shrugged. “So? You already said you’re prepared to take a leave of absence from your work. Have you had second thoughts, and decided Gina and Clemente aren’t worth such a sacrifice?”
“Of course not! But—”
“But you have your own life, one you share perhaps with a lover?”
“No.”
“Then what’s so important about your schedule that everything has to conform to it, regardless of how it might affect other people’s?”
Seeing herself through his eyes, she cried passionately, “You don’t understand!”
“Then make me,” he said. “You say you want what’s best for our niece and nephew—”
“I do! I want to give them the kind of security that comes from knowing that they are deeply and irrevocably loved, even though their parents have died.”
“Which is exactly what I also want for them. So why, if we’re in agreement, are we fighting each other?”
“I don’t know!” she cried, frustration spilling over. He knocked all the starch out of her convictions with his powerful line of reasoning. “I can’t think straight when you badger me like this!”
“Is that what I’m doing, Caroline? Badgering you?”
No, you’re reinforcing a whole host of self-doubts about what I thought were entrenched beliefs in my rights, and I can’t deal with that, especially not with you sitting so close beside me that I forget to be prudent.
“Am I?” he said again, running his knuckles along her jaw in a caress so tender that it undid her.
Her vision blurred. “No,” she said, blinking furiously. “I’m feeling overwhelmed, that’s all.”
“Understandable.” Another pause followed, this one humming with a different kind of energy, before he said thoughtfully, “Given our common goal, can we not find a way to work together, instead of in opposition?”
Tamping down an improbable surge of hope, she said warily, “Exactly what is it you’re proposing, Paolo?”
“That you give me one year. Put your career on hold and take that leave of absence and live here. With me.”
“With you? You mean, in your house?”
“Exactly. At present, I own an apartment, but for the children’s sake, I would buy a villa on the outskirts of Rome. A place with a garden where they could play—one close to where they lived with their parents, so that they could attend the same school, and keep the same friends. In other words, I would make a home for them—and you.”
“You can’t possibly be suggesting that the four of us would all live under the same roof?”
“Why not?”
“Because your father wouldn’t allow it, for a start!”
“My father does not dictate my choices, Caroline. I am my own man.”
She didn’t doubt that for a moment. “Perhaps. But he’d never accept my place at your side.”
“He’d have no choice but to accept you, if you were my wife.”
“You’re suggesting we get married?” This time, there was no controlling her spiking blood pressure.
“Yes,” he said calmly, as if proposing marriage out of the blue was as common an everyday occurrence as brushing his teeth.
“But you don’t love me!”
“Nor do you love me. But we both love the children, do we not?”
“Well…yes.”
“Then is it not worth trying to give back to them a little of what they’ve lost—a home, two people who love them, a semblance of normality?”
To be his wife, to share a home with him and their children…had this not been the stuff her dreams were made of, for longer than she cared to admit? And yet, to grasp them now, on the strength of a whim, an impulse, was surely courting heartbreak all over again.
Quickly, before her foolish heart led her astray a second time where he was concerned, she said, “With a marriage in name only? I don’t think so, Paolo!”
“Nor do I. Such marriages stand no chance of succeeding.”
By then too confused to be delicate, she said bluntly, “Are you suggesting we sleep together?”
With enviable aplomb, he replied, “Why not? I admit, intimacy coupled with love makes for the best bedfellows, but between compatible, consenting adults, intimacy alone can nurture a closeness they might otherwise never know.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“Then they part as friends and go their separate ways, which is why I ask you to give me a year. If, at the end of it, we agree we cannot make the marriage work, we will end it.”
“And exactly how does that help the children?”
“It gives them a breathing space, a time to heal, among people who care about them enough to put their personal ambitions aside. At the same time, it allows them the chance to get to know you, which cannot be a bad thing if, as you say, you want what is best for them—because you surely must agree, no child can have too large a loving family.”
“I do agree. It’s this other thing you’re suggesting…this business of…of sex…”
“I’ve taken you by surprise, I know, Caroline, and I don’t expect an answer from you tonight. All I ask is that you consider my proposal.”
Consider it? Good grief, it was all she could do not to grab hold of it with both hands before he changed his mind! But his businesslike approach cooled her enthusiasm. He was proposing a marriage of convenience, even if it did include bedroom privileges, and she’d be a fool to forget that. The odds that they could make a success of such an arrangement were dim at best.
So, matching his detachment, she said, “I suppose that can’t hurt.”
“My father wants us to stay here another week, but I suggest we make it two. That should give you enough time to reach a decision, shouldn’t it?”
“I can’t imagine it’ll take me that long.”
“But if you say yes, as I’m hoping you will, the extra time will give the children the chance to get used to the idea of us being a family, before too many changes take place. Then, once they’ve accepted the idea, we can return to Rome, and concentrate on finding a place to live.”
“That makes sense, I suppose,” she said, and wondered how he managed to make what was surely a rash, improbable idea seem so utterly sane and workable.
“You were gone a long time, Paolo,” his mother said, coming out to where he leaned against the terrace
