the place was suddenly filled with light. Shocked to discover that the place now had electricity, she looked up to see what seemed to be hundreds of tiny fairy lights strung around the walls.
Enchanted, she was just wondering what it all meant when she heard a sound behind her.
Turning quickly, she saw Santo standing there. ‘You weren’t meant to arrive yet.’ His thumbs were hooked into the pockets of his jeans and he looked lean, fit and more handsome than one man had a right to be. ‘I hadn’t quite finished.’
Finished? Confused, Fia glanced around the boathouse, seeing the changes for the first time.
The place had been transformed. Those oily, splintered planks of wood had been sanded and polished. An oil stove nestled in one corner, ready to provide heat for chilly winter evenings and in another corner was a sofa, heaped with cushions and a fur rug.
It was the cosiest, most decadent place she’d ever seen. The tiny lights twisted along the walls made the place feel like a magical grotto.
She took a step forward and again felt the softness underfoot. Glancing down, she saw rose petals. Rose petals that formed a red carpet, not towards the bed, but towards a little table. And on the table was a small, beautifully wrapped box.
Heart beating, she looked at that box and then at Santo.
‘Open it.’ He hadn’t moved from the doorway, the expression in his eyes cautious, as if he weren’t sure of his welcome.
‘You’ve—’ She looked around her, noticing a million thoughtful little touches, like the little seat that had been placed by the doors to the water. The place she’d always sat with her arms wrapped around her knees, watching the sea. Instead of an upturned box, there was a rocking chair. ‘You did this?’
‘I know how unhappy you are and I know that when you’re unhappy you need somewhere to go and be by yourself. I’d rather you didn’t feel the need to escape from me but if you do then I want you to be comfortable.’
Her eyes filled. ‘Our marriage isn’t working.’
‘I know that, and I suppose it isn’t surprising in the circumstances.’ His voice was uncertain. ‘I have so many things to apologise for I don’t know where to start.’
It wasn’t the response she’d expected. ‘You could start by telling me why the place is covered in rose petals.’
He ran his hand over the back of his neck. ‘Remembering the night of our wedding still shames me. As long as I live I will never be able to delete the image of you on your knees sweeping up rose petals I’d so thoughtlessly had put down. I hurt your feelings badly.’
‘I just thought it was mocking our relationship. It wasn’t romantic. It was never romantic.’ The tears sat in her throat and didn’t move. ‘Those rose petals—’
‘—were a manipulation on my part, I admit that. But I was manipulating the minds of those around us, not mocking you. That interpretation didn’t occur to me until I walked in and found you on your knees clearing them up. You once accused me of being an insensitive bastard and I am thoroughly guilty of that charge. But it was insensitivity rooted in thoughtlessness, not in a conscious desire to hurt you. I put these down myself, by hand. That’s why they’re not even in a straight line. I’ve never done it before.’
‘Why did you do it now?’ He still didn’t get it, she thought numbly. Rose petals were a romantic gesture.
‘I was trying to make you happy. I wanted you to smile,’ he said thickly, every plane of his body rigid with tension. ‘You smile with Luca all the time and I love it when you laugh. You never do that with me. You’re always jumpy and on edge and that is probably my fault.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of frustration and despair. ‘But I do want you to be happy. What do I have to do?’
Fia felt tears scald her eyes and this time they refused to retreat. She swallowed, but they kept coming, brimming in her eyes and then spillin
g over onto her cheeks.
Santo swore under his breath and strode forward, folding her in his arms so tightly that she couldn’t breathe. ‘Cristo, I have never, ever seen you cry. If the petals are going to upset you that much I’ll clear them up again. Please, please don’t cry. I’m trying really hard to please you but if I’m still getting it wrong then just tell me and I’ll fix it.’
The ache in Fia’s chest increased. ‘I appreciate it, honestly, but you don’t have to try this hard. It’s horribly, horribly humiliating when I know that we’re heading for divorce.’
He paled. ‘A divorce? No! I will not agree to a divorce, but I’ll agree to anything else you want. I know you don’t love me, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be happy.’
‘It isn’t me who wants a divorce, it’s you! And I do love you, that’s the problem.’ The words broke from her like waves onto a rock, eroding the barriers she’d built between them. ‘In a way I’ve always loved you. Part of me fell in love with you when I watched you teach your sister to swim. You were so patient with her. I had fantasies that Roberto would do that for me but all he ever did was hold me under the water. I loved you when you let me use the boathouse for a bolt-hole and didn’t tell anyone. I loved you that night when you touched my shoulder because you knew I was upset and I still loved you when we made love.’ The sobs made her almost incoherent. ‘And I loved you when I married you. I have always loved you.’
For a moment there was no sound but his uneven breathing and the soft lap of the water against the wood of the boathouse.
‘You love me? But … I forced you to marry me.’ His voice was hoarse. Stunned and decidedly uncertain. ‘I bullied you.’
‘And that was when I loved you most of all,’ she hiccuped. ‘My mother gave birth to me but apparently that wasn’t enough of a bond to stop her from leaving me. You didn’t even know Luca but you knew he was your son and that was enough for you. You were willing to do anything for him simply because he was family. You have no idea how much I wish my parents had shown me even a fraction of that commitment. For your child’s sake you were even prepared to marry a woman you didn’t love, not just any woman but a Baracchi. And you were prepared to do anything to make it work.’
‘Forget that—’ his hands gripped her arms ‘—is it true that you love me? You’re not just saying that for Luca’s sake?’
‘I wish I were, because then this would be easy instead of really, really hard.’
‘Why is it hard?’
‘Because it’s so hard to love someone who doesn’t love you back.’
He cursed softly and cupped her face in his hands. ‘You think I don’t love you? What do you think the past few weeks have been about? I’ve been falling over myself to please you.’
‘I know. You were working really hard at it and that was actually quite crushing.’
‘Cristo, you are making no sense at all.’ He made an impatient sound and gave her a little shake. ‘How is it crushing that I worked hard to please you?’
‘Because it didn’t come naturally. You were doing it for Luca.’
His hands fell to his sides. He stared at her.
‘Clearly we have misunderstood each other badly.’
‘We have?’
‘I had no idea you loved me. And you clearly have no idea how much I love you.’
Fia stared at him and her heart rate doubled. Hope bloomed as he slid his hands into her hair and took her mouth in a slow, erotic kiss. She wanted to ask him if she’d heard him correctly but it had been so long since he’d kissed her like this, she didn’t want him to stop.
He lifted his mouth from hers with obvious reluctance. ‘How could you ever think I’d want a divorce?’
‘We stopped having sex.’
‘I was so conscious that I’d forced you into this marriage and then you made those comments about me being insatiable—’
‘I liked you being insatiable,’ she muttered. ‘When you stopped I assumed it was because you were bored with me, so I chose an especially sexy dress last night and you didn’t even look at me.’
‘And why do you think that was? In most things I am a very disciplined man but I’ve discovered that I have virtually no self-discipline where you are concerned.’ His tone was raw. ‘I’d promised myself that I wasn’t going to make the first move. That I was going to let you come to me. You didn’t.’
‘I thought you didn’t want me.’
He groaned and gathered her against him. ‘We have both been blind and stupid. And we are going to start again from now.’
Fia closed her eyes for a moment, the feeling of relief so enormous that she couldn’t speak. ‘Do you really love me? This isn’t to do with Luca?’
‘This has nothing to do with Luca.’ He murmured the words against her mouth. ‘This has to do with you and me but I’ve made a total mess of things because now I can’t make you believe me. Because I rushed you into this, you think it’s all because of Luca. I love you, Fia. And if there were no Luca I would still love you.’
‘If there were no Luca, we wouldn’t have met again.’
‘Yes, we would.’ Lifting his hand, he stroked a finger over her jaw. ‘I didn’t even know about Luca when I came back. The chemistry between us is so powerful we would have ended up together sooner or later, you know we would.’ He reached past her, picked up the box that had pride of place in the centre of the table. With a few flicks of his fingers he dispensed with the packaging and flicked it open.
Fia gasped. ‘What’s that?’
‘It’s an engagement ring. I’m proposing.’
She felt dizzy as she saw the size of the diamond. ‘You already proposed, Santo. We’re married. I have the ring.’
‘You have a wedding ring. And, as I recall, I ordered you to marry me. Now I’m asking you to stay married to me. Always. Whatever life sends, good or bad, I want you by my side.’ He breathed deeply, his eyes wary. ‘Tell me honestly—would you want me to let you go?’
Warmth rushed through her, erasing all her doubts.
‘Never. The fact that I know how committed you are to family is what makes me feel so secure,’ she admitted. ‘I know that no matter what happens we’ll work it through.’
‘Ti amo tantissimo, I love you so much,’ he breathed, ‘and I’m sorry I’ve messed this up so badly.’ He slipped the ring onto her finger, above the gold band he’d given her on their wedding day. It fitted perfectly.
Fia stared at the huge diamond, dazzled. ‘I’ll have to have twenty-four-hour security if I wear that.’
‘Given that I don’t intend to leave your side, that won’t be a problem. I’ll be your personal security.’
Overwhelmed, Fia flung her arms around him. ‘I can’t believe you love me.’
‘Why? You are the strongest, most generous woman I’ve ever met. I cannot even bear to think about how it must have been for you to discover you were pregnant at a time when your whole world was collapsing. If I could put the clock back, I would, and I would never have left your side.’
‘You did the right thing,’ she said softly, sneaking another look at her ring. ‘If you had come back that night it would simply have added more distress for my grandfather. You were being sensitive, and it was the right decision.’
‘But it meant that you coped alone. Knowing what I do about you, I do not blame you for not telling me about Luca. I understand why you made the decision you did. Your childhood experience was so different to mine. And yet, even with that background you didn’t repeat the pattern.’ He slid his fingers gently through her hair. ‘When you told me that you’d forbidden your grandfather to say a bad word about a Ferrara, I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Although he was shocked when he discovered I was pregnant, I think it actually gave him something to live for.’
‘You married me believing that I didn’t love you. That must have been incredibly hard.’ He eased her away from him and she blushed.
‘OK. Maybe it was a little. Do you know
what’s weird? I’ve always wanted to be a Ferrara. All my life, I wished I was in your family.’
‘And now you are.’ His hands cupped her face and his eyes gleamed with purpose. ‘And once you’re in the family, you’re in it for ever.’
Smiling, she wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘Once a Ferrara wife …’
‘… always a Ferrara wife,’ and he lowered his head to kiss her.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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First published in Great Britain 2012
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
© Sarah Morgan 2012
ISBN: 978-1-408-97410-0