‘This is just sex,’ she whispered as he dragged his mouth to her breasts.
‘Perfect can’t-get-enough sex,’ he agreed, with a smile that said nothing of the emotional torment she was feeling.
Would she never get enough? Was this a life sentence?
Her heart skidded inside her.
And it was joy that made her smile.
She’d never be able to resist him, and maybe that was okay. In that moment, everything was perfect. But it was a perfection that couldn’t and wouldn’t last. If only Skye had known to make the most of it while she could...
* * *
‘Matteo?’
It was the middle of the night. No, it was past that. They’d made love somewhere in the early hours of the morning and then he’d carried Skye to his bed, insisting that she spend the night beside him. He couldn’t have said why it mattered so much to him, only that he liked the way it felt to have her body curled back against his, for his arm to be wrapped around her stomach. To know that their baby was there, safe and loved.
He groaned, smiling as he pressed a kiss into Skye’s warm, smooth shoulder. But it was damp, covered in salty perspiration, and the taste on his lips had him blinking his eyes open.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said with more urgency, and he focused on her face. She was sweating all over: her hair was wet, and she was pale and shaking.
‘Bella, what is it?’ He pushed out of bed and was reaching for his jeans in one movement. ‘Skye?’
She pressed the palm of her hand to her stomach and tears filled her eyes. ‘Something’s wrong!’ She said it with more urgency. ‘I’m scared.’
* * *
It was awful.
Awful for him, but so much worse for his wife. All he could do was hold her hand and whisper to her in Italian as the proof of their loss slowly left her body. He kissed her and he held her, but Skye wasn’t really in the room with him. She was stoic and brave, but she had obviously divorced her mind from the horror of what they were experiencing.
Her eyes were empty, just like her womb, just like her soul and her hopes for the future. The future they had both imagined and hoped for.
She listened to the doctor, who came to assure Skye that sometimes these things ‘just happened’. She listened to the nurses as they kindly explained that lots of women miscarried early on in their pregnancies and later went on to have healthy babies. That she had an eighty percent likelihood of carrying to term ‘next time’. She listened as her heart was breaking and her body was emptying itself of the life that she had loved with all her heart.
And only when they were alone, and an unappetising dinner had been brought with a sweet cup of tea, did tears moisten her eyes.
‘Cara...’ Matteo crouched beside her, trying to draw her eyes in his direction. But she stared at the wall with eyes that were wet and distraught. ‘Talk to me.’
She couldn’t.
There were no words.
She reached for her tea and sipped it, happy when the boiling water scalded her tongue. Pleased that the pain meant she was alive again. That she could feel.
Because inside she was numb.
She was cold, she was empty and she was alone in a way that was so much worse than any other form of loneliness she’d ever known.
The fluorescent light overhead flickered, and with each dimming it made a crackling sound. Just a low, muted buzzing. Skye heard it as though she were in a void.
A silent sob racked her body, lifting it off the bed and dropping it back down again. She turned away from him then, not wanting him to see the anguish that contorted her features.
‘Bella, per favore...’ He groaned, reaching a hand up and laying it on her thigh. She didn’t pull away from him physically, but emotionally she was cutting every cord that had ever joined her to him. She was rejecting the intimacy and rejecting him, relegating him to a portion of her mind that was never to be looked at again.
‘I want to go home,’ she said after several long moments.
‘Of course. I’m sure that will happen soon. They probably just want to observe you a little longer, to be sure you are okay.’
‘Okay?’ she repeated with soft disbelief. Then, she nodded. Because he seemed to expect it. ‘I’m okay.’ She placed the plastic tea cup onto the table beside her, staring at the ripples in the drink’s surface.
Matteo’s frown was infinitesimal and he smothered it quickly before she could see it. Not that she was looking in his direction. Her face was averted with unwavering determination.
God, her face.
She was so pale. He pushed up and sat on the bed beside her, wincing as she flinched away from him.
‘Please.’ It was just a whisper. Her fingers caught at the blanket, pulling at it awkwardly. ‘I want to leave here.’
‘Lo so, lo so.’ He reached up and ran a hand gently over her hair; it was matted and still damp from the perspiration. ‘I am sure it won’t be long.’
She spun round to face him, dislodging his touch. ‘I need you to get me out of here. Now.’
The urgency of her heart communicated itself through her words. He stood immediately. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her in that moment. ‘I’m so sorry, Skye.’
‘Sorry?’ she whispered, her eyes enormous. ‘Why are you sorry? This was my fault, not yours.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘No. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. They told you that...’
‘I want to go home,’ she said with more urgency. ‘Please.’
He nodded, a single, terse movement. ‘I’ll speak to someone.’ His eyes clung to her as he moved to the door. ‘Just wait. A moment.’
She didn’t respond. What was she meant to do?
Did he expect her to get up and try to make a bid for freedom out of the air-conditioning vent?
There were no windows in the room.
No view of the outside. And somehow that felt appropriate, as though even the beauty of Venice had turned its back on her.
When Matteo came back a few minutes later, it was with a doctor clutching a chart. Her smile was sympathetic as she studied Skye.
‘I’m happy to let you go home,’ the doctor said without preamble. ‘So long as you’ll come back in a week, or at the first sign of any complications.’
‘What kind of complications?’ Matteo responded.
‘Oh, infection. Raised temperature. Anything out of the ordinary. Okay?’
Skye bit down on her lip and nodded, though she was barely comprehending. ‘Fine. Of course. Thank you.’ The words sounded so normal, but nothing was normal. The whole world was off its axis.
‘You will take care of her?’
‘Si.’ Matteo’s single-word answer was gruff. Skye squeezed her eyes shut against it. One syllable, so full of falsity. So unnecessary.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Skye murmured, attempting a smile. It felt awful on her lips, heavy and sodden all at once. She let it fall almost instantly.
The images she had allowed to populate her mind were disintegrating, like puffs of cloud she couldn’t reach out and grab. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to picture the baby she’d imagined them having. But he was gone. That chubby face wouldn’t come to mind. She couldn’t remember the dimples she’d seen there, nor the curls of dark hair.
She couldn’t see him! She couldn’t feel him!
Panic rose inside her, and then nausea, and she reached out instinctively. Matteo was there, his arms wrapping around her, holding her. He smelled so good, so strong, and he felt so right. But he was wrong. This was all wrong.
She stiffened and pushed away from him, swallowing away the pain in her throat. There would be a time to process this. For now, Skye was in survival mode.
A water taxi was waiting to take them home, and the boat operator was far cheerier than either Skye or Matteo had tolerance for. They sat in silence, shocked and uncomprehending as the boat steered them towards Matteo’s home.
It was a clear, sunshine-filled morning.<
br />
Skye’s heart felt only coldness.
When the boat came to a stop near Matteo’s, he held a hand out for her, to help her step out. Only the fact she was still in pain and discomfort implored her to take it. Just for the briefest possible moment.
She didn’t want to touch him.
She didn’t want to feel his touch.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, staring up at the villa. The geraniums were smiling down at her, encouraging her.
She blinked away from them. She did her best to blot out the sunshine too.
‘Come, cara.’ He put a hand in the small of her back. She stepped forward, shaking him free, moving as quickly as she could towards his front door.
Everything was different.
Not like before, when she’d returned to their marriage and she’d thought herself miserable.
She was truly miserable now, and she viewed everything through the veil of that misery and despair.
It was still only early in the day, and they’d hardly slept. The last twenty-four hours passed before her eyes like some kind of movie. They’d been in Rome and she’d been so happy, looking at the hotel and imagining the way they could heal the wounds that had caused its demise. Had she hoped it might lead him to love her?
Yes.
She had felt that it was a beginning, when really it had been an end.
For what purpose did their marriage serve now? There was no love. And no baby.
And no point in her staying in Venice with Matteo.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘YOU MUST EAT SOMETHING.’
Skye didn’t smile, though a part of her remembered the number of times he’d said just that to her. But then she’d been pregnant, and his concern had made sense. He’d been worried for their baby.
Now?
She shook her head. It wasn’t his place to worry about her.
In the three days since the miscarriage, she’d survived on tea and dry biscuits, and she’d barely moved from her spot on the sofa. She stared out at Venice, but she wasn’t really looking. She was simply existing.
‘I’m not hungry,’ she said, because Matteo seemed to be waiting for her to say something.
‘But your body is recovering. You must be strong and well, Skye.’
‘Why?’ she asked, though it wasn’t really a question, so much as a word that was breathed out by her sigh.
‘Because. I need you to be well.’
Skye didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. ‘Why?’
He crouched beside her and pressed a hand into her thigh. ‘Because you are my wife.’
She flinched, as though he’d threatened her. ‘No.’
Matteo was very quiet, watching her for several long seconds, and then he abandoned the conversation. Not out of a desire to avoid it, but out of a need to avoid upsetting her further. He could see her breath becoming rushed and her cheeks flushing pink. He let it go, for the moment. ‘Would you like a tea?’
‘No.’ She turned to face him now. There was nothing familiar in Skye’s face. She was altered and broken, completely different. He could hardly recognise the woman he’d married. Her face was pale and her hair was heavy and lank. Her eyes, though, were so full of darkness and aching sadness.
His chest squeezed, as though it had been weighed down with something heavy.
‘If you have the papers redrawn, I’ll sign the hotel over to you before I leave.’
Matteo froze, his body tense, his expression incomprehensible. ‘Before you leave? Where are you planning to go, Skye?’
She turned away from him again, staring out at Venice. It was annoyingly perfect beyond the window. Sunny and bright, with blue skies as far as she could see. ‘Home. I want to go home.’
His tone had urgency. ‘You are home.’
She swallowed, her throat moving visibly. ‘No.’
‘We’re married and we live—’
She spoke over him. ‘Without the baby, there’s no point to my being here.’
‘Yes, there is!’ He was emphatic. ‘My God, Skye. This doesn’t change anything. It’s...it is all the more reason for you to stay. I want to... You can’t leave. I want us to be together. I want to have a family with you, Skye, one day. This wasn’t the right time. This wasn’t meant to be. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have other babies one day—’
‘Don’t!’ The word was a sharp hiss and she recoiled as she said it. Recoiled from him and his words, from each and every platitude designed to make her feel better but which had the exact opposite effect. ‘God, just don’t.’
‘Cara,’ he said softly. ‘You are hurting. So am I. It will take time before we feel like ourselves again...’
‘You have no idea what I’m feeling,’ she said, tilting her head to his. ‘So don’t tell me how I’m supposed to act. Don’t tell me I’m going to be like myself again.’
He nodded sympathetically, but when he spoke it was with grim determination. ‘This was my baby too. Do you think you are the only one who is grieving?’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘Are you trying to make me feel guilty now?’
He sighed. ‘No, nothing like that. But you are not alone in this.’
‘Yes, I am.’ She squeezed her eyes shut against all the pain and sadness that was choking her. ‘And I want to be alone.’ She lay back against the sofa, turning her back on him and closing her eyes.
She breathed in and out and now, with her eyes shut, and sadness filling her up; she could finally see their baby again. She could see his little face and the dimples she’d imagined he’d have; she sobbed freely, believing herself to be alone. She sobbed with all the grief in her heart. And she wasn’t just grieving their baby. It was everything. The loss of hope. Of love. Of her belief that she had found her own happily ever after.
‘You’re not alone,’ he said finally, after so long that she’d presumed he’d left. ‘I’m here with you.’
She sobbed harder, grieving their baby as well as their love. Grieving the life she’d imagined before her.
It was all a lie, just like everything about them.
‘I wish I’d never met you. I wish you’d never spoken to me.’
‘Hush, hush,’ he murmured, patting her back.
‘I hate you,’ she sobbed into the pillow. ‘I hate you so much.’
* * *
Skye wasn’t sleeping, so much as dozing fitfully. She was exhausted, yet the second she closed her eyes and drifted off she awoke in a panic, feeling as though she were drowning and there was nothing she could do to stop the water that was gushing into her lungs.
She woke in such a manner early the next day, and she noticed three things.
A small water glass had been filled with geraniums at some point and placed on the occasional table beside her. And she knew who had done it. The gesture iced her heart, for it was at once both so sweet and meaningless.
Matteo was asleep across the room, sitting in an armchair dressed in day clothes, looking as exhausted as she felt.
And she was hungry.
It was just a kernel of need, but it was unmistakable. She pushed off the sofa quietly, careful not to wake Matteo, and padded into the kitchen. There was no Melania, no one. Skye wondered, vaguely, if Matteo had told Melania. Had even asked her to give them space.
The fridge was full, as always, but when Skye opened it and looked inside she couldn’t make up her mind as to what she felt like.
She opted for a small croissant, simply because she could eat it without any preparation or fuss. She took it with her onto the terrace and stared out at the city, her stomach dropping with grief at this place that would never be her home.
‘Cara.’ The word was gravelled. She spun around, her cheeks flushing with something like guilt. Matteo looked...terrible and delicious all at once. She tamped down on the stirring of primal needs.
She wouldn’t answer their call ever again.
‘I thought you were gone.’
She blinked, turning away from him,
facing out towards Venice. ‘No.’
She felt him move behind her and braced for the inevitable physical contact. Perhaps understanding what she needed most of all, he stayed a little distance away, giving her space.
‘How are you feeling today?’
She shrugged. What words were there for how she felt?
‘Come and rest some more,’ he said softly. ‘It’s early.’
She nodded, but didn’t move. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t understand what happened.’
His throat moved as he swallowed. She caught the action and wondered at his own emotions. ‘The doctor said that, more than likely, there was a genetic abnormality within the baby. An “incompatibility with life”, she called it.’
Skye squeezed her eyes shut, the detail layering more guilt onto her wounded heart.
‘There was nothing you could have done differently.’
‘Of course there is. It was my baby. My body. I should have...’
‘There was nothing you could have done.’ He was insistent.
‘Do you know what I thought? Only a week or so ago? I told you that I wished I was having the baby with anyone but you.’ Her voice cracked. ‘What I meant was that I wished I wasn’t pregnant with your baby.’
She let the words hit their mark, strangely pleased when his face paled beneath his tan and his eyes squeezed shut for a moment.
‘I wished I wasn’t pregnant, and now I’m not.’
‘One thing has nothing to do with the other,’ he said after a moment, the words gentle.
‘I didn’t deserve the baby.’ A hollow whisper. ‘That’s why I lost it.’
‘No, stop. You must stop.’ He drew his brows together, his expression sombre. ‘Do not torment yourself with what you should and could have done differently.’ His mouth was a grim slash. ‘If either of us was at fault here, if either of us should have behaved differently, it was not you.’
He turned his attention back to the canal. ‘I am sorry, Skye. For everything I’ve done to you.’ She jerked her head around to face him, shock making the details of his appearance somehow brighter than they should have been. The grey flesh beneath his eyes; the stubble on his chin that spoke of a lack of interest in grooming, the way his mouth was drawn downward.
Bound by the Billionaire's Vows Page 14
