Confessions of His Christmas Housekeeper by Sharon Kendrick

CHAPTER TWELVE

TIMESTOODSTILLin that Milanese bedroom and it was as silent as the grave.

‘Yes,’ Louise said, at last. ‘There was a baby. A baby I miscarried at fourteen weeks.’

Giacomo said nothing, just peeled himself away from her and got out of bed, disappearing into the en suite bathroom before returning, wearing a silk robe. And now she felt a tremor of apprehension because he never wore a robe, unless one of the staff was around.

‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

She tried to compose herself and not to crumble beneath what sounded like condemnation in his voice. ‘Because you specifically told me you didn’t want an information dump. You said you wanted to remember organically.’

He snapped on one of the lamps so that light flooded over them and she wished he hadn’t because now it felt as if she were in an interrogation chamber.

‘And that’s the only reason?’

Louise opened her mouth to say yes, until she realised there were two ways she could proceed with this. She could bluster and tell him that since he had kept his secrets, why shouldn’t she keep hers? But they weren’t playing a game of tit-for-tat. Hadn’t she vowed from the beginning to be honest with him?

And hadn’t he vowed to do the same?

Their marriage was clearly at its end stage—what point was there in keeping stuff from him now? Shouldn’t she confess all the things he didn’t know, even if he didn’t like what he heard? Even if it hurt to say them. ‘No, not the only reason. I was scared.’ But the lump in her throat was so big, she couldn’t get her next words out.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Scared of what?’

‘The pain of talking about it, mostly,’ she admitted, telling herself she must not break down and cry. ‘I didn’t want to revisit it. I didn’t want to have that conversation—and I thought my actions were justified. You certainly didn’t want to discuss it at the time—so why would you want to now? We were already going through some difficult times in our marriage, and when it happened you were away in America. Chicago, I think it was. There it is again—that ever-persistent inconsequential detail again!’ She wiped the back of her hand over her eyes and sniffed. ‘I couldn’t get hold of you and by the time I did, it was... Well, it was all over. And when you came back to Italy, I realised...’

‘What did you realise?’ he questioned quietly as her words faded away for a second time.

Realising that she was going to have to leave that room some time soon and it was best to make her escape by stages, Louise sat up and pulled up the duvet to cover her nakedness. But the stupid thing was that she still felt exposed beneath the glare of his burning black gaze. An unbearable sense of sadness washed over her and now it was harder to keep the tears at bay. ‘I realised that the marriage was over, too,’ she said thickly. ‘Maybe that shouldn’t have come as a shock, because we were already living on borrowed time. I was pregnant when you married me.’

‘I know.’

‘You’ve remembered that?’

‘I’ve remembered everything,’ he said.

She rubbed the edge of the duvet between her thumb and forefinger, staring at it intently before lifting her eyes to him again. ‘You probably wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t been carrying your baby, but you were adamant that you wanted to—which surprised me. But now you’ve told me about your mother, I think I can understand why. I suspect it was your own sense of responsibility which made you do it—because you didn’t want to be accused of deserting your own child, as your father had done to you. Which was very, well...decent of you,’ she added carefully.

‘Decent?’ he echoed, in a strangled kind of voice.

Louise knew she’d probably said enough and there was no reason to say any more, but something was spurring her on. Because in a funny kind of way she needed this. It felt like some strange kind of exorcism, which would hopefully rid her of the ghosts from the past and let her walk into the future unencumbered and free. She might come down with an almighty crash tomorrow, but—as Scarlett O’Hara had once said—tomorrow was another day.

‘There’s nothing wrong with decency,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s a very underrated attribute. You never said things you didn’t mean, Giacomo. You never told me you loved me. It was nothing but a practical marriage.’ She hesitated, because this was probably the hardest thing of all. ‘Do you remember what you said when you came back to Italy afterwards?’

‘I told you,’ he said flatly. ‘I remember everything.’

His face had grown so tense that Louise wondered if it had been a below-the-belt remark to remind him of this—especially now. But didn’t confession traditionally offer absolution? And maybe Giacomo needed some of that as badly as she did.

‘Tell me,’ she breathed, wondering if it was going to hurt as much this time around. ‘Tell me what you remember.’

‘It was when you were wearing that blue dress. It was the first time I’d seen you since it had happened. I remember it felt awkward. I didn’t have the right words. Maybe there weren’t any. I said...’ He paused for a moment, before continuing. ‘I said that it was probably all for the best. The miscarriage,’ he added, as if she needed that brutal clarification. ‘And that’s when you started crying.’

‘Can you blame me?’ she whispered. ‘When you said that, there wasn’t really any way back from there, Giacomo. Surely you can see that.’

‘I can see that now,’ he breathed, and now his voice seemed to crack, like a glass plunged into boiling water. ‘All I can say is how...how sorry I am.’

‘You were only being honest,’ she said. His apology had been something she’d always craved but now she realised that she was actually defending him. Had time and distance given her clarity? ‘You never planned for a baby. You never planned to get married either. And afterwards, I knew there was no reason to stay—to pin you down with something you didn’t want. I couldn’t face having that discussion and having to face yet more guilt and anguish and that’s why I left without telling you.’

‘Sì.’

He seemed to absorb this, his face like dark stone, before his jaw briefly tightened—as if he had just come to some sort of resolution. He stood as motionless as a statue, a composition of shadow and muscle, with all the glittering lights of the city behind him. He had never looked more formidable, nor more untouchable. ‘I can’t blame you for that, Lu.’ He turned to look out at the lights, before grinding out his next statement. ‘Why would you want to stay with a man who could offer you no comfort? Who could only deepen your wounds with his unthinking words?’

Louise shook her head. She didn’t want him to suffer like this. Hadn’t they both suffered enough already? ‘Giacomo?’

Silently, he turned to look at her and more than anything she wanted to remove that terrible look of desolation from his eyes.

‘What?’

‘Where do we...where do we go from here?’

‘Don’t worry, Lu.’ He gave a thin smile. ‘Your tenure as my quasi-wife can now officially be described as having come to an end.’

She blinked. ‘So...?’

The smile had vanished and in its place came a look of steely determination. ‘I think, taking everything into account, it would be best if you leave as soon as possible. Tomorrow.’

His words made all the breath escape from her lungs. ‘You...you want me to leave tomorrow?’

‘Of course.’ His voice was bland. ‘There is no reason for you to remain here, is there? And I have no desire to detain you any longer than is necessary. I have filled in the missing year and am now in possession of all the facts and for that, I must thank you.’

‘Thank me?’ she repeated woodenly.

He nodded. ‘I cannot tell you what a relief it is for me to be able to remember.’ There was a flicker of something in his black eyes. Something which was gone almost as soon as it had appeared. ‘I will arrange for a limo and my plane to be at your disposal. Once the Christmas period is over, I will ensure that our divorce is processed as quickly as possible—you have my word on that. And in the meantime, I think I’d better leave you in peace so that you can get some sleep.’ He gave the ghost of a smile, which somehow emphasised the fatigue which had suddenly harshened his features into a weary mask. ‘We seem to make a habit of getting ourselves into this complicated bedroom pattern, don’t we, Louise?’

Louise couldn’t quite believe what he was saying, or why that flat note of resolution suddenly sounded like the most depressing sound she’d ever heard. What she wouldn’t have given to have witnessed his fire or his fury. If he’d snapped at her or raged at her for not telling him about their baby sooner, she could have coped with it. Welcomed it, even. If he’d broken down and mourned that lost little life, they could have offered one another comfort. But Giacomo had been badly damaged, she saw that now. Which was why he never let that steely armour slip.

She watched him walking across the bedroom towards the door and wished she could have one last chance. What if she called out to him to ask him, please, to reconsider? Wondered aloud if they couldn’t have another stab at their marriage? But she had been determined to maintain her dignity from the get-go, and she didn’t want his final memory of her to be one of her begging him to try again.

Even so, she wasn’t a good enough actress to pin an understanding smile to her lips. She just lay back so he couldn’t see her, but he didn’t look back in any case. And when the door had shut behind him, she turned and buried her face in the pillow, her shoulders shaking with soft and helpless tears.

She didn’t know how long she lay there, crying her heart out until she had no tears left to cry. She tried to imagine her life going forward and, just like before, she was back to running up against a brick wall. She knew Giacomo would be more than fair when it came to their divorce. He would probably settle a generous amount of money on her—possibly even enough for her to start a little business of her own, if she wanted to. That had always been her plan before she’d met him, though at the time it had seemed an impossible dream.

So why did the thought now fill her with dread? She could do it—of that she had no doubt. She could do anything she wanted if she put her mind to it. Who was to say, with a lot of hard work and imagination, she wouldn’t become one of those success stories—the kind which would have inspired someone like her when she was sixteen and just leaving school?

But this vision of the future presented no allure.

She turned onto her back.

Something wasn’t right. Despite everything that had happened, it still felt unfinished.

She thought about Giacomo’s reaction to what he had learned. How calm he had been.

Too calm.

She thought about the painful flicker in his black eyes which had contradicted the cool indifference on his scarred face.

And then she forced herself to look at her own part in what had just taken place and it wasn’t pretty.

He had told her stuff tonight about his childhood which he would never have admitted before and she understood for the first time why pushing her away had always been his default mechanism. He’d never told her he loved her because nobody had ever told him. Or shown him.

Not even her. Even though she had loved him very much. She had been so busy protecting her own feelings—so determined not to get hurt—that she hadn’t had the courage of her own convictions.

A wave of resolve washed through her and she knew she had to tell him. It might be too late, but he needed to know. Because relationships weren’t a ledger, with balances and checks and careful accounting. You didn’t wait to say something until someone said it to you first.

Without bothering to contemplate the wisdom of her actions, she jumped out of bed and pulled on a robe—which Rosa had unpacked—and then set out in search of Giacomo. But he wasn’t in any of the four bedrooms.

She could feel the mad skitter of her pulse as she moved silently along the darkened corridors of the large apartment. What if he’d let himself out and taken himself off to a hotel, or a friend’s, to spend the night—so he wouldn’t have to face seeing her again?

She found him in his home office, with its four international clocks lined up on one of the walls, the seconds ticking away and with them, their lives. He was sitting staring at a screen filled with figures but his shoulders were hunched and she wondered if he was actually seeing anything.

‘Giacomo?’ she said quietly.

He turned round then, and Louise was shocked by the bleakness in his black eyes, but he quickly composed himself.

‘Can’t sleep?’

‘No. I have something I need to tell you,’ she said in a low voice.

His face darkened. ‘I think we’ve talked enough for one night, don’t you?’

But she carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the past and...well, I think it’s important to acknowledge that we were happy for a lot of the time when we were together. There was a thunderbolt, yes—but there was substance, too, because those first few months were amazing. And I’ve sort of allowed what happened subsequently to make me forget about that time. It culminated in that amazing Christmas we spent at Barton soon after we were married, which was magical.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘But when we got back here to Milan, you were different. Distant.’

‘So you said before,’ he offered coolly. ‘Don’t worry about it. I agree that it was my fault.’

‘I’m not apportioning blame, Giacomo,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m just trying to get my head around what happened. I think you cared for me more deeply than you intended—but you had no template for love, or relationships, or fatherhood. You’d been hurt so badly as a child that I don’t think you could contemplate ever feeling that kind of pain again. It was easier to reject me, than risk being rejected yourself. That’s why you pushed me away and kept on pushing. But I just took it. I just rolled over and took it, when I should have fought harder. Should have made you talk to me. I should have told you how much I loved you, which I did.’ Her voice became a little choked, because this was the hardest part of all, and the biggest gamble of her life. Dignity be damned, she thought irreverently. Didn’t Giacomo Volterra, who had been hurt so much, deserve a demonstration of her unconditional love for him? ‘Do,’ she amended quietly. ‘I do love you. Still. Very much.’

‘How can you possibly love a man who has been so cruel to you?’ he demanded, but his voice was breaking.

‘If it was cruelty, it was unwitting,’ she said softly.

Giacomo’s throat was so tight he could barely breathe because the emotions bubbling up inside him were threatening to overpower him and, more out of habit than desire, he tried to hold them back. But this time they would not be stemmed. He looked at Lu’s face, pale as the ghostly light from his computer screen, and saw all the love and understanding that any man could ask for.

Could he? After everything that had happened.

He rose to his feet and saw the way she searched his face. Saw the way she bit her lip as if she hoped—yet didn’t dare to hope. Was that because she had noticed the tears which were blurring the vision of a man who had never cried? And suddenly this felt like the hardest thing in the world to say, yet somehow the easiest. He had never said it before because he never said anything he didn’t mean. But he meant it now.

‘I love you, Lu,’ he growled. ‘But how can I possibly accept your love after everything I’ve done?’

‘You accept it because I’m giving it to you,’ she answered simply. ‘It doesn’t come with any conditions. If you still want me to go back to England in the morning, then I’ll go. I don’t want to go, but I will. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life without you—but if that’s the way it has to be, then I will deal with it. Over to you, Giacomo. The ball, as they say, is in your court.’

He shook his head, unable to hide the admiration he felt for her. ‘You are making this impossible for me!’

‘Am I? That’s good. So what are you going to do about it?’

But that was when the game-playing stopped and he caught hold of her and held her tightly—so tightly. He would never again let her go, he vowed fiercely. He carried her back to their room and once he had settled her in bed, fetched them a drink of water and climbed in beside her, he voiced something else which had been on his mind.

‘You weren’t just scared of revisiting the pain of the past, were you?’ he questioned softly. ‘There was another reason why you wouldn’t have full sex with me. You said you didn’t want us to become too intimate, but there was something else.’ There was a pause. ‘You were scared of getting pregnant again, weren’t you, Lu?’

Louise looked up into his face, thinking what a difference a day made. Before she might have refused to answer a question as direct as this, mostly as a way of protecting her feelings, or maybe not daring to own them. But she didn’t have to do that any more and neither did she want to. She wanted them to be able to communicate on every level, no matter if sometimes that made her feel uncomfortable.

‘Yes,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I don’t...didn’t.’ She looked up into his face. ‘I don’t know what you feel about having children but there’s a bit of me which is terrified of taking the risk, in case I miscarry again. And I’m not sure I could go through with it a second time. If that’s a deal-breaker for you, I will understand.’

‘There is no such thing as a risk-free life,’ he whispered, his mouth against her hair. ‘We would have the best medical care at our disposal and this time I would be by your side all the time. But you know something? We don’t have to have a baby if you don’t want to go through the worry of a pregnancy again. Whatever works is fine with me because I love you. Do you understand that? I love you and I want to stay married to you, Lu. Just like you said to me, it doesn’t come with any conditions.’ He frowned. ‘Have I said something wrong? I don’t understand. Why are you crying?’

But she was crying and laughing all at the same time and Louise shook her head. ‘This time I’m crying because I’m happy,’ she whispered, touching her fingertips to his scarred and beautiful face. ‘And because I’m lying in the arms of the man I love.’

‘Lu...’ he said, but his voice was distinctly unsteady as he bent his head and kissed her.