She didn’t want to think about Nina—it just made that stupid jealousy flare. ‘I’m going to change,’ she muttered.
‘Wonderful.’ With a vicious movement, he peeled off the path by the pool. ‘I’m going to cool off.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
KATIE SPENT THE night tossing and turning alone in her bed. She should have fallen asleep almost instantly, given she’d hardly had any sleep the night before. Instead she spent hours awake—burning up with restless regret.
They’d had a quiet dinner, talking about things that were not intimate, not important. He’d mentioned that the paperwork for White Oaks was well underway, and she’d be able to see it and sign it when they got back to London.
She’d spoken to Susan again, avoiding difficult questions by keeping the conversation about her foster mother’s new carers. Susan seemed to enjoy their company. She sounded well cared for and happy—so Katie could relax a little, right?
Surely she’d made the right decision regarding Alessandro and her...? This feverish ache would soon ease. She’d lived without sensuality all her life—she’d get used to that again quickly, wouldn’t she?
She rose early and opted to avoid both the pool and the beach, taking refuge in the garden, fossicking for fruit and herbs as she went. The plants were varied and verdant, and so diverse that she hurried back to the house to grab a basket to put her samples in.
Then she followed the crisscrossing paths through the formal gardens, eventually following one out into a forest-like area. She searched for wild herbs for a while, and then came upon another less-defined track. The small Proprieta Privata sign provoked her curiosity.
A few minutes along she saw a small cottage. It wasn’t the quarters of the couple who lived on the island full-time—that was on the other side, nearer the new mansion. This small structure was clearly much older than any of the others, and it was tiny. As she paused to look at it the front door suddenly opened—and Alessandro walked out, an open book in his hand.
As he saw her a look of genuine shock flashed on his face. He was quick to recover, but his smile didn’t quite smother the unguarded sadness in his eyes.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said hurriedly, and backed up a step, realising she’d come upon him at a private moment. ‘I didn’t mean to intrude. I was just...’
‘Avoiding me the same way I was avoiding you.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘I’ve interrupted your reading. I’ll go.’
‘No, I wasn’t even seeing the words.’
Embarrassed, she didn’t know what to say.
He seemed to gather himself and glanced at the basket she was carrying. ‘You’ve been busy.’
‘Oh, yes.’ She glanced down and belatedly realised just how much produce she’d picked. ‘I hope you don’t mind?’
‘Why would I mind?’ he growled. ‘I like it when you speak your mind, Katie. I like it when you do what you want. You don’t have to fit in to my schedule—you should feel free to do whatever you want here. I’m not going to send you away. Not because you don’t want to sleep with me, or do whatever I want. I’m not like your foster father. You don’t have to fall in line. You’re safe. Nothing you could do would make me force you to leave. Just be you.’
She blinked, then smiled, surprised and touched by his mini-rant. She wished she could slide back into that teasing banter that she enjoyed so much.
‘Nothing I could do?’
‘I’m your husband—not your boss, your gaoler. Not any kind of authority. You don’t have to ask my permission to do anything,’ he added gruffly. ‘Just do whatever you want.’
‘Okay,’ she agreed quietly.
He knew, didn’t he? That all her life she’d had to seek permission, and that too many times she’d been scared to answer back when she’d wanted to. Maybe she ought to be embarrassed that he knew how weak she was...only he didn’t seem to think she was, exactly...
He tossed the book down on an old wicker chair that stood near the cottage doorway and walked over to pick through the herbs in the basket. ‘How do you know which ones aren’t poisonous?’
‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of this thing called the internet...?
He chuckled and lifted one of the leaves to sniff it, that smile lingering in his eyes. ‘My father would wander around with bunches of herbs, or some weird vegetable he’d picked from this garden.’
‘You know, he was the one who taught me how to forage in the first place.’
Alessandro cocked his head, his eyes widening in surprise. ‘My father did?’
‘Those couple of summers he had at White Oaks, before he died.’
‘You were just a kid.’
‘That didn’t mean everyone had to ignore me.’ She shot him a sharp smile. ‘He found me in the gardens when I was hiding from Brian’s wrath one day... I think he took pity on me. He showed me some herbs and taught me various combinations.’
‘He understood your interest?’
‘He ignited it. He was an amazing man. Full of vitality and so generous.’
Alessandro scooped up the old hardback book he’d tossed down and gestured for her to sit. ‘I had no idea he talked with you—but of course he would have.’
‘He was nice to everyone. Socially gifted—like you.’ She watched as he leaned against the old wall beside her.
He stared into space, seemingly lost in thought for a long moment. ‘This was my parents’ home.’
She was confused. ‘The island?’
‘This very cottage. We holidayed here when I was little. All our summers. Weekends.’
Really? No wonder the place was so special to him.
She sat very still, not wanting to interrupt him, hoping he’d tell her something more.
‘After my mother died...my father didn’t want to come back here.’ He sighed. ‘And then he and Naomi grew closer. She’d been working at the company for a while, establishing the London office. He brought her here, but she didn’t like it.’
Katie’s eyebrows lifted. How could anyone not like it here?
‘There were too many memories of my mother.’ He answered her unasked question with a pained smile. ‘This is where Mamma convalesced when she was ill. Cancer. The hospital across the water is where she died. Naomi convinced him to sell the island just before they got married.’
Katie couldn’t hold back. ‘I can’t believe Naomi wanted to get rid of this island.’
‘She wanted everything new. She wanted him to live in England. New house. New life. More money. More success. Nothing of my mother or his heritage and their past. She wanted that wiped out. I think she was jealous of her. And I think Naomi’s request broke his heart all over again.’
Alessandro gazed towards the cottage.
‘It was the one thing I wanted,’ he said. ‘It took me years to get it back. The things are gone but the memories are here.’
She realised now that this place meant everything to him—more than his companies. More than anything. This was the one thing he’d chased and held on to.
‘My father had plans for the big house, but Mamma always loved the cottage. This was where she liked to sit in the sun and read when she was too tired to do anything else.’
Katie waited, then looked at the stunning view over the waters to the mainland beyond and not into Alessandro’s face as she finally asked a question and crossed her fingers that he’d answer.
‘She was sick for a while?’
‘Years,’ he said flatly. ‘It was hard on my father. He was managing the restaurants, expanding the food production. He wanted to make it a success and he nursed her at the same time. He’d come home late from the restaurants and do all his testing during the day, in the kitchen here. She’d sample everything for him.’
Katie smiled softly. ‘What about you?’
‘I’d try them too
.’ He half smiled.
That wasn’t what she’d meant, and he knew it. But he’d deflected her away from himself—something she realised he often did with humour. And now she knew he’d been here all through his mother’s illness.
‘You helped care for her?’
There was a long moment of silence.
‘When Mamma died, he had a kind of greyness to him... He had a heart attack a couple of weeks later. A broken heart from which I don’t think he ever truly recovered.’
Katie’s heart ached—it must have been terrifying for Alessandro. After his mother’s long illness, to have almost lost his father so soon?
‘And then Naomi...?’
‘She came out from the UK to help with the company. They got together so quickly. I think he was trying to bury his grief, to feel better. Naomi wanted him to take the headquarters to England and focus on building the market there. He married her, gave up the island, his home, and worked himself into the ground. He gave her everything until his heart couldn’t give any more. Love literally killed him.’
‘And hurt you too.’ So deeply.
No wonder he sought solace in sex—even if he denied it, that was what he’d been doing. He’d been torn from his home because he had wanted to support his father, probably while still grieving his mother’s death. Only then he’d lost him too. And then Naomi had cut him out from his father’s company.
‘I’m okay, Katie,’ he said.
‘Really? You watched your mother suffer for a long time...you looked after her with your father. That’s why you know what Susan needs—why you’re angry with Brian for not doing a decent job. You lost your mother, you lost this place, you lost him... Alessandro—’
‘Are you feeling sorry for me Katie?’
He sent her a semblance of that old wicked smile. But it had changed. It no longer hid the other elements within him. The vulnerability.
‘Because don’t. You know my life is amazing—’
‘I’m glad you have this place back now,’ she interrupted him. ‘Your parents would—’
‘I know,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s the one place I won’t part with. Never.’
‘No.’
His heart was here. Deeply hidden and huge.
‘I guess you feel this way about White Oaks,’ he said gruffly.
Not quite. When she thought of her home now it was tinged with sadness. She realised how suffocated she’d felt there.
‘I feel that way about Susan,’ she said. ‘White Oaks is beautiful, but it’s also been a prison—like you said. Full of rules. And I was always afraid I was going to get sent away.’
She understood why Alessandro had helped her now. Because he understood so much more than she’d realised. He presented this carefree playboy façade, but beneath that was a hurt guy who’d lost everything that mattered to him most.
‘What are you going to make with all that stuff?’ he asked, pointedly looking back into the basket.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Well, you’ve got to do something with it. It can’t all go to waste now you’ve picked it.’
‘Okay, I accept the challenge.’
Slowly they walked back along the path to the main house together and she desperately tried not to think about touching him. But she ached to hold him again.
‘I thought you said you leased out the island, but Vassily told me you don’t.’
Alessandro laughed, and cursed beneath his breath. ‘In the early years I did, to help make it pay. I don’t have to do that any more. I didn’t quite lie to you.’
‘No, you just didn’t want to tell me how important it is to you.’
He paused and looked at her.
She turned to face him. ‘Is it so hard admitting how much things might mean, Alessandro?’
The tension swelled between them again and he sent her a long, considering look. Then his gaze dropped to her basket.
‘Go and concentrate your dangerous thinking on the contents of that basket, Katie. I think we might both prefer the results of that.’
She actually did as he’d suggested. Working in the kitchen had always been a kind of therapy for her—a displacement activity, a distraction from difficulties.
She lost track of time as she toyed with the assortment she’d gathered, trialling different herbs both in baking and in making something decent for dinner. But she couldn’t quite shake her sadness for what he’d lost.
‘You don’t want a rest?’
She looked up as he walked back in, his face one big frown.
‘It’s been hours,’ he added.
‘It’s been a good distraction,’ she said with a rueful smile. ‘It always is. Work is for you too, right?’
‘Stop thinking you need to figure me out, Katie. I’m not that complicated. Work hard, play hard—every bit the cliché you said.’
‘Really?’ She gestured to a tray of lemon curd tartlets and tried to make a joke. ‘So, you want to sample my wares?’
There was a pregnant pause and she glanced back and caught his eye.
‘You know I do,’ he muttered ruefully.
She knew he’d bitten back worse banter. She shot a look at him and laughed.
For a moment he joined in, but his laugh soon ended on a rueful sigh. ‘The trouble is I know how good they’re going to be already. I think that once I start I’m not going to want to stop.’
He rubbed his hand through his hair and looked at her with that old, wicked amusement.
‘That is a problem,’ she agreed with a light laugh.
He bit into one anyway, and closed his eyes briefly before nodding. ‘Yeah, I knew it. These are even better than that sauce the other day. You’re very talented, dolcezza.’
‘No—’
‘Take the compliment.’
She fell silent, pressing down on her smile.
‘You tried to tell me it’s all about those heritage fruit trees. It isn’t, Katie. You’re not reliant on the orchards at White Oaks. You can make amazing creations no matter where the ingredients come from. Have more faith in yourself. Your stuff is good because it’s yours. Trust your taste. Your judgement. Make other things yours too.’ He leaned over the bench, energy suddenly radiating from him. ‘You know, I could launch a bid for Zetticci Foods...’
She stared at him in amazement.
‘A hostile take-over. They’re in a bad way. With you at the helm we could turn it around.’
She gaped for another second, then laughed. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘Maybe it’s time for Naomi to retire.’ His energy somehow seemed to increase. ‘You make a premium product, Katie. You could make a huge success of it.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘You just made me the most delicious thing I’ve eaten using little more than a few leaves from the garden. You know taste. Flavour. I believe in you, Katie. You should believe in you too.’
‘I couldn’t run a whole massive company.’
‘I’d put in a management team to support you.’
She couldn’t take her gaze off the fire in his. ‘You want the company back? The way you have your home here back?’
‘Actually, no.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s only one option for you. You could expand White Oaks if you don’t want to take on Zetticci. Or you could start something completely new. Whatever you choose, you need to make the most of your gift. You need to do something, dolcezza, you’re too talented to go to waste. And I can help you.’
He truly meant it and she was truly touched. The fact that he believed in her gave her a lift that no one had ever given her.
But she knew what would happen. As soon as she was established and the company was viable he’d get bored. He’d sell and move on... He was always able to walk away because he never became emotionally involved in anything. He’d
locked what heart he had into this place—where his history was.
‘All of those options would take months, maybe years, to really become something,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to be tied to me for that long,’ she added bravely. ‘We shouldn’t complicate this even more.’
‘I’m good at separating my business life from my personal life, Katie.’
He didn’t have a personal life. At least, not a meaningful one.
‘Yeah? Well, I can’t compartmentalise as well as you can.’ She paused. ‘I appreciate your support, but I’m not going to be your latest business project. You’ve done enough for me.’
He watched her for another moment, then seemed to withdraw. ‘Okay. Then we should go back to London. Check on Susan...face Brian. I don’t think there’s any point delaying any longer.’
She maintained her slight smile with all the control she could muster, but she’d frozen inside.
‘It will remove us from temptation too.’ A lopsided smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. ‘We’ll figure out our living arrangements. I travel a lot. You won’t have to see me all that often. I just ask that you stay at my place through the week. Weekends with Susan. Something like that?’
‘Of course,’ she readily agreed. ‘Anything.’
He shot her a look and they both laughed, that newly forming ice thawing a fraction.
She only just bit back the apology she knew he’d hate to hear. Smiling, she looked up into his face. For a moment they faced each other, frozen for a beat of time. She just knew he was thinking about kissing her. For a moment she wanted him to. He would be so easy to have an affair with, but even easier to fall in love with.
But that was the last thing he wanted, and she thought she understood why a little now.
‘Old habits are very easy to fall into,’ he said softly.
‘And very hard to break.’ She nodded.
She made herself look away from him. He was too handsome, too tempting. Smart, funny, loyal, kind...but emotionally contained.
He wasn’t the wild playboy she’d once thought he was. He was private and hurt. And actually as isolated and as alone as she.
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