“I’m sure it was,” she murmured sympathetically.
“But I had also just made the rather disturbing discovery that the infant I had been told was my son was, in fact, not. That the woman I was engaged to had been sleeping with another man. So you see, Maddie, I wanted very much to shut the world out for a while and make sense of that.”
Chapter 7
HE HATED SYMPATHY. HE hated it with a passion and yet the look on her face – undeniably rich with that emotion – just made him feel warm and understood.
He wasn’t sure why he’d told her about Alexander. He hadn’t planned to – he preferred not to think about the son he’d grown to love in the nine months he’d seen him fattening Claudette’s stomach, swelling her with the rounded promise of new life.
“Nico, that’s…I can’t believe it. How in the world is that possible?”
His expression was taut, carefully blanked of emotion. “She wasn’t faithful. I’m only surprised I didn’t realise sooner.”
“So you were dating her and she got pregnant…”
“We were sleeping together,” he corrected, vitally, because ‘dating’ made it sound like so much more than it had been. “It had been going on for a few weeks then I ended it.”
“Why?” She pounced and he smiled, because it was so like her. It was easy to see why he’d initially thought her to be a journalist – her inquisitive mind liked to leave no stone unturned.
“Because that’s what I do, Maddie. I’ve never been interested in relationships. A few weeks was more than enough with Claudette.”
Was he trying to inspire a reaction? She gave none. Her expression didn’t shift.
“A couple of months later, she showed up in my office announcing she was pregnant. She was thinking of having an abortion and wanted to let me know.”
Maddie’s eyes widened. “That must have been…a shock.”
His laugh was without humour. “That’s putting it mildly. I was floored. But from the minute I knew my baby was in her belly, Dio, Maddie, I would have moved heaven and earth to give that child a chance at life. I know that makes me a bastard, that it’s her body and her choice –,”
“It’s your baby too,” she said gently. “I can understand how you felt.”
“I just wanted to give her another option, you know?” He raked a hand through his hair, looking towards Maddie’s shoulder – how was it possible for even a shoulder to be beautiful? “I would have supported her, I guess, in whatever she chose. God knows my life would have been easier if she hadn’t been pregnant, but not for one second did I wish for that. I wanted that baby. It was my responsibility and in a fraction of a second, everything felt so clear.”
“So what did you do?”
“I proposed, of course. I offered her a generous trust fund for the child, and a marriage on any terms she wanted, just so I could be a regular part of the baby’s life.”
She lifted a hand, cupping his cheek. “You’re a good man, Nico.”
His features tightened.
“When Alexander was born, he had a rare genetic defect. I’m not a carrier. Nor is anyone in my family. In order to get him the best medical care, Claudette had to confess that there was some…doubt…as to the paternity.”
Maddie swore, the word on her lips so unexpected that his eyes dragged back to hers.
“I can’t even imagine.”
“I held that child in my arms,” he made no attempt to disguise the emotion that memory inspired. “I looked down on his face and believed he was mine. To lose him like that…”
“No wonder you needed an escape. Is Alexander’s biological father in the picture?”
“No. She’s raising him alone.”
“Wow. And is he okay?”
“So long as he adheres to the medical regimen, he will be fine. His condition is manageable.”
“Do you see him?”
“No.” His eyes swept shut. “I can’t. I wish I was a bigger man, because it wasn’t his fault, but seeing him would mean seeing Claudette and I just hate her, Maddie. I hate her for what she took from me. Isn’t that absurd? He wasn’t even mine to begin with.”
“Of course he was. In your heart, he was,” she pressed her palm to his chest. “In here, he was your son, and that makes it real and hard. So hard.”
“His trust fund will ensure he never wants for anything. All his medical expenses for the rest of his life will be covered.”
“You let her keep the trust fund?”
“I thought he was mine,” he said simply. “Just like you said, in my heart, he was mine. I bonded with him, with the idea of him. Besides, his mother’s sins were hardly his fault. Given his medical requirements, it seems like the least I could do.”
“It’s very generous, but also, exactly the right thing to have done.” She moved closer, so their bodies were melded. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
He nodded, wondering why her sympathy was more palatable to him than anyone else’s had ever been? Even with his cousins and brothers, he didn’t discuss Alexander and Claudette. It was too hard. But with Maddie? Nothing was difficult.
“I guess this explains your trust issues?” Her lips lifted in a beautiful half-smile.
“I guess so.”
“And you don’t speak to her?”
“Not if I can help it.” He shook his head tersely. “From time to time her lawyer contacts me with a question regarding Alexander’s fund, but I do my best to keep that at arm’s length.” His hand roamed her side, teasing the flesh exposed by the cut out of her bathers. “So I come here every summer to disconnect. I mean, I still have to work, so it’s not a complete break, but it’s enough.”
“Enough?”
“To stop me becoming a bitter old man.”
“Ah.” She kissed him gently. “We can’t have that.”
“No, we can’t.” He rolled his body over hers, wondering about the absolute jackass who’d let her walk away. Nico wasn’t interested in relationships but if he was, he would have to admit, Maddie was the perfect woman. How could anyone have had her and let her go?
“You actually drink the wine?”
Her surprise brought a smile to his face. “That’s what grape vines generally produce.”
“But I mean, your grape vines make wine?”
“Just a small quantity each year for our private collection. These grapes are mine – viognier, my favourite. Rafe’s are on that hill, over there,” he gestured to a patch of the land that was darkened by a cloud overhead. “Shiraz.”
“Do you pick the grapes yourself? Come and stomp them in a big old wooden bucket?”
“It’s sadly less romantic than that. The grapes are hand picked, but not by me. We employ a vintner who oversees the production at one of the oldest wineries in Italy. We don’t get involved until the tasting day,” he winked. “Much more fun.”
“I can imagine,” She reached out and touched a grape. It had been warmed by the sun but it was firm, so she knew it would be tart to taste.
“I don’t know if I’d ever leave Ondechiara if I was you.”
“It’s seductive, isn’t it?”
“Very. I came here believing it would be beautiful but I didn’t expect quite so much beauty.” She reached out and picked a leaf off a vine now, rubbing it between her fingers. One side was furry, the other smooth and warm.
“Why did you choose Ondechiara?”
Maddie stilled. He’d asked her something similar the first day they’d met and she’d resisted answering. She didn’t want to keep secrets from Nico though. Not more than she had to. “I’d seen a picture.” She lifted her eyes to his face, scanning his handsome features. “A print of the painting you have by your door, actually.”
“Really?” His expression showed surprise. “That’s a coincidence.”
“I guess it’s a well known painting,” she turned away from him, studying the vines. “Anyway, I loved it. From the first moment I saw it I felt…peace. There’s somethi
ng about it, the colours and atmosphere, it called to me. Like somehow I knew that if I came here everything would be okay.”
“And it wasn’t before?”
Damn him. He read between every single one of her lines. She shook her head slowly.
“But you don’t want to talk about it?”
She lifted her lips into a smile, but it was brief. Distracted.
“I was silly to think it would be a magic bullet. It takes time to move on, and yet every morning, walking by the beach, feeling the sun on my skin, salt water beneath my feet, running my fingers over the hot sand, I’ve begun to feel more and more like myself.” She didn’t add that Nico was a part of that. The pleasure he’d given her had been a balm to her body, a beautiful, necessary restoration.
They walked in silence the rest of the way, through the vines and back to his house. It was late in the afternoon and Maddie was putting off returning to La Villetta, though having spent two full days with him, she suspected they both knew they had to take a break to keep their boundaries strong and enforced.
But it was so tempting to stay one more night and forget about the rest of the world for a little longer.
“Have a glass of wine with me?”
If she was hesitant to leave then he was equally so.
“Only if it’s your viognier…”
“I think that can be arranged.”
A moment later he appeared with two fine crystal glasses, each half-filled with the buttery white wine. She took a sip, her eyes closed so she could focus on each flavour as it burst through her. A small moan escaped her lips. “It’s perfect.”
“I’m glad you think so.” His eyes met hers over the rim of his glass. He took another sip. She matched his gesture and then put her glass down on the table beside her, except she misplaced it ever so slightly and it wobbled, teetering on the edge as if in slow motion. She reached out, but wasn’t quite quick enough. It fell to the ground, smashing into a thousand pieces, the delightful boutique wine spilling over the terracotta tiles.
“You idiot! That was one my favourite glasses. Why didn’t you look what you were doing?”
“I’m sorry, Michael. I must have brushed it with my hand.”
He reached out, grabbing her fingers and bending them backwards so she winced, her face draining of colour. “Clean it up. Now.”
“I’m so sorry.” She fell to her knees and began to push at the pieces of glass, tears filling her eyes. “I didn’t see where I put it. I was looking at you. I’m so sorry.”
“Basta. Stop. Immediately.” But she didn’t, because she felt Michael looming over her, watching her clean as he’d had a habit of doing. “Maddie, stop, madre di Dio, you’re going to cut yourself.”
He scooped down, pressing his hands to her arms and lifting her. Sure enough, there were tiny pricks of blood on her fingertips from where shards of glass had scraped against her skin.
“Stop, cara.” His eyes bore into hers and then he lifted her, carrying her away from the wreckage, placing her safely on a chair across the terrace. Her eyes were heavy on the mess she’d made and she found it impossible to stop trembling. “Do you think I care about a glass? About wine? Look at your fingers; they’re scratched, Maddie.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, because she didn’t know what else to say.
He focussed on the job of cleaning up but his mind was ticking over a number of incidents, cataloguing them and reordering them, factoring in her over the top reaction to a simple slip of the hand now. There was the way she’d asked permission to make a tea on her first day in his home, the way she’d apologised for keeping her tomatoes in the fridge, the way she’d flinched when his front door hand banged shut. She was timid, just like Dante – how often had he thought that? And Dante had been abused in his short life, his previous owners seeing fit to treat him in a way that should have had them thrown into prison.
An angry burst of heat spiralled through him. His eyes flashed with white. But he betrayed nothing with his body language, continuing to clean the broken glass and spilled wine before moving into the kitchen and retrieving her a fresh glass, as well as a damp, clean cloth.
She smiled at him when he returned to the terrace, but her eyes were troubled and her features looked tight.
Certainty gripped at his gut.
“So this guy,” he handed her the wine glass, moving to the railing with an appearance of calm he didn’t feel, lifting one of her hands and wiping it gently with the cloth, checking each fingertip for the tiny shards of glass. “Did you leave him, or did he leave you?”
She sipped her wine slowly, and her voice was hesitant when she spoke, her brow furrowed. “The relationship was doomed from the start.”
“Was it? Why?”
She bit into her lower lip so even then, despite the suspicion that was running through his veins, he felt a rush of longing, a physical need borne of their insatiable chemistry. He quelled it. There were more important things to consider.
“We just weren’t compatible.”
Her answers were so guarded. She was doing everything she could not to discuss this, and yet he wouldn’t let it slide. He couldn’t. He transferred his attention to her other hand then dropped it, assured she’d scratched herself a little, but nothing worse.
“How long were you with him.”
“Almost a year.”
Nico concealed his surprise. “That sounds like a long time for a relationship that was doomed from the start.”
“What can I say? I’m a fighter.”
He didn’t turn to look at her. “Are you?”
Silence.
“Does your Yaya ever come here?”
He understood. She needed to retreat for a moment. He sipped his viognier, his eyes trained on the placid water that made up the surface of the ocean just off the coastline. “No. I think there are too many memories here for her.”
“Sad memories?”
“Even happy memories can cause a rush of nostalgia that is sad, at times.”
She was quiet again.
“How did you meet?”
“Meet who?”
“Your ex. What was his name?”
“I’d…” Her eyes flashed, then she looked down at her feet. “I’d prefer not to say it here.”
Certainty was a blade in his chest. It was such a strange response, but not if her ex had done something so heinous she couldn’t bear to invoke him by giving him a name.
“Okay.” He looked at her, smiling in what he hoped was a reassuring way. “So how did you two meet?”
“At a bar.” She fidgeted her free hand in her lap, her eyes trained on her fingers. “I’d been out with my editor. I was pretty buzzed on champagne.” She shook her head in a way that could only be described as self-condemnatory. “I’m sure you know the story.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. Unfortunately, he did. For Nico’s part, he had some hard and fast rules in life and not sleeping with a woman who’d had enough to drink that she might not know her own mind was one of them. He liked his partners to be fully engaged in the moment, not affected by alcohol consumption.
But there were some men who felt the opposite, who saw tipsy women as easy quarry, who purposefully pursued women who had obviously been drinking. It fit the mental image he was building of Maddie’s ex that the guy would have been one of the latter.
“He was charming, and handsome, and funny.”
Despite the realisation he was having, Nico felt a burst of jealousy. It surprised him for its force and uniqueness – he was not prone to envy. “Love at first sight?”
“I think I probably thought so, back then. I don’t believe in anything so stupid now.”
“No,” he agreed with muted approval.
“I was…so naïve.”
He heard the criticism in her tone and wanted to refute it, but not now. Not when she was showing signs of opening up to him. Instead, he stayed quiet, watching her, waiting for her to continue. Most people would, once the
y got on a roll. But Maddie wasn’t most people and if he was right, her experience wasn’t a common one. She stayed quiet, her lips clamped together so they were lined with white from the pressure of her expression.
“Do you still speak to him?”
Fear – unmistakable – filled her eyes. “No. Never.” Then, with an obvious effort, she smiled at him. “He messages me still. I should change my number.” A frown. “I don’t know why I haven’t done that yet.”
He nodded slowly. “I can have one of my assistants do it for you.”
Her smile was more genuine now. Slowly, she was coming back to him, returning to what he thought of as a normal version of her. “One of your assistants? My, how the other half lives.”
He turned his back on the view, propping his elbows on the railing and looking at her until a hint of pink filled her cheeks.
“That’s okay,” she said with a small smile. “I’ll do it.”
“You can’t just tell him to stop messaging you?”
A quick shake of her head; her smile dropped.
“Tell him it’s over and there’s no point him writing?”
“No.”
“It is over, though?”
“Absolutely.” She swallowed. “I never want to see him again for as long as I live. I hate him.”
It was proof enough. Maddie wasn’t someone who would hate easily. Her ex had done something unforgivable to her and Nico knew deep down that it wasn’t anything run of the mill. It wasn’t an affair or a lie, an argument over staying out too late. Nico walked to her slowly, gently, pressing a hand to her soft cheek, drawing her gaze upwards.
“Maddie, I hope I’m wrong about this, but I don’t think I am.”
“About what?”
“Your ex…did he…” What was wrong with him? Why the hell couldn’t he frame the question? Because what he was about to say was so sickeningly wrong that he hated even shaping the words into a sentence. Except she was terrified and traumatised and he had to be strong for her. It wasn’t his job to overlay his emotions onto her grief.
“Maddie, he hit you, didn’t he?”
Just This One Summer: A billionaire forbidden love romance... (The Montebellos Book 2) Page 9
