by Sarah Morgan
‘You went to live with them?’
Pulling away from him, she rolled onto her back. ‘No. That first night staying with them I was so stressed at being in a strange place with strange people I really couldn’t breathe. I had an asthma attack. We spent the whole time in the emergency department, and after that—’ she paused, surprised that memories so old could still feel so new ‘—after that they decided that it was better to be childless than have me. They didn’t sign up for a sick child, midnight dashes to the emergency department, worry and anxiety. They wanted a child who was going to fit into that room, all golden curls, pink dresses and everything perfect. I wasn’t that person—which was a shame because I’d fallen in love with the room. Not the pink, but the books. I loved the idea of having a door I could shut with all the books on the inside. I was going to pretend it was a library. I was going to read every single one and it was going to be an adventure.’ Conscious that she’d revealed more than she’d intended, she lightened the tone as she turned her head to look at him. ‘So now you know why I’m such a mess. No books.’ And no family, but she didn’t mention that part. Didn’t mention the devastation and sense of rejection that had followed that traumatic experience. ‘Maybe if I’d read a few fairy tales I wouldn’t be such a disaster. The trouble is, I wouldn’t know a happy ending if I fell over it.’
The silence stretched between them and Cristiano raised himself on his elbow so that he could look at her. His eyes were dark pools of appalled disbelief. ‘You’re saying they changed their minds?’
‘It happens. That’s why they did a trial. It’s important that the adoption process is right for everyone. I wasn’t right for them.’ And that shouldn’t still hurt, should it? ‘It was hard for me because I was very young and I let myself trust them. When they said I was going to be their little girl, I believed them, which was stupid really because I already knew that adults usually didn’t mean what they said.’
His face was paler than usual. ‘And after that?’
‘After that I pretty much made myself unadoptable. It was better for everyone that way.’
‘Because you didn’t want to risk it happening again.’ His voice husky, he reached out and stroked her hair away from her face. ‘How old were you?’
‘Eight.’ She saw his expression change. ‘I was eight years old. But I’d spent all of those eight years between foster homes and care homes so I wasn’t your average eight-year-old.’ She felt his arms wrap around her and then he was pulling her against him again, and this time his grip was that much tighter.
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I try not to think about it. It’s in the past. It isn’t relevant.’ Even as she said the words she knew they weren’t true. And so did he.
‘We both know it’s relevant. It’s the reason you protect yourself so fiercely. It explains a lot.’ His arms tightened possessively as if he wanted to make up for all those years of isolation and loneliness.
‘You’re right. It does still affect me in that it has influenced who I am. Because of that I made up my mind that the only person I was going to depend on was myself. I didn’t really have close friends because I didn’t trust anyone enough to form a bond.’
‘You made friends with Dani.’
‘Technically, she made friends with me. We were in the same accommodation at college and she’s like you—she’s so emotionally open, she won’t take no for an answer. Every time I closed the door to my room, she opened it. She was always dragging me out to various events. She wouldn’t let me hide and truthfully I loved her company. She was the first real friend I’d had. And she never let me down.’ Laurel’s eyes filled. ‘When I left you she should have ended our friendship, but she didn’t. She wouldn’t.’
‘My sister is fantastic, but don’t tell her I said that.’ Humour lightened the roughness of his voice and the hand that stroked her hair was gentle. ‘It’s no wonder that you left after what I did. And I know that this is a mess but we can fix it. We will fix it. I won’t accept a different option.’
‘What if we can’t? I’m so afraid of being let down it colours everything I do.’ It felt so good to be this close to him again that she couldn’t concentrate on anything else. It would have been frighteningly easy to just close her eyes and let him decide for both of them. ‘Once you trust someone they hold the power to hurt you.’
Strong hands flipped her on her back and he covered her with the lean, muscular length of his body. ‘I love you. I messed up badly but you’re going to forgive me because you love me too. And it isn’t because you don’t love me that you’re hesitating, it’s because you’re afraid.’
‘I know.’
‘And you can get over that. You’re the toughest, strongest woman I know. I can’t believe how you’ve coped with so much on your own. That awful day two years ago—I wasn’t listening to you properly,’ he confessed in a raw tone. ‘You rang me and you told me you were worried but the doctor had already told me he thought you’d be fine so half my mind—more than half my mind if I’m honest—was on the business deal I was trying to close. It is no defence, but it was something I’d been working on for five years. Had I known how frightened you were, I would have dropped everything and come.’
‘I was terrified.’
He gave a groan of remorse and rolled onto his back, taking her with him. His hand was in her hair, his eyes holding hers. ‘I wish I could rewind the clock and do things differently. You have no idea how much I wish that.’
‘It wouldn’t change anything. You wouldn’t have jeopardised a deal for me, Cristiano.’
‘My marriage was more important than any deal but at the time I didn’t realise it was a choice. I didn’t realise just how important it was to you that I be there. It’s no excuse but the doctor did assure me that you would be fine.’
His eyes were beautiful, she thought. Or perhaps it was his eyelashes that were beautiful. Dense and inky-black, they framed a gaze that read her all too easily. Most men were emotionally inarticulate but Cristiano was the exception. He had no trouble expressing his feelings and no problem interpreting hers. His emotional sophistication far exceeded hers. Which made his response to her desperate plea for him to be there all the more out of character.
If he’d been distracted then it must have been a major distraction. ‘Why was that deal so important to you?’
‘It doesn’t matter now. There are no excuses for the way I behaved.’
‘Tell me about the deal, Cristiano.’
He lay still, and then he sighed and sat up, raking one hand through his hair. ‘It goes without saying that it came at the worst time. Five years of work that came to a head the day before you flew back from London. I’d planned for us both to have dinner. Instead you were flying in and I was flying out.’
Too late she remembered that he’d been preoccupied on the phone—that he’d barely responded the first time she’d tentatively mentioned that she thought something might be wrong.
‘What was so important about that particular deal?’
He stared down at his hands and gave a bitter laugh. ‘You ask me that now and I can’t even remember. It was another prime piece of land that would have been perfect for an exclusive resort hotel. More of what I already do. Except that this was bigger than anything we’d dealt with and I wanted it badly. I knew that owning that island would secure the future of the company and our reputation at the top end of the business.’
‘Was the company in trouble?’
‘No, but no business that majors in tourism can afford to be complacent. The whole market is volatile. That’s another reason we operate at the expensive end.’ His bronzed back was sleek and smooth, the muscles in those shoulders a blatant declaration of his physical power. ‘You accused me of being a workaholic and you’re right. That is what I am.’
Laurel remembered what Dani had said about him having held everything together after their father had died. ‘I suppose you had to be. You found your
self in control of everything at a young age.’
‘Everything?’ His laughter lacked humour. ‘If we’re talking about the business then “everything” amounted to two small hotels which barely scraped a profit.’
‘I thought it was your father’s business?’
‘What I have now grew out of my father’s business.’ He stared through the open doors to the prettily lit terrace and the turquoise-blue shimmer of the infinity pool. ‘I was at college when my father died and suddenly I was in charge, thrown into the middle of something I knew nothing about. My mother was devastated, my brother and sister were still at school. My father owned two hotels on the island, neither of them doing that well. I was the oldest son. I was studying structural engineering, but that was irrelevant. Everyone was depending on me.’
And he’d only been in his very early twenties, she calculated. Studying in the US on the brink of his own adventure.
How much had it taken to give all that up and return home to continue his father’s dreams instead of pursuing his own?
‘What started as necessity became a habit. After a while I didn’t even question why I was working so hard. It was just the way I lived my life. It didn’t matter how much money I made or how successful the business became, I couldn’t forget that everyone was depending on me. On my ability to expand and grow the company.’
And he hadn’t just been supporting his mother and siblings, Laurel realised, but employing huge numbers of his family. Not just his brother and sister but several cousins and two uncles.
They’d made him the Provider.
They’d leaned on him, and he’d braced his powerful shoulders and taken on that role.
‘Carlo advised me to walk away from the Caribbean deal because the price they were demanding just didn’t make it a viable proposition. We were about to give up when they came back with a counter-offer. We had twenty-four hours to make a decision on whether to go ahead or not. I thought that deal would secure the future of the company. It was a recession-proof investment.’
‘So you went ahead?’ She hadn’t questioned what had happened to the business after she’d walked out.
‘Yes. And it’s doing well. Better than even I predicted.’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘But Carlo was right about one thing. The price was too high.’
She knew he wasn’t talking about the financial implications. ‘I was selfish,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t think about your responsibility to everyone else. I only thought about my needs.’
‘With reason.’
‘I thought, It’s just another business deal. I never thought about the pressure on you. I never once thought about all the people depending on you for employment. You never talked to me about it.’
‘I didn’t want to talk about work when I was with you. I was crazy about you. I’m still crazy about you.’ His tone was rough and decidedly unsteady. ‘I’ve been crazy about you since the first day I saw you in your running shorts, shouting at Santo for slacking.’
There was no mistaking his sincerity and her heart stopped because she realised how badly she’d misunderstood the situation. ‘On our wedding day, I believed that you loved me. Whenever I was with you, I believed you. But we were together less and less. By the time I discovered that I was pregnant, we were spending virtually no time together. The fact that you didn’t come when I asked you to was the final straw. I saw it as evidence that you didn’t love me.’
‘I thought marrying you proved how much I loved you. I committed that cardinal male sin of taking too much for granted.’ He leaned forward and kissed her mouth gently. ‘It’s possible that I was a touch arrogant.’
‘Possible?’ She smiled against his lips because that statement said everything about his own healthy sense of self-worth. ‘And that single gesture—marrying me—was supposed to last me a lifetime?’
He eased back from her. ‘I wasn’t as bad as that. I gave you daily proof of my love for you. I sent you endless gifts.’
‘Actually, your PA sent me endless gifts,’ Laurel murmured. ‘Do you think I didn’t know that you said, “Send my wife flowers”, and she arranged it?’
‘I chose you jewellery.’
‘From a selection sent to your office to minimise the inconvenience and generally reduce the impact on your working day. I’m not saying you weren’t generous,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m just saying that none of those things made me feel secure.’
‘They should have done. They were supposed to.’
‘Why? They weren’t personal. They were generic gifts. Gifts that had probably earned you undying gratitude in the past but to me they had no meaning except to remind me that you’re a very wealthy man. And that there is a whole harem of women out there just waiting to exploit the first crack in our marriage. Are you seriously telling me that I was the first woman you have ever given jewellery to?’
He cast her an incredulous glance because this was a topic they’d never really touched on and he clearly didn’t think they should be touching on it now. ‘No, I’m not telling you that. But you were the first and only woman I have ever loved.’
‘And I was supposed to just know that.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t know how badly you’d been let down. Had you told me—’
‘I would have made myself even more emotionally vulnerable.’
‘A little more insight into the workings of your mind might have prevented me from getting things so badly wrong. Not that I’m blaming you for my failings.’
‘I admit that my past experience has made me cautious and I can’t do anything about that but I didn’t see anything when we were together to make me think that I was that important to you. Gradually you spent more and more time at work.’ She curled her legs up, feeling vulnerable just talking about it. ‘And then I reached out to you. And you didn’t have time for me. I wasn’t a priority and that convinced me you didn’t love me. And that is why I left, Cristiano. That is why I never had the confidence that our relationship could survive. You never gave me any indication that it could.’
And part of her—that horrid part of her that she hated so much—still wouldn’t let her just take his declaration of love and believe in it without question. She wished it could have been that easy and for a million other women it probably would have been. To hear Cristiano Ferrara say ‘I love you’ had been the pinnacle of ambition for many women.
For her, they were just words.
Frustrated with herself, Laurel slid off the bed, wrapped herself in a robe and walked onto the terrace. The fact that he let her go so easily told her a great deal about the way he was feeling now that the depth of her insecurities had been exposed.
Fear was a cold, creeping sensation over her heated skin because she understood finally that the future of their marriage relied not on her ability to bear children, but her ability to trust him not to hurt her.
What did she mean, he’d never given her any indication?
Cristiano lay back on the bed, hands hooked behind his head, thinking back over the two years of their marriage and forcing himself to confront some uncomfortable facts.
He’d bought her jewellery. Flowers. Extravagant gifts that he’d believed had demonstrated the depth of his feelings. All arranged via the efficient channels that she’d so astutely identified.
The thought made him squirm.
She’d always thanked him, but what time and effort had he put into those gifts? He’d given her what he thought she wanted instead of what she really wanted and the harsh truth of that shamed him.
