by Donna Alward
“I’m glad you didn’t go into the office today. The roads are horrid.”
“Yet you came here.” She turned from the closet, amazed at herself for voicing the thought so easily. A month ago she would never have done such a thing. It was more proof just how much she’d changed since Luca had come to the Cascade. She owed him more than he knew, for shaking her out of her life that had been nothing more than self-preservation.
“I have the four-wheel drive. You only have your little car.”
“I called in to say I was doing paperwork from home. I should get dressed…”
“Mari wait.” The urgency in those two words stopped her.
“I came here to say things. Things I should have said yesterday. But you caught me off guard.”
He bent, removed his boots and padded across the hardwood to stand before her.
“My Mariella,” he whispered, lifting a hand to her cheek and cupping it.
“Don’t,” she choked, her eyes drifting shut anyway. “Luca, I can’t take it. You said all you needed to yesterday.”
But he ignored her, cupped her other cheek and dropped the sweetest of kisses on her eyelids.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I said too much, and all the wrong things. You, Mariella Ross, made me a coward, and that’s not something I like in myself.”
His breath was warm on her forehead. “You’re not afraid of anything,” she whispered breathlessly.
“I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of me, how I feel when I’m with you. And then on the drive to Calgary I realized how incredibly difficult it must have been for you to say what you did. And how you deserved better from me.”
She leaned back, searched his eyes. “And that’s why you’re here?”
“That’s what frightens me, Mari. You make me want to give you more. You make me want to be worthy and I’m terrified of failing. Again.”
“I don’t understand.”
He tugged on her hand and led her to the table and chairs that covered the space between the kitchen and living room. When she was seated he pulled a chair close and sat so that their knees were pressed together, the same way he had the night she’d told him about Robert.
“Mari, you deserve so much more than what I have to give. I hadn’t even given a thought to love, and everything that goes with that. You’re just now stepping out of the shadow of all you’ve been through. I said what I did because I was too selfish to end it like I wanted to. I wanted us to stay friends, and if not that, business associates that had shared something great.”
His thumbs grazed her knees. “You make me want things, things I haven’t wanted for a very long time. I thought I was making the right decision by leaving. For you, for me. I thought my reasons were right. But I was wrong. I had Charlie bring me back. And I spent all of last night trying to fix it.”
“You have to go to Paris.”
“No, cara. I don’t.”
He took her hands in his. She wanted to believe him, even when his words of yesterday still rang in her ears. He was here and for some reason being here was important. She had to believe that was because somehow she was important.
She absorbed how he looked; the tanned skin, the full mouth that didn’t smile, the cappuccino-colored eyes that had always been able to see into her. Somewhere along the way he’d become her ideal. She longed to cup his face in her hands and kiss him as he’d kissed her that last night in the alcove.
But he spoke, keeping her in her chair.
“You know that my mother left my father when I was very young. And though we had our father, I felt very responsible for Gina. And for my father at times as well, because I was old enough to see how our mother leaving had hurt him. Time and again I saw him ask for her love and she gave it, but the words were meaningless. He tried in every way he could but it wasn’t enough for her.”
“Did you think I didn’t mean what I said yesterday?”
“I’m not one for words, Mari. I need to be shown…I need to show. I said the words once…remember I told you about Ellie. I gave her my heart. And it wasn’t so much that I found her with someone else, you see. It wasn’t even that I learned she was only with me because I was a Fiori. It was that I’d trusted her, with my heart. It was my judgment holding me back. And I vowed not to trust it again. So when I started having feelings for you, I gave myself every justification and excuse in the book.”
Mari pictured a younger Luca, vibrant with being in love and having that crushed. She squeezed his fingers. “So you focused on work.”
“There was never a question of me working for Fiori. It is my heritage. A heritage built by my grandparents. I would feel I had let them down if I hadn’t stayed with the company. I would have felt as if I’d let myself down. I love Fiori. It is in my blood.”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there.”
He let out a little sigh. “But I spent many years focusing on my job alone, avoiding people. And I didn’t know how to have both.”
She raised an eyebrow. She had the magazines to prove that his nonavoidance was well documented. Yet she knew he did have it within him. The way he’d held her as she cried proved it. Luca was capable of great feeling.
“Oh,” he chuckled, a smile flirting at the corners of his mouth. “I did put on a good show. But I never got close to anyone after Ellie. Never wanted to. Gina got married and started a family and I kept traveling around the world, watching out for our interests. But putting on a front takes a lot of energy, Mariella. You, of all people know that.”
She rested a hand on his arm. “Yes, I do. You always seemed so self-assured, Luca. I never would have guessed you were unhappy.”
“And I wasn’t, not really. There was simply something missing.” He put his hand over hers. “I was missing roots. Which sounds foolish considering how I just told you how my family grounds me.”
“There’s a big difference between coming from roots and finding your own place.” Mari gazed into his eyes. “I know I’ll never have the former. I never knew my real father and my childhood was a nightmare. But…but I think I’ve made a place for myself here.”
“I know you have. I know it because I could see it from the beginning. You belong here. You fit. You fit in a way I never seemed to.” He looked around the cottage. “I can see you within these walls. You’ve made this into a home, one that is only yours.”
“It doesn’t mean I’m not lonely.”
“Are you lonely, Mari?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded slightly. “Yes, yes, I am. At least I was, and never knew it. You changed that for me.”
“I never expected to find you, you see.” He grabbed her hand, lifting it and kissing her fingers. “And when I did, I still didn’t believe in it. I didn’t trust in it. I had feelings for you but I pushed them away, pretended they weren’t real. I told myself it was temporary and that I’d go back to Italy and I would be fine. And then you told me you loved me.”
“I do love you.”
He looked down then, for several seconds. When he lifted his head, he said simply, “You humble me, Mari.”
He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers.
“You, the one who had every right to be afraid…you’re the one who has taught me. You’re my miracle, Mariella. And I’m terrified you’ll get up one day and realize I’m not good enough for you.”
Tears clogged her throat. She couldn’t imagine being anyone’s miracle. Not after where she came from. After all she’d endured.
“I fell in love with you, and I thought you only needed me because of your stepfather.”
She swiped a finger beneath her lashes. “Oh, Luca, how could you think that?”
“I wanted to be the one to make you see, but then you did and I couldn’t bear the thought of you with anyone else. And I knew you deserved more than me and nothing made sense. Until you were gone yesterday and it all became very, very, clear.”
“It had nothing to do with Robert and everything to do with me,”
she assured him. “You were the first person to see beyond what he’d done to me. The first person to make me forget and make me feel like it didn’t matter. The first person to make me feel like the real Mariella. You could never disappoint me, Luca. Never.”
He rested his elbows on his knees, his hands on the outside of her thighs now. She smiled; when he’d arrived he’d had a penchant for touching that she couldn’t stand and now she couldn’t get enough.
“I’ve grown weary of all the travel. I have a villa, but I’m rarely there. When I was younger it was exciting. I never wanted to settle down. I thought I had life by the tail. But things change. I changed. I started to hate having to drop things at a moment’s notice. I enjoyed building the business—being here with you and reimagining the Cascade was wonderful. And then…then my father called the morning after you told me about Robert and said I was being sent to Paris right away.”
A wistful smile fluttered on her lips. “That was why you acted the way you did?”
“There was so much going on with me. I was suddenly involved with you on a much deeper level than I was prepared for, and it scared me. I wanted to show you that none of it mattered to me. And then on the other hand was my father telling me I had to leave and I resented the order. I’d put him off the day before and it didn’t go over well with him. And I wanted to make a change and didn’t know how, and it was all tied in with these feelings for my family and for you.”
It all was starting to make sense.
“I was certain that leaving was the best thing. I didn’t want to be in love. I didn’t want to put myself in the position of letting someone hurt me.”
Mari couldn’t believe she’d ever had that kind of power. Yet here he was, clasping her hands, telling her how he felt and with every passing moment the crack he’d opened in her heart grew wider.
“I’ve never been in love before, either,” she admitted. “But it came down to knowing I’d regret it for the rest of my life. I had to tell you. And I had to ask you to love me back.”
His tongue slid out to wet his lips and Mari’s pulse thudded.
“I want to kiss you right now,” he murmured huskily, “but I need to tell you the rest first.”
“Then hurry.”
She breathed the response and again she felt the tug between them, the one she hadn’t imagined all those weeks ago.
“I spoke to my father. About Fiori, about my discontent, about you. And we talked about my mother.”
“You did?”
“A child’s wounds take a long time to heal, don’t you think? He forgave her long ago. But I never did. I always carried this bitterness with me. It made me jaded. But I need to move past it. If you can move past Robert, surely I can find a way to forgive my mother.”
Tears burned on her lashes. “You’re not the only one, Luca. I’ve been thinking about my own mother a lot lately. How can I judge her for making decisions out of fear, when I did the same thing for years?” Their hands were joined and she ran her thumbs along the base of his. “I’m going to try to find her again. I’m pretty sure the police officer that sent the letter will help me.”
They sat quietly for a moment, letting it all digest. All the changes in both of them, each brought on by the love from the other. Finally Luca spoke.
“When all was said and done, by the end of the conversation I’d resigned my position and had taken a new one. As vice president and in charge of Fiori’s North American resorts. I’ll be managing everything on this side of the Atlantic, from one main office.”
“How wonderful for you, Luca. What a fabulous job!” She smiled yet wasn’t sure how to react or exactly what it meant. North America was a big continent.
He sighed, pulling away and running a hand through his hair. “Dio, you’re tough.” He regarded her with sharp eyes before finally coming out with it. “Would you be happy anywhere else, Mari? Could you leave this place behind?”
Could she do it for Luca? She looked around her little cottage, the home she’d built from nothing. Could she leave it behind her? If it meant being with him, she knew she could.
“Yes.”
“But you wouldn’t want to. You do love it here.”
“Of course I do, but…I’m not sure what you’re asking of me. Or what exactly has happened.”
“My priorities changed, that’s what happened. Don’t you see, Mariella? It all fits now. The Cascade, that we built together. The new job and you. I love you. You give me roots. I don’t want to be anywhere else. Just with you. You come first, and everything else after that.”
She had no words. Never in a million years had she expected such a thing. At her prolonged silence, he spoke again.
“I love you, Mariella. I love you so much it scares the hell out of me.”
“No one has ever put me first before.”
“Then it’s about time, don’t you think?” His smile was tender-soft. “You are my center. Nothing else makes sense.”
He gripped the arms of her chair. “Living without you frightens me more than risking my heart. The job is mine. Where I live as I’m doing it depends on your answer.”
Tears glimmered on her lashes at his heartfelt words. “I could answer, if you asked me a question.”
He let go of the chair and stood briefly, reaching into his pocket and then kneeling before her.
“Marry me. Marry me in the ballroom we recreated together, beneath the antique chandelier we found in the attic. Share your life with me. Let us make a home together here. Please say yes.”
He held out the ring. There was no doubt in her mind that it was an antique. She stared at the brilliant emerald in the platinum setting, the glitter of inset diamonds on either side.
“It was my grandmother’s ring. She said that the emerald was a symbol of love and hope.”
She was staggered to see the sheen of moisture in his eyes.
“Don’t you see, Mari? That’s what you are to me. Love, and hope. Two things I never thought I’d ever have, certainly not together.”
“Oh, Luca,” she whispered. “I love you so much. And I never believed in happy endings. It certainly never happened for my mother. Perhaps that’s why I accepted you leaving as I did. I didn’t believe in it. But I have a chance now, to believe, to have faith. And I’d be a fool to let it go.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes. Yes, yes!”
He gripped her fingers, pulled her to her feet and into his arms.
He stamped a single possessive kiss on her lips before drawing back and sliding the ring over her knuckle.
“Mariella. It is only right that she who carries her name wears her ring. Oh, Mari, what a future we have ahead of us.”
Mari touched his face. She was safe with him, body and soul.
“Starting today.”
“Starting today,” he confirmed, and bent to kiss her again.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3454-7
HIRED: THE ITALIAN’S BRIDE
Copyright © 2009 by Donna Alward.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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