Happy Mother's Day!

chapter TWELVE


‘I GUESS you must be thinking about going back to work,’ said Gianluca abruptly.

‘Work?’ echoed Aisling blankly as she looked up from spooning some mashed banana into Claudio’s sweet little mouth. She dabbed the edges of its rosebud shape with a napkin, and smiled lovingly at her baby. Feeding him always took longer than she thought it would—in fact, everything seemed to take longer. Why did no one tell you that having a baby could be such an absorbing and timeconsuming job?

And it wasn’t just the feed itself which took time, but the fact that she seemed to want to study Claudio intently to see whether he might have grown an extra centimetre overnight.

And when she wasn’t studying him, she found herself just as tempted by a sneaky scrutiny of his father. Did Gianluca have any idea of just how sexy he looked when he was fresh out of the shower and had just thrown on an old pair of jeans and a sweater? she thought longingly. Save it until later, she told herself. Until you’re in bed. Don’t give yourself away with your wistful yearnings.

At least in bed she didn’t have to pretend—because she had discovered that sex had other kinds of uses than pleasure. She could use it to air all those emotions she usually kept hidden away. In bed, she could dare to love him with her lips and her body—even if she dared not use the words he had no requirement for.

‘Yes, work,’ said Gianluca, in an impatient kind of voice. He subjected her to a cool, questioning scrutiny. ‘You were adamant about continuing your career when you agreed to come out to Italy, weren’t you, Aisling? As I recall, it was your number one worry—’

‘I wouldn’t have said it was my number one—’

‘Perhaps not,’ said Gianluca, overriding her objection as if she hadn’t spoken. He could see her frown of confusion—but what the hell did she expect? That he hadn’t noticed the way she behaved? Spending her days like some kind of efficient robot and only coming to flesh-and-blood life in his arms at night? She might try to disguise her dissatisfaction with her life here, but he could sense her edginess—that wary way she had of looking at him sometimes. He could not deny that she had thrown herself wholeheartedly into motherhood, but anyone could see that there was something lacking in her life. He narrowed his eyes. ‘I take it you do want to go back?’

Had he noticed her e-mailing Suzy to get all the latest updates, then? Aisling wondered. Or scouring the financial pages of the international newspapers she had requested because she was terrified of being left behind—of being properly isolated in every sense of the word? Or had he just tapped into her own insecurity—that with her immersion into motherhood she was becoming so unlike the person she had been that she didn’t even recognise herself, these days.

And that was dangerous. Because aworld dominated by an undemonstrative husband in this lazily beautiful setting was lulling her into a false sense of security—and surely her career was her ticket to freedom if it all went disastrously wrong. If she relied on Gianluca to be the kind of husband she longed for him to be—waiting for some change of heart which would never come—then she risked losing everything she had ever worked for. Just like her mother.

Wasn’twork her one solid island in a swirling sea of uncertainty? Something she could rely on when everything else around her seemed so temporary. Even the peace she experienced in this heavenly idyll of a place seemed fragile, as if reality might shatter it at any moment.

Yes, she felt cosseted and protected by Gianluca—but only in a superficial and very physical sense. As if he would move heaven and earth to ensure the comfort of the woman who had borne his child. But emotionally, there was nothing. He was remote. Watchful. Restrained.

And he was working again, wasn’t he? Sometimes from home, true—but more often than not driving into his offices in Rome. He was mixing in the glossy world of business and takeovers, while she was changing into a dull little housewife who surely he would find increasingly less attractive?

‘Of course I want to go back to work,’ she said quietly.

Gianluca poured himself a cup of coffee. Should he have been surprised at her agreement? Disappointed, maybe? His mouth hardened. Of course not. Circumstances might have changed, but Aisling had not—and underneath it all she was still the ice-cool, ambitious businesswoman she always had been.

‘So we might as well hire a nanny, mightn’t we?’ he said smoothly, dropping a cube of sugar into his cup ‘N-nanny?’ she echoed.

He gave her an unfathomable look. ‘Sì, cara. With two working parents, there’s no other solution, is there?’ And he bent his head and began to read the business section of his newspaper.

Aisling stared at his dark head, feeling as if she’d just been wrong-footed—like a defendant in court who had just been tripped up by the prosecution. How tense he seemed this morning. Almost as if he wanted to pick a fight with her. ‘Gianluca,’ she questioned hesitantly. ‘Is something wrong?’

His smile was bland as he looked up at her. ‘Why should anything be wrong, cara? We have a healthy baby and have proved we can exist in relative harmony for most of the time. You have met many of my friends and you all seem to like one another. We argue intelligently about politics and films, there are enough staff here to ensure that life runs smoothly—and at night you become a sensual witch in my arms.’ And it felt like living in a damned vacuum. He raised his eyebrows in question. ‘What more could a man ask for?’

The undercurrent and the tension in the air were almost palpable. Aisling felt as if he were asking her some kind of trick question which she had no idea how to answer. ‘We’ll advertise for a nanny, then,’ she said stiffly. ‘That should help.’

They interviewed the prospective candidates together, even though Aisling would have preferred to vet them all by herself.

‘Isn’t this more my territory than yours?’ she asked him lightly. ‘Do you really want to be bothered with all this?’

‘Haven’t you seen those horror films where the nanny turns out to be a psycho?’ he queried acidly. ‘I’d rather have some say in the matter, if you don’t mind.’

She knew that made sense, since whoever they chose would inevitably be Italian and Aisling’s command of the language was very basic indeed. Nonetheless, she shocked herself by wanting to bin all the applications from any attractive woman under thirty. Correction. Any woman she thought might be eying up Gianluca—because there was a stunning widow of forty she found rather threatening.

Was she going to become one of those chronically insecure women who was always terrified that her husband was going to have affairs with other women? And would that be such an unreasonable fear, under the circumstances?

‘Perhaps you could explain your criteria for rejecting some of these perfectly good candidates?’ questioned Gianluca sardonically.

‘They just have to feel right,’ said Aisling stubbornly, thinking that if one more applicant slanted him a look from beneath her eyelashes, she would scream out loud. ‘It’s a woman thing.’

In the end they both agreed on Carmela, who was just twenty and sweetly serious. But she was the one who seemed most captivated by Claudio—though bizarrely Aisling found herself wanting her not to get too attached to her baby.

And she quickly discovered that having a nanny was different from having all the other people who worked in and around the vast estate for Gianluca. They tended to get on with their jobs and fade into the background, but a nanny was a fairly constant presence and Aisling found it inhibiting.

Not because she and Gianluca were constantly snatching kisses—they definitely weren’t, since all their physical affection never left the bedroom. But it was unsettling having someone else around as an unwitting observer. Or rather, it made her feel unsettled—and start to think that perhaps something did need to change. As if seeing the situation through an outsider’s eyes made her realise how unsatisfactory it all was.

Aisling went upstairs earlier than usual one evening and was trying on one of her suits when she heard the door open quietly, and then close again. She looked up from where she had been struggling to do up a skirt when she saw Gianluca standing there, watching her.

‘Those are your work clothes,’ he observed.

She met his eyes in the mirror. ‘That’s right,’ she said evenly.

‘You’re planning to go back?’

‘Suzy says there’s a job in Paris coming up and she’d rather I handled it—I’ve dealt with the people before.’ She shrugged. ‘And I can speak a bit of French.’

‘And were you planning to tell me about it?’

She heard the sharp note of accusation in his voice. ‘Oh, Gianluca—of course I was! I thought that was why we employed Carmela. Anyway, nothing’s been decided yet.’

‘It sounds to me as if the decision has already been made.’

‘You don’t … mind? If I go back?’

‘It is not my place to mind, cara,’ he mocked. ‘You never claimed to want to stay at home baking biscuits all day.’ His black eyes roved slowly over her, enjoying seeing her struggle with the zip.

She swallowed—the ebony stare making her feel acutely self-conscious. ‘The damn thing’s too tight!’ she complained.

‘Your hips are rounder since motherhood,’ he murmured. ‘Buy a different size.’

Suddenly her inability to do the skirt up seemed to symbolise more than just a few extra pounds gained after childbirth. Where had all the control gone from her life? That feeling of order she used to experience—of knowing where she was in the world? ‘Are you trying to make me feel worse?’ she questioned.

He walked up behind her and slid his hands round to where they lay on the slight curve of her belly.

‘Al contrario’ he murmured, sliding his fingers down to press hard and possessively over the mound of her crotch. ‘I am trying to make you feel better.’

‘Gianluca,’ she breathed, because this was exquisitely erotic, with his fingers splayed possessively against her. And more erotic still was the fact that he was now sliding the skirt up over her thighs with a little difficulty until he—and she—could see the neat pale blue triangle of her panties reflected back in the mirror.

‘What is it?’ he whispered, bending his head so that she could feel his warm breath against her neck as he watched their reflection. He rubbed his fingertips over the triangle experimentally, feeling her squirm and watching her squirm, too.

‘I … nothing.’ She swallowed as his fingers moved with their own particular rhythm. It seemed too … too intimate … not just to feel him, but to watch him doing it. But then Gianluca seemed to delight in experimentation—to introduce her to wild and wonderful new things and to watch the passion explode within her. ‘Do you want to go to … bed?’ she stumbled.

‘No!’ he negated harshly. ‘I want to see you come. And I want to see you watching yourself come.’ In heaven’s name, it was the only time she showed any real feeling—the only time she really let go!

‘Gianluca!’ Her legs buckled and she might have fallen had not the hand that was not moving so surely against her panties whipped up to catch her firmly by the waist. And she realised then that he was not going to stop. Not only that, but neither was she. In fact, she was … was … ‘Oh!’ Her head tipped back, her eyes closed and she began to moan softly as she writhed against him.

He waited until he had felt her spasming cease and then he pushed her to the ground, straddling her as he ripped apart her panties with a single rent and her eyes flew open in question.

‘They were brand-new!’ she protested.

‘Then I will buy you another pair,’ he ground out. ‘Only next time I’m going to choose them for you. Something a little more … ah …’ He shook his head distractedly. ‘Aisling! What is it that you do to me? Impazzire o fare i matti!’ She was driving him crazy. Crazy.

Her eyes were ice and fire now—just as she was—her coolness repelling him as much as exciting him. He was able to possess her, but only in the purely physical sense. He watched the thick lashes flutter down as he drove deep inside her and then before he knew it he was welcoming the warm sweetness of his release—knowing that it would free him from her sensual spell. And, damn it—he wanted to be free from it!

They lay there on the floor, still entwined, their clothing in disarray, and Gianluca began to drift off, his hand absently smoothing down her hair as his breathing grew steadier and deeper, and Aisling’s heart felt as if it were going to shatter into a million pieces.

He did that tender stroking stuff after making love because that was what he had been conditioned to do, by nature—just as his hard body now required sleep in order to regain its strength.

In this moment, she had everything and yet she had nothing. All she had ever wanted and yet it felt completely empty. Just the same old one-sided relationship it had always been. She might as well have been back where she started—loving him from afar without daring to let it show.

It didn’t seem to matter if you made a baby between you and got married as a consequence of that—it didn’t change the fundamental facts. And those were that Gianluca simply didn’t feel the same way about her. That this life was a kind of compromise—and couldn’t she just accept that?

Because what was the alternative?

Aisling stared up at the ceiling, aware of the slow, steady breathing of the man beside her. Maybe she needed to initiate some kind of change—before she went mad with wanting what she could never have. Or worrying that one day he might find it with someone else.

She shook him gently by the shoulder, her fingers caressing the silk of his skin. ‘Gianluca,’ she said. ‘I want to go back to work as soon as possible.’

‘It’s only a little trip,’ Aisling said as she handed Claudio over to Carmela, and planted yet another kiss on top of his silky black hair. ‘And Paris isn’t far away.’

‘So you come back later today?’ asked the Italian girl quietly.

‘Well, I’ll probably stay overnight because I expect the meeting will run on into dinner.’ Aisling saw Gianluca come out of his study, carrying a sheath of papers which looked suspiciously like a contract, and raise his eyebrows at her in question. ‘I’ll catch a flight back first thing.’ She stared at her husband, looking so handsome and yet so impossibly forbidding. ‘If that’s okay?’

‘I think we might just be able to cope without you.’ He shot her a mocking black glance. ‘Tell me, cara, haven’t I seen that suit somewhere before?’

Aisling blushed. It was the one she had been trying on. The one.

She had managed to squeeze into it and had expressed enough breast milk for Claudio to be given in her absence, along with a long list of instructions for Carmela about what to do if he wouldn’t settle—and for her or Gianluca to ring her immediately if anything went wrong.

But there was no phone call—and while she was pleased that they hadn’t had to call her, she found herself feeling strangely disappointed, too. Was she so expendable, then? Didn’t Gianluca think that she might like to hear an account of the baby’s day while she was in a different country—or didn’t he care? Silly Aisling. Of course he didn’t.

She arrived to a chilly Paris and found it hard to settle during her meetings. Worse, she had little appetite for the delicious restaurant lunch she was taken to in the arts et metiers district. In fact, all she wanted to do was to whip out little photos of Claudio and show them round.

Was he missing her? she wondered. Was he doing that little thing he did when he’d just been fed—of lying on his back and kicking his darling little feet in the air? Gianluca always said one day he would become a striker for one of the top Italian clubs—while she had argued that he would be much better playing for an English side. Until they’d both decided that maybe football was a risky career for such a talented child.

But thinking like that didn’t help matters. It made her imagine an unimaginable future and ache with an odd kind of emptiness.

Stupidly, she found herself wishing she were back in her beautiful house with her beautiful baby—watching her beautiful man. Suddenly, she remembered how gentle Il Tigre could be. A strong man who could cradle a baby with infinite tenderness. Her heart turned over.

What wouldn’t she give for Gianluca to be missing her, too?

By mid-afternoon, she still hadn’t heard from them and she rang the house, but there was no answer. She tried Gianluca’s phone, but it just went straight through to voicemail and she left several messages asking him to call.

By late afternoon, she was frantic. Frantic enough to cut short her meeting and to cancel dinner and her hotel room and catch an early flight back to Perugia.

An empty stomach and self-doubt made her imagination work overtime. Claudio was sick. Gianluca had taken this opportunity to have the locks changed so she couldn’t get in! Gianluca had gone off with another woman! She had neglected her child by zooming off to the French capital and he would make her pay. And even though the rational side of her brain told her that these were crazy thoughts without foundation—that didn’t make them seem any less real.

She had to switch her phone off during the flight, but by the time they landed and she switched it back on again a text had come through from Gianluca saying, rather cryptically: ‘We’re fine—what’s the panic?’

But by then Aisling was being fuelled by adrenaline and at the airport she leapt into a taxi with her nerves in shreds, knowing she couldn’t go on like this. That she was living her life the wrong way and sooner or later it would drive her insane.

Yet even as these thoughts were racing through her head she was aware that she was plotting like a master-criminal, knowing that she wanted to arrive at the house early and unannounced. To surprise Gianluca. To find him doing … what?

The taxi crunched its way up the hillside and Aisling had it stop outside the main entrance. Thrusting a note into the driver’s hand, she slipped in through a side gate and went running inside, throwing open the door with a shaking hand, but there was nobody to be seen in the vast hallway.

‘Hello?’ she called, and then again as she closed the door behind her, only this time louder. ‘Hel-lo!’

There was nothing but the ominous sound of silence and a cold, sick feeling clamped round her stomach until she heard the distant sound of a sonorous voice coming from upstairs—and she took the stairs two at a time, heading for the direction of the voice, which seemed to be coming from the nursery bathroom.

She burst into the room with all the urgency of a firefighter and then halted in her tracks to see the vision which greeted her.

Gianluca was on the floor with the sleeves of his shirt all rolled up, tickling the tummy of a newly bathed Claudio, who was lying on a big, fluffy dry towel beside him. He’d dressed the baby in a new Babygro festooned with blue bunnies, which Aisling had bought in Rome only last week, and Claudio was gurgling with delight at the attention. They both turned their heads at the sound of the door and Aisling stood there, blinking back stupid tears of shame and remorse.

How could she have thought that Gianluca might have been up to no good—when he was all splashed with water and laughing at his son and looking like a leading contender for a Father of the Year award?

‘Gianluca,’ she said, her voice shaking with emotion as he sat back on his heels, his black eyes narrowing with an expression she couldn’t quite work out.

This, he thought, was Aisling as he had rarely seen her. Her hair was falling out untidily all over her shoulders, her tights had a run in them and her face was pink and shiny, as if she’d been sprinting. But the difference was about more than her dishevelled physical appearance. He could see her face working, like someone who was trying very hard not to cry. Aisling crying? Surely not. ‘You’re early,’ he observed.

‘Where were you?’

His eyes hardened. ‘Do I have to give an account of my movements every time you’re away?’

‘I couldn’t get through all day and I was worried!’ ‘About what?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Presumably not about leaving your son with his father or with the nanny whom you helped vet? So what’s to be worried about, Aisling? Maybe you just couldn’t bear the thought of losing control—of the world functioning perfectly well without you always being in the driving seat. Isn’t that closer to the truth?’

She stared at him. She had been tightly gripping onto her handbag, but now it slid unnoticed from her fingers as she registered his caustic tone. What sort of monster was he describing? ‘What are you saying?’ she whispered.

He shook his head. ‘Not now, Aisling,’ he said harshly. ‘And not in front of the baby. If there has to be some kind of showdown, then let’s do it by upsetting as few people as possible.’

Showdown?

Aisling felt dizzy as he picked up Claudio and carried him into the nursery. ‘Where’s Carmela?’ she questioned breathlessly as she followed him.

‘I gave her the evening off.’ He turned his head and she could see the mirthless line of his mouth. ‘Or maybe should I have run that past you first?’

Aisling stared at him and a slow, steady thump of fear began to work her heart into a different beat. She had been planning to tell him that she thought things needed to change, but now it looked as if Gianluca had come to a similar sort of conclusion himself and suddenly she was scared.

‘Can I put him to bed? I haven’t seen him all day.’

‘Of course.’ He kissed Claudio’s head and handed him over—barely meeting her eyes.

‘I’d better feed him, too.’

He was going to say that Claudio had taken most of the bottle she’d left behind, but by then she was already lifting her shirt with trembling fingers and latching the baby to her. Was she doing that to emphasise the fact that the baby needed a mother in the way that it never could need its father? He heard Claudio’s little sound of contentment and then the glugging of him feeding and saw Aisling briefly close her eyes with relief.

And, God forgive him, but at that moment he felt excluded. An outsider. Hadn’t he seen articles about fathers sometimes feeling jealous of their babies and hadn’t he despised them? Yet now here he was, feeling something very close to envy. He turned his back on her with a gesture of finality. ‘I’ll be waiting for you downstairs,’ he said.

Had he meant that to sound like a threat? Aisling forced herself to relax while Claudio fed, but it felt as if a soft dark cloud of dread were waiting to descend on her shoulders. It should have been a glorious homecoming—her baby safe and happy—with a sense of achievement that she’d managed to do a day’s work. Except that she hadn’t, had she—not really?

The whole day had been a disaster from start to finish. She hadn’t been able to concentrate on her work properly and yet she hadn’t been there for Claudio either, and now Gianluca was waiting for her downstairs with a strange and sombre look on his face and she was terrified of what that might mean.

That life was better when she wasn’t around—and now that Claudio was entrenched in this rural paradise she would have the devil’s job ever prising him away from it.

She spent longer than she needed to cuddling her little boy and then putting him down in the cot. As if she was trying to hold onto these last few moments of innocence before her world was shattered in a way which instinct told her it was about to be.

Flicking the mobile which hung over the crib with her fingertip, Aisling watched the tiger spinning round and round, its distinctive gold and black colouring blurring into something unrecognisable and indistinct—just as her life seemed to have done since meeting Gianluca.

Was it over? she wondered as she switched on the nightlight and slowly made her way downstairs.

Probably. And maybe it would be better like that—with all this need for pretence gone. She used to think she had everything mapped out, rigidly put in its place. She had thought that if you hid how you were really feeling, then you wouldn’t get hurt. But she had been wrong—because she had opened up the way for the kind of hurt which was a million times worse than anything else she’d ever experienced before.

She had grown up under a canopy of fear—and that had carried on into her adult life. But fear didn’t make a situation better—it made it worse. Fear that Gianluca might one day leave her or slowly edge her from his life was spoiling what time they had together now.

He was waiting for her in the smallest of the reception rooms with only a couple of low-lamps on and a fire which had been lit against the newly chilly evenings. Flames danced shadows over the walls and ceiling, and she could hear the crackle and spit of the logs.

He’d opened wine, too—she could see that it was a bottle from his own estate with its distinctive Palladio label—and he had poured two glasses. Viewed from here, it looked like a picture-perfect family scene. The husband and the wife who had just put their adorable baby to bed. The glow of the room and the pleasurable anticipation of the evening ahead. Suddenly, Aisling felt weak. She wanted to freeze-frame it and keep it, but it wasn’t real, and yet the pain in her heart had become so very real.

Gianluca saw her face whiten and his eyes narrowed. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded. ‘Is something wrong?’

She hesitated. What would she usually say? No, I’m fine—just a little tired, that’s all. She wouldn’t want him to think she was less than perfect—because Gianluca wanted and expected perfection. But she wasn’t—and her elaborately constructed act wasn’t working anyway.

‘Yes, something is wrong,’ she said, slumping into the nearest chair and beginning to cry. ‘Something is very wrong. You know it is!’

Gianlucawatched her. Usually, he mistrusted awoman’s tears—for they were often used as tools of manipulation—but these were sliding down her pale cheeks and her mouth was twisting in pain. And this was Aisling, he reminded himself. She always hid her emotions and she was not amanipulator. She never cried.

His cool expression did not change as he sipped his drink. ‘A hitch at work, perhaps?’

Aisling flinched as if he had struck her—but then, in a way, hadn’t he done just that? Because a crushing emotional blow could wound just as savagely. ‘Is that how you see me, then?’ she questioned, her voice shaking. ‘As so driven and focussed that nothing but ambition can touch me?’

‘I thought that was how you saw yourself.’

‘If you knew how I saw myself—you’d run a million miles away, Gianluca.’ She lowered her voice, daring to voice her deepest fear—bringing it out from the dark cupboard of her imagination. ‘But perhaps you’re intending to do that anyway.’

The cord of tension which had been stretching tight within him suddenly snapped as he saw this cold wasteland of a life spread out before him with this clever, closed woman. ‘Sì, maybe I am,’ he ground out. ‘Because I think I would find anything tolerable to living with a damned mannequin!’

The awful confirmation that he was thinking of leaving her was momentarily eclipsed by his accusation. ‘Amannequin?’ she echoed in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I am talking about a woman who might as well be made of wax—for all that she lives and breathes. For that is you!’ he declared. ‘A cool, controlled woman who never shows her feelings—except in bed! You think that I wish to be married to a block of ice?’

She clapped her hand over her heart, it was beating so hard. ‘But th-that’s what you wanted!’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You told me that’s what you found so attractive about me—that you never knew what was going on in my head. That Iwas an enigma and that men liked awoman to be mysterious—especially a man like you, who had spent all their lives being pursued by women who were like open books!’

He slammed his glass down so hard that some of the wine slopped onto the mantelpiece. ‘Yes, that was what initially intrigued me—but certainly not all. Are you crazy—thinking that I would tie my life to a woman simply because she played hard to get? You do not think that I was attracted to your mind as well as your initial reserve?’ he questioned hotly, shaking his dark head.

‘And we have moved on since then,’ he continued furiously. ‘Or, rather, I was hoping we might have done. But it seems I have been wrong, my freddo bella. What am I supposed to think—if not that what I see is what I get? A woman who does not care for her man? A woman who does not know how to care?’

‘But why should that bother you, Gianluca?’ she questioned, her voice wobbling. ‘You really only ever married me because of the baby, didn’t you? Why, you’d never even have seen me again if I hadn’t been pregnant!’

‘But that was your choice, too, Aisling—remember? I don’t remember you longing to want to see me!’ He took a deep breath to control himself, but rarely had he been so on the brink of losing it. ‘Yes, the baby was the reason we married, but even if you did have my baby—do you really think I would have set up home with a woman if I found her boring? If I did not think there were areas of compatibility we could work on?’

She stared at him. ‘You mean, you think there are?’

His breath was coming in short, angry bursts and his eyes burned like hot coals. ‘Ah, Aisling—you drive the dagger so deep, don’t you? You think that I am responsible for everything, sì? You want only to shift the blame to me, so that you do not have to accept any responsibility yourself? Yet you ran from my bed that first night in Italywhen there was no reason for you to do so. You, the only woman I had taken there—and, yes, I admit it was probably because you were so damned enigmatic!’

Aisling blinked at him in sheer surprise. ‘I didn’t know that. And besides, I … panicked—‘

He gave an impatient wave of his hand. ‘Then, when I came to find you in London again—’

‘But you kept me waiting for weeks! You told me you were only there because you had business in London!’

‘You think I have no pride, cara—is that it?’ he demanded. ‘You think I will allow a woman to trample on my heart? So I took you to dinner and I took you to bedbut again, you could not wait to get away the next morning.’

‘But our pact—’

‘Pact be damned!’ he raged. ‘You make me feel like the stud! The gigolo!’

‘That was the last thing I intended!’ she protested.

He shook his dark head frustratedly, aware that his smooth fluency seemed to be deserting him—but then, he was not used to doing something as alien as articulating his feelings. ‘So we have the baby and we make the marriage. We live in the beautiful house and everything should be wonderful. I even agree that you should work if you wish to—because I know how important it is to you! Because I admire the way you have worked your way up from nothing to achieve everything that you have. I encourage you to go to Paris, because I think that is what you wantwhat you need to make you contented. If work is so important to you, then you should work—but it must be your choice and yours alone. I try to work out what makes you tick—because you refuse to tell me!’

‘Gianluca—’

‘But even that was not right,’ he raged as he cut through her protest with an impatient wave of his hand. ‘Because I was not plaguing you with phone calls all day, leaving you free to concentrate on your job—you are still not happy!’

‘I felt excluded,’ she whispered. ‘As if you wanted to get me out of the way and sideline me.’

He shook his head with something approaching despair. ‘Ah, Aisling?’ he asked softly. ‘Why has it all gone so wrong, mia cara?’

Aisling’s heart stilled and her breath caught in her throat, knowing that she was poised on an emotional tightrope. It was one of those moments where there was a chance—just a tiny one, but a chance all the same—of pulling back from the brink of disaster. Of retrieving something golden and precious from the mess they had made of it so far.

‘Because I’m scared,’ she admitted.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Scared of what?’

Of so many things—would it repel him if she told him? Would the cool image he had painted of her crumble before his eyes? And even if it did—oughtn’t she to take that risk? For she had discovered that a relationship could not be built on shaky foundations—and surely honesty, however painful, was the most secure basis of all.

‘Scared of being needy, like my mother. Scared of relying on a man and being left. Scared of not having a career to fall back on if that should happen.’

‘But you are not your mother!’ he objected quietly. ‘And I am not your father. Whatever happens, I would not leave you destitute.’

‘No. Of course not. I can see that now. But patterns of thinking are hard to break when they’ve been in you for a lifetime.’ She tried a smile but it felt more like a grimace. ‘You see the cool stuff is just all a show, Gianluca—a mask I wear to conceal the ugly insecurities underneath. To hide so many things.’ She drew a deep breath now, recognising that she had come so far and she could not back down. That honesty meant just that. Had she really trampled on his heart, as he had claimed? Had she been so busy looking at the popular image of the rich playboy that she had not realised that he might be wearing a mask himself?

‘Including the fact that I love you,’ she declared softly. ‘Deep down, I think I’ve always loved you—but I’ve done such a good job of hiding it that I don’t think you’re ever going to believe me.’

As she spoke, as emotion trembled her voice and softened her features, the mask of which she had spoken seemed to dissolve before his eyes.

Suddenly Gianluca could see what it must have cost her to have admitted that and he could also see what had been left behind in its place—a look of tenderness and passion, devotion and love—shining out brighter than any star viewed from a rooftop restaurant. And it melted his heart.

When he had heard she was pregnant, Gianluca had marvelled at how quickly life could change. That it could be transformed in a heartbeat—by life, by death and by love. Everyone knew that deep down, but most people chose to ignore it. They carried on with their lives, blinkered and unseeing. It was easy to forget that the important things were all around if only you had the courage to reach out for them.

Something had happened when he had first held his newborn son and Gianluca was experiencing something similar now. It was love. Like something which had always been just around the corner and out of sight—only now it had stepped out into the daylight at last, dazzling and transforming.

And along with the breathtaking leap of his heart came the feeling of liberation. That just as Aisling had opened up her heart to him—he was free to do the same. Having Claudio had taught him that expressing emotion did not make a man weak—indeed, that love could empower you with a strength which made you feel you could conquer the world.

Gianluca had been protective of his emotions because women had always wanted more from him than he had been prepared to give, but for the first time in his life he had met someone who had not pushed him for emotional commitment or declaration. And love given freely was so much more powerful than love which was demanded.

He felt infused with the same kind of power which could make an eagle soar over unimaginable heights. ‘You may not believe me when I tell you that I love you, Aisling,’ he said fiercely. ‘But believe me when I tell you this, mia bella … bella—that I will spend the rest of my life showing you just how much I do.’

Afterwards, Aisling couldn’t remember which of them had moved first—whether he had crossed the room or she had. Or maybe it had just happened like osmosis—one flowing into the other without really trying. Just two people with aching hearts who had found a healing remedy in each other.