by Sarah Morgan
‘You saw us living here?’
‘Yes, for some of the time, at least. It was good enough for DH Lawrence and Truman Capote so it must have something special.’
Yes, it was special. Special in every way. But the most special thing about it was that he’d done this for her.
He’d done this for her while she’d been working the same punishing hours that he’d been working. She’d accused him of being a workaholic and now she was discovering that at least part of his working day had been devoted to building somewhere that she was going to love. Not somewhere he’d lived as a rich single guy but somewhere he’d chosen with her in mind.
Somewhere that was their own.
Her impression of him shifted into a different shape. Thoroughly confused and hating that feeling, she pulled away from him and he sighed.
‘Now what’s going through that head of yours? Tell me what you’re thinking.’
She was thinking that this house, the fact he’d built it in the place she loved most on earth, was an enormous gesture. But it was a gesture with meaning. He’d built it for their future. For the family he’d imagined having. It was all part of his master plan. Looking at the olive groves, she imagined two small versions of Cristiano playing in the shade and then splashing in one of the beautiful turquoise pools.
Maybe he had loved her in his own way. Looking at what he’d created here, she was almost ready to believe that.
Which made the sense of loss even more painfully acute.
They ate lunch on a shaded part of the terrace, surrounded by the lavish gardens and fragrant citrus groves.
Laurel ate fish with lemon and herbs picked from the garden, her cheeks pale and her eyes tired as she pecked at her food. The dogs lay by her feet in a state of dopey adoration, refusing to leave her side as they panted in the heat.
And he was as bad as the dogs, Cristiano thought wryly as he waited for her to confide in him. He knew exactly what was on her mind. It didn’t take a genius to guess and he could have raised it but he wanted to see if she would do it without his prompting.
Aware that confidences were hardly likely to be forthcoming when things were so tense between them, he chose to steer the conversation onto neutral territory. ‘Where have you lived for the past two years?’ He watched, hiding his concern as she toyed with the fish on her plate, her usually healthy appetite clearly challenged by their problems.
Would she tell him what was worrying her?
‘I based myself in London.’
‘You didn’t touch a penny of your allowance in all the time we were apart.’
‘I wasn’t with you for the money, Cristiano.’
‘I would have supported you financially. I made that commitment when we married.’
He waited for her to make a pointed remark about the commitments he hadn’t made but she didn’t.
‘You’re surrounded by people who are only interested in you for what you can give them and you’re complaining because I didn’t want that?’
‘I wanted to provide for you.’ And the strength of that need shocked him because he’d always considered himself progressive for a Sicilian male.
‘Ah.’ Her eyes lifted to his. ‘The Provider.’
The past hung between them and he was acutely aware that although he’d provided for her materially he’d neglected her shamefully on the one occasion she’d reached out to him.
And suddenly he knew with absolute certainty that there was a reason why this was such a hot button for her. It wasn’t just that he, with his horrendously busy schedule and careless attitude had let her down shamefully, it was that he’d ripped open a wound that hadn’t completely healed.
He knew that her childhood had been difficult, but she’d given him few details and he hadn’t pressed. But suddenly he wanted to know who, or what, had caused the original wound.
The shrill tone of his phone disturbed the silence and Cristiano, pre-programmed to answer it promptly, automatically reached for it and then remembered his promise about priorities.
His hand froze in mid-air.
Swiftly recovering, hoping desperately that she hadn’t noticed the detour his hand had taken from the glass in front of him to his pocket, he returned his attention to the woman seated opposite him. The phone continued to ring and Laurel raised an eyebrow.
‘Are you going to answer that?’
‘No.’ It took a painful degree of willpower but somehow he managed not to reach into his pocket although his palms were sweating and his fingers were aching to just answer the damn thing.
It was a relief when it stopped ringing.
Observing his struggle, she put her fork down. ‘Next time just answer it. You know you want to.’
Part of him did want to, but he recognised that as a habitual response derived from years of putting work first.
She’d called him ‘the Provider’ and Cristiano acknowledged the accuracy of that description. He’d slipped into that role from the moment he’d taken the distressed call from his mother on the day his father had died suddenly.
He’d left the US immediately, flown home and taken charge. And he’d been in that role ever since, even though his younger brother had long since proved himself capable of playing his part.
What had started as necessity had become a way of life and he’d never even questioned it.
Until now.
Now, the opportunity to close another deal, to expand the business, to make more profit were all subordinate to his need to make his marriage work. For possibly the first time in his life, he didn’t care what the person on the phone wanted. He had no urge to check his voicemail. He didn’t care if his business was collapsing.
The phone started ringing again, the shrill insistent tone disturbing the tranquillity of the terrace and sending the tiny sparrows swooping for cover. And all the time Laurel was watching him, those beautiful green eyes guarded.
‘Answer it. Then you’ll be able to stop wondering who it was and how much money you just lost by not taking the call.’
‘That isn’t what I’m wondering.’ He was wondering how on earth he was going to compensate for what he’d done to her. How he was going to prove to her that he loved her.
What sort of provider had he been to Laurel? Financially, yes, he’d provided for her, but emotionally he’d left her to fend for herself and that knowledge scraped uncomfortably over his conscience.
‘Did you even tell anyone where you were going?’ She sounded exasperated. ‘They’re probably sending out a search party as we speak.’
‘It’s true that I haven’t told anyone.’
‘You’ve probably triggered a security alert.’
‘Very possibly.’ Remembering the startled faces of his security team, he breathed deeply, frustrated by the realities of his life. ‘Perhaps I ought to just—’
‘Yes. Do it!’ She reached for her glass. ‘I don’t expect you not to work, Cristiano. You’re missing the point. I have every intention of going through my own emails later. I respect your drive and ambition. I have plenty of it myself. That isn’t a problem. That wasn’t the problem.’ Her change of tense took them swiftly to the heart of the real problem and it wasn’t his phone, which had once again stopped ringing.
She sipped her water.
Sweat broke out on the back of his neck.
He was thinking, as she was, that he’d let her down when she’d needed him most. Images of her alone in that hospital bed kept flying into his head. ‘If it is any consolation, I feel like an utter bastard for what I did to you.’
‘You mean for what you didn’t do.’
‘That too.’
‘Good. You should feel bad.’ Slowly, she put her glass down on the table. ‘You were thoughtless and insensitive.’
He winced as he recognised himself in that description. ‘So you’re not going to say, Don’t worry about it?’
‘No. You should worry about it. It was shocking behaviour. If you weren’t worried I wouldn’
t be sitting here now.’
Cristiano wondered whether it was him or whether Sicily was in the grip of a searing heatwave. His palms were sweating—even his brain felt hot. When his phone rang for a third time he hauled it out of his pocket deciding that one conversation now would save a myriad of interruptions for the next few weeks.
‘Five minutes,’ he vowed as he scanned the number. ‘It’s Santo. I’ll tell him he’s in charge. Then I’m switching it off.’
Laurel was staring in astonishment. ‘What happened to your phone?’
‘I had a slight accident. It fell out of my pocket when I was grabbing my clothes in a hurry to try and catch you at the airport.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Her eyes lifted to his. ‘You did have a stressful morning.’
It had to be the understatement of the century. ‘I’ve certainly had better.’ The irony in his tone drew a hesitant smile from her.
‘What would have happened if my flight had already taken off?’
Having contemplated that possibility for the whole of his crazy drive through Palermo, Cristiano had no wish to revisit those emotions. ‘I would have had to make an impromptu visit to London, which would have been a shame,’ he murmured, ‘because I hear that you are having a particularly wet English summer. Fortunately, both of us have been spared that.’
‘This is just temporary, Cristiano. I haven’t agreed to anything.’ Having delivered that less than encouraging reminder that the future of their relationship was still undecided, she glanced at the phone vibrating in his hand. ‘You need a new one.’
‘The state of my phone is the least of my worries right now.’ It was the state of his marriage that troubled him. His challenge now was to work out how to gain her trust again. He understood that for Laurel, trust was everything.
‘Answer it, before Santo decides that I’ve killed you and buried the body.’
Cristiano rose to his feet. ‘This will be quick—’ Without once taking his eyes off Laurel, he switched to Italian, giving his brother an edited version of the past few hours. When he hung up Laurel’s gaze was steady.
‘I expect he wanted to know whether you’d thrown me out yet.’
‘He knows I’m still in love with you.’ That declaration sent the tension rippling between them.
‘I can’t imagine that went down well.’
‘I don’t need my brother’s permission for the way I feel.’
‘He hates me, Cristiano. I saw his face yesterday. And your mother gave me a long reproachful look. I’m the evil daughter-in-law.’ Her eyes tired, she pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. ‘You can’t pretend it doesn’t matter. Nor can you punch everyone who says bad things about me. This place is beautiful, but it doesn’t change the fact that we’re a mess. Nothing can change that.’ She turned abruptly and walked to the edge of the pool.
Knowing that there was more that she wasn’t telling him, Cristiano strode after her and closed his hands over her shoulders.
Her arms were lean and strong but he could tell that she’d lost weight in the time they’d been apart and that knowledge was one more blow to his conscience.
‘A mess can always be cleaned up and this isn’t about anyone else. It’s about us. I want you to relax. The last few days have been horrendous for you.’ He thought of how she’d looked as she’d stepped off that plane, so brave and gutsy as she’d walked into hell so that she could be by the side of her best friend.
And he, instead of admiring her courage, had questioned her loyalty.
‘Stop thinking and worrying and sending black looks in my direction and just enjoy your favourite place on earth. This evening I’m taking you down to a restaurant I’ve discovered on the beach. Just locals, so far undiscovered by tourists.’ They were going to spend time together, he vowed. Time they hadn’t spent together after they were married.
There was a moment when neither of them spoke and then she drew in a little breath.
‘I don’t have anything to wear.’
That quintessentially female response loosened the tension in his muscles. If her biggest worry was what she was going to wear then they were making progress. ‘That is easily fixed. There are clothes in the dressing room.’
Her head turned. Those beautiful eyes cooled and narrowed. ‘Your bedroom is stocked with women’s clothes?’
‘Our bedroom.’ He found that uncensored display of female jealousy oddly reassuring. At least she cared who he’d been clothing in her absence. ‘I bought them for you. It was part of the surprise. The day after we discovered you were pregnant you went to London on business and I made all the final arrangements. When you landed in Sicily I was going to bring you here.’
‘Instead of which you flew off to the Caribbean and we didn’t even see each other.’
Another regret to add to the pile already littering his mind.
‘Yes.’
‘I only saw you once more after that, when I was packing to leave Sicily.’ She paused. ‘I expected you to come after me. Not that I wanted you to, but I expected it. Why didn’t you?’
It was a question he’d asked himself a million times. ‘I was blinded by my own sense of righteous injustice that you’d walked out on our marriage. I made many mistakes. Give me the chance to make it up to you.’
There was a long silence. ‘Can we go for a walk through the town? I always loved the little antique shops and the buzz.’
At that moment he realised just how afraid he’d been that she’d demand to be taken back to the airport. That she wouldn’t give him another chance. ‘It’s the middle of the day, tesoro. You will be sautéed in the heat and squashed by tourists.’
‘I’m sure you have a hat in the wardrobe you bought me and the two of us can elbow our way through tourists. Please? I really want to do something normal.’
Normal?
‘There’s nothing normal about choosing to walk along the Corso Umberto in the heat of the sun.’ Especially when I want to take you to bed, undress you and explore every inch of you.
But that part of their relationship had always been easy. It was the rest of it that had proved challenging. And it was the rest of it he was determined to fix.
They strolled through the old medieval town, exploring the network of narrow streets and alleyways. To the casual observer they probably looked like lovers enjoying a holiday but Laurel was aware that his attentiveness sprang not from the romance of their surroundings but from a genuine desire to heal the deep rift between them.
Whether or not it could be healed, she didn’t know.
Putting her trust in someone had taken a huge leap of faith on her part. And he’d let her fall. She wasn’t sure she was ready to risk doing it again.
A pretty bikini caught her eye in the window of an exclusive boutique and she went to try it on, eager for distraction from her own thoughts.
She hadn’t had a proper holiday for years, she realised as she looked at her reflection in the mirror. Not since their honeymoon. After that they’d both been sucked into the volume of work that demanded their attention. It would be bliss to just spend some time lying by that beautiful pool with a book. If she could relax for long enough.
