Her eyes were filling with tears as she faced him. ‘Do you have any idea of what it’s like to come home to a fully prepared nursery when you’ve just lost the baby you longed for with all of your heart? Do you?’
Giorgio swallowed what felt like a coil of barbed wire. But he didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The words were somehow stuck in amongst those cruel barbs, scraping his throat, tearing at him with those awful dagger-like teeth.
‘Four times,’ she said, holding up four slim shaking fingers. ‘Four times I did exactly that. I came home to teddy bears and toys and Babygro suits and b—booties I’d knitted myself. I felt such a fool, such a failure. I felt I had jinxed the baby’s future by assuming too much too soon. I am not going to make that mistake again. Never. Not until I hold this baby in my arms am I going to buy a single item and nor will I let anyone, most of all you, buy them for me.’
Finally Giorgio found his voice. ‘Cara, I am so sorry. I should have thought.’ He swallowed and lifted his hand to rake through his hair but it was shaking so much he let it drop uselessly by his side. ‘I can’t believe how stupid I have been. I should have known you felt this way. I was trying to be positive but it’s not what you need right now, is it? It’s not what you needed before either. What you needed was someone to meet you where you are emotionally.’
She nodded on a broken sob as his arms came around her to hold her close. He held her like that for long painful minutes, his own eyes moist with burning tears of regret of how badly he had handled everything.
No wonder she hated him.
No wonder she kept threatening to leave him.
He had not shown her how deeply he felt for her, for what she had gone through, for what she was still going through, with the uncertainty she felt was hanging over her with this pregnancy, even though the doctor had reassured her that everything was going according to plan.
For Maya, given what she had been through, she could not allow herself to relax until she was holding that baby. It was less than twenty-five weeks until she could do so, but that was a lot of days of worrying to get through.
It was going to be a long wait, for both of them.
‘Maya,’ he said, holding her in the circle of his arms, his eyes meshing with hers. ‘Forgive me for being so insensitive to your needs. Let me try and make it up to you. I am not sure how I can, but I am going to try.’
She gave him a weak smile but her eyes were still shadowed with sadness. ‘It probably sounds so superstitious to someone like you who deals with solid evidence, but I just can’t help it. I don’t want anything to steal this chance of happiness from me. I have wanted to be a mother for so long. I look at Bronte and I feel so envious. I look at every woman with a child or two or three and feel like screaming with frustration that I haven’t been able to do this one thing that just about everyone takes for granted.’
‘We will get through this, Maya,’ he said, his fingers encircling her wrists, his thumbs stroking the sensitive skin underneath.
‘You are always so confident of getting what you want,’ she said with a little downward turn of her mouth.
‘I haven’t always had everything my way,’ Giorgio said, thinking of how he’d felt the day he had found her note.
He had immediately switched off his feelings, as he did in times of stress. He had operated like an automaton, going through the motions as if the divorce was an annoying business deal he had to negotiate his way through. But on the inside he’d been screaming with frustration and injured pride. He had failed and the world was about to witness it and there had been nothing he could have done to stop it. He had cringed every time he had seen it mentioned in the press. His shipwrecked marriage had become gossip fodder, lining the pockets of unscrupulous journalists who wanted sensationalism, not the truth.
‘You get your way most of the time, though,’ Maya said. ‘Like getting me back into your life, for instance. You weren’t going to take no for an answer, were you?’
‘That is true,’ he said, bringing her hands up to his mouth, kissing both of them in turn. ‘But then, that is where you belong, is it not?’
Maya knew there was no point in answering to the contrary. Instead, she lifted her mouth to meet the descent of his and gave herself up to the dream that, this time around, everything would work out the way she wanted it to.
Chapter Fifteen
THE charity ball was a huge affair that involved Giorgio making a speech about the work he was committed to doing for an orphanage he had set up in Africa.
Maya listened with rapt attention. She’d had no idea he had been involved in such a life-changing project for the little ones she saw on the PowerPoint presentation he had prepared.
Her heart ached for the tiny, soulful, dark-eyed infants who appeared on the screen. They had lost their parents through civil war and would have had no chance to survive if it hadn’t been for the philanthropic efforts of people like Giorgio and his team of dedicated volunteers. The children were being lovingly cared for as they awaited adoption. They were being educated and had toys and clothing and special outings that would not have been possible without the enormous amount of time and commitment, not to mention money Giorgio had put in.
It made Maya feel she had been pathetically ungrateful for what she had in her life. Sure, she hadn’t been able so far to have a baby, but there were literally millions of parentless infants in the world who would give anything to be loved and nurtured by someone who cared enough to give them a second glance.
She decided then and there that she would join Giorgio in his efforts to support those motherless and fatherless children; she would do anything to help them get a proper start in life.
He came back to their table and, now that the band had started its next bracket of songs, he asked her if she would like to dance.
‘I would love to,’ she said, slipping her hand into the warmth of his.
She went into his arms as if she had never been away, her steps falling into time with his as naturally as a professional ballroom dancer.
After a few head-spinning turns on the floor, she looked up at him with love and respect shining in her eyes. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the orphan charity? I had no idea until now you were the sponsor behind it all. I had heard of it many times over the last few months, but I didn’t for a moment think you were the one who had started and funded it.’
He expertly turned her away from a camera that was intent on taking a picture of them. ‘I got to thinking about your childhood, how you had no one but an elderly spinster aunt to take you in when your mother died. It struck me that there are countless children in the same, if not worse circumstances. I decided if I couldn’t have children of my own, I would do something for the ones who were already here but with no one to take care of them. It has been the most fulfilling enterprise of my life. Nothing compares to it. To see all those little faces light up when I fly in with gifts and toys and clothing is indescribable. I feel like a father to thousands.’
Maya was so touched she felt her eyes fill with tears. ‘I feel so proud of what you have done. Can I come with you some time and meet the children?’
His hands tightened protectively. ‘You, young lady, are going nowhere until this baby is born. Do you understand?’
‘But Giorgio, I want to be a part of all of this,’ she said. ‘I need to be a part of it.’
‘Then you will be a part of it, but on my terms,’ he said. ‘I want you to be safe for the rest of this pregnancy. I am not putting you at risk, taking you to a war-torn country with inadequate medical help.’
‘If I wasn’t currently pregnant, would you let me come with you?’ she asked.
Giorgio frowned at her for a long moment before he finally answered. ‘No, I would not.’
‘But why?’ she asked.
‘Come on.’ He took her by the hand and led her off the dance floor.
‘Where are we going?’ Maya asked.
‘We’re going home,’ he said, barely pa
using long enough to get their coats from the cloakroom.
Maya sat in the back of the limousine with Giorgio sitting stiffly beside her. He was looking out of the window, his fingers splayed out on his thighs, his jaw so tight it looked as if he was grinding his teeth.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Nothing is wrong,’ he said, still with his gaze averted.
‘Giorgio, I don’t understand why you’re so edgy all of a sudden,’ she said. ‘All I asked was to come with you some time in the future.’
He turned and looked at her with an intractable expression. ‘It’s out of the question. I absolutely forbid it.’
‘It’s about the baby, isn’t it?’ she said, resentment building inside her. ‘You don’t want anything to happen to the baby.’
‘Of course I don’t want anything to happen to the baby,’ he said. ‘Neither do you.’
Maya retreated into a frosty silence as their driver took them back to the villa.
Once they were back and alone at the villa, Giorgio tossed his coat over the back of the nearest sofa before he faced her. ‘I know you think all I am interested in is having an heir,’ he said. ‘When I look back, I can see how you came to that conclusion. I haven’t exactly given you any feedback of what I feel about you, apart from the obvious, of course.’ His eyes flicked to the slight swell of her belly pushing against the satin of her dress.
Maya felt her heart slip sideways in her chest as his dark eyes met hers again. ‘There is nothing wrong with wanting to have children,’ she said. ‘It’s what I want too.’
He shifted his mouth in a rueful manner. ‘You deserve much better than I can give you, Maya. I look at Luca and Bronte and how they are so open with their feelings for each other and I feel as if I have short-changed you. I married you for all the wrong reasons and then when you left me I let you go.’ He rubbed at his cleanly shaven jaw and added with a heavy frown, ‘I can’t believe I did that.’
Maya swallowed to clear her blocked throat. ‘We were both so unhappy, Giorgio,’ she said. ‘There was no point in carrying on. You didn’t love me and I didn’t—’
‘Don’t say it,’ he said before she could finish.
She frowned. ‘Don’t say what?’
‘I don’t want to hear you say you no longer loved me,’ he said, his throat rising and falling as he too swallowed tightly. ‘I don’t think I can bear hearing you say that. Not now.’
‘I wasn’t going to say that,’ Maya said. ‘I have always loved you. I know you think I was star-struck and immature and maybe I was—immature, I mean. In fact I am sure I was. I didn’t take the time to understand you, to listen to what you didn’t say rather than to what you did. I think you care about things a lot more than you let on. I see the way you care for your family. You do that out of love, not duty. I love that about you, that you always put others’ needs before your own.’
Giorgio moved to close the distance between them, taking her hands in both of his. ‘How can you still love me even though I have let you down in so many ways?’
Maya smiled, even though tears were falling from her eyes. ‘I think we both let each other down,’ she said. ‘We didn’t talk about what we were feeling. I always blamed you for that, but I can see now how I should have been more sensitive to what you were going through. You felt just as disappointed and sad when I lost our babies but you covered it up to protect me, just like you do with your family. You bear the brunt of everything to protect those you love.’
He pulled her close, holding her so tightly Maya felt imprinted on his body, but it was right where she wanted to be. ‘I love you, cara,’ he said. ‘I know you might not believe it, but I do. I am deeply ashamed of not loving you when I married you, but in a way it was only in marrying you that I really came to know you and how you made me feel.’
He held her from him to look down at her upturned face. ‘You tried so very hard to please me. You worked much harder at our marriage than I did. I arrogantly assumed everything would go according to plan and when it didn’t I felt such a failure. I couldn’t make you happy, I couldn’t give you a baby, I couldn’t do anything to make things right. And when you wanted out I let you go when I should have fought to get you to change your mind and try again.’
‘Oh, darling,’ Maya said, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘We both made silly mistakes. But we’re together again now.’
He stroked her face adoringly. ‘Yes, but only because of a chance encounter.’ He grimaced and added, ‘What if I hadn’t asked you to come up to my room that night after Luca and Bronte’s wedding to talk about the divorce? What if you had told me to go to hell instead? We might have missed this chance. We might have wrecked both of our lives.’
Maya nestled up closer. ‘I only went up to your room because I couldn’t help myself. I missed you so much. I guess that was why I kept making such a fuss about sharing Gonzo. He was the final link with you that I didn’t want to let go.’
He looked serious again as he cupped her face with his hands. ‘Were you really going to go to live in London?’ he asked.
Maya nodded. ‘I had come to the point where I thought the only way to get over you was to get away. Even without Gonzo, there were almost constant reminders in the press of what you were doing. I couldn’t take it any longer.’
Giorgio dropped his hands from her face so he could hug her close again. ‘Yes, well, let me tell you, you would not want to have been a fly on the wall when I saw that article about you and that Herringbone guy,’ he said. ‘I swore and ranted and carried on for days until no one could bear to be around me. Quite frankly, I couldn’t stand to be around myself.’
Maya smiled as she leant her cheek into his chest. She didn’t bother correcting him over Howard Herrington’s name, she had a feeling it would never come up in conversation again. ‘I would never have gone on that stupid date if I hadn’t been so desperately unhappy,’ she said. ‘I was so jealous of you with that model.’
‘Maya,’ he said, holding her from him again, his expression sombre once more. ‘You must believe me when I say I never had anything intimate to do with that woman. She was so vacuous and vain it made me long to be with you again. It’s made me realise how wrong it was to make you give up your career. No wonder you were frustrated and bored. You’re an intelligent young woman with so much to offer.’
‘You didn’t make me give up my career,’ she said. ‘I just thought that’s what you and your family expected me to do.’
‘I know, which amounts to the same thing,’ he said. ‘I want you to be fulfilled and happy, cara. If you want to teach, then that is fine by me. I will do whatever I can to facilitate your career; just promise not to leave me again.’
Maya smiled again as he brought her close. ‘I’m not going anywhere just yet,’ she said on a contented sigh. ‘I’m quite happy right where I am.’
Five and a half months later…
Maya looked down at the tiny squirming, squalling bundle in her arms and felt her heart swell so much she was sure her chest would not be able to contain it. It was such a miracle to be holding her child. Although he had been in a bit of rush to get into the world, he was absolutely perfect; all his fingers and toes were in place and his little nose and that stubborn chin that looked so much like his father’s made her smile every time she looked at it. He had a decent pair of lungs on him too; from the moment he was born he had not stopped letting everyone know he was here at last.
Giorgio was still wiping the tears from his eyes from watching as Maya had so bravely delivered his son into the world. He had cut the cord himself and knew he would never forget the moment when he saw that dark little head appear just before his son’s wizened and bloodied body followed in a rush.
‘Can you believe it?’ Maya said, grinning up at him proudly.
He shook his head, still too choked up to speak; but he reached for her free hand and squeezed it tightly.
‘What are we going to call him?’ she said, looki
ng back down at the baby, who had finally settled against her breast, suckling hungrily.
Giorgio cleared his throat. ‘We didn’t get around to discussing names,’ he said. ‘This poor little man hasn’t got a stitch of clothing until I go out and buy some for him.’
Maya looked up at him sheepishly. ‘Actually…I did buy a couple of things last week,’ she said. ‘Bronte took me shopping and I just couldn’t resist it. She was buying stuff for Ella and her baby and I wanted to join in.’
Giorgio brushed the sweaty hair off her forehead lovingly. ‘So you were a little more confident towards the end than you were letting on?’
‘I was confident you would love and support me, no matter what,’ she said softly.
He pressed a gentle kiss to her mouth. ‘The baby is a bonus, cara,’ he said, ‘a beautiful, precious bonus to a relationship that is worth more to me than all the money in the world.’
‘I love you,’ she said, blinking back tears of joy.
He smiled and blotted her tears with the pads of his thumbs. ‘I love you too, more than words can say. I will never stop loving you.’
The baby gave a little grizzle as he lost suction. Maya gently eased him back in place before she looked back up at Giorgio. ‘So, what do we call him?’ she asked. ‘Do you have any suggestions?’
Giorgio touched his finger to the tiny reddened cheek of his son. ‘How about Matteo?’ he said.
‘Mmm, I really like that,’ Maya said. ‘What does it mean?’
‘It means gift from God,’ he said, and smiled as his gaze meshed with hers over the tiny precious bundle of their surprise baby.
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
Shock: One-Night Heir Page 14
