by Pippa Roscoe
‘I am glad you have this. That you are able to have it with you. The only thing I have left...’ He paused, the stab of pain stark and foreign yet somehow strangely familiar. ‘The only thing I have that belonged to my parents is the present my mother gave to my father the night they died. It was their twelfth wedding anniversary, and she had given him the gift just before my bedtime.’ His breathing became hard, as he remembered what had happened later, but forced himself back to the present. ‘It’s burned, mostly melted and deeply damaged by the fire.’
Maria frowned. ‘Where is it?’
He shrugged his shoulder as if it were nothing, when it was everything. ‘In my bedside cabinet.’
Matthieu looked at her then and saw what he had feared since the first moment he’d caught sight of her. Somehow he’d known, even then, that she would unearth his grief, his pain...understand it even. That she would be the one to break down the walls around his heart. Walls that he had relied on for the last twenty years. Walls that he didn’t know how to live without. Because that would mean opening himself up...leaving himself vulnerable to the same kind of loss that nearly destroyed him once before.
She kissed him then, one of compassion, one of sympathy and understanding that he feared she might not want to have given when she discovered the truth about the present and what it had cost his entire family. Coward that he was, he lost himself in that kiss, deliberately stoking its fire, rousing the passion between them.
‘Matthieu—’ Her words cut off in a squeal as he picked her up entirely and took them both from the shower. Her cries turned into giggles as he set her on her feet and dried her in the most gloriously fluffy towel she’d ever touched.
‘Maria Montcour, this is absolutely no laughing matter. I take my duties very seriously.’
At his half jokingly stern words, the laughter dimmed in her mind. ‘I know,’ she said, and couldn’t help the vein of sadness running through her words. She knew he did and would. Because of who he was, because of what had happened to him, because that was the man he had become. But perhaps...not because of her.
She pushed aside the thought and reached to caress his jaw. This man who had offered her compassion and understanding for her own loss, when he seemed to hide from his own. She loved the feel of the firm proud line of it, covered by the soft swirls of the short beard he kept. Her heart leapt as he leant into her touch and placed a kiss on the palm of her hand. Then her wrist, and then down the inside of her forearm.
Surely it was wrong to want someone so much so soon after—
Her brain almost short-circuited as his thumb outlined the curve of her breast—her body so extremely sensitive and responsive since the pregnancy.
As he ran the pad of his thumb over her already taut nipple she fought the moan of pleasure that started deep within her. ‘Bed. Now,’ she commanded, wondering when she had become so empowered.
‘As you wish,’ he replied, sweeping her up off her feet and walking them to the bed where he gently laid her down and got in beside her.
Maria would remember that night for the rest of her life. Their lovemaking became just that. Loving, giving and receiving, pleasure almost indescribable as they each reached the heights of an impossible rapture. Neither were held back by doubts, or haunted by what was to come, both instead lost in pure unadulterated, endless unchecked bliss.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MARIA DIDN’T KNOW what she had expected following the night of the gala. Perhaps for her new life to go back to the strange untouched isolation that she had experienced after the wedding...but she couldn’t have been more wrong.
On the first night she’d gone to her room only for Matthieu to stalk in, pick her up off the bed, carry her to his, gently lay her down on the bed and get in beside her. All without saying a word. It happened again on the second night and Maria was too confused to want to break the strange spell that had descended on them with questions or words.
On the third night, when the baby had been unsettled and sleep elusive, he had turned on the dim lighting, lain on his side facing her and asked her how she’d made her first piece of jewellery. He’d peppered her with questions about each and every step until she had fallen asleep in the middle of an explanation about the small forge that she had used in the studio in Camberwell.
Matthieu did it again on the fourth and fifth night until Maria was half convinced that he’d be able to make the perfect bracelet without ever once having touched the tools and materials he’d need.
He hadn’t touched her, though. Hadn’t recreated the intimacies of the night of the gala and that was becoming pure torture for her. Days spent wondering, questioning, doubting... Had she imagined the connection she had felt forged the night of the gala? Had it just been what they’d needed in that moment? But if that was the case, then why would he bring her to his room each and every night...?
Each day, while he retreated to his office in Zürich, Maria walked the forests around the lake, losing herself in the beauty of the surrounding areas, the crunch of leaves beneath her feet, and the soft gentle heat of the departing summer. And each day she marvelled at the changes to her body and the child she carried. Her hands smoothed down the rounded shape hanging low within her, the weight and stretch catching her both by surprise and with something like awe. For the first time in her life, Maria had begun to wonder about her mother—as if her own pregnancy had soothed aside the hurt, and replaced it with a curious yearning ache for something she could never have, and never know.
But the tightening of clothes that had only been purchased a month before made Maria realise that she would need to return to the shops once more, her mind calculating what resources she had in her savings and hating the fact that she would either have to turn to her husband or brother for more money. Neither of which was a particularly pleasant option. For so long she had tried so hard to find her own independence, and now? She felt utterly trapped by a man who was so complicated, so tormented by his own past, yet also by a man she was beginning to see as something more than just the autocratic, albeit devastatingly attractive, isolated man she had married.
Though trapped was too simple a word to describe what her life had become. Because she did have her freedoms and, more, his focus. At night, they had begun to talk less of jewellery and more of hopes and dreams...names for the baby, plans for its future. All of which painted a picture that Maria feared was more spellbound than real, as if one wrong turn and it could vanish in the air like a wisp of autumnal mist.
She reached a part of the woodland that broke over the stunning view of Lake Lucerne towards the edge of Matthieu’s property and let out a weighted sigh, lost in the way the horizon met the mirror-smooth lake, the parallel beauty of two shades of blue so close they seemed two halves of the same whole. Something would break the harmony she’d discovered in the last week, whether it was her, Matthieu or someone else, she was sure of it. The fragile détente they had found between them...it just couldn’t last.
* * *
She returned from her walk, her muscles pleasantly aching, the pressure from the too-small waistband not so much. She reached for her phone, determined to find some better-fitting clothes online, when she saw the screen display fifteen missed calls from her brother. Fear spiked through her mind, which panicked while she hit the call button and waited to be connected to Sebastian.
Come on, come on, pick up.
When she heard his gruff voice answer she barrelled questions at him in rapid fire.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened? Are you okay?’
‘I don’t know, sis. You tell me.’
‘What?’ Maria asked, dropping into the chair by the table, relieved at least that he sounded okay.
‘Well, I don’t hear from you for a couple of months—perhaps not so unusual given your tendency to get lost in some project or other—’
Maria couldn’t help but flinch at t
he way Seb dismissed her work.
‘And then... Bam. There you are, front cover of over fifteen different magazines in several different languages, looking decidedly pregnant and apparently very much married? So you tell me if something “is wrong”, if something “has happened”, and by God, Maria, if you are okay!’
Maria knew on some level she had been blocking thoughts of Seb from her mind. Unable to find the words to explain. And she suddenly realised that she’d plunged her head in the sand and tried to ignore the reality of it all. Was this what was going to break the spell between her and Matthieu? Harsh reality?
‘Seb, I—’
Her brother’s exhale was harsh and loud in her ear. ‘You said you were in Switzerland visiting “a friend”,’ he accused. ‘Please, Maria, just tell me you’re okay.’
‘I am,’ she assured him. ‘Truly, I am.’
Over the next half an hour she lied to her brother—something she’d never done before—weaving a veil of fiction so thin over the way she had met and married Matthieu she could almost see the truth through it. But no matter what she said, it wasn’t enough. Sebastian wanted to see her, to meet Matthieu, and Maria wasn’t able to refuse the invitation, which was more of an ultimatum, to attend a dinner at his estate just outside Siena in a couple of days’ time. And suddenly thoughts and fears cascaded through her mind on an endless loop.
* * *
By the time Matthieu pulled into the sweeping drive of his estate, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to swing the car round and drive away, or throw the car into park and rush towards the wife he couldn’t quite figure out.
Ever since the night of the gala, he’d been unable—no, unwilling—to sleep in a bed without his wife. And he couldn’t explain it. It had just felt...wrong. The moment he’d taken her to his bed, he’d felt something shift within him, something that soothed the raging beast in a way he’d never experienced. It wasn’t her touch, her cries of pleasure. Unsettlingly it had nothing to do with the incredible heights of passion they’d shared. No, worse—it seemed that it was her mere presence that calmed him in a way nothing before ever had. Each night, when she couldn’t sleep, he’d asked her questions...just to hear the sound of her voice. He’d lie awake at night, just watching the rise and fall of her chest, and their child that was to be. Because the night of the gala, the way she had brushed past the dark headlines and focused on the good ones, she had shown him something that he’d never seen before. Survivor. The word still rang round his head, making him wonder if that was how their child might see him, making him want it.
He stalked down the hallway, frowning as he heard Maria’s steps taking her, what sounded like, back and forth. Matthieu was well versed in the patterns of pacing and was already frowning as he rounded the corner to find Maria turning on her heel, and twisting her hands round each other.
‘What’s wrong?’
She looked up, startled and almost guilty, then turned back to her pacing.
‘Maria?’
She shrugged a shoulder, aiming for nonchalant, he presumed, and failing miserably. ‘Oh, you know.’
‘No... I don’t, which is why I asked.’
She batted a hand in his direction without stopping her passage back and forth in the living area. If she didn’t stop she was going to make him—Fear, sudden and crashing, carved a jagged wound in his heart. ‘The baby—?’
‘Oh, God, no. Fine, the baby is fine,’ she said, stopping the movement of her feet and looking half appalled that he might have thought such a thing, before resuming her pacing.
His heart juddered and he took a few deep breaths to try and pull back the raging speed it had leapt to.
‘It’s just that...my brother... We have to go to Italy, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I don’t even have the right clothes and—’
He couldn’t help let out a laugh, now that he knew there was nothing wrong with their child, as he struggled to understand the chain of her thoughts.
‘What do clothes have to do with Italy and your brother?’
‘He knows, Matthieu. He saw a photo of us at the gala. A very pregnant, married “us”.’
‘You didn’t tell him?’
‘I...’
Matthieu felt his frown return. It wasn’t as if they’d actually talked that much about her family. He knew she had a brother, that her father had remarried after the loss of his first wife in childbirth with Maria. Had he just assumed that she had told them? Perhaps he had assumed a little too much where his wife was concerned.
‘What did he say?’
‘He wants us to visit him in Siena. He wants...to meet you.’
Matthieu managed to resist the urge to laugh this time. Clearly this meant a lot to Maria. He’d never seen her like this before—all this buzzing energy and indecision. Casting his mind back, he was pretty sure that she’d been less panicked when telling him that she was pregnant.
‘Then we’ll go,’ he said simply. And for the first time she stopped pacing.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, Maria. He’s your family, it’s important.’ Good God, did she think he was a monster that would refuse to visit her brother? But rather than seem relieved, she turned a lighter shade of pale and Matthieu sensed that there was definitely something more going on.
‘But I have nothing to wear,’ she cried.
His eyebrows shot up—he was sure he could feel them disappearing into his hairline. When had Maria ever cared about clothing?
‘Maria—’
‘And shoes! My shoes don’t even fit right now, because I’m just getting...fat. Everywhere. In places that aren’t around my child. And don’t,’ she said, spinning back to him and pointing a stabbing finger in his direction, ‘don’t for one minute dare to even think that this is hormones,’ she hissed.
‘I didn’t—’
‘Because, yes, there are hormones, lots of them!’ She was most definitely shouting now, and in that moment Matthieu was regretting the smooth planes of concrete he had loved so much and was yearning for soft furnishings to take the edge off the anger vibrating around the room. ‘So many. Making me want to eat ice cream. All. The. Time. Surely that’s what morning sickness is there for? To balance the scales. Why couldn’t I just have morning sickness?’
‘You want—’
‘Of course I don’t want to be sick, don’t be ridiculous.’
Matthieu couldn’t tell whether he wanted to laugh or cry, and sensed more than anything that Maria was also torn between the two. But he was now convinced that although there might be something to the hormones, it wasn’t everything and if he didn’t do something this conversation would end very badly indeed.
He stalked over to the freezer and hunted in the bottom drawer to find what he was looking for. He seized it with one hand and riffled in the cutlery drawer for a spoon. Returning to the small island that he strategically placed between him and his rather adorably flustered, but most definitely volatile wife, he took off the lid of the ice-cream pot.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Eating.’ He plunged the spoon into the depths of the carton and retrieved a sizable amount and consumed the entire mouthful.
‘Now? You’re eating now? When I’ve just—’
‘From now on,’ he said, around a mouthful of the cold sweet dessert and swallowing, whilst digging around for another spoonful, ‘I eat what you eat.’ He stared at her with determination and watched her expressive features as they shifted focus from whatever crazy chain of thought she’d been on, to watching him eat spoonful after spoonful of ice cream. Only, he realised too late, he was about to get brain freeze. No matter. He’d eat the whole damn tub if it would make her feel better right now.
He waited until he was sure that he had her full attention. ‘So we’re going to Italy?’
‘Sebastian has invited us for dinner at
his in two days’ time.’
‘Okay, I’ll clear my schedule. You’re okay to fly?’
‘Yes?’
‘We’ll take the jet,’ he said, and although another mouthful of ice cream was the last thing he ever wanted to see again in his life, he pushed another spoonful in his mouth. He’d been deadly serious about his declaration.
‘You...you don’t mind?’ she asked tentatively and Matthieu hated the thought that she was afraid to ask. Not just in this, but afraid to ask something that was so clearly important to her.
‘Not at all. Not if you don’t mind telling me what’s really going on here,’ he said as his stomach began to freeze from the inside out from all the ice cream. He nearly laughed as he watched her eyes lock onto the spoon he was about to put into his mouth. ‘Would you like some?’
She clenched her jaw and seemingly tried to hold herself back, until he finally watched her give in. Her shoulders dropped and she closed the distance to the island counter.
‘Yes.’
‘Yes you mind? Yes you want some?’
‘Yes to both?’ she asked, not quite meeting his gaze.
* * *
Maria sighed. From the moment Matthieu had returned home, her mouth had run away with her and her mind was hurling everything and anything into her thoughts to prevent her from facing the one thing she didn’t want to face, but in reality probably really needed to.
‘When did you get so wise?’ she asked Matthieu.
‘Probably around the time my wife said, “You need this. I need this. We need this.”’
In an instant she was plunged back into the sensations he had wrought to her body that night. The need, the passion...
‘Mind out of the gutter, wife.’
‘My hormones have a lot to answer for.’
‘And I promise, when we’ve had this discussion, your hormones can feast on my body until they’re sated,’ he growled, the dark promise in his eyes almost too much to bear.
