“Nothing,” he snapped. Since when did he snap? He wasn’t sure, but he did it a lot these days. Just a week ago he’d had to apologise to his CFO because he’d given him an earful over a pretty minor mistake.
“Dude. It’s me, Luca. The guy you spent three months hiking across the deserts of India with. You think I can’t read you like a Goddamned book?”
Nico drew on his beer, his eyes chasing the view. He loved this outlook. Villa Fortune was one of his favourite places on earth, and Christmas with his family was usually a highlight of his year. So why couldn’t he get his head into it?
Except, he knew why. The answer had been banging him over the head since he’d left Italy. Every single morning he woke up with her name on his lips, her taste in his mouth, her absence right in the middle of his chest like a mallet.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
He felt Luca’s roll of his eyes. “I’m not buying it.”
“You know what? I don’t give a shit, man. Just…let it go.”
He wanted to storm off, to get away from Luca, from everyone. Most of all, he wanted to get away from himself and his own damned thoughts and memories. But he turned to Luca, put a hand on his shoulder and grimaced. “Just leave it, okay?”
Only a few moments later, he crossed behind the pool and bumped into his cousin Max – the oldest of the six of them. Despite the cool of the evening, he’d been for a swim, as was his tradition. Of the six of them, Max was the most driven by routine. He had that kind of unswerving devotion to his life that meant he was up at five every day, running eight miles no matter where he was in the world, no matter the weather. A nightly swim was another habit of his.
“Hey, man. Haven’t seen you in months. What’s up?”
Nico was about to snap at Max, too, sick of the inquisition, until he realised Max was just asking the question as a casual greeting. He hadn’t meant anything by it. He expelled a slow breath. “Not much. You?”
“I presume New York’s had you working non-stop? For you not to have come to Fortune for so long?”
Inwardly, Nico winced. They all came to Villa Fortune, no matter where they were, or what they were doing. It was part of their deal. It was their family, their commitment. It was for Gianfelice’s memory, and for Yaya.
He shouldn’t have stayed away so long.
“Yeah, it’s been non-stop.” Then, memories pierced him. He’d been so self-obsessed, so Maddie-obsessed, he’d completely forgotten about Alessia. “Hey, I meant to talk to you over the summer.”
“Yeah?” Max reached for a towel, rubbing it over his head then draping it around his shoulders.
“I saw Alessia in Ondechiara.” It was impossible to miss the way Max braced. It was such a small, involuntary movement. A tightening of his shoulders, a firming of his spine, but it was enough. Nico saw it and felt like an A-grade jerk for being so wrapped up in his own issues that he’d completely forgotten about Alessia’s news.
“Oh? She’s well?” It was natural enough, but Nico could have sworn he heard a tension to the simple question.
“As always.” Nico’s guilt increased. How the hell could he break this to his cousin? But Max and Alessia hadn’t been that serious about each other, had they? Maybe he wouldn’t even care that much. Then again, how would Nico feel if he heard that Maddie was getting married to some other guy?
Something like ice dripped over his spine, swiftly replaced by heat. He recognised the panic response. He’d felt it often enough over the past months.
“Good.” A nod of his head, his trademark resolve very much in evidence. “I’m glad.”
There was no easy way to do this. “She’s getting married.”
The air whooshed out of Max’s lungs. He stood completely still, his eyes burning through Nico’s, disbelief obvious in his face. “What?”
“She’s engaged. To be married.” Then, because it felt appropriate. “I’m sorry.”
It was just what Max needed to wake him from the shock. He blinked, assumed a look of nonchalance and shrugged. “Sorry for what? It’s her life, she can live it with whomever she chooses.”
His calm acceptance did something to Nico. It fired something inside of him. An anger he had been fighting for months. “Like you don’t care?”
Max was very still. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you’re not going to do a damned thing about it?”
“Alessia’s in my past.” That resolve again, firm, intractable, as though he wasn’t going to let anything derail him from the decisions he’d made.
“Damn it, Max, Alessia is…”
“Yes? What is she?”
“She made you happy. Are you really going to let that go because of one damned mistake?”
Max shrugged out of the towel, placing it on one of the sun lounges. “I let her go five years ago, Nico. That was my decision then, and it was the right decision. I stand by it.” He stalked away and Nico watched him go, but his fury wouldn’t abate. Fury, discontent, rage, so many emotions fired through him, each and every one of them misplaced. It wasn’t Max he was angry with. It wasn’t Max’s decisions Nico took exception to.
He gripped his beer tight to stop himself from hurtling it across the pool deck. He felt like a petulant child. His life was spinning out of control. It was simple, but complex. What he wanted, more than anything, was Maddie.
Maddie made him happy.
But he couldn’t do the same for her; what she wanted was impossible.
There was no way he was going to go to her and risk hurting her more than he already had done. But the idea of not having her in his life, the idea of her moving on, of her having everything she wanted with someone else… heat broke out on his skin and the taste of metal filled his mouth. He wanted to scream. He felt trapped by his own wants, and his brain’s inability to let him succumb to them. To think of her with another man…
Wasn’t that for the best though? Wasn’t that the reason he’d let her go? It was hard to remember. All he knew, standing on what felt like the edge of the world, was that he missed her in a way that made time stand still.
He spun on his heel, moving towards the villa with no real idea where he was going or what he was doing. Discontent raged within him and not moving wasn’t an option.
He could hear his brothers and cousins, their noise coming from the salon at the back. He could imagine the scene in there – the Christmas tree set up, the Montebello wine flowing. Soon his brother Raf would get on the piano and play carols. They’d all sing along. Dante, as if sensing Nico had come into the villa, stepped into the corridor, his rangy frame loping towards Nico so he put a hand out and Dante sniffed it then pushed, as if to guide him forward. Nico expelled a slow breath and went as the dog guided, but at the door to the salon, Dante looked in the opposite direction.
Nico frowned.
Gianfelice’s office, and the light was on. That was unusual. After their beloved grandfather had died, they’d only rarely broken the sanctity of this space, and only when absolutely required. He had the originals of some important paperwork which they’d needed to access. But being in here without him felt completely wrong.
This was his haven. His space. The centre of his universe, and with a man like Gianfelice, that meant something. Nonetheless, curiosity prodded Nico forward, Dante beside him.
If he’d known what he was to find in there, he might have braced himself harder, but he couldn’t have imagined. To open the door and see Yaya sitting at Gianfelice’s desk, her petite frame hunched forward, her greying hair pulled into a fine topknot, silver tears sliding down her paper-like cheeks – it pulled at every emotion Nico possessed.
“Yaya?” His voice was deep and throaty.
Her eyes slid to his – eyes that despite the passage of time had remained full of brightness and amusement. They were smart eyes, they saw everything.
“I’m glad you came, Niccolo.” She held one of her hands out; her fingers shook a little. “It
hasn’t been the same without you.”
He didn’t reply. His absence felt selfish and childish now. He was feeling that way a lot lately. But why selfish? He’d given Maddie up because it was best for her, when it was the last thing he’d wanted to do. That made him the definition of selfless, didn’t it?
“What are you doing in here?” He moved to stand beside her, putting a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. It was at Yaya’s knee he’d learned to cook, in her arms he’d slowly recovered from the desertion of his mother. It was Yaya who’d loved him when no one else had cared to.
“Remembering.” She lifted her eyes to his, then placed a hand over his hand, stroking his fingers. “When I sit here, I feel like he is with me.”
Nico looked around the office, a shiver passing over his spine. “Yes. In this room, I think a piece of Gianfelice remains.”
“Not just a piece.” Yaya nodded to the golden urn in the corner and then laughed, a soft sound that turned into a small sob as she shook her head. It was so like Yaya to try to joke through her pain, to set him at ease. “It’s hard at Christmas.”
“It’s hard every day,” Nico agreed.
“Yes. Every day.” She sighed. “Where have you been, terremoto?” She used the term of endearment she’d given him as a child. At four, when he’d arrived at the Villa, he’d been out of control. Wild and devastated and unpredictable. Yaya had never yelled. She’d hugged him close, wrapped in her arms, and she’d whispered in his ears until he’d calmed, and always afterwards she’d kissed his forehead and whispered, ‘sei mia piccolo terremoto’, you’re my little earthquake. The tempers had faded with age but the name had remained.
“In New York,” he spoke the words with only the slightest hesitation, wondering at the desire now to confide in his grandmother.
She looked up at him, her intelligent eyes narrowing. “You look different.”
“Do I?”
“Hmm.” She frowned, her eyes not leaving his face. “What is it?”
He smiled at her, hoping to reassure her. “Nothing, Yaya. I’ve just been busy.”
“Hmm.”
He laughed, but his heart was heavy and he wondered if Yaya, who knew him so well, could see that somehow. “Did you boys do the star yet?”
He frowned. “I’m…not sure. I was outside.”
“Hmmm.” One ‘hmm’ from Yaya was not generally a good sign. Three was troubling. “Come.” She put a hand out, so he held it, steadying her as she stood from the chair. Her body had grown so frail, her movements slow. Her mind, though, was that of a thirty year old’s. Nimble, quick, shrewd.
“I keep the star in here,” she moved across the office, her hand clutching Nico’s as she went. “Have I told you when your grandfather bought this for me?”
Nico shook his head, even though he’d heard the story many times.
She laughed softly. “You’re a good boy, terremoto.” She continued to hold his hand as she pulled the top drawer of a sideboard open. Her breathing drew heavy so she didn’t speak for a moment, concentrating on lifting a silver box from its place. Nico watched as she placed it carefully on the top of the piece of furniture. “You open it. I’ll talk.”
The box was so familiar to Nico. For as long as he’d lived with Yaya and Gianfelice, the star had been contained in this same place. As a child, it had inspired awe. It still did, even now.
“It was our honeymoon. We went to a little village in the alps, not far from Turin. Fiamatina. Have you heard of it?”
“Yes.”
“It is beautiful. Quaint and perfect, everything just as it always has been. Or perhaps it just felt that way because I was spending a holiday with your grandfather.” She shook her head wistfully. Nico concentrated on unfolding the fine tissue paper from around the star. “These decorations are made by artisan craftsmen. Each generation is trained with these skills. You cannot get them elsewhere. Look.” She ran her finger over the glass. Shaped like a star with a cylinder at the bottom for it to sit on top of a tree, the star itself had been painstakingly etched with nativity scenes. The craftsmanship was unparalleled.
“When I was growing up, we didn’t celebrate Christmas with a tree nor gifts. We couldn’t afford to. So naturally, Gianfelice wanted to spoil me. He wanted everything to be perfect, and this star was the most perfect thing I’d ever seen. He gave it to my on Christmas eve, the first year we were married. I didn’t even know he’d bought it.” She shook her head affectionately. “He was good at surprises, eh?”
Nico smiled, because it was true. He handled the star with reverence.
“Life without him is unbearable, Nico.” Yaya’s voice was raw and Nico wondered why he hadn’t realised the truth earlier. He’d thought Yaya had muted herself for Gianfelice but the truth was, during their marriage, she’d simply surrendered to blissful happiness. She’d simply loved him with all that she was. “I wasn’t prepared for this. He was so alive, so strong, I never thought…”
“None of us did.” The words were thick, heavy with the weight of his heart.
“But even feeling this pain,” she put her hand in the crook of his arm, and took a step towards the door, her intent to install the star obvious. “Even now, lonely as I am, and feeling like more than half of me is missing, I wouldn’t do a thing differently.” Nico’s heart twisted. His gut tightened. “There is no life without love, and no love that comes without loss, eventually.” She lifted her shoulders. “It’s the cost of living well.”
Nico nodded, but he wasn’t sure he could speak. Hadn’t Maddie said words that effect, the last morning in Italy? She’d insisted he was choosing not to love, that he was living a half-life without being open to even the idea of love. And then she’d left and he’d felt as though a part of him had died.
At first, he’d clung to anger. Why hadn’t she stayed? What was the big deal? One more week together might have solved everything. Maybe she would have got over her infatuation. Maybe he would have as well.
But that was a fool’s hope. Maddie was inside of him. Without his knowledge, she’d breathed her way into his soul and not seeing her, not speaking to her, was now an obscure form of daily torture.
Something was moving through him. Something heavy and accusatory. Something that almost made him stop walking and groan. And then, finally, there was a feeling he couldn’t fight that perhaps he’d made the worst mistake of his life – one he had no idea if he could ever fix.
Chapter 14
“THREE SERVINGS OF PORK?” Maddie smiled at her dad, and for once, it felt completely unforced. She’d had a glass of cider and half a bottle of prosecco over lunch, so it was no wonder. She’d temporarily anaesthetised herself to the pain of anything. It had been at least eleven minutes since she’d even thought of Nico, and that was something.
“It’s so good,” across the table, Graeme shrugged his shoulders so his suspenders lifted a little and that same feeling of affection and nostalgia bunched inside her. He always wore the red suspenders at Christmas time. “Have some.” He pushed his plate towards her but she laughed, clutching her stomach.
“One serve was more than enough.”
“No wonder you’re wasting away.”
“I am not.” She reached for her prosecco. It was empty. “When’s mum home?”
“End of January, I believe. Though you –,”
“Never know,” Maddie finished for him, remembering how often that phrase was said in her childhood.
Graeme offered what could have been a smile or a grimace. “Come up for the weekend?”
“Next weekend?”
“Well, I meant when your mother’s back, but you could come up next weekend too.” He put his fork down, leaning back in his chair, his eyes appraising Maddie. “How’s Michael?”
She was very still, but inside, her heart had begun to tremble, her blood heavy inside of her. And there was too much of it, so somehow she was drowning in her own arterial tides.
“I…we broke up.” She didn’t look at her
dad. A waiter appeared and topped up her prosecco. She smiled at him far too brightly – the poor man had no idea how badly she needed the lifeline in that moment.
“I see.”
“It was a while ago,” she offered. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”
Maddie chanced a look at her father, saw him nod and rub his chin.
“I suppose that could explain it.”
“Explain what?”
“This.” He waved a finger at her, his look concerned.
“What’s ‘this’?” she repeated his gesture, pointing at herself.
“You’re demeanour. You haven’t been yourself, lovie.”
“Haven’t I?” Damn it. And she’d thought she was doing such a good job of pretending.
“No.” He sighed, reaching for his own glass and taking a sip. “What happened?”
Her heart thumped. Memories of the last time she’d seen Michael slammed into her and they were all the more painful because Nico was right there too. She stifled a groan, looked down at her plate. “It just didn’t work out.”
Silence descended upon their table, but noise and merriment swirled around them. People were dancing, singing, talking loudly. It wasn’t really the place to go into the details of what had transpired between Michael and her. And while she wished she didn’t feel it, Maddie still felt some kind of embarrassment. Like she didn’t want to confess the truth to her dad in case he blamed her in some way. Academically she knew it was stupid, but the grief counsellor she’d seen when she’d first come back from Italy had said that wasn’t an uncommon response.
“And you miss him?”
Maddie jerked her gaze to her father, shaking her head. “God, no. Why would you say that?”
“Because you look as though you barely want to put one foot in the other. You look crestfallen, darling. Absolutely heartbroken. And as much as I thought Michael wasn’t worth the dirt on your shoe, if you miss him that much, maybe you should call him?”
Just This One Summer: A billionaire forbidden love romance... (The Montebellos Book 2) Page 17
