Passionately Ever After

by Metsy Hingle

  “It is a lovely surprise, your Steven coming to visit you, yes?” Magdalene asked.

  “Somehow I don’t think Maria’s all that surprised to see me, Mrs. Calderone,” Steven offered in her silence.

  “It is Magdalene,” her friend chided him.

  “My apologies, Magdalene,” Steven offered gallantly and earned another smile from the older woman.

  “This is true, Maria? You were expecting Steven?” Magdalene asked.

  “No, not exactly,” Maria hedged. More like she had hoped that he wouldn’t be able to find her. Aware that both Magdalene and Louis were waiting for her to explain, she said, “When I spoke to Karen the other day she mentioned that Steven had said he wanted to speak with me.”

  Steven arched his brow at her understatement. But much to her relief he didn’t point out that he had sworn to Karen that he intended to track her down no matter how long it took him.

  Unfortunately, it hadn’t taken him long at all. Not that she was surprised, she wasn’t. After all, Steven Conti hadn’t become a millionaire before he was twenty-five by failing to attain whatever goal he’d set for himself. And according to Karen, he had been quite determined to find her—with or without her cousin’s help.

  “Well, Louis and I are happy you have come. Our Maria has been moping about since Thanksgiving. Now we understand why. Don’t we, Louis?” Magdalene asked, the twinkle back in her eyes.

  “We do?” Louis asked, a puzzled expression on his dark, weathered face.

  Magdalene rolled her eyes. “Men! Louis, our Maria has not only been missing her family. She has been missing Steven.”

  “Is Magdalene right, Maria? Have you missed me?” Steven asked, his voice somber, his eyes serious.

  Her heart ached at the longing he made no attempt to hide from her. Not trusting herself to answer him, she turned away and walked over to the fireplace. For once she failed to appreciate the beauty of the Indian blanket that hung on the wall above the stone hearth. She simply stared into the fire, scarcely aware of the heat of the flames that licked at the logs or the spit and hiss of the burning wood. She pressed a hand to her belly and searched for the right words to tell Steven about the baby.

  “Pequeña, what is wrong?” Magdalene asked. “Maria?”

  At the sound of Magdalene’s voice, Maria shook off her sadness and turned her attention toward the other woman. “I’m sorry, Magdalene. Did you say something?”

  A frowning Magdalene marched over to her, placed a hand on her forehead, then caught her fingers. “No fever. And you don’t feel chilled anymore. Are you still cold?”

  “A little,” Maria fibbed, still unwilling to reveal her protruding belly.

  Magdalene’s frown deepened. “Did you tell the doctor about these chills?”

  “Doctor?” Steven repeated and Maria didn’t miss the note of alarm in his voice. “What’s this about a doctor? Are you sick?”

  “No. No, I’m not sick. It was just a checkup,” Maria said quickly, silently pleading with Magdalene with a look to say nothing about the baby. “I’m just not used to the Montana winters and I was a little chilled when I came inside. That’s all.”

  Magdalene’s dark eyes widened slightly as understanding dawned. “Perhaps some hot chocolate will help to warm you up,” she offered, but Maria didn’t miss the reproach in the other woman’s expression.

  “Yes. Hot chocolate sounds wonderful,” Maria replied.

  “What about you, Steven?” Magdalene asked as she returned to the coffee table and began loading dishes onto the serving tray. “Would you care for another cup of coffee or would you like hot chocolate, too?”

  “If it’s no trouble, coffee would be great.”

  “No trouble at all.”

  “I’ll take another cup, too,” Louis informed his wife.

  “Why don’t you come help me in the kitchen, Louis?” Magdalene suggested.

  “But—”

  “I’m sure Steven and Maria have much to discuss. You will excuse us for a moment. Yes?” Magdalene asked and gave Maria a pointed look.

  “Of course,” Maria said.

  “Come, Louis.” Magdalene smiled at her confused-looking spouse and handed him the tray. “Perhaps you will sample the cinnamon rolls I baked earlier. I am thinking that maybe I should send some for the Christmas Bazaar at the church.”

  “Anything to help you and the church,” a beaming Louis replied, and with tray in hand, he headed for the door.

  Magdalene paused, looked back at Maria for a moment. “I will be in the kitchen if you need me, pequeña,” she said before following her husband from the room.

  Steven watched the two women exchange looks and wondered at the unspoken message that passed between them. For a moment, he could have sworn he’d picked up some strange vibes in the room, but then Magdalene was closing the door and leaving him alone with Maria.

  With the Calderones gone, the room fell silent, and were it not for the hiss of the logs burning in the fireplace, Steven was sure he could have heard a pin drop. But after months of being haunted by the memory of Maria, not even the unnatural silence dimmed the pleasure of being near her again.

  So he drank in the sight of her now. Like a starving man, he took in every detail of her appearance. Her hair was longer, he noted, falling like mahogany silk nearly to her shoulders. Her skin was paler than he remembered, but there seemed to be a glow to it now that hadn’t been there when she’d fled from Boston. Courtesy of the mountain air, he suspected. He wasn’t sure if the flush in her cheeks was due to his presence or to the heat from the fire, and decided it was probably a little of both.

  He looked into those big doe eyes of hers—eyes that he’d seen countless times in his dreams. Much to his disappointment there was the same wariness in them now that had been there the last time he’d seen her. Shrugging off his disappointment, Steven stared at her mouth. Her mouth was the same—still sultry and tempting. He couldn’t help remembering how perfectly that mouth had fit with his. How it had felt to hear those lips crying out his name when he was buried deep inside her. How those same lips had sworn that she loved him. He wanted to go to her, pull her into his arms and kiss her, hear her say those words to him again now. And because he wanted to so badly, he jammed his fists into his pockets to keep from reaching for her.

  “How did you find me?” she asked, breaking the silence.

  “Does it really matter? The important thing is that I did find you,” he told her, not wanting to admit that he’d broken a few rules in his quest to locate her. When she said nothing, he released a breath in exasperation. “I tracked you through your credit card. You used it to send flowers to your family for Thanksgiving.”

  “But how—” she began, only to answer the question herself. “The computer. You hacked into the computer system for my credit card activity.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “And if you’re going to tell me that what I did was illegal, don’t bother. I already know that. But I was desperate to find you.”

  “You could have been arrested.”

  Steven shrugged. “It would have been a small price to pay.”

  “You shouldn’t have risked it,” she charged.

  “I would have risked a lot more than that to find you,” he said honestly. “But it seems I got away with my crime. That is, unless you’re planning to turn me in.”

  “Of course I’m not,” she countered.

  “For a minute there, I wasn’t sure,” he teased, wanting to lighten the mood. Much to his regret, Maria continued to look grim. “Now that I’ve answered your question, how about answering mine?”

  Maria wrinkled her brow, causing the tiny crease along her forehead he’d noted whenever she was puzzling over something. “What question?”

  “Was Magdalene right? Did you miss me?” When she said nothing, Steven bit back the sting of disappointment and his voice was hard as he said, “It’s a simple question, Maria. All it requires is a yes or no answer. Did you miss me? Even just a li
ttle bit?”

  “Yes. I’ve missed you,” she said finally, the words little more than a whisper.

  Relief rushed through him at her reply and he started toward her. “God, Maria, if you only knew how much—”

  “Don’t,” she said, holding up her hand.

  Steven stopped in his tracks. Frustration churned inside him. Frustration and hurt. “Don’t what, Maria? Don’t tell you that I love you? That I’ve been going out of my mind these past two months without you? That I believed you when you said that you loved me? And that you damn near cut my heart out when you ran off like you did without any explanation?”

  “I left you a note,” she defended.

  “Yeah, a few paltry lines saying that you needed to get away. That you needed time to think,” he said, not bothering to keep the bitterness from his voice. He paced the length of the room, jammed a fist through his hair. He whipped back around to face her. “How do you think that made me feel? I tell you that I love you, that I want to marry you and then you disappear and tell me not to try to find you. Do you have any idea how much that hurt me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” he repeated and marched over to where she stood before the fireplace hearth. “You say you love me, then rip my heart out and throw it back in my face by running away, and all you have to say is that you’re sorry?”

  She stared up at him out of sad brown eyes. “Believe me, Steven. Hurting you was…is the last thing I ever wanted to do.”

  “Well, you did hurt me,” he fired back. Unable to stop himself, he reached for her. “I love you, Maria. And dammit, I know you love me. So why are you doing this to us? Tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, I’ll fix it.”

  “You can’t fix it,” she said and pulled away from him. Hugging her arms to herself, she turned her back to him and stared into the fire. “No one can fix it. No one.”

  The tears in her voice ripped at him. “What is it, love? Tell me what’s wrong.”

  When Maria shook her head, he turned her around to face him. Tipping up her chin, he stared into eyes bright with tears and secrets. A fist seemed to tighten itself around his heart as he studied her face. He’d always thought Maria beautiful—from the first moment he’d set eyes on her at Nicholas and Gail’s wedding. Yet there was something even more beautiful about her now, an inner glow much like the waitress at his family’s restaurant when she’d been—

  Steven yanked his gaze from Maria’s and moved down the length of her body. Emotion churned inside him as he registered the subtle differences in her appearance and demeanor. He took in the shapeless red coat that swallowed her slender frame, noted the protective way Maria’s hands rested near her middle. In the blink of an eye, all the changes in her hit him like a sucker punch. “Take off your coat, Maria,” he commanded in a voice so controlled and cool, it sounded foreign even to him.

  She stared at him, like a deer that had been caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, he thought. And he hated the fact that it was fear that he read in her eyes. “Steven—”

  “Take off the coat, Maria,” he repeated and softening his voice, he added, “Please.”

  With a patience that belied the blood racing like wild-fire through his veins, Steven watched as she slowly unbuttoned the red coat. When the last button had been loosened, she pulled off the coat and tossed it aside. She lifted her head, angled her gaze up to his and stared at him out of eyes bright with defiance.

  Steven lowered his gaze and stared at her protruding stomach. Emotions pummeled through him at breakneck speed—anger, joy, hurt. When he lifted his gaze to meet hers again, he read the regret in her eyes. And it was that regret that sent a knife plunging straight through his heart.

  “Tell me something, Maria,” he said, taking care to keep his voice soft while rage and pain warred inside him.

  “What?”

  “Were you even planning to tell me that I was going to be a father?”

  Two

  For a moment, Maria couldn’t speak. In the time she’d known Steven, she’d discovered a man with many layers. The smart, ambitious businessman who’d made his first million before he’d turned twenty-five. The kind and caring man who loved his family as fiercely as she loved her own. The passionate and tender lover to whom she’d given her virginity and her heart. But never once, not even when she’d refused to take their relationship public or to discuss his offer of marriage, had she seen Steven like this—in a white-hot fury made all the more chilling because he kept it so tightly leashed.

  Anger emanated from every pore of his being. It was there in the tight lines around his mouth, in the ticking of the muscle in his right cheek, in the hard set of his jaw. Despite her sweater and the heat of the fire, Maria shivered beneath his icy blue glare. Not because she feared Steven would harm her physically. She didn’t. She knew he would sooner cut off his arm than hurt any woman. But the contempt she read in his eyes struck her like a blow.

  “It’s a simple question, Maria. I’d appreciate an answer.”

  Maria’s head swam. Squeezing her eyes shut, she wrapped her arms around herself and fought to steady herself, searched for the right words to explain.

  “Look at me, Maria,” he commanded in a voice so soft she had to strain to hear it. “Were you even planning to tell me about the baby? Or did you think I didn’t deserve to know I was going to be a father?”

  She snapped her eyes open and forced herself to meet his gaze. “Of course you deserved to know,” she told him. “And I was going to tell you.”

  “When?” he demanded. “After the baby was born? What were you going to do? Send me a birth announcement and tack on a note saying ‘By the way, congratulations, you’re a daddy’?”

  Maria wanted to cringe beneath the contempt in his voice, but she forced herself to face his anger. After all, she reasoned, he was entitled to be furious with her. She’d had months to get used to the idea of becoming a parent while Steven…Steven had been blindsided by the news because she’d kept silent. “No. I was going to tell you before the baby was born. I swear I was,” she said, hoping he believed her. “I never intended to keep it from you, Steven. I’ve been wanting to tell you for months now—almost from the moment I found out that I was pregnant.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” he asked, anguish in his voice, in his eyes. “Dammit, Maria! How could you lay in my arms, make love with me and tell me that you love me, and then keep something like this a secret?”

  Maria ached for him. She ached for herself and for all the pain they had both suffered during the past few months. Lifting her hand, she touched his cheek. “I didn’t want to keep it a secret. I wanted to tell you. I just didn’t know how.”

  Some of the fierceness in his expression eased at her words. He turned his mouth into her palm and kissed it. At the gentle touch of his lips, Maria’s heart swelled with love for him. Oh, how she loved him, she thought. She stared at his handsome face—the sharp angles of his jaw, the proud chin, the sweep of dark lashes that covered his too-serious blue eyes. In the firelight, his black hair gleamed like polished onyx and she had to quell the urge to brush back that errant strand that always fell across his forehead. Instead she somehow found her voice and said, “I’m sorry. I never meant for you to find out about the baby this way. I had hoped…I had planned—”

  “Shh. It doesn’t matter now,” he said and reached for her other hand. His eyes never left hers as he brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them again. “All that matters is that we’re together now, and that we’re going to have a baby. A baby,” he repeated, his voice filled with awe. “I still can’t believe it. We’re actually going to have a baby.”

  “Steven—”

  He silenced her with a kiss. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been going through these past months? All the things that went through my head when you left that note and disappeared. I was so angry with your family. I was sure that they had found out about us and forced you to go away.”


  “No, they didn’t,” she began. “It wasn’t them. It was me. It was all my idea.”

  “Yeah. I figured that out after talking to Karen last week. But there was a part of me that didn’t want to believe you could do that—just up and leave me the way you did, not after what we’d shared.”

  Guilt tugged at her. “It wasn’t easy. I…I didn’t know what else to do. I thought if I could get away, that if I had some time alone to think…”

  “That’s what Karen said. But it didn’t stop me from worrying that maybe you’d had second thoughts about us, that you’d begun to believe the things your family had been saying about the Contis sabotaging Baronessa Gelati. I thought…I was afraid that you hated me. That you’d regretted what we’d shared.” He swallowed and continued, “I was afraid that you’d regretted loving me.”

  “No,” she told him honestly, and unable to stop herself, she brought her palm to his cheek. When he once again turned his face and kissed her palm, she didn’t withdraw. Regret loving him? No, she thought. It would have been easier for her to not take her next breath than to ever regret falling in love with him. Growing up with both her grandparents and parents as examples of what real love was all about, she knew what she felt for Steven was real. In fact, she doubted that she’d even had a choice when it came to loving him. She simply did—had almost from the moment they’d first met. And while she regretted the problems and the heartache their love would cause their families, she couldn’t ever regret the love they’d found with each other. How could she when the child growing inside was a result of that love? Their baby was a beautiful miracle, a gift she would always cherish, just as she would always cherish having been loved by Steven. “I’ve never regretted loving you. Never. Not even for a minute.”

  “Thank God,” he said, and as though her reply had opened some floodgate of emotion inside him, he pulled her into his arms.

  After so many months without him, Maria reveled in the feel of Steven’s arms around her again. This time when he lowered his head to kiss her, she made no attempt to deny him or herself.