“You’re not his stepmother. You’re his mother. You should be with him.”
She studied his fierce expression. He wasn’t pleased, and it crossed her mind that he was accustomed to getting his way. She wondered if Valeria had ever stood up to him.
“I agree,” she said carefully. “But at the same time I don’t think moving in with you immediately is the answer,” she added, hoping her voice sounded stronger than she felt, because fear lapped at her ankles, licking toward her knees, threatening to consume her. “You were engaged to be married. That relationship only ended last night. And I…I…haven’t dated anyone since you—haven’t wanted to. But, that said, I’m not ready to just pick up where we left off. I need time. We all do.”
“So what do I tell our son? That his mother is alive but she doesn’t want to live with him?”
“No! Dom, how can you be so cruel? That’s not what I mean and you know it. I just want us to be smart. To take things slow. We have to make sure we’re able to give Adriano a safe, secure and loving home.”
She knew he’d noted the way she’d emphasized loving. And for a moment there’d been a flicker of anger in Dom’s eyes, but it was gone now. His mask was firmly in place.
“Domenico, please—we have to make sure we protect Adriano from being hurt.”
“Why would he be hurt?”
Dom wasn’t going to make this easy, was he? Diane searched his dark eyes, hoping to find an ounce of tenderness, empathy. “Because you and I aren’t children. You and I have gone through things and we remember those things.”
“And what do you remember?” he asked softly, his intense gaze never wavering from her face.
She touched the tip of her tongue to her upper lip, moistening her skin. She was nervous, oh, so nervous. “I remember what we used to be like, and how happy we were,” she said huskily. “I remember how much we laughed.” Her throat ached. “You always could make me laugh, even when I was angry with you.”
“And were you angry with me often?”
“No. Of course not. I adored you.”
“And you don’t think we can have that again?”
She wanted to be honest. She needed to be honest. But, oh, it was hard when he looked at her with those dark fathomless eyes, and with such unnerving intensity. “Not immediately, no.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” She licked her lip, struggled for courage. “Because you don’t seem like you laugh much, or even smile. And it makes me think we wouldn’t smile much together.”
“That’s an awfully large assumption.”
“You asked,” she whispered, hating how he’d put her on the defensive. The old Domenico would never, ever have done that. He had been light and warmth, everything good and kind and lovely. “What do you remember, Dom?”
Emotion sparked in his eyes, contradicting the cool, quizzical smile on his lips. “Fire. A car engulfed in flames. And you.” His smile faded. “I remember hurling myself into the fire to save you. I didn’t realize you’d been thrown free of the car, and I wouldn’t leave the car without you.”
Her eyes felt gritty. Her heart ached. “Is that what happened?”
“To my face?” he asked, his tone faintly mocking.
“No.” Yes.
His smile returned slowly, humorlessly. “I’d do it again. I have no regrets.”
“It’s too awful—”
“Living without you was even more.”
“Don’t,” she begged him, pressing her palms to her eyes, pressing back the image of him in flames. For her. Her, Diane Mayer, who was no one and nothing. Not rich, not famous, not even a true beauty. “I can’t stand this. Can’t bear to hear how you sacrificed yourself for me—”
“It was no sacrifice. It was the only thing I could do. You are my wife. You have always been everything to me—”
“No, no, no. This is exactly what we can’t do. We can’t go back, live in the past, torture ourselves over a time that’s gone and buried. We must start over. Start fresh.”
“Impossible.”
“No, not if we take our time—which is why I think it’s best if I have my own apartment while we get to know each other again. We can date. Take things slow—”
“And what about Adriano? Are you going to date him, too? See him just once or twice a week until you’re ready to become a full-time mom?”
Two spots of color burned in Diane’s cheeks. “You’re being deliberately cruel.”
“I’m being deliberately practical. We have a five-year-old son who desperately needs a mother and you’re telling me that I have to play the doting suitor and court you, woo you, to make us a family again?”
“That’s not it! I want my child. I need my child—”
“But you don’t want me?” he interrupted softly, turning his face away from her to the window.
He was right. He’d nailed it on the head. She didn’t want him. Not like this. Not when he was determined to be so hard, so unfeeling.
And yet with his face in profile, the scarred features hidden in the shadows, he looked like the Dom she’d known and loved. But that very same moment he turned his head and fixed his dark eyes on her, and he was the new Domenico. The one who harbored a beast.
Do not be intimidated, she told herself. Do not be afraid. “Adriano deserves a real family,” she said, finding her voice. “He deserves real happiness. And the only way he is to know real happiness is if we are to be not just loving parents, but loving partners.”
Dom’s expression turned mocking. “So you do want to love me?”
“I want what I lost. I want love. And, yes, I want you. But not this strange, angry you. I think the kind Domenico is still somewhere inside of you, and I think if we tried we could find him again.”
“You’re giving me an ultimatum?”
“There’s no ultimatum. Just a wish. Hope. Hope that we can find a way to make this work. Because right now it wouldn’t work. There’s no you and I. We’ve changed. God knows, I’ve changed.” Her eyes burned, but she wouldn’t cry. “Something happened to me in the months and years following the accident. Knowing you’d died. Knowing you could be taken from me like that…?. It made me…it made me—”
“Hate?” he supplied softly.
Her gaze jerked up to meet his. Hate him? Never. Ever. But mourn him? Grieve for him? Yes. Oh, yes.
The corner of his mouth curved. “Do you think you were the only one to suffer?” he demanded. “Do you think I let you go without a fight? You were my wife. My world. I couldn’t accept that God would take you and leave Adriano with me.”
His dark eyes glowed at her, and what she saw in their haunted depths stunned her. “I understand,” she breathed, finally seeing what she hadn’t before. “You hate me.”
“I don’t,” he denied.
But he did. He hated her for “dying.” Hated her for hurting him. Hated her for having that kind of power over him.
Diane drew a quick, ragged breath. If he hated her, what hope was there?
If he hated her, how could they possibly save their marriage?
CHAPTER SIX
DIANE left the table the moment she could, panic weighing on her chest, clawing at her throat.
This new Domenico terrified her. He was cold, so cold, and so deeply, tragically scarred.
It wasn’t the burn on his face that bothered her, it was his iron-plated heart.
He didn’t feel anymore, did he? It was all about duty. Necessity. Practicality. Nothing, absolutely nothing, about love.
Desperate for fresh air, Diane changed in her room, donning coat and boots, and knotting a soft violet scarf around her neck, before heading out of the palazzo. For hours she walked the narrow, damp streets that wound behind Ca’ Coducci, her mind as foggy as the mist rising, shrouding the old buildings, turning the lagoon into veils of gray.
For years all she’d wanted was Dom. To have him back. To be with him again. For years she’d dreamed of finding him, loving him, living wi
th him. And now that she had the chance she didn’t want it. Didn’t want him.
The Dom she’d dreamed of wasn’t the man she’d left in the palazzo. The Dom she’d loved was gentle. Kind.
The Domenico of today was savage. Albeit an elegant savage.
Her forehead creased as she walked, and she balled her hands into fists inside her coat pockets.
Maybe savage was too severe. Perhaps dangerous was a better word.
Could she love this new Dom? Could she live with this man?
Picturing his forbidding expression, Diane shivered again.
But Adriano… Adriano deserved both mother and father. He deserved all the happiness in the world.
Thoughts heavy, heart heavier, she climbed a small bridge’s five stone steps and, lingering at the top, watched a small motor boat approach and then pass beneath before disappearing into the fog.
Lots of couples raised children without living together. She and Domenico could find a way to share custody. She’d move to Rome, get an apartment not far from Dom’s. Adriano would be happy. She’d be sure of that.
And what about Dom? This stranger who was her husband?
He was fierce, distant, sharp, demanding.
And yet somewhere underneath that gruff, impatient exterior had to be the man she’d fallen in love with. The Domenico who’d wooed her and wed her and loved her so dearly. That good, gorgeous, sensual man had to be there somewhere. The challenge, then, was to find him.
DOMENICO EMERGED FROM the library at noon to learn that Diane had gone for a walk earlier that morning but had yet to return.
Glancing out the window, he saw that instead of lifting the morning fog had just grown thicker, and he wondered if she’d perhaps gotten turned around and was lost. Venice was a beautiful and mysterious city, but difficult for visitors to navigate.
He grabbed his coat, and had just finished requesting that his elegant speedboat be brought around when the front door opened and uneven footsteps sounded on the grand staircase. She sounded tired, he thought, going to meet Diane midway.
“Going out?” she asked him, a little out of breath.
“I was just going to look for you.”
One of her dark eyebrows arched. “Thought I’d run away?”
“It never crossed my mind,” he answered, noting how the glow of her pink cheeks made her eyes even bluer. “But I did worry you’d gotten lost.”
“Oh, I did,” she confessed with a grimace. “And I was so flustered that I tripped on a cobblestone and fell. Two elderly women rushed to my side to help me to my feet.”
Domenico, who rarely smiled, laughed out loud, the rich sound filling the soaring palazzo stairwell. “Your rescuers were elderly women?”
“Very elderly. I was mortified.”
Lips still twitching, he reached out and touched a glossy strand of her hair that had come loose from her ponytail. The tendril was cold, a little damp, and he slid his fingers down the silken length. “You must be freezing. You were gone for hours.”
“I am a little cold.”
“I know just the cure,” he answered, drawing her against him to clasp her icy cheeks in the palms of his hands.
He heard her swift intake of breath as he dipped his head to brush her lips with his, and it was like stoking banked embers. His body and senses erupted into flames.
His woman. His beautiful woman. His.
He’d die for her. He would. And he’d died without her. He had. Still not able to believe she was really here, he brushed his mouth across her lips again.
It was the lightest of caresses, not even a kiss, but it sent a shudder through him.
She felt unreal and yet fit to him perfectly. His lips brushed her cheek and he breathed her in, savoring the satin texture of her skin and the smell of her, a smell he loved more than anything. It was sweet, spicier than vanilla, floral, musk. It wasn’t shampoo or soap but her.
Oh, how he had missed her.
Desire torched his veins, consuming him, and he captured her lips to drink her in better. Her soft, lush lips quivered beneath his, stoking the flame even hotter, brighter. He ran a hand down her spine, molding her slim frame to his. She felt perfect. So impossibly right.
And it hit him then that he did feel. She made him feel.
Maybe there was hope. Maybe she could help him find his way back. Home.
Diane was home, and he’d been lost these past five years without her.
“Il mio cuore. La mia vita,” he murmured, deepening the kiss. “My heart. My life.”
She reached up to gently touch his chin, his jaw, and her touch was so soft and light it made him hot, made his body so hard he felt close to exploding. But then her fingers brushed up over his right cheek, fingertips stroking the scar, and he stiffened as if she’d thrown ice water over him.
Abruptly he pushed her away. “Don’t,” he gritted, a lock of hair falling forward on his brow as he thrust her away. He was rough, knew he was rough, and she let out a cry as he pushed her off-balance.
Swearing, Domenico grabbed for her, righted her. “Don’t touch me there.” His voice sounded as ugly as he felt. “Please.”
“Did I hurt you?” she choked.
“I ask that you never touch that side of my face. Understand?”
“Dom—”
“Do you understand?”
He waited for her to nod, and then swiftly descended the staircase to the waiting speedboat.
Diane watched Domenico take the stairs two at a time, as if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough, and it made her eyes and throat burn.
And then, instead of just letting him go, she raced down the stairs as fast as she could.
She reached the pavement just as Domenico was steering the boat away.
“You can’t treat me that way,” she shouted to him, not caring who might be listening. “I won’t be bullied.”
He didn’t hear her. Or he just didn’t care. Either way it hurt.
She’d lost him once and had learned to live without him. And just when she was okay again, whole again, he returned to her life—only nothing like before. The old Dom had made her feel safe. Cherished. But this man… He’d take her and break her heart every day and wouldn’t even care.
Angry, so angry, she stood there on the pavement, watching the luxury speedboat accelerate and smoothly cut through the water to join the traffic on the Grand Canal.
He’s not worth it, she told herself. He’s not.
Let him go.
Let him go totally.
The baby didn’t know her. The baby didn’t need her. Domenico would find another woman to be the missing wife and mother. He certainly didn’t need her.
But her thoughts were worse than the boat speeding away. Her thoughts were like a cleaver tearing meat from bone.
She was Adriano’s mother. She wouldn’t go. She couldn’t go. Which meant that she had to make this work. Make this right. If not for her, then for the child who’d never known a mother. And she would be a good mother. She’d be a very good mother.
God help me.
God help me.
God…
And suddenly in the mist she saw the burgundy and gold speedboat make an abrupt turn and head straight toward her.
She shifted her cane between her hands and rubbed her cold pink nose while waiting nervously for the boat. Dom stood tall against the pale mist, his broad shoulders set. He looked angry. And fierce. She trembled on the inside but wouldn’t run. Dom was right. She’d never run. Not from him. Love was stronger than that.
Diane held her breath as the sleek boat pulled up alongside the quay, water splashing. The pressure in her chest moved into her throat, and it was hard, so hard, to breathe.
Dom killed the engine and stared up at her, his dark eyes glowing with that strange secret fire.
“You scare me,” he said roughly, his dark eyes glowing. “You make me doubt my own sanity. And yet, as difficult as it is to be with you right now, it is a hundred times worse
to be without you.”
She swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “You were doing a good job of leaving.”
“And look how far I got,” he answered, extending a hand to her. “Come with me. Please.”
She hesitated just a moment before putting her hand into his, leaning her weight onto him as she carefully stepped down into his boat.
DOMENICO DROVE RELATIVELY slowly until they passed St. Mark’s plaza and hit open water. Then he accelerated, sending the boat flying. He’d barely looked at her since she’d boarded the boat, but Diane didn’t press for conversation. It was enough that she was here. Enough that he’d come back for her.
He might not love her, but it seemed he couldn’t live without her.
She understood only too well.
They were quickly crossing the lagoon, heading toward the Lido, the slim Venetian island which protected the rest of the lagoon from the open sea.
Away from the city the fog was lifting, and the water glimmered like a pearl beneath the wan sun. Venice in the winter was perhaps even more magical than in the summer, when Diane had been here last on her honeymoon with Domenico.
They’d stayed in Venice for two weeks, with four of those days at one of Dom’s friend’s villas on the Lido. The eighteenth-century villa fronted the sea and boasted its own private beach, and the villa staff had spoiled them endlessly: pouring champagne, serving exquisite fresh seafood lunches on the terrace, treating them to delicious homemade gelato as they sunbathed.
Those four days had been the most extraordinary of Diane’s life. They’d been absolutely perfect—lazy, sexy, happy. During the day they’d swum and laughed and kissed and napped, as the nights had been given to lovemaking.
Domenico had loved her so well, too. In his arms, against his body, close to his heart, she’d become beautiful. She’d become who she was meant to be: Diane Mayer Coducci.
“It didn’t hurt.” Dom finally spoke, breaking the silence.
But he spoke quietly, his deep voice pitched so low she had to listen closely to catch the words over the hum of the motor.
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