“Is there anything I can do?” Maria asked, looking genuinely concerned.
“I’m—I don’t know. Michael has been so active all morning, and I can’t get him to lie down for his nap.”
“I can take him for you, if you like,” Maria offered.
Genevra glanced at her son. “Tonio says you have work to do and I shouldn’t interfere.”
“Mama, I told you I could hire a nurse for the child. You shouldn’t have to be responsible for him when you aren’t feeling well.”
“I don’t want my grandson raised by servants!” she snapped, which cost her. She immediately squeezed her eyes shut and, trembling, sat down in the nearest chair.
“The work can wait,” Maria assured her. “I can do most of what I’d planned for today this evening, after Michael’s asleep. And he won’t disturb me during the few business calls I need to make this afternoon.”
Genevra pressed the heel of one hand to her temple, but couldn’t seem to manage a response.
“Have you taken your medication yet?” Antonio asked.
“No, I was afraid it would put me to sleep.”
Antonio shook his head. “I’d take Michael with me, but we’re regearing several machines at the plant today. I don’t like to have him down there when so much is happening. It’s not a safe place for a child. I could cancel and reschedule—”
“No,” Maria insisted, “you go along. Andiamo,” she said gently to his mother, as she carried Michael along with her. “Let’s get you to your room where you’ll be more comfortable.”
Antonio watched them leave through the kitchen window. Despite his mother’s continued coldness toward her, Maria had continued to treat Genevra generously, respectfully. He wouldn’t have put up with half as much!
He waited, still unsure he should allow Maria to fill in as nursemaid, in addition to handling the very demanding job he’d hired her for. It didn’t seem fair, but he wasn’t sure how to remedy the situation.
He watched her cross the courtyard again with Michael a few minutes later.
“Oh, you’re still here,” she said as she pushed through the door, and Michael raced in ahead of her.
“Thought I’d finish my coffee,” he replied thoughtfully.
Maria set the little boy in his high chair and poured him a glass of milk. “Well, buddy, what are we going to do with ourselves today?”
Michael alternately nibbled happily on the cookie she had given him and sipped milk from his cup.
“I know,” she said as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “We’ll drive to the beach. Spiaggia. It’s a beautiful day, and I’ll bet you love to swim in the ocean.”
“Spiaggia!” Michael echoed, joyfully, making splashing motions on the tray of his chair.
“Now that sounds like fun!” Antonio crowed.
“You’re working, remember?” Maria stuck her tongue out at him. “We have the day off.”
He considered this. “Actually, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to go too far away from the house.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. “The Serilo brothers have been keeping a low profile. But I’m still worried about them. Perhaps I should send a man with you.”
“A bodyguard?” She looked surprised, doubtful.
“Just to be safe,” he assured her. “Give me a moment.” He strode quickly from the room, took account of the locations of all his men, then returned to the kitchen.
“New plan,” he said. “Everyone is busy, and I don’t want to pull men from the field. The work is too critical this time of year. I’ll go with you to the beach.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, nevertheless looking pleased.
“My field managers are more than capable. And I can reschedule the job at the plant for tomorrow.” He smiled at her. “Besides I could use a day off. And you’re always badgering me to spend more time with Michael.”
“True.” Her eyes slid away from his, as if upset by something.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you want me to come?”
She recovered instantly, shook her head and smiled. “Of course we do. It will be fun.”
Maria knew how very hard Antonio worked. He deserved a break, and it was true what she’d said. It would be fun to have him along. Just the three of them.
Just like a family. Almost.
That was what had crossed her mind in the kitchen. The comparison was too easy to make, and too heartbreaking to consider for long. She ruthlessly shoved it from her mind.
They drove east toward the shore, then along the coast a short ways until Antonio found the beach he was looking for. It was located near a tiny fishing village called Specchiola—pale pink, green and blue villas of only a few rooms each and narrow, unpaved streets.
The beach here was wide and blindingly white. Wooden fishing dories basked on the sand in the hot sun, faded green and red paint peeling from their bottoms, looking like colorful beached whales. The chalky, oval skeletons of cuttlefish littered the sand, slowly breaking down and being absorbed into the grains, bleaching them whiter still.
Although it seemed the perfect spot for a picnic or swim, the place was nearly deserted. Only a few young men and women frolicked in the edge of the water further along the beach.
“When I was a boy, I used to play here with my friends all the time.” Antonio gazed up at the cliffs above them, gray and rough, decorated with scrub pine and wind-torn vines. “Do you see those dark patches up there?”
Maria held a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. It was so bright she could hardly see the darker shadows among the crags.
“Caves?” she guessed.
“Si.” Antonio dashed off to stop his son from plummeting headlong into the water. Lifting the little boy, squealing, above his head, he returned to the blanket Maria had spread out on the sand. “My mother used to be terrified. We’d explore the caves, be gone for hours. Get totally lost. Come out in different places than where we went in.”
“What’s in there?”
“Mostly a lot of junk now. Legend has it, pirates used to hole up in them. Hide their loot. But we never saw any.”
“Still, it’s exciting,” she said.
“For young boys, certainly. Most of these have been abandoned for centuries. There’s not much of interest in them now.”
Michael was not to be deterred from his quest to reach the ocean, so Maria took him into the water, and Antonio stripped off his shirt and followed. They took turns holding him and letting him kick his little feet. Whoever was left with free hands splashed the others mercilessly.
At last the little boy was exhausted. Maria laid him on the blanket after drying him off, while Antonio planted a big canvas umbrella to shade him. She stroked his little shoulders and back, humming softly to him. Soon Michael dozed off.
Maria moved to the other edge of the blanket and closed her eyes, relishing the sun’s heat on her salt-encrusted limbs. Delicious, she thought as she dozed off.
Antonio had watched as Maria so naturally mothered his little son. Suddenly it was difficult to remember a time before this moment. A time before Maria was with them, was part of the little circle of inhabitants at the masseria.
How easily she seemed to know and understand what the child needed. When the little boy had started to fuss a few minutes earlier, he thought Michael was hurt. But she instinctively understood he needed sleep.
Antonio barely dared to breathe. Such a beautiful picture, he thought, staring down at them. At her. A unique and exciting woman with so much tenderness to lavish on two lonely, lost males.
He knelt down beside her, touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes and gazed up at him.
“He’s a beautiful baby,” she murmured. “And good too.”
“Michael certainly seems to like you.” He couldn’t imagine anybody not liking Maria. Although his mother was doing a fine job of pursuing that goal.
Why was he still hesitant to let himself feel anything lasting for this g
ood woman? It wasn’t that he believed he was cheating on Anna. His time of mourning had passed, even before he’d met Maria.
Yet it had taken her arrival in his life to banish the paralyzing numbness that had tormented him during these two years since the accident.
She’d made a difference. Somehow. She’d broken through.
And now he wanted to savor life. He wanted to feel everything!
But mostly what he yearned to feel was Maria. Every part of her. The intensity of his appetite amazed him. He couldn’t remember feeling this urgency, this maddening need to possess a single woman. Particularly one who was so very wrong for his needs.
Perhaps it was because he’d been celibate for two years. Or maybe it was because, as he’d been teaching Maria, he’d been arousing, seducing himself.
There was more to it, though.
For it was through her that he had begun to view life differently. He now could see into the future. It was no longer just the olives that kept him going. It was no longer just the fact that he had a son who needed a father. A father who was no longer just living in the most elemental sense—breathing, eating and occasionally forcing himself to accept a few restless hours of sleep.
Michael needed a father who functioned in every way. A man who could love not just the little boy, but could teach his son what it meant to grow into a man capable of loving a woman and starting a family of his own.
Antonio’s hand moved from Maria’s shoulder down to her waist. She didn’t tighten or move away from him as she lay on her side, facing him on the blanket. Her cool gray eyes never left his.
He looked down the length of the beach, then up the other way. The bathers had left. No one was in sight.
Slowly, he leaned over her and kissed her smooth, sun-warmed forehead. Her cheek. The rim of one ear. She lifted her chin, opening her throat to him. His lips traced the long, lovely flow of virgin skin.
Stretching out alongside her, Antonio pulled her close to him. He could hear her heart beating, feel its gentle rhythm against his chest. There was so much he wanted to say to her. But, as hard as he tried, he couldn’t find the words for feelings he hadn’t yet been able to translate for himself. He felt so full of her, and of himself. And so utterly confused.
He touched her again, and his fingertips tingled with heat. His lips settled over hers, and his insides turned liquid.
What is right? he asked himself. What is wrong? He couldn’t sort it all out at the moment. Stop touching her. Keep on touching her. But before he could figure out what to do, she lifted her arms, wrapped them around his neck, kissed him full on the mouth.
“Maria,” he breathed.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. Framing his face between her little palms, she sprinkled kisses across his cheeks, beneath his eyes.
Erasing invisible tears, he thought. Tears he no longer wished to shed. Tears he refused to shed. For once, all he felt was joy. Pure, beautiful joy.
She pulled a corner of the thin blanket over them. Beneath the soft shield, her fingers moved lightly, caressing his chest. They soothed his throat where it burned with words he couldn’t speak. They combed through the curls of hair across his belly, leaving a delicious little path of tingles behind them. Every muscle in his body relaxed. His hands fell naturally to her hips. They felt full, filling his palms, promising more.
His arousal was hot, intense and rapid.
But his brain was thankfully still working, and it shouted loud and clear that they couldn’t make love now…here…on the beach. Not when somebody could come along at any moment. Not with his son lying just feet away from them.
With a surge of regret, he tossed back the blanket, rolled away from Maria, sat up.
“What’s wrong?” she gasped.
“I should go back to the villa. There’s a lot of work waiting for me.”
She looked at him, said nothing. And finally nodded, as if she understood it wasn’t work chasing him.
“Do you think Michael would wake up if we carried him back to the car?” he asked.
Maria sat up, ran fingers through long waves of blond hair that fell nearly to her waist, and his insides clenched with desire. “He’s sleeping so soundly, and it’s such a beautiful day. I hate to wake him. I’ll stay with him. We’ll be fine. You can send a car for us in an hour.”
Instead of answering her, he pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his pants, lying on the sand. He moved away a few steps, spoke into it briefly then snapped it closed.
“One of my men will be here shortly. I’ll wait until then.”
She blinked up at the sky, bravely, he thought. She knows. He was using work as an excuse to leave her. And he kicked himself for bringing her to the edge of tears.
But it was either leave or break his promise to her. He was only a man, and there was just so much self-restraint doled out to every male on the planet. Lately, he’d begun to think he’d been shortchanged.
Antonio climbed the steps cut into the cliff behind the beach, stood watching her from above. At last his man came. He left without putting himself through the agony of looking down at her again. But in his mind’s eye he could picture her, stretched out on the blanket beside his son, glowing beneath the potent Mediterranean sun.
Never had Maria single-handedly designed, organized, and carried out a full campaign. She deliberated every detail, mulled over decisions endlessly. But as the time for the filming approached, she felt more and more confident that she had the project, with the staff she needed, under control.
Even so, she rarely slept much at night.
Sometimes she heard Michael crying softly to himself from the little house across the garden. Usually, he stopped almost immediately, and she would know that Genevra had picked him up, was comforting him. Other nights, when she knew the child’s grandmother had taken her medication, Maria went to Michael herself. She picked up the little boy, cooing to him, knocked on Genevra’s door to let her know that she had him, and brought the child back to her room. He nestled into her shoulder and eventually fell asleep as she rocked him.
One such night, Antonio’s bedroom door opened as she passed by it. Their eyes met, and something in his dark, brooding gaze melted at the sight of his son in her arms. He took a step forward. She waited, barely daring to breathe for the intensity of the passion she saw in his eyes. But he said nothing, came no closer.
“Do you want to take him?” she asked at last.
He hesitated. “You’re much better with him.”
A tiny flame of bitterness flared up within her. “He’s your child, Antonio. I won’t be here to comfort him forever.”
He winced as if she had struck him, but she didn’t care. She had learned to face the truth, it was time he did too!
Without another word he took the little boy from her, turned and disappeared back into his room. Maria closed her eyes and wished for strength.
Ten
After the night when he’d come upon Maria and his son in the hallway, Antonio had decided that something must change. He started making time in every day for Michael, even if it was just an hour to share breakfast with the child. He found he often ate little, he was so amused with his son’s personality. They played at the table, then took a walk, just the two of them, and Antonio felt he’d never been happier.
He also stopped avoiding Maria. It had been useless, trying to put her out of his mind. When he’d stayed away from her, he was distracted with thoughts of her and got little real work done. He might as well enjoy her company while he could. The weeks were flying past. Her time in Italy growing shorter and shorter.
Thankfully, his mother’s attitude toward Maria seemed to mellow, and that made life pleasanter. Genevra announced that the party she’d hinted at earlier was to be a grand reception in Maria’s honor. Perhaps too late for a welcome party, but at least a show of Boniface hospitality and gratitude for Maria’s help with Michael.
“I was afraid you didn’t like Maria,” Antonio said to her wh
en his mother told him of her plans and the date she’d chosen.
“She is not a bad woman,” Genevra admitted over her morning espresso while Antonio bounced his son on his knee. “She is good to watch little Michael when I am not able. But she is not our kind, Tonio.”
He frowned. “What do you mean by that?”
She shrugged. “An American and career woman. What can I say?”
He refused to take her seriously and laughed. “Mama, you sound like such a snob. Times have changed, you know.”
“In some eyes, si. But we must protect the bloodline. Bonifaces have spawned kings, an emperor, men and women of great power and importance in history. You must never forget this, Tonio.”
He smiled good-naturedly. “I won’t, Mama. Promise. At any rate, I’m glad you’ve finally accepted Maria’s presence here. She’s been working hard on my campaign, and she deserves our respect for that.”
“I will give her as much respect as she deserves,” she stated vaguely.
Antonio searched her expression for any sign of duplicity. But she looked away from him across the courtyard. He sighed inwardly. Perhaps he was expecting too much all at once from her. After all, she was at least making an effort, in her own way, to show Maria that she was appreciated.
The guests flowed out from the grand salon on the first floor of the main house, onto the patio and throughout the garden like many-hued flower petals scattered by the wind. Barely two weeks had passed, yet the grounds had been completely transformed. An orchestra played from beneath a green-and-white striped canopy, surrounded by blooming hibiscus and delicate orchids. Elaborate ice sculptures and tables of delicious fare had been placed at strategic locations so that guests might move about freely, sampling the delicacies and visiting without becoming crowded or having to wait in line to fill their plates.
Many locals had been hired to serve for the party, and Antonio paid all generously. Maria was touched by his munificence and by the village’s respect for their prince and his family. But she still ached to feel his arms around her. Silently, she wished she could stay forever in this lovely town that seemed, in so many ways, locked within its feudal past. Here, the weather, the seasons, and the day of the week on which market fell determined so much of life.
Mail-Order Prince In Her Bed (Silhouette Desire) Page 11
