The Italian’s Bride On Paper by Kim Lawrence

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THEREWASNOus involved in the gallery photoshoot. Just Maya, dwarfed, despite the high heels, by the pale statues around her, a flash of colour in a monochrome backdrop in the cerise silk shirt dress that was one of the new additions to her wardrobe, as were the dramatic thirties-style drop earrings.

To complete her transformation into a sophisticated stranger her hair had been tamed, with the help of Rosa, into a smooth ponytail. Perhaps sensing the importance of the occasion every curl stayed in dutiful submission during the mercifully short photoshoot.

Back in their private suite on the top floor of the villa, Maya reviewed her performance. While she had not said anything witty or wildly interesting, settling instead for polite, she had not said anything too stupid either, and she had neatly sidestepped the couple of questions that were invitations into controversial subjects.

Diego had said that Samuele would be proud of her.

She had wanted to retort that she didn’t want his pride, she required his presence.

He had promised her he’d be there, and he had let her down. She didn’t even rate a call or text to say he was running late.

‘Any luck?’ Maya stood up, the tulle layers of the dress she’d changed into for the speech-giving flaring around her as Rosa returned to the room.

The girl shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, Diego can’t get through to him either...it keeps going to voicemail.’

Maya compressed her lips. Five minutes ago the news had come that everyone had arrived and, with it, the gentle suggestion that it was not done to keep royalty waiting was left hanging in the air. She had felt a clenched fingernail away from total panic.

Fortunately, her mood had moved on. She no longer felt like hiding in a cupboard, she felt like hitting someone—all right, not someone, just the one person who had let her down, abandoned her to her fate, after he had promised to be there with her.

Just as her dad had promised he’d be back to watch her in the Christmas nativity play, but he hadn’t come back, had he? They’d told her that he wouldn’t be coming back, ever, but she had refused to believe them. She’d sat on the window seat looking down into the street, sure that his car would appear, totally sure because he had promised... Finally she’d fallen asleep and someone had put her to bed.

She’d waited the next day and the next but he’d never come.

She’d never forgotten the feeling, and all her life she’d been guided by a determination never to experience it again, until Samuele!

Even as she embraced her anger she knew it would eventually ebb and she’d just be left alone again.

There was a tentative tap on the door and the person who appeared in response to her come in revealed breathlessly, ‘The royal party has arrived.’

‘I’ll be right there.’ She knew etiquette meant she as hostess should have been there to greet them...but, thanks to her experience on San Macizo, ironically royalty was one of the few things that didn’t spook her about tonight. The same could not be said for everything else.

‘Right then, Rosa, he’s a no-show so let’s do this.’ She glanced at herself in the mirror, and decided she looked like a cross between an old-fashioned Southern belle and a lampshade. ‘But no, not in this meringue of a dress. Help me out of it, will you, Rosa?’

A wide-eyed Rosa obliged, helping Maya to slip into her second choice for tonight, which had actually been her first choice before she’d doubted herself.

Five minutes later she looked at her reflection in the same mirror and a very different Maya looked back, a much more edgy, sexy Maya.

The pretty froth of pale lemon tulle was gone, and in its place was a scarlet full-length silk slip dress; simple and dramatic, it clung lovingly to the curves of her body.

She had added a dash of old red lipstick on top of the frosted gloss she had previously applied and it didn’t take much to intensify the grey eyeshadow she wore to give it a smoky effect.

If she’d had time she would have put her hair down again, but while she had pretended an indifference to the waiting royalty, she was aware that she really didn’t have time to hang around, so her hair would have to stay in the classic chignon that it had been tamed into, emphasising the length of her slender neck.

She stood poised at the top of the stairs underneath the spotlight of a chandelier, conscious of a sea of eyes looking up at her, her heart thudding frantically. There was a split second when she wanted to pick up her skirts and run away as fast as she could.

Then she focused on one face, she had no idea who it was, but blanking out the rest worked. She got down the stairs, and the rest was a blur. She parried the obvious questions about Samuele’s absence without actually giving a straight answer, but luckily most people didn’t seem to realise it until she had moved on.

Every lie and prevarication had only built the resentful head of steam that was choking her. Perhaps he was making a blatant point that her importance in his life came way below a bunch of statues?

Her homework on the collection paid off; she was able to give intelligent responses to several questions. There were a few speeches, people said complimentary things about the evening and her...and then she was told it was her turn.

‘What?’ she whispered frantically to Diego, who had pretty much been her shadow all evening.

‘Well, officially it is—’

‘Samuele’s turn,’ she bit out.

Diego gave her an understanding look. ‘There is no need for you to do it. I could make a small speech apologising—’

She was tempted—oh, my, but she was so tempted to let him do that—but she shook her head. ‘No, that’s fine, I can do this.’

‘I’ll introduce you, shall I?’

‘That would be good, thank you, Diego.’

She actually had no idea in the world what she was going to say until she started.

‘I’m sure you’re all wondering where Samuele is—well, so am I!’

She paused for the ripple of laughter, which came satisfyingly on cue. Sometimes the truth worked better than a lie. Samuele didn’t ever explain himself to anyone, so why should she do so in his absence?

‘The fact we are here tonight is a testament to one man’s determination and single-minded vision, not to preserve this collection, but to celebrate it. Because the past is an organic living thing, which has shaped all our presents and our futures...’

She sensed Diego, who up until that point had looked ready to stage a face-saving intervention, relax. And she continued to speak.

The adrenaline was already fading before she reached the privacy of her room, having checked on Mattio and been assured by Rosa, who had an adjoining room to the nursery, that she would get up in the night if needed.

By the time Maya had closed the door it had gone completely. She could barely stand and she was shaking with anger.

She looked at the champagne in the silver bucket, the two glasses clearly ordered earlier before Samuele had got a better offer. Presumably he was somewhere celebrating his latest acquisition with someone else. A female someone else.

She walked across and picked up the bottle.

During the evening she had imagined, numerous times, the pleasure of throwing his ring in his face and walking away.

But the moment she had looked at the sleeping baby she’d known that was not an option open to her. The trouble was she’d made the mistake of equating great sex with caring, possibly even love. She shook her head at the extent of her own wilful stupidity.

She had allowed herself to believe that Samuele had started to care for her, that his tenderness in the bedroom and the closeness they enjoyed there had translated to them as a couple outside the bedroom too.

Well, tonight her self-deception had been revealed in all its horrific glory, and she only had herself to blame. She was convenient in bed; outside it, she was only there for Mattio. In fact, she was little more than a nanny with a ring.

Samuele fought his instinct to go straight to his room, but fortunately he almost immediately bumped into Diego.

The other man’s jaw dropped in shock. ‘What happened to you?’

Samuele dragged a hand across his hair to remove some of the excess moisture. ‘I fell into a river. Could you get me some dry clothes? I’ll get changed before I—’

‘Of course, of course...did you get the statues?’

‘Never actually got there,’ Samuele admitted, not adding that he’d got halfway there and turned back. With every mile he had driven the image of the expression on Maya’s face that had said she was far from fine hadn’t faded; it had got clearer, as had the excuses he had used to assuage his guilt.

Yes, the acquisition of those statues would finally give him closure over what his father had done, but at what cost? People broke promises every day, and yet he’d convinced himself he would be back in time, and that, even if he wasn’t, it would be good for Maya to face her fears.

Like you’re facing yours, had mocked his inner critic as the small pokes attacking his conscience had become a sharp knife blade.

Cursing, he had taken the return exit at the last moment and, ignoring the recalculations of the onboard satnav, he’d headed back to the city.

He’d almost made it too. He would have done, if he hadn’t glanced across at the exact moment that guy had climbed onto the railings of the bridge.

By the time he’d reached the foot of the bridge there had been quite an audience gathered. Several had been taking videos on their phones yet no one had been going near him.

‘Has someone called the police?’

‘An ambulance more like...’

‘Yes, I called them—and an ambulance.’

There was a communal gasp as the man tottered.

Samuele swore and began to climb the bank towards the pedestrian path across the bridge.

‘Keep back!’ the guy yelled hoarsely.

Hell, he looked so young! What could lead someone with their whole life ahead of them to a place like this? ‘Fine, I’m not coming nearer to you, but I’m afraid I can’t hear very well, so I’m just going to climb a bit higher.’ He put a hand up and vaulted onto the guard rail where the man stood, though still a good twenty feet away.

‘I’m not going to come any closer... My name is Samuele...and yours is...?’

‘Go away! I know what you’re trying to do!’

Which is more, Samuele thought wryly, than I do. It wasn’t really a matter of doing the right thing; it was more a matter of doing something. Something that hopefully didn’t make a bad situation even worse...

The thing was, he really thought that he was talking the man down, or at the very least injecting some level of calm into the situation, but it was the sound of a police siren that did it. One moment he was listening to Samuele tell him that he too had lost someone he loved very much and the next he had just launched himself off the bridge into the river below.

Samuele’s response had been less down to finely honed logic and more to a split-second instinct. He’d jumped in after him.

‘Sorry I left you in the lurch like that. Did you have my notes for the speech?’ he asked Diego, stripping off his wet shirt and fighting his way into the clean one that had been provided.

‘I did. But actually, your fiancée, she gave the whole speech herself.’

In the act of zipping himself into dry trousers Samuele froze and ground out a curse.

‘Actually she—’

Samuele silenced him with a hand. ‘No, it’s all right.’ Although it really wasn’t. ‘It’s not your fault. I’ll get this—’

‘But—’

‘It’s fine, Diego, leave it to me.’

Maya had kicked off her shoes but she was still wearing the red dress and she was still raging high on her second wind of fatigue-defying fury when the door opened.

She knew exactly who was standing there but she didn’t turn her head as she crammed the last item into the case and forced the lid closed before she straightened up.

‘I am so, so sorry, cara.’

‘Oh, well, then, that makes everything all right, doesn’t it?’

She moved towards him with a sexy glide of red silk that sent a surge of heat through Samuele’s body. ‘I’m sure,’ he rasped, ‘that it’s not as bad as you think. I’ll phone around and do a bit of damage control.’ He took in the significance of the cases and his expression altered, his eyes hardening. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

‘No, I’m not—you are.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t look so worried, it’s not as if you’ll have to resort to sofa surfing, but the thing is I just didn’t want to sleep in the same room as you!’

‘Dio, Maya, I know it must have been bad tonight but—’

‘You think I made a fool of myself, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, it’s always good to know what a wonderful opinion you have of me, but sorry, I don’t require your efforts in damage limitation, because I smashed it—I was a success, brilliant.’

‘That’s fantastic! I knew you could do it—’

She folded her arms across her heaving chest and directed a narrow-eyed glare up at his face. ‘Not two minutes ago, you didn’t! You thought I’d fall flat on my face and you let me do it because you’re a selfish bastard who really doesn’t give a damn about me.’

‘Look, I’m sorry but tonight—I shouldn’t have left in the first place. I should have refused to jump through hoops for the sake of the statues.’

‘Easy to be wise in hindsight,’ she sneered. ‘Tonight you did me a favour—it really brought a few thing into focus. I would walk away from you right now if it weren’t for Mattio, but he needs me, so I won’t abandon him. I will marry you, and I will do this sort of nonsense tonight, but I will not continue to share my bed with a man who cares more about a few lumps of old marble than he does about keeping p...promises he has m...made to people.’ She scrunched her eyes closed and stood there, her hands clenched into fists. ‘I will not cry over you.’

‘Oh, cara...’

Her eyes flew open again, wide, dark and stormy. ‘Don’t “cara” me! I am making the rules now. I was a very good deal for you, Samuele, and you blew it!’

‘My God, you’re so gorgeous.’ With a hunger approaching desperation, his eyes moved over the soft, delicate contours of her face.

‘Do you really think that a few compliments will make me melt into your arms? Oh, yes,’ she added, in full flow now, ‘and I have decided I want to alter the terms of our contract. That open-marriage deal you suggested? I’ve started to think it’s a damned great idea!’

It took a while for his brain to decipher the words she’d just spoken, but when it did he went pale and literally swayed where he stood.

‘Open marriage?’His woman seeing another man? His Maya, his wife, being touched, made love to by someone else? The reaction to the images in his head rippled through him like an electrical charge and his body went rigid with rejection. He scowled fiercely. ‘I don’t think so.’

A sudden need to reach out to her made him take a step forward but then she snapped out, ‘It was your idea to begin with, remember?And unlike most of your ideas, I think it’s a good one. Very civilised!’ she hissed.

‘This is all just a misunderstanding,’ he protested.

‘No, it’s not. Have you even heard a word I’ve said? I hate you!’

‘Let me explain...’ He stopped as his voice was drowned out by a loud wail.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she accused, pushing open the door into the living room that separated the bedroom from the nursery wing.

Samuele, a step behind her, stopped short when they entered the nursery, where the wail was now almost deafening. Rosa was standing there with the crying baby in her arms.

She gave Maya a look of gratitude as the baby was transferred to her.

Samuele heaved a sigh of frustration. ‘We’ll speak again in the morning.’

The first thing Maya did the next morning, after she had applied the cold compresses to her eyes to help the puffiness that was the cost of crying herself to sleep, was scroll down her phone to see if she had been as much of a success as she had boasted to Samuele.

She typed in the word Agosti and waited for the results. The news of the gala was there but preceding it was the headline: Italian Banker in Dramatic River Rescue!

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and clicked the viral video attached to the headline.

The video was still playing when she ran into the sitting room where Samuele was sitting on one of the sofas, looking as though he hadn’t slept a wink.

She looked wildly from the phone in her hand to him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I was waiting for you to wake up.’

‘You jumped off a bridge!’ She was shaking the phone at him, the video still playing.

‘There weren’t many other options, cara.’

‘Maybe not jumping off a bridge?’ Her brain had been frozen with panic, but as it started working she felt dizzy with fright. She could have lost him! ‘That’s why you didn’t arrive back on time, isn’t it?’ When she thought of all the things she’d said to him, she could have wept if she’d had any more tears left inside her. ‘Why didn’t you send me a message?’

‘My phone was at the bottom of a river and it took me some time to convince the hospital staff that I wasn’t suicidal myself.’

‘Did he...the man...did he...?’

‘The jumper survived.’ One day he might be grateful he was alive, but not last night—a fact he’d managed to communicate to Samuele as he had dragged him onto the shore before collapsing himself.

The things she’d said last night, the emotions she’d revealed, would be impossible to backpedal from. The only real option that Maya could see going forward was to explain that she’d reacted that way because she was so very much in love with him. In fact, she thought almost numbly, it would be a kind of relief to have it out in the open at last.

It would also be the kiss of death to any sort of ongoing relationship other than as Mattio’s parents. But that wouldn’t change anything either, just speed up the inevitable, because there was no way she could hide her true feelings for him for very much longer anyway. It wasn’t in her nature.

He had moved to stand beside her and she could already feel her resolve slipping as the warmth of him, the well-known scent of his body, reached out and enveloped her. She clenched her hands to hide the fact she was shaking and studied her bare feet.

‘Were you on your way to get the statues or...?’ She despised herself for delaying the moment of truth.

‘I was on my way back, but I never actually got there,’ he admitted huskily.

She looked up to see that he was right there and looking into his dark eyes made her tremble. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered.

‘I didn’t get there because I thought you needed me. As it turned out I was wrong, and you were right—you did smash it. I am so proud of you.’ He took her face between his hands. ‘I am such a fool, cara. Even as I was turning the car around to come back to you, I wouldn’t admit to myself why. I was too weak, too scared to admit that I loved you with all my heart.

‘Last night when you said you wanted an open marriage I was devastated. After you sent me away I could see my whole empty safe life stretching out in front of me without you, and all of the things I worked so hard for, they would mean nothing if you are not in my life, by my side. I know that you wear my ring already, cara, but I never asked you to marry me, not really. So, Maya, will you please be my wife and I promise I will try every day of our lives together to be the husband you deserve? But only if you stop crying, cara, because it is killing me!’ he groaned out. ‘I need you to love me back, but if you can’t I’ll spend my life trying to persuade you!’ he vowed fiercely.

Maya dashed away the tears that were running down her cheeks. ‘Samuele, I love you so much it hurts—’

She didn’t get any further than that because he was kissing her and she was kissing him back.

‘I love you,’ he murmured against her hair when they finally came up for air. ‘Have I said that already?’

She pulled back and caught his hand, lifting it to her lips, loving the way his eyes immediately darkened. ‘Some things can never be said too often. You have shadows under your eyes, my darling...’

‘I spent a very long night realising what a fool I’d been and it was only the fact that I knew you’d hardly had any sleep either that stopped me waking you up... How is Mattio? He sounded pretty upset last night.’

‘I think it was just a touch of colic.’

‘You’re going to make a wonderful mother. Oh, God, Cristiano would have been such a great father. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.’

‘You’re a great father too, Samuele. There’s nobody who will love Mattio more than you. Speaking of which, if I could love you more than I already do, I would,’ she whispered huskily as she gazed at him with eyes shining with the strength of her feelings. ‘If only Violetta—’

‘I have already disposed of that problem—oh, not literally.’ He laughed when he saw her face. ‘Not that the idea is not tempting,’ he added drily. ‘But when she heard we were getting married and were applying for full custody, she knew she’d lost because she’d already abandoned Mattio once, so she settled for a final payment instead. Everyone, it turns out, has a price.’

‘That must have cost you a lot of money.’

‘Money is not important. What is the most important thing is that she has agreed to allow us to formally adopt Mattio so he will officially be our child, and he and our other children will inherit equally.’

‘Are we going to have more children?’

‘You like the idea?’

She nodded. ‘And I will love them all equally,’ she promised with damp eyes. ‘If they grow up to be like their father, how could I not?’