The Italian's Christmas Secret

by Sharon Kendrick

  He waited until she had composed herself before he spoke again, until she had brushed the remaining tears away with the tips of her fingers.

  ‘Why are you telling me all this, Keira?’ he questioned softly. ‘And why now?’

  ‘Because I grew up without a father and for me there was no other option—but I don’t want the same for my baby. For... Santino.’ Her voice wavered as she looked into the hardness of his eyes and forced herself to continue, even though the look on his face would have intimidated stronger people than her. ‘Matteo, you don’t...you don’t seem to feel anything for your son.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Why, you’ve barely touched him. It’s as if you can’t bear to go near him and I want to try to understand why.’

  Matteo released his hold on her and his body tensed because she had no right to interrogate him, and he didn’t have to answer her intrusive question. He could tell her to mind her own damned business and that he would interact with his son when he was good and ready and not according to her timetable. Just because she wanted to spill out stuff about her own past, didn’t mean he had to do the same, did it? But in the depths of her eyes he could read a deep compassion and something in him told him there could be no going forward unless she understood what had made him the man he was.

  He could feel a bitter taste coating his throat. Maybe everyone kept stuff hidden away inside them—the stuff which was truly painful. Perhaps it was nature’s way of trying to protect you from revisiting places which were too dark to contemplate. ‘My mother died in childbirth,’ he said suddenly.

  There was a disbelieving pause as the words sank in and when they did, her eyes widened. ‘Oh, Matteo. That’s terrible,’ she whispered.

  Matteo instantly produced the self-protective clause which enabled him to bat off unwanted sympathy if people did find out. ‘What is it they say?’ He shrugged. ‘That you can’t miss what you’ve never had. And I’ve had thirty-four years to get used to it.’

  Her muffled ‘But...’ suggested she was about to disagree with him, but then she seemed to change her mind and said nothing. Leaving him free to utter the next words from his set-piece statement. ‘Maternal death is thankfully rare,’ he bit out. ‘My mother was just one of the unlucky ones.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve established that.’ He chose his words carefully. ‘I’ve never come into contact with babies before. To be honest, I’ve never even held one, but you’re right—it isn’t just inexperience which makes me wary.’ His jaw tightened. ‘It’s guilt.’

  ‘Guilt?’ she echoed, in surprise.

  He swallowed and the words took a long time in coming. ‘People say they feel instant love for their own child but that didn’t happen to me when I looked at Santino for the first time. Oh, I checked his fingers and his toes and was relieved that he was healthy, but I didn’t feel anything.’ He punched his fist against his heart and the words fell from his lips, heavy as stones. ‘And I don’t know if I ever can.’

  Keira nodded as she tried to evaluate what he’d told her. It all made sense now. It explained why he’d thrown a complete wobbly when she’d kept her pregnancy quiet. What if history had grimly repeated itself and she’d died in childbirth as his mother had done? Nobody had known who the father of her baby was because she’d kept it secret. Wasn’t it possible that Santino could have been adopted by her aunt and her cousin and grown up without knowing anything of his roots?

  She felt another wrench as she met the pain in his eyes. What must it have been like for him—this powerful man who had missed out on so much? He had never experienced a mother’s love. Never even felt her arms hugging him in those vital hours of bonding which followed birth. Who had cradled the tiny Matteo as the cold corpse of his mother was prepared for her silent journey to the grave, instead of a joyous homecoming with her newborn baby? No wonder he’d been so reluctant to get close to his little boy—he didn’t know how.

  ‘Didn’t your father make up for the fact that you didn’t have a mother?’

  His mouth twisted and he gave a hollow laugh. ‘People cope in their own way—or they don’t. He left my care to a series of young nannies, most of whom he apparently slept with—so then they’d leave—or the new stepmother would fire them. But it didn’t seem to matter how much sex he had or how many women he married, he never really got over my mother’s death. It left a hole in his life which nothing could ever fill.’

  Keira couldn’t take her eyes away from his ravaged face. Had his father unconsciously blamed his infant son for the tragic demise of his beloved wife—would that explain why they weren’t close? And had Matteo been angry with his father for trying to replace her? She wondered if those different stepmothers had blamed the boy for being an ever-present reminder of a woman they could never compete with.

  And blame was the last thing Matteo needed, Keira realised. Not then and certainly not now. He needed understanding—and love—though she wasn’t sure he wanted either. Reaching out, she laid her hand on his bunched and tensed biceps but the muscle remained hard and stone-like beneath her fingers. Undeterred, she began to massage her fingertips against the unyielding flesh.

  ‘So what do we do next, now we’ve brought all our ghosts into the daylight?’ she questioned slowly. ‘Where do we go from here, Matteo?’

  His gaze was steady as he rolled away from her touch, as if reminding her that this was a decision which needed to be made without the distraction of the senses. ‘That depends. Where do you want to go from here?’

  She recognised he was being open to negotiation and on some deeper level she suspected that this wasn’t usual for him in relationships. Because this was a relationship, she realised. Somehow it had grown despite their wariness and private pain and the unpromising beginning. It had the potential to grow even more—but only if she had the courage to give him the affection he needed, without making any demands of her own in return. She couldn’t demand that he learn to love his son, she could only pray that he would. Just as she couldn’t demand that he learn to love her. ‘I’ll go anywhere,’ she whispered. ‘As long as it’s with Santino. And you.’

  She leaned forward to kiss him and Matteo could never remember being kissed like that before. A kiss not fuelled by sexual hunger but filled with the promise of something he didn’t recognise, something which started his senses humming. He murmured something in objection when she pulled back a little, her eyes of profondo blu looking dark and serious, but at least when she wasn’t kissing him he was able to think straight. He didn’t understand the way she made him feel, but maybe that didn’t matter. Because weren’t the successes of life—and business—based on gut feeling as much as understanding? Hadn’t he sometimes bought a hotel site even though others in the business had told him he was crazy—and turned it into a glittering success because deep down he’d known he was onto a winner? And wasn’t it a bit like that now?

  ‘I will learn to interact with my son,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a start,’ she said hesitantly.

  The look on her face suggested that his answer had fallen short of the ideal—but he was damned if he was going to promise to love his son. Because what if he failed to deliver? What if the ice around his heart was so deep and so frozen that nothing could ever penetrate it? ‘And I want to marry you,’ he said suddenly.

  Now the look on her face had changed. He saw surprise there and perhaps the faint glimmer of delight, which was quickly replaced by one of suspicion, as if perhaps she had misheard him.

  ‘Marry me?’ she echoed softly.

  He nodded. ‘So that Santino will have the security you never had, even if our relationship doesn’t last,’ he said, his voice cool but certain. ‘And so that he will be protected by my fortune, which one day he will inherit. Doesn’t that make perfect sense to you?’

  He could see her blinking furiously, as if she was trying very hard to hold back the glitter of disappointed tears, but then she seemed to pull it all toge
ther and nodded.

  ‘Yes, I think marriage is probably the most sensible option in the circumstances,’ she said.

  ‘So you will be my wife?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be your wife. But I’m only doing this for Santino. To give him the legitimacy I never had. You do understand that, don’t you, Matteo?’

  She fixed him with a defiant look, as if she didn’t really care—and for a split second it occurred to him that neither of them were being completely honest. ‘Of course I understand, cara mia,’ he said softly.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  KEIRA HEARD FOOTSTEPS behind her and turned from the mirror to see Claudia in a pretty flowery dress, instead of the soft blue uniform she usually wore when she was working.

  ‘Is everything okay with Santino?’ Keira asked the nursery nurse immediately, more out of habit than fear because she’d been cradling him not an hour earlier as she had dressed her baby son in preparation for his parents’ forthcoming marriage.

  Claudia smiled. ‘He is well, signorina. His father is playing with him now. He says he is teaching him simple words of Italian, which he is certain he will remember when eventually he starts to speak.’

  Keira smiled, turning back to her reflection and forcing herself to make a final adjustment to her hair, even though she kept telling herself that her bridal outfit was pretty irrelevant on what was going to be a purely functional wedding day. But Matteo’s father and stepmother were going to be attending the brief ceremony, so she felt she had to make some sort of effort. And surely if she did her best it might lessen their inevitable disbelief that he was going to marry someone like her.

  ‘What kind of wedding would you like?’ Matteo had asked during that drive back from Rome after she’d agreed to be his wife.

  Keira remembered hedging her bets. ‘You first.’

  She remembered his cynical laugh, too.

  ‘Something small. Unfussy. I’m not a big fan of weddings.’

  So of course Keira had agreed that small and unfussy would be perfect, though deep down that hadn’t been what she’d wanted at all. Maybe there was a part of every woman which wanted the whole works—the fuss and flowers and clouds of confetti. Or maybe that was just her—because marriage had always been held up as the perfect ideal when she’d been growing up. There had been that photo adorning her aunt’s sideboard—the bouquet-clutching image which had stared out at her over the years. She recalled visiting for Sunday tea when her mother was still alive, when attention would be drawn to Aunt Ida’s white dress and stiff veil. ‘Wouldn’t you have loved a white wedding, Bridie?’ Ida used to sigh, and Keira’s mother would say she didn’t care for pomp and ceremony.

  And Keira had thought she was the same—until she’d agreed to marry Matteo and been surprised by the stupid ache in her heart as she realised she must play down a wedding which wasn’t really a wedding. It was a legal contract for the benefit of their son—not something inspired by love or devotion or a burning desire to want to spend the rest of your life with just one person, so it didn’t really count. At least, not on Matteo’s part.

  And hers?

  She smoothed down her jacket and sighed. Because even more disturbing than her sudden yearning to wear a long white dress and carry a fragrant bouquet was the realisation that her feelings for Matteo had started to change. Was that because she understood him a little better now? Because he’d given her a glimpse of the vulnerability and loss which lay beneath the steely exterior he presented to the world? Maybe. She told herself not to have unrealistic expectations. Not to wish for things which were never going to happen, but concentrate on being a good partner. To give Matteo affection in quiet and unobtrusive ways, so that maybe the hard ice around his heart might melt a little and let her in.

  He was doing his best to change, she knew that. In the busy days which followed their return from his Roman villa, he had meticulously paid his son all the attention which had been lacking before. Sometimes he would go to Santino if he woke in the night—silencing Keira’s sleepy protests with a kiss. Occasionally, he gave the baby a bottle and, once, had even changed his nappy, even though he’d protested that this was one task surely better undertaken by women.

  But as Keira had watched him perform these fatherly duties she had been unable to blind herself to the truth. That it was simply a performance and Matteo was just going through the motions. He was being a good father, just as he was a good lover—because he was a man who excelled in whatever he did. But it was duty which motivated him. His heart wasn’t in it, that much was obvious. And as long as she accepted that, then she’d be fine.

  She turned away from the mirror, wondering if there was anything she’d forgotten to do. Matteo’s father, Massimo, and his wife, Luciana, had arrived only a short while ago because the traffic from Rome had been bad. Since they were due at the town hall at noon, there had been little opportunity for Keira to exchange more than a few words of greeting and introduce them to their new grandson. She’d been nervous—of course she had—she suspected it was always nerve-racking meeting prospective in-laws, and most people didn’t have to do it on the morning of the wedding itself.

  Massimo was a bear of a man, his build bulkier than Matteo’s, though Keira could see a likeness around the jet-dark eyes. Her prospective stepmother-in-law, Luciana, was an elegant woman in her fifties, who had clearly embraced everything facial surgery had to offer, which had resulted in a disturbingly youthful appearance.

  Keira picked up her clutch bag and went downstairs, her heart pounding with an anxiety which seemed to be increasing by the second. Was that because she’d seen Luciana’s unmistakable look of disbelief when they’d been introduced? Was she wondering how this little Englishwoman from nowhere had wrested a proposal of marriage from the Italian tycoon?

  But the expression on Matteo’s face made Keira’s stomach melt as she walked into the hallway, where everyone was waiting. She saw his eyes darken and the edges of his lips curve into an unmistakable smile of appreciation as he took her cold hand in his and kissed it.

  ‘Sei bella, mia cara,’ he had murmured softly. ‘Molta bella.’

  Keira told herself he was only saying it because such praise was expected of the prospective groom, but she couldn’t deny the feeling of satisfaction which rippled down her spine in response. Because she wanted him to look at her and find her beautiful, of course she did. She wasn’t stupid and knew she couldn’t take his desire for granted. Someone like her was always going to have to work to maintain it. Leola the stylist had been dispatched from Rome with a selection of wedding outfits and Keira had chosen the one she felt was the most flattering but also the most appropriate. Steadfastly pushing away the more floaty white concoctions, she had opted for functional rather than fairy tale. The silvery-grey material of the dress and jacket reminded her of a frosty winter morning but there was no doubt that it suited her dark hair and colouring. Only the turquoise shoes and matching clutch bag provided a splash of colour—because she had refused all Leola’s inducements to carry flowers.

  At least Massimo Valenti seemed enchanted by his grandson. Keira travelled in one of the cars with him to the nearly town and watched as he spent the entire journey cooing at the baby in delight. It made her wonder why he hadn’t been close to his own son—but there was no time for questions because they were drawing up outside the town hall where Matteo was waiting to introduce her to the interpreter, which Italian law demanded.

  Twenty minutes later she emerged from the building as a married woman and Matteo was pulling her into his arms, his hands resting on either side of her waist—but even that light touch was enough to make her want to dissolve with lust and longing.

  ‘So. How does it feel to be Signora Valenti?’ he questioned silkily.

  Her heart was pounding as she stared up into the molten darkness of his eyes. ‘Ask me again next week,’ she said breathlessly. ‘It feels a little unreal right now.’

  ‘Maybe this will help you accept the reality,’ he sai
d, ‘mia sposa.’

  And there, beneath the fluttering Italian flag of the town hall, his lips came down to claim hers with a kiss which left her in no doubt that he would rather they were somewhere private, preferably naked and horizontal. It set off an answering hunger and reminded Keira of the slightly incredible fact that he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. Didn’t he demonstrate that every night when he covered her trembling body with his own? And wasn’t that enough? she wondered as they drove back to the farmhouse together, her golden ring glinting as she fussed around with Santino’s delicate shawl. Was it just her inherently cautious nature which made her wonder if her relationship with Matteo was as superficial as the icing sugar sprinkled over the top of the chocolate wedding cake which Paola had baked?

  Yet when he carried her over the threshold, it felt real. And when she returned from putting Santino down for a nap, having removed the silvery-grey jacket to reveal the filmy chiffon dress beneath, Matteo had been waiting in the shadowed hallway for her.

  Pulling her into a quiet alcove, he placed his palm over her hammering heart and she licked her lips as her nipple automatically hardened beneath his touch.

  ‘Ever wish you could just wave a magic wand and make everyone disappear?’ he drawled.

  She shivered as the light stroking of her nipple increased. ‘Isn’t that a little...anti-social?’

  ‘I’m feeling anti-social,’ he grumbled, his lips brushing over the curve of her jaw before moving upwards to tease her now trembling lips. ‘I want to be alone with my new wife.’

  Keira kissed him back as his words set off another whisper of hope inside her and she wondered if it was wrong to allow herself to hope, on this, her wedding day.