my whole life.’ He met her gaze steadily, refusing to be moved. Mia still looked as if she didn’t know what had hit her.
‘Alessandro, I can’t marry you.’
‘I’m not asking you to marry me this very minute.’ He tried to ignore the sharp needling of hurt he felt at her blunt refusal. ‘I understand we’ll want to get to know another before we say any vows, although the sooner we make this official, the better, as far as I am concerned. Again, for Ella’s sake.’
‘I… I can’t.’ She looked agonised, strangely torn. ‘Alessandro, I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ His voice sharpened. ‘Are you already married?’
‘No, of course not.’ She rose from the sofa, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. ‘I just can’t. I can’t be married. I can’t be married to a man like you.’
‘A man like me?’ His tone had turned icy. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ A man of low birth? A bastard? He’d heard it all before, of course, but it still hurt coming from her.
‘Just…’ Mia shrugged helplessly. ‘Someone so…rigid and in control. You’ve done nothing but order me around since I met you, Alessandro, and I can’t live like that. I can’t let myself live like that.’
Alessandro absorbed her words, as well as the despairing conviction behind them. ‘I understand your concern,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t want you to feel as if you’ve been railroaded into anything. We can leave the discussion about marriage for now. I’m not about to force you to the altar.’ The very thought was distasteful. ‘But I hope you can see the rightness of coming to Italy with me.’
‘For ever?’ Mia flung at him.
Startled, Alessandro shrugged. ‘At least for an…interim period.’
‘How about three months?’ she challenged. ‘I can just about live with that.’
‘Three months,’ he repeated. It wasn’t so long, but hopefully long enough. ‘So we can get to know one another and make sure a relationship between us will work.’
‘A relationship?’ She frowned. ‘Are you saying that we’re…dating?’ She sounded disbelieving.
‘If you are asking if there will be a physical relationship between us,’ Alessandro said after a moment, feeling his way through the words, ‘then I shall leave that up to you.’ He could certainly give her that choice.
‘You will?’
‘I won’t force you to the altar, and neither will I force you to my bed. You will come to it when it’s your choice, not my decree.’
Colour touched her cheeks. ‘So the offer’s open whenever…?’ she queried a bit sardonically.
‘I won’t deny that I still find you attractive,’ Alessandro said, meeting her gaze boldly. Perhaps if she remembered just how explosive their chemistry had been, she would be less reluctant to go along with his ideas. ‘What we shared was brief, I admit, but it was good, Mia. It was very good.’ He held her gaze, felt his own heat, and saw that she remembered just how good it had been… just as he did.
‘And what happens after three months?’ Mia asked after a long, heated moment. ‘If I decide it isn’t working?’
Everything in him resisted such a notion, but he still made himself say the words. ‘Then we will have to consider alternatives. But I hope, for Ella’s sake, such a drastic step will not be necessary.’
‘You call that a drastic step?’ Mia let out a huff of humourless laughter.
‘I do,’ Alessandro returned evenly. ‘Because it would be drastic for Ella, unable to have two loving parents in her life.’ His voice rose with the strength of his emotions. He’d only held Ella once, had barely spent any time with her, but she was his and he wanted to raise her right, give her the stability and security and yes, even the love that he’d never had growing up. ‘Why should I be content with seeing my daughter only on occasion, a deadbeat dad, and not by my own choosing? Why don’t you want Ella to have two parents fully involved in her life, loving and taking care of her? Who doesn’t want that for their child?’
‘Is that…is that what it would be like?’ She sounded so surprised that Alessandro felt stung.
‘You don’t think I would love my own child?’
‘I’m not saying that, it’s just…you’re so focused on work, Alessandro. As far as I can tell from the tabloids, you’ve never had a serious relationship.’
‘This is different.’
‘How?’
‘Because of Ella. I admit, I’ve never been interested in serious relationships before now.’
‘And I’m still not,’ Mia interjected, surprising him. ‘I’ve never wanted to get married, be tied down—’
‘Too bad you had my baby, then.’
They stared at each other, an emotional standoff, and then Mia let out a ragged sigh and sank back onto the sofa. ‘I can’t keep arguing about this.’
‘Then be reasonable. Three months. That’s all I’m asking. You wouldn’t be going back to work before then anyway.’
She stared into the distance, her expression remote and a bit weary. Then, to his immense satisfaction, she slowly nodded. ‘All right. Three months. I can give you that.’
‘Good. We can make this work,’ he said, with conviction. Mia did not reply. She stared out of the window, her expression so distant and despairing that Alessandro felt something in him shift, turn over. It was as if an emotion he’d long kept buried was stirring to life, and he didn’t like it. He realised he wanted to comfort her. He didn’t like seeing her sad, but he had no idea how to make her happy. Both realisations were disturbing. She’d given in to his demand and seen the sense in his plan. He should be triumphant, and instead he felt…unsettled.
‘You look tired,’ he said abruptly. ‘Why don’t you have a sleep?’
She turned to him, blinking slowly. ‘A sleep…?’
‘Yes, have a nap. Ella is sleeping, and I can keep an eye on her.’ He gestured to the huge bed on the other side of the suite, made into its own cosy enclave with bookshelves and potted palms to give the area privacy without compromising the stunning view. ‘Have a rest. You look exhausted, Mia.’
And we fly to Rome tonight.
He didn’t say the words, but he had a feeling she heard them anyway.
‘All right,’ Mia said after a moment. ‘I am very tired.’
‘Good. Rest.’
He watched as she rose stiffly from the sofa, exhaustion apparent in the slump of her shoulders, the lines on her face. Compassion stirred inside him. She needed help; she needed him. He just needed to make her realise it.
Mia
