The Italian’s Bride On Paper by Kim Lawrence

CHAPTER TEN

MAYASMILED, ANDA low husky laugh vibrated in her throat as her fingers tangled in the dark hair of the man whose head lay nestled between her breasts in the bed she had shared with him for the last two weeks.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘You... No, not really,’ she added quickly. It was just she had never imagined that sex could involve humour.

The depth of the sharp soul-piercing tenderness she felt for Samuele was something she had never dreamt of either. As for the desperate raw passion he could awaken in her, she sometimes didn’t even recognise herself in the woman she became in his arms.

His head lifted, his dark heavy-lidded eyes still slumbrous from their recent lovemaking.

‘I just remembered you saying we didn’t need a rule book in the bedroom.’ She gave a languid sigh as he slid his way up her body until their faces were level.

‘I remember that too.’

Samuele could count on one hand the times he had spent more than one night with the same woman, because the next night would have been much the same and, put quite simply, he had a low boredom threshold.

He had heard it suggested that he was attracted by the thrill of the hunt but in reality there rarely had been a hunt. He didn’t make the mistake of putting that down to his own irresistibility; he believed women were attracted by what he represented to them, which was money, power and his supposedly glamorous lifestyle.

He looked at the lovely face inches from his own, no make-up, hair wild, flushed cheeks. No two nights were the same with Maya; her glorious lack of inhibition, her innate sensuality and the fact she gave everything of herself every single time they made love made her the sexiest woman he could ever have imagined.

He quite simply could not get enough of her. His idea of heaven was being stranded on a desert island and having her five times a day, but even that wouldn’t be enough; where Maya was concerned, he’d discovered he was insatiable.

‘You taste of me,’ he said, dipping his tongue into the warmth of her mouth.

‘You taste so good too,’ she husked against his lips, meeting his tongue with her own.

Sometimes during moments like this Maya could hardly believe the level of intimacy between them, and how natural, how right it all felt.

‘I should get up,’ she said, not moving.

‘You’re still worried about tonight?’

Samuele felt a by now familiar surge of tenderness as she grimaced and gave a little shrug. Maya never went for the sympathy vote.

‘Don’t be, cara,’ he said, pulling himself into a sitting position and dragging a hand through his tousled hair.

‘Easy for you to say—you’re used to being stared at.’ And lusted after, she added silently as her eyes followed the liquid glide of perfectly formed muscles under golden skin as he stretched hugely.

‘And you’re not?’ There was a lack of vanity and then there was blindness. ‘You must know that you are an incredibly beautiful woman and you certainly don’t dress to be invisible.’ He sensed her stiffening and tagged on quickly, ‘Which is good—I really like your sense of style.’

‘I don’t want my self-worth to be based on the way I look, Samuele, because looks fade.’

‘I think you have a few years left yet,’ he teased, taking pleasure just from studying the delicate lines of her face. It was young and smooth now but, gifted with a bone structure like hers, experience and time would only enhance what she had.

She flashed him a quick glance from under her lashes before looking away and muttering, ‘I was invisible once.’

His fingers, moving in a sensual sweep down her spine, stilled. ‘Your stepfather?’

Astonished eyes flew to his face. ‘How on earth did you know it was him?’

‘A couple of things you’ve said.’

And he’d remembered? Do not go there, Maya, do not start seeing what you want to see. He’s observant, that’s all. A skill that had helped make him a respected name in the world of finance. Her Internet research had revealed that about him, also that the respect came tinged with a healthy dose of fear; he had a reputation for total ruthlessness.

He was certainly a ruthlessly efficient lover.

‘Edward seemed nice, kind, caring before they were married, but afterwards he changed, at least when Mum wasn’t around, towards me and Beatrice. I was so afraid of him—’

Beside her she could feel Samuele stiffen, and he swore and said something harsh in his mother tongue.

‘No...no...’ she said, laying a pacific hand against his heaving chest. ‘There was nothing physical and it was only little things at first. Everything I did he mocked, like a birthday card I made for Mum once. He looked at it and laughed and threw it in the bin saying that I couldn’t give her that sort of rubbish.’

Samuele’s big strong hand came to cover hers, his fingers sliding in between hers. She smiled her gratitude; the warm pressure was comforting.

‘He chipped away at my self-esteem until in the end I didn’t have any, no confidence at all. He used to say the only thing I had going for me was a pretty face and when I started getting teenage acne he had an absolute field day!’ She felt Samuele’s fingers tighten around her own. ‘I would dread him coming in and finding something about me to laugh at. I wanted so badly to be invisible and I eventually became a grey little mouse scared of her own shadow.

‘I don’t know what would have happened if it wasn’t for Beatrice. She was tougher than me, and she gave as good as she got, so he didn’t pick on her as much. Mum had it bad too. He wanted a child that was his child, and she went through cycle after cycle of IVF to try and please him. It affected her health terribly but he acted as if he was the injured party.

‘Maybe that was when she started to see what he really was, and she began actually listening to what Bea and I told her, and believing us. I will always remember the expression on his face when he arrived home and she’d packed his bags.

‘I saw a therapist.’ She glanced at him to see how he took this. There were still some very outdated views out there about mental health.

‘That’s really good,’ Samuele said, struggling to keep the burning anger that was consuming him from his voice at the picture she’d painted that he knew only hinted at the true extent of all she had suffered. The need to reach out and comfort her was alien to him and he wasn’t quite sure what to do. ‘Did it help?’

‘It did help, yes, but Mum still tries to compensate. She feels guilty that she didn’t see what he was doing. I hate that she and Bea still feel like that, as though I’m weak or fragile and they have to protect me.’

‘So you became the unbreakable Maya Monk.’ In her bold, bright colours and her hit-the-world-head-on attitude. But underneath all that armour, she was the little girl who had been the victim of a coercive, controlling bully.

She was, he decided, the strongest person he had ever met.

Maya blinked, realising with a sense of shock just how much she had told him, more than she had ever admitted outside the therapist’s office, probably more than she had admitted inside it too!

‘I suppose I should get up,’ she said, suddenly feeling shy and exposed...although exposed was a funny word to use when he had seen every little bit of her, loved every little bit of her.

It was moments like this, when everything felt perfect, that she often heard Edward’s voice telling her she wasn’t good enough, that she didn’t deserve to be loved by anyone.

She listened and there was nothing.

She rolled back to Samuele and took his face between her hands. ‘Thank you!’ she said fiercely.

‘For what?’

You made me believe that I’m worth loving.

There was a quizzical furrow in his brow as he studied her face and tried to interpret her silence. ‘The gallery opening will be hard for you, won’t it?’

‘I’ll be fine.’

He recognised her factory-setting response for what it was—a cover for the fact that she was not all right at all. He felt guilty for the times he had taken it at face value because it had suited him to do so.

‘You’ll be fine, I know, and I’ll be there for you tonight. You won’t be alone because I will be with you every step of the way. Oh, and if you really want to say thank you, I can think of several ways...’

She gave a sultry smile. ‘So can I.’

‘I haven’t seen anyone older than nine years old literally press their nose to the window like that before.’

She sniffed and rubbed the fading mist from the window before settling back into her seat. ‘I’m sure it’s very uncool to be excited, but you know what?’

‘You don’t care,’ he completed seamlessly.

‘Not even a little bit. Florence may be your backyard but to me it’s...’ She mimicked one of his shrugs when words failed her.

‘I don’t take it for granted, though. Actually I like seeing the world through your eyes, though only occasionally. Otherwise I’d have given away all my possessions by now to a charity for donkeys.’

‘It was a worthy cause and you shouldn’t have been looking at my bank statement!’

‘You left your laptop open on my desk.’

She gave a little snort and looked out of the window again. They had left the river and the cathedral behind when the car in front slowed. As they approached a building with a classical facade set back from the road behind an elaborate wall, Mattio stirred slightly, his sleepy brown eyes opening briefly before they closed again. They took a sharp right and drove through the archway into the private internal courtyard, and Maya straightened in her seat, bracing herself for the inevitable meet and greet.

‘You’ll be fine, cara, you have nothing to prove.’

Only she did, and he had to know it. He couldn’t be that naive, could he? She was about to marry Samuele Agosti, not only the most handsome man on the planet, but also a legend in his own lifetime. The interest in their engagement wasn’t just trending on social media, there were several column inches devoted to the upcoming marriage in all the serious financial journals.

She tried to focus on the pluses, which included the fact that Beatrice wouldn’t be here tonight. She loved her sister dearly, but not the awkward questions she would inevitably ask.

Poor Beatrice’s morning sickness had got worse, necessitating bed rest and an intravenous drip, so she had been admitted to hospital for a while. Back home now, she was being fiercely guarded by Dante and their mum.

Maya’s mother was set to meet Samuele next week when she would fly out to spend a couple of weeks at the castello.

So all she had to do tonight was cope with the world’s press, half of whom seemed to want to know up front who she would be wearing tonight.

The only thing that was stopping her running for the hills was the security of knowing that Samuele would be at her side. His support made all the difference to her.

As she slid out of the air-conditioned car into the fragrant afternoon warmth she knew her mind should have been on higher things than wondering which of the outfits she had brought with her to wear tonight. But first impressions counted, and photos that were taken tonight would be images the whole world would look at tomorrow and in the days and weeks to come.

Also her choice of dress was one of the few things she felt she had some control over. She tucked her finger, weighted down by the beautiful heirloom ring, into her pocket and emptied her mind of worries. She was determined to take pleasure from the beauty of the cloistered space with the rows of fountains, their spray catching and reflecting the light as it fell into a long central pool.

As she tilted her head to examine the seemingly endless number of windows that looked down from the wrought-iron balconies on three sides of the space, the sun dazzled her and made her blink as she brushed stray strands of hair off her face.

‘Good journey?’

Maya smiled as she identified the familiar lanky figure of Samuele’s male private secretary, Diego, a nice, friendly reception committee of one. A combination of his youth and his ready smile made Diego, who had travelled ahead with all the bags and baggage—one small child and a white tie event meant they were not travelling light—someone she could relax around.

‘And you?’

‘Fine—’ His glance drifted to where Samuele stood, a phone pressed to his ear, a daunting frown pleating his brow visible for a moment before he turned, presenting his broad shoulders to them.

Maya tried not to register the obvious tension in his back and widened her smile to include Rosa, who had stayed the night with relatives in the city and volunteered to help out tonight. ‘Hi, Rosa, I hope your family are well.’ She glanced towards the open door of the car and the sleeping child. ‘He slept all the way here. I probably should have woken him but he looked so peaceful.’

On cue Mattio opened his eyes and started squirming in his seat. Maya moved to unclip his belt but Rosa, neat in a practical pair of chinos and blue shirt, beat her to it. ‘I’ve already scoped out the nursery. Shall I give him his feed?’

‘Would you?’

Rosa opened the stroller that had been unloaded with a practised flick of her wrist. ‘We’ll be in the nursery when you’re ready,’ she said as she snapped open the safety harness, ignoring the wail of protest from her passenger.

Maya, who saw that Samuele had finally pocketed his phone, pressed a kiss to the top of the increasingly tetchy child’s head. She felt secure in the knowledge that he was safe with Rosa. She was so good with him, to the point when there were times she made Maya feel like an amateur.

Maya began to weave her way through the fountains towards the spot where Samuele stood, conscious as she did so that Diego had hung back discreetly.

As she got closer she sensed a tension in Samuele’s stance, but also an excitement, which made sense. Tonight was important for Samuele, she knew that, it was the culmination of the years of rebuilding the lost family heritage that meant so much to him, not just to preserve it, but to make it relevant to the twenty-first century. Could it be that despite his seemingly laid-back attitude he was more worried about tonight than he’d let on?

‘Good news, they have finally located the missing Agosti statues.’

‘Oh, that’s terrific!’ She knew how much this news meant to Samuele, in a symbolic, end-of-the-journey sort of way.

Locating and acquiring the entire Agosti collection had been the singular most difficult element of his self-imposed task and one that many doubted was achievable.

Officially tonight was all about the Agosti collection, the largest number of ancient Roman and Greek statues in private hands in the world, now housed in the newly restored Villa Agosti, and to finally be shared with the world.

The fact that there were only half a dozen missing pieces was considered a miracle by many, but for Samuele, who did not cut himself any slack, it had constituted a failure.

‘The thing is I have to go right now, because there’s a Russian collector after them too...’

She pulled in a tense breath and brought her lashes down in a self-protective sweep. ‘Now? But...couldn’t you send Diego? Why do you have to go in person?’

Impatient to be gone, Samuele shook his head. ‘I’ll be back in plenty of time before it starts tonight,’ he soothed. ‘It’s an hour there and an hour back tops. The vendor is a pretty eccentric character, who doesn’t seem so much interested in an advantageous offer as she does my star sign. She insists on meeting me in person, something to do with a planet alignment...?’

Maya swallowed, struggling to inject a suitably amused note into her response and failing miserably.

‘She sounds pretty interesting. Obviously you must... It’s fine, I understand. Obviously you must go,’ she said. But as she spoke she was aware that her response implied he was asking her permission; the fact was he was going whether she liked it or not.

‘So you’re fine with this?’

She could see from the look in his eyes that he was already not here—she wasn’t here. She clamped her teeth over the words he wanted to hear and flung out a cold and resentful response instead. ‘And if I’m not would it make any difference to you?’

His lips tightened with annoyance and he sighed. ‘You’re making this into a big thing and it really isn’t. I’ll be back before you know it, certainly in time for the speech-giving later on. Diego will look after you. I’m sure I’ll even make it back for the photoshoot. They want some footage of us in the gallery. Look, here’s Diego now.’

The young man punched the air in triumph when Samuele outlined the developments.

‘Sure...sure...’ he said when Samuele told him the plan. ‘Anything,’ he said, turning to Maya. ‘And I’m your man.’

No,she wanted to say, you’re not my man...and my man isn’t really my man. Letting herself believe otherwise was the road to madness. She was probably going to have a lot of moments like this one, so she’d better get used to it.

Moments filled with suppressed resentment. Moments when she felt very alone.

‘So it’s all good, then?’ Samuele said distractedly.

Without replying she turned with a brilliantly insincere smile to Diego so that she wouldn’t have to watch Samuele turn and walk away from her. Which of course he did.

After a prompt from her Diego was only too happy to launch into an explanation of what a feat the restoration of the villa had been.

‘Restoration is a delicate balancing act, too much and you lose the authenticity. I can never get over the fact that standing here you’re literally yards from the most famous historic sights of Florence.’

Maya walked alongside him as he displayed his knowledge, only hearing one word in three. She knew that the restoration of the collection was important to Samuele so she had hidden the extent of her nerves about tonight.

They kicked in hard now.