Buying His Bride of Convenience

by Michelle Smart

  There was more hesitancy in her voice as she asked, ‘Do you want me to get presents for them?’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘Not at all. It will be nice to buy them things. They’ve been very welcoming to me.’

  Making a mental note to call his sister and tell her she didn’t need to bother buying the family presents on his behalf this year—something she’d been doing for him since she was about thirteen—he wondered what he should buy his wife.

  He’d pick Francesca’s brain about it. But what he wouldn’t do was allow his sister to buy it for him.

  Eva deserved something special and she deserved to have her husband choose it for her.

  He might not be able to eradicate her childhood memories but he could start creating new ones for her.

  * * *

  There was nothing sophisticated or muted in the way Eva had decorated their living quarters, Daniele mused a couple of days later. She’d taken him at his word and made the place look festive. So festive he could be forgiven for thinking he’d stepped into Santa’s Grotto. The Christmas tree reached the high ceiling but he could see hardly any of the fragrant pine because she’d covered practically every inch of it with tinsel and shining baubles. Decorations hung everywhere, fake snow and stars sprayed artistically over all the windows, Christmas-themed throws and cushions on the sofas and their bed, Christmas ornaments filling every other available space. There was no great theme or underlying colour as his mother always ensured in her home, and nothing matched.

  It was the gaudiest display ever and the complete opposite of what he’d imagined the usually serious and practical Eva would come up with. It was like someone had let a class of hyperactive toddlers loose on the place.

  And he’d never seen a better display. He’d never walked into the castello’s living area before and instantly smiled with pleasure.

  He’d never made love to a woman under a Christmas tree before either, but he had with Eva.

  He kept waiting for her allure to fade but it wasn’t happening. Not even walking into the bathroom to find her dyeing her hair had broken the spell she’d woven around him. He’d sat on the bathroom chair and watched, then, when the dye had been in for the allotted time, had rinsed it off for her. When he’d questioned why she didn’t go to a hairdresser to do it and had been given the answer that she didn’t trust them to get the colour right, he’d got on the phone to a contact to have a salon created for her in one of the spare rooms. When it was done in the New Year she could bring a hairdresser to the castello and give them the bottle of colourant.

  Two days before Christmas and with Eva having disappeared in one of his cars on another shopping trip, Daniele took the opportunity to go through the brief of an underground house in the Swiss Alps he’d been recently commissioned to produce and construct. It would involve excavating tonnes of earth and...

  His phone rang.

  He picked it up, saw it was his PA, and turned down the music he had blaring.

  ‘You’re supposed to be on leave,’ he scolded when he’d put it to his ear.

  ‘Daniele... Have you seen the news?’

  Something in her tone immediately put him on the alert. ‘What news?’

  ‘An exposé...’

  He groaned. This was the last thing he needed, another of his ex-girlfriends cashing in on their brief time together, and immediately thought of Eva. He didn’t want to think of her reaction if she should read it.

  ‘Who’s sold me out this time?’

  His PA cleared her throat. ‘It’s not an exposé on you. It’s your brother.’

  ‘Pieta?’ That was most unlikely. She must mean Matteo. His cousin had lived with them as a sibling for many years and people often mistook him for one of them.

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what?’ So his brother had been human after all? Well, so what? Who was he to judge? Who was anyone to judge? His brother was dead. He had no right to reply.

  Just thinking that made his brain start to burn.

  Who the hell did this woman think she was, selling out a dead man?

  ‘Daniele... Please, just have a look.’

  ‘Which paper’s it in?’

  ‘By now it’s in all of them. It’s everywhere.’

  Disconnecting his phone, he reached for his tablet and turned it on.

  Thirty seconds later he stared at it, numb with disbelief.

  * * *

  Eva got back to the castello much later than she’d anticipated. She’d gone to a specialist music shop in Florence and had ended up spending hours there.

  Now all she had to do was hide her gifts with the rest of Daniele’s presents in Francesca’s room. It was the one room he wouldn’t go into on his eternal castello modernisation quest. He seemed to earmark one room or another for a new purpose on a daily basis.

  Once put away, she closed the door behind her then went to find him.

  Their bedroom and his office were empty so she went to the living area.

  The moment she stepped over the threshold she came to an abrupt stop.

  All the happiness that had been glowing inside her drained away in an instant as she took in the devastation that had taken place.

  The Christmas decorations had been ripped down, every single one of them, and all the ornaments smashed. Shards and chunks of porcelain lay strewn across the carpet. A chair lay on its side, two of its legs broken and splintered as if they’d been bashed against something, the bureau upended too, the drawers fallen open and the contents spilled out.

  Her immediate thought was that there had been burglars, but then she saw the Christmas tree was still intact and the presents she’d spent so many hours wrapping were all whole under it.

  ‘Daniele?’ she whispered into the empty room, suddenly terrified.

  As if he’d heard her call, the door that led to the castello’s kitchens burst open and Daniele came flying into the room, a quarter-full bottle of something that looked like Scotch in his hand. Or should that be three-quarters empty? For when he noticed her standing there and his eyes met hers, the wildness in them had her convinced that he was steaming drunk.

  Staggering barefoot into the room, he said in Italian, ‘Good trip?’

  Did he not see the mess?

  ‘Daniele, what’s happened?’

  ‘What?’ He twisted round to inspect the room. ‘Oh. Yes. This. Sorry. I lost my head a little. I’ll get new decorations tomorrow. I didn’t touch the tree,’ he added, as if that was a good thing.

  Eva couldn’t have cared less about the tree. Right then she couldn’t care about anything other than her husband who was clearly in some kind of shock. Since she’d left that morning he looked like he’d aged a decade.

  ‘You did this?’ she asked, making sure to keep her voice calm and non-threatening. ‘Why? Has something happened?’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘You could say that. Yes. You could. Something. Has. Happened.’

  ‘Do you want to tell me?’

  ‘No.’ He took a drink from the bottle and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. ‘But you’re going to hear about it anyway. You must be the only person in the world who doesn’t know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  His face contorted into something ugly as he lurched towards her. ‘That my perfect brother with the perfect life and perfect wife was gay. My perfect brother was a cheating liar.’

  Utterly dumbstruck, Eva didn’t know what to say or how to react.

  That he was being deadly serious was not in doubt.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ he asked, taking another swig.

  ‘I heard you,’ she whispered.

  ‘Do you know what it means?’

  She shook her head, although she had a good idea.

  ‘It means,’ he stressed with venom, ‘that my brother was a liar. Mr Perfect who everyone always said I should live up to, who everyone always said was better than me and could do no wrong, was a cheating liar.’ And with that he
swore violently and raised the bottle in the air as if preparing himself to throw it at something.

  ‘Daniele, please, no.’ Terrified he was going to hurt himself, Eva rushed to him and grabbed his arm. The muscles were all bunched as he prepared himself to release the bottle.

  ‘Let me go,’ he snarled.

  ‘No. If you let go of that bottle now it will fall on me and hurt me. Is that what you want?’

  His bloodshot eyes filled with confusion. ‘I would never hurt you.’

  ‘Then please, my love, put it down. Don’t do any more damage.’

  Whether it was her slip-of-the-tongue endearment or the pleading he must have read in her eyes, he relaxed his arm and allowed her to take the bottle from him.

  As soon as she had hold of it she threw it onto the sofa, where it immediately spilled its little remaining contents onto the expensive fabric.

  Then she took his hands and brought them together and waited until she had his wandering, drunken attention again. He swayed.

  ‘Daniele, will you do me a favour?’

  His brow furrowed in a question but he nodded.

  ‘Come to the bedroom with me. I’m worried you’re going to fall onto this mess and hurt yourself.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘You’ll come with me?’

  She caught a sudden flash of sobriety. ‘Yes.’

  He let her lead him out of the living area where she tried to create a pathway where the least amount of debris lay.

  Her hopes that she could get him to the bedroom proved forlorn when halfway down the corridor he suddenly slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor.

  He raised his knees and put his head in his hands, swearing out loud.

  She lowered herself down on the floor to face him.

  After a long pause he rested his head against the wall, stretched his legs out so his feet lay on her lap and gave a rueful smile. ‘I’m drunk.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  She wrapped her hands around the handsome feet on her lap and gently rubbed them with her thumbs. It amazed her that he hadn’t damaged them walking over all that debris.

  He sighed and closed his eyes.

  They sat like that for an age, pained silence enveloping them, Eva doing nothing more than massaging his feet in the hope it would calm some of the demons plaguing him. Her heart wanted to cry for him.

  ‘Why did he lie?’ he asked suddenly, opening his eyes and staring at her as if she could provide the answers he craved.

  ‘Why does anyone lie?’ she answered steadily. ‘Normally it’s because the liar thinks the consequences of the truth are too great.’

  ‘What consequence would there have been for Pieta to tell the truth about who he was?’

  ‘I don’t know. The castello?’

  ‘If he wanted it that much he could have still married.’

  ‘He did marry,’ she pointed out.

  ‘He could have married honestly.’ His face contorted again and his hands clenched into fists. ‘He was in love with Alberto. They were together for over ten years.’

  ‘Alberto? The man who ran his foundation with him?’

  He nodded grimly. ‘He’s come out to the press. He’s told them everything. He has handwritten letters and photos.’

  ‘Why did he come out now?’

  ‘To stop the media hounding Natasha.’

  ‘Pieta’s wife? The one who is having your cousin’s baby?’

  Daniele blinked. Even in the thudding fog of his drunk head it occurred to him that he had never discussed Matteo and Natasha with Eva.

  Eva cast him that same gentle look again. ‘Francesca told me about them when we went shopping together the first time.’

  ‘You never said.’

  She shrugged, her eyes full of compassion. ‘I didn’t think you wanted to talk about it.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘There you are, then.’

  ‘I called him.’

  ‘Alberto?’

  ‘He told me Natasha only found out about them after she married. She’d been protecting his secret for his family’s sake. For our sake. Do you think that’s true?’

  ‘How would I know? I’ve never met her.’

  ‘Guess.’

  ‘I can’t. You know her. You tell me.’

  He swallowed and tried to picture his sister-in-law. He’d known her all his life. Pieta had homed in on her the moment she’d turned eighteen then kept her waiting for six years before marrying her. He’d let it be known he’d put off the marriage so she could enjoy her young adulthood before taking the final step when all along it had been so he could continue his affair without the added danger of a nosy wife to catch him out. He’d only married in the weeks before their father died so he could then inherit the castello and the rest of the Pellegrini estate.

  He took a deep breath in an attempt to quell the nausea roiling violently within him.

  ‘She was protecting us. Not him. She’d waited for him to marry her for six years.’

  And Eva, with her gentle touch on his feet, was protecting him now, using nothing more than her fingers and an understanding, non-judgmental calmness of voice.

  It came to him that if she’d been there when he’d first discovered the truth he would never have gone on his furious rampage.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, guilt hitting him with force. ‘All your decorations.’

  She smiled. ‘They’re only decorations. We can get more.’

  He gave a short nod. ‘Yes. We can replace them. I can’t replace my brother. I can’t ask him why he lied.’ He took a long breath. ‘You know, all my life I’ve been compared to him. My father would always tell me to be like him. Nothing I did was ever good enough on its own, it always had to be compared to him and his achievements, even when my achievements were better.’

  ‘You were rivals?’

  ‘He was my rival.’ He felt the bitterness well up in him. ‘But I wasn’t his. He had this way of speaking to me like I wasn’t a worthy competitor. Without saying a word, he let me know that he could have much more than me if only his time and energy wasn’t put into his oh-so-worthy foundation. I hated him.’

  It was the first time he’d ever admitted that, not just to another person but to himself.

  It felt good to admit the truth.

  ‘I hated him. I hated his patronising attitude. I hated that my family thought the sun shone out of his arse.’ Suddenly he looked at the calm face of his wife with fresh eyes. ‘But not you. You saw through him.’

  She didn’t shy away from his stare. ‘I thought he was a great man. I still do. But I think you’re worth a hundred of him. A thousand of him.’

  Her words were as soothing as the feel of her thumbs on his feet.

  And just as suddenly as the bitterness had bitten him, a fresh wave of nausea sloshed into its place.

  He gazed again at the only person in the world who he could ever talk so freely and openly to as he was at that moment. ‘Tell me this, wife, if I hated him so much then why aren’t I rejoicing that he’s dead? Why do I feel so...bad?’

  Her lips pulled together, a bleakness filling her eyes. She opened her mouth then closed it, then carefully moved his feet off her lap and shuffled forward to kneel at his side.

  Putting her hands on his cheeks, she stared intently into his eyes and said, ‘The reason you feel so bad is because you loved him. I’m afraid you have no choice over that. It’s hardwired into you, the same as my love for my parents is hardwired into me. I hate them. I hate what they did to me and to my sisters, but if someone had asked me when I was a child if I wanted them reported to the police or social services I would have said no. I would have been terrified of being taken away from them. I have been free of them for ten years and have never reported their abuses and why? Because for all the damage they did to me I still love them.’

  He wanted to laugh at her and tell her she was a fool to
love people who had treated her worse than an animal. They didn’t deserve her love.

  But he thought there was something in what she said. He’d had no choice about loving his brother. Pieta being gone was a pain he had never imagined he could feel.

  ‘I’m sorry for how I treated you that night when I tricked you into a date. I was in a bad place then.’ This time he did laugh. ‘I didn’t know what a bad place I was in. No wonder you told me to get lost.’

  She placed the lightest of kisses on his lips. ‘Apology accepted. Now, shall we get you to bed before you fall asleep here?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  THREE HOURS LATER, Eva got into bed. She hadn’t drawn the curtains around it. Daniele, who was fast asleep beside her, needed air. He’d thrown his clothes onto the floor, taken the painkillers with the glass of water she’d given him then fallen onto his back and gone straight to sleep. He hadn’t moved a muscle since. She’d put a fresh glass of water on the bedside table for when he woke in the middle of the night with a raging thirst. Which he would. She had no doubt about that.

  Facing him, she stared at his sleeping face and felt another wave of empathy. Those waves just kept coming.

  She knew it wasn’t the revelation about Pieta’s sexuality that had been so hard for him to learn but all the lies his brother had taken to conceal it, all the deception. She could have understood it if the Pellegrinis were old-fashioned in their view of the world but she hadn’t seen any evidence of that. Daniele had gay friends—one of them had joined them in Club Giroud and chatted happily about his own wedding plans. Francesca, who had called an hour ago to see how Daniele was and been unsurprised to hear he was passed out on the bed, had sounded completely bewildered by the revelations. Her primary emotion had been hurt that her eldest brother had felt unable to confide in her.

  Stroking Daniele’s stubbly jaw, Eva closed her eyes to another wave of emotion for her husband.

  He hadn’t wanted any of this. He’d never wanted to inherit the castello and the accompanying estate and had never wanted to marry. He’d done it for his family’s sake and had never lied about it. The people he loved knew the truth. He’d never hidden anything from them. He’d never lied to her either. He hadn’t fed her a pile of baloney to get her to marry him; he’d been completely open about his reasons. Even the priest who’d married them had known the truth but had been happy to officiate because he’d been content with their promises that they would take the vows they were making seriously.