would fire them. But it didn’t seem to matter how much sex he had or how many women he married, he never really got over my mother’s death. It left a hole in his life which nothing could ever fill.’
Keira couldn’t take her eyes away from his ravaged face. Had his father unconsciously blamed his infant son for the tragic demise of his beloved wife—would that explain why they weren’t close? And had Matteo been angry with his father for trying to replace her? She wondered if those different stepmothers had blamed the boy for being an ever-present reminder of a woman they could never compete with.
And blame was the last thing Matteo needed, Keira realised. Not then and certainly not now. He needed understanding—and love—though she wasn’t sure he wanted either. Reaching out, she laid her hand on his bunched and tensed biceps but the muscle remained hard and stone-like beneath her fingers. Undeterred, she began to massage her fingertips against the unyielding flesh.
‘So what do we do next, now we’ve brought all our ghosts into the daylight?’ she questioned slowly. ‘Where do we go from here, Matteo?’
His gaze was steady as he rolled away from her touch, as if reminding her that this was a decision which needed to be made without the distraction of the senses. ‘That depends. Where do you want to go from here?’
She recognised he was being open to negotiation and on some deeper level she suspected that this wasn’t usual for him in relationships. Because this was a relationship, she realised. Somehow it had grown despite their wariness and private pain and the unpromising beginning. It had the potential to grow even more—but only if she had the courage to give him the affection he needed, without making any demands of her own in return. She couldn’t demand that he learn to love his son, she could only pray that he would. Just as she couldn’t demand that he learn to love her. ‘I’ll go anywhere,’ she whispered. ‘As long as it’s with Santino. And you.’
She leaned forward to kiss him and Matteo could never remember being kissed like that before. A kiss not fuelled by sexual hunger but filled with the promise of something he didn’t recognise, something which started his senses humming. He murmured something in objection when she pulled back a little, her eyes of profondo blu looking dark and serious, but at least when she wasn’t kissing him he was able to think straight. He didn’t understand the way she made him feel, but maybe that didn’t matter. Because weren’t the successes of life—and business—based on gut feeling as much as understanding? Hadn’t he sometimes bought a hotel site even though others in the business had told him he was crazy—and turned it into a glittering success because deep down he’d known he was onto a winner? And wasn’t it a bit like that now?
‘I will learn to interact with my son,’ he said.
‘That’s a start,’ she said hesitantly.
The look on her face suggested that his answer had fallen short of the ideal—but he was damned if he was going to promise to love his son. Because what if he failed to deliver? What if the ice around his heart was so deep and so frozen that nothing could ever penetrate it? ‘And I want to marry you,’ he said suddenly.
Now the look on her face had changed. He saw surprise there and perhaps the faint glimmer of delight, which was quickly replaced by one of suspicion, as if perhaps she had misheard him.
‘Marry me?’ she echoed softly.
He nodded. ‘So that Santino will have the security you never had, even if our relationship doesn’t last,’ he said, his voice cool but certain. ‘And so that he will be protected by my fortune, which one day he will inherit. Doesn’t that make perfect sense to you?’
He could see her blinking furiously, as if she was trying very hard to hold back the glitter of disappointed tears, but then she seemed to pull it all together and nodded.
‘Yes, I think marriage is probably the most sensible option in the circumstances,’ she said.
‘So you will be my wife?’
‘Yes, I’ll be your wife. But I’m only doing this for Santino. To give him the legitimacy I never had. You do understand that, don’t you, Matteo?’
She fixed him with a defiant look, as if she didn’t really care—and for a split second it occurred to him that neither of them were being completely honest. ‘Of course I understand, cara mia,’ he said softly.
KEIRA HEARD FOOTSTEPS behind her and turned from the mirror to see Claudia in a pretty flowery dress, instead of the soft blue uniform she usually wore when she was working.
‘Is everything okay with Santino?’ Keira asked the nursery nurse immediately, more out of habit than fear because she’d been cradling him not an hour earlier as she had dressed her baby son in preparation for his parents’ forthcoming marriage.
Claudia smiled. ‘He is well, signorina. His father is playing with him now. He says he is teaching him simple words of Italian, which he is certain he will remember when eventually he starts to speak.’
Keira smiled, turning back to her reflection and forcing herself to make a final adjustment to her hair, even though she kept telling herself that her bridal outfit was pretty irrelevant on what was going to be a purely functional wedding day. But Matteo’s father and stepmother were going to be attending the brief ceremony, so she felt she had to make some sort of effort. And surely if she did her best it might lessen their inevitable disbelief that he was going to marry someone like her.
‘What kind of wedding would you like?’ Matteo had asked during that drive back from Rome after she’d agreed to be his wife.
Keira remembered hedging her bets. ‘You first.’
She remembered his cynical laugh, too.
‘Something small. Unfussy. I’m not a big fan of weddings.’
So of course Keira had agreed that small and unfussy would be perfect, though deep down that hadn’t been what she’d wanted at all. Maybe there was a part of every woman which wanted the whole works—the fuss and flowers and clouds of confetti. Or maybe that was just her—because marriage had always been held up as the perfect ideal when she’d been growing up. There had been that photo adorning her aunt’s sideboard—the bouquet-clutching image which had stared out at her over the years. She recalled visiting for Sunday tea when her mother was still alive, when attention would be drawn to Aunt Ida’s white dress and stiff veil. ‘Wouldn’t you have loved a white wedding, Bridie?’ Ida used to sigh, and Keira’s mother would say she didn’t care for pomp and ceremony.
And Keira had thought she was the same—until she’d agreed to marry Matteo and been surprised by the stupid ache in her heart as she realised she must play down a wedding which wasn’t really a wedding. It was a legal contract for the benefit of their son—not something inspired by love or devotion or a burning desire to want to spend the rest of your life with just one person, so it didn’t really count. At least, not on Matteo’s part.
And hers?
She smoothed down her jacket and sighed. Because even more disturbing than her sudden yearning to wear a long white dress and carry a fragrant bouquet was the realisation that her feelings for Matteo had started to change. Was that because she understood him a little better now? Because he’d given her a glimpse of the vulnerability and loss which
