Читать книгу Mistress To a Latin Lover - Кэтти Уильямс, Jane Porter, Cathy Williams - Страница 15

CHAPTER EIGHT

ADRIANA looked from Maximos to Cass and back again. “You’ve been seeing her?”

“Yes,” Maximos answered.

“Not Emilio?”

“No.”

Adriana’s forehead creased. “Then why did she arrive with him?”

Maximos’s jaw tightened. He hesitated for just a fraction of a second but Cass’s stomach knotted anyway. “To surprise me,” he answered smoothly.

Adriana looked suspiciously from one to the other. She seemed to be trying to make up her mind about something. “You didn’t seem happy to see her yesterday.”

“You know how I feel about Sobato.”

“Mmm.” Adriana’s lips pursed and then with a glance at Cass and her suitcase, asked yet another question. “Why is she leaving now then? Why before the wedding?”

“Something came up.” He saw his sister’s expression and he shook his head. “It’s complicated—”

“Then uncomplicate it,” Adriana retorted impatiently. “Because everyone’s already on board and if we don’t leave soon we won’t be back in time to get ready for the ceremony.”

Cass opened her mouth to speak but Adriana wagged her finger. “No. This is my day. I want you both to come now on the boat and share the picnic and make my wedding day happy.” She looked at her brother. “Maximos cannot upset me today and I know him. If there is a problem, it’s his problem. He’s a typical man. He has too much pride.”

Adriana tapped her watch. “Five minutes. You must be on the boat in five minutes.” And with a fierce nod she marched away.

“You better go,” Cass said quietly. “It is her day and she shouldn’t be upset.”

“Then you better come, too, because she said she wanted us both to go on the picnic.”

“I’m not in a picnic mood,” she answered, unable to hide her bitterness.

“Neither am I.” His voice was brusque, forceful. “But there’s no car coming for you, and unless Sobato is waiting somewhere for you, you’re not leaving Ortygia anytime today. So you might as well join the outing and make the best of it.”

“Is Sophia going to be there?”

He sighed, a long drawn-out exasperated sigh. “Sophia is not my girlfriend, and I have now publicly declared you my girlfriend in front of my family.”

Cass lifted her chin. “But have you told your family you only want me for sex?”

His brow furrowed, his dark gaze brooding. “Cass—”

“I want to go.”

“I’m sorry, Cass—”

“Fine. Apology accepted. Can I leave now?”

“No.” But he said it softly, so softly it forced her to look at him, really look at him, and his expression surprised her because he looked lost. Confused. And despite her anger and hurt she couldn’t walk out, not like this. “We need to talk. There are things we ought to discuss. Things you should know.”

“Then tell me now.”

“I don’t want a scene before Adriana’s wedding.”

“What you’re going to tell me will cause a scene?”

He hesitated. “It will be upsetting.”

His tone scared her. “What? You’re married?” She attempted to joke, needing to lighten the mood, needing laughter. But when she saw his shocked expression her laughter subsided. “I’m sorry. I was trying to add a little humor. But that’s not funny. I know it’s not funny.”

His expression changed yet again, shifting, hardening, his features becoming closed and unreadable. For a moment there was just silence then he muttered something, shook his head.

“Stay for the rest of the weekend,” he said. “Join us on the picnic, attend the wedding with me tonight and we’ll talk in the morning once everyone departs.” He paused, his gaze searching her face. “And you know we need to talk. We both need understanding… or whatever you think closure is.”

Closure. Her favorite word. And she didn’t want closure, she hated the very word, but she did need to understand what it was tearing them—and her—apart. She needed to do it for her. “Okay.”

He smiled, but she didn’t see relief in his eyes. If anything he seemed…resigned.

A few minutes later with shorts, swimsuit and sunscreen jammed into a woven bag, Cass walked with Maximos from the palazzo through town to the harbor where the boat waited.

But it wasn’t just a boat, Cass discovered, as they reached the small port dominated by one luxurious yacht. The sleek, stylish Guiliano yacht was a ninety footer, built in Viareggio, Italy, its sophisticated design practically an art form.

As Adriana had said, all the wedding party and guests had already boarded the yacht by the time Maximos and Cass arrived at Ortygia’s harbor. A lavish breakfast buffet had been prepared for the guests and the upper deck was a lively hub of activity as everyone milled about sipping champagne and balancing plates piled high with fresh fruits, sliced meats, cheeses and warm fragrant breads.

Maximos assisted Cass in boarding. “There’s coffee, juice, plenty to eat,” he said. “You’ll want to have a good breakfast now as it’ll be a number of hours before we arrive in Catania where we’ll disembark.”

“Is that where we’ll have lunch?”

“At the castle at Aci Castello.” Maximos signaled to the captain that they were ready to go. “If you’ll excuse me a minute, I should greet the others.”

He left her but he hadn’t forgotten her. A ship steward appeared shortly at her side with a cup of coffee laced heavily with milk and a small plate with a croissant and cheese. Her favorite breakfast.

She glanced toward Maximos who was making the rounds, playing the cordial host, and her lips curved ruefully. He confounded her. She honestly didn’t know what to make of him. Even here with his family he was so contained, so detached, essentially a closed book.

But why?

What made him mistrust so much? What made him want sex, but not love? Convenience, not commitment?

Why would a man as strong, as wealthy, as powerful as Maximos be so…afraid?

Now the yacht was pushing back from the harbor, motoring slowly past ancient Ortygia’s striking stone buildings, and Cass’s attention was caught by the buildings gleaming ivory and yellow in the wash of morning light.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything so beautiful as the dazzling displays of architecture set against the brilliant turquoise water. Gold and sapphire, lapis and silver. Breathtaking.

The yacht reached open water and picked up speed and Cass remained at the ship’s railing, watching the land recede.

“Would you like more coffee?” Maximos asked, joining her.

“Your steward’s very conscientious. He’s been by three times with fresh cups.”

“That’s what he’s paid to do.” Maximos rested his forearms on the railing, and he stared out at the bright blue water surrounding them. The morning was already quite warm and yet the breeze cut the heat.

Cass glanced at him over her shoulder. “Your sisters have been whispering and staring at me.”

“You’re beautiful.”

She made a face. “That’s not why they’re staring at me.”

He laughed, lifted his hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right. You are beautiful but that’s not why they’re looking at you. They’re curious.”

“About…?”

“You. I’ve never…brought anyone here before.”

“Never?”

“Not since I was a kid.”

Maximos saw the way she looked at him, and he knew she didn’t believe him, or maybe it’s that she didn’t understand him. Well, he couldn’t blame her. He didn’t understand himself.

All his life he’d thought he was one person and then he’d discovered he was someone else.

He’d always been strong, fair, just. But ever since meeting Cass…

He’d done nothing but play dirty. Break every rule.

“I’m glad you didn’t go,” he said after a moment. “I didn’t want you to leave like that.”

“But you know I’m going to leave. I have to.”

He heard the cool note in her voice. She was still upset with him. She should be.

“Eventually, yes,” he answered.

He saw her throat work and he felt a rush of inexplicable emotion—need, pain, anger, again, so much anger—and it was just a matter of days…hours…now before he told her the truth.

His gut churned knowing she’d be devastated. She’d never forgive him. Why would she forgive him? He couldn’t forgive himself.

And this is why he’d ended it six months ago, he reminded himself. This is why he’d let her go. It was better for her. Cleaner. Smarter. Safer.

For her. And him. But mainly her.

How could she move on if she were still so emotionally tied to him?

Her hands balled on the railing. “You make me crazy,” she whispered. “You pull away when I need you, come to me when I don’t. You hurt me, and confuse me, and I don’t know why I still care for you so much when you’ve made my life a living hell.” Her voice broke and she dipped her head, hiding her face and Maximos knew she was trying not to cry.

If she were really his, he’d pull her to him and comfort her. But she wasn’t his. Couldn’t be his.

Cass knew Maximos was watching her, felt his ambivalence and his ambivalence just cut even deeper.

You have to be hard, she told herself, tough.

But she didn’t feel hard inside, she felt like glass. She felt fragile… ethereal. Her strength and resolve were gone. It was as if the warrior had broken, leaving her crumpled. Leaving her so damn small.

She couldn’t bear Maximos’s anger or indifference any longer. She could take the brutality from anyone but him. She’d been his…how could he hurt her like this? How could he continue to be so cold, so hard, so removed?

What she needed most was tenderness. Now. Right now. She needed his arms around her, holding her, needed his lips against her neck, her cheek, her mouth, warming her, soothing her. Loving her.

But he didn’t love her. And he felt no tenderness for her. He’d break her the same way he broke all his competition.

She pictured the luxury auto industry he’d so completely dominated these past ten years, recalled the sleek fast dangerous cars he’d perfected and realized he’d already broken her.

She was like one of his beautiful cars caught in a pileup. Twisted, crumpled metal marked by gritty piles of shattered glass.

Her head spun with the truth. She’d once thought she was so tough, so together. And yet now look at her…

She was nothing. She’d become nothing. Love had reduced her to this.

“Why do you still care?” Maximos asked after a long silence.

She made a rough sound in the back of her throat. “I loved you.”

“Why?”

He wanted to discuss this here…now? He wanted a rational conversation now? He wanted to discuss love after six and a half months of torture?

Yes, she did love him but how could this be love? How could love hurt like fire? How could love level like this, smash, destroy?

She’d always been taught that love was patient, love was good. Love was kind. Love wasn’t selfish.

But that’s not how she felt. She felt angry. Fierce. And it was the waiting that had done this to her…to her heart.

The longing to hear from Maximos made every uncertainty roar to life, and when the silence stretched, when he didn’t call, when the days and weeks passed without a word she felt her security slip, her peace of mind crack.

His distance left the door open to fear and doubt.

Was waiting this hard for everyone? Did other women feel this way when alone…did they wonder like she did? Did they worry? Doubt?

Did other women approach love with more confidence, with less fear?

If she’d felt deeply and truly loved would she have been more grounded, less nervous?

What would life have been like if she’d been his true love instead of a warm body in his bed?

And every time he left her, she prayed he’d say, I’ll call you. And then she’d pray, let him call. Let him call soon. But he never did. He made her wait. And wait.

And slowly it broke her. It was the waiting for love that reduced her to this.

“Maybe it wasn’t love,” Maximos said, his shuttered gaze resting on her face. “Maybe it was lust and you thought it was love.”

Her lips tugged, emotions sharp, too intense. “I know the difference,” she whispered, thinking that the past seemed light-years removed, their volatile relationship part of someone else’s life…someone else’s experience, and even though the good feelings seemed so far away, she knew there’d once been good feelings in this relationship.

She looked at him, seeing his dark beauty, the hard lines and edges of Maximos Guiliano. Tall, powerful, authoritative. A Sicilian man who didn’t compromise.

Her heart squeezed inside her chest. If only he’d compromised for her…

“I loved how I felt when I was with you,” she said after a moment. “I loved how I felt when I looked at you. You gave me joy. You gave me peace. When I was with you I wanted nothing else, nothing more. Every moment was precious, every moment meant so much to me.”

“Yet you never saw us in the future. You never saw us growing old together.”

She looked at him strangely. “Why do you say that?”

Lines formed on either side of his mouth and for a moment he didn’t answer. Then his head shook, his features tightening. “I know I wasn’t good for you, and I know I—and our relationship—had hurt you.”

The relationship had hurt. After awhile. After the limitations had become too narrow, too restrictive, too binding.

“You didn’t give me a future.” She couldn’t look at him anymore, the heartbreak back, the feelings so sharp and bittersweet. “You didn’t allow me to dream. You made it clear from the start it was sex, and I tried to be content with sex.”

She exhaled hard, and drew another breath, the air hot, aching inside her lungs. “But I fell in love with you anyway. I couldn’t help it. You’re not like anyone I’ve known before.”

“You’ve been pursued by many successful men.”

“It’s not your success that makes you fascinating. It’s you—your darkness, your complexity, your sharp edges. You’re… dangerous, Maximos. And I know it. I’ve always known it.”

“Danger’s that attractive?”

She looked out over the deep blue water, trying to think of an appropriate answer, but all she saw was the ad campaign Italia Motors had hired her to do for their European market. The ads had been dark, moody, sexual. Nothing light or playful in the Italia Motors branding and she’d gotten that directly from Maximos herself.

One look at him and she wanted to slide out of her clothes and into close contact with him.

One night alone with him and she’d wanted every night with him.

“You’re that attractive,” Cass answered, ruefully. “You’re that man every woman dreams about—the dark handsome stranger, the forbidden—and I wanted that.”

“Forbidden.”

She shrugged. “There’s always an appeal to that which is out of reach, to that which we can’t have.”

“But you did get me. You did have me.”

There was something in his voice, in his tone, that reminded her of how she used to feel when alone with him—desired, sheltered, adored. God, how she’d loved being with him, being loved by him. It was the best feeling in the world. “And I just wanted more.” She tried to smile, but couldn’t.

Maximos’s forehead creased, deep lines furrowing between his strong eyebrows and silence stretched between them, the silence stretching so long that Cass shifted. “I obviously shouldn’t have wanted more,” she added after a moment. “Me asking for more was the kiss of death, wasn’t it?”

“There was nothing wrong with you asking for more.” His voice was low, harsh. “I know you wanted more, needed more. I gave you very little.” He hesitated, glanced at her, features savage. “I gave you virtually nothing.”

He’d known.

Cass felt a flicker of pain, like the sharp edges of a palm frond brushing her heart, simultaneously cutting and caressing. He’d known.

She couldn’t see, the sudden sting of tears blinding her vision and Cass gripped the railing, her head so full of words and emotions that she didn’t even know where to begin.

How could love be so complicated?

As a child love had seemed so very simple. Emotion had been simple. You loved, you laughed, you hoped, you feared. Emotion had just been that—emotion. And you made your decisions based on honest emotion.

Then you learned.

You grew up.

You changed.

Love stopped being simple, direct, uncomplicated. Love became difficult. Dangerous. Complex. Love became something one could lose, something elusive and negotiable.

It became about behavior.

It became a reward.

It even became a punishment.

And for a moment Cass wanted nothing more than to be a child again with a child’s innocence and the pure heart of one still young, still trusting. Because love was better like that, when one trusted, when one didn’t worry and fear, when one didn’t anticipate pain. When one didn’t fear scrutiny never mind rejection.

Did anyone manage to grow up unscathed? Unscarred?

Did anyone reach adulthood—maturity—still trusting? Still centered? Still optimistic?

She wished she had. She wished she was more like the image she projected, the one with impeccable suits, flawless hair, dazzling success. On the outside she looked like the perfect woman. But the perfection stopped there. Because on the inside she wanted so much more.

On the inside there was a woman who’d never felt secure, never felt loved, and she’d picked Maximos to love her because if he—difficult, untamable Maximos—should love her then she was truly valuable. Lovable.

“Can I just interrupt for a moment?” Annamarie, Maximos’s middle sister, asked, joining them. She was cradling her infant daughter against her shoulder, one hand raised protectively to shield the baby’s head and neck from the sun.

“Of course,” Maximos answered, reaching to take his young niece from his sister. “I’ve wanted to say hello to this beautiful bambina all morning.”

Cass couldn’t watch Maximos with the baby. It was the last thing she wanted to see and she turned toward his sister who was looking at her with the strangest expression—surprised, as well as intrigued.

“I’m Annamarie,” his sister said, introducing herself. “I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to meet you earlier. I think there was a misunderstanding—”

“It’s okay,” Cass interrupted, knowing what Maximos’s sisters thought, and as it was what they were supposed to think, the last thing Cass wanted from any of them was an apology. “I understand.”

“You’re an American?” Annamarie asked.

“Yes.”

“But you’re Italian is excellent. I can hardly detect an accent.”

“I hope so. I’ve lived in Europe for ten years now, five of those in Rome.”

“You like Rome?”

“Very much so,” Cass answered, tucking another loose strand of hair behind her ear. The yacht was moving at such a clipped speed that the deep blue water frothed with white foam. “It’s become home.”

“And Sicily?” Annamarie persisted. “Do you like it here?”

“It’s my first visit.”

“Your first visit? You mean Maximos has never brought you to his own country, to meet his own people before?”

“She’s going to Catania and Aci Castello now,” Maximos said calmly, gently patting the baby’s back.

“But what about Agrigento, Palermo, Mount Etna?” Annamarie protested. “Those are all important to our culture. You can’t possibly say you’ve visited Sicily if you haven’t seen more.”

“And I’d like to visit them,” Cass said, wanting to change the subject, nearly as much as she wanted to escape. She couldn’t handle seeing Maximos with the baby. It was too painful, too vivid of a reminder of what she’d lost. “Unfortunately I don’t travel as much as I’d like. I tend to get preoccupied with work.”

“Ah.” Annamarie nodded with a glance at Maximos. “Another workaholic. I’m always saying to Maximos, don’t work so much. You need to rest more, play more, but Maximos is very driven.” Annamarie shot her brother another reproving glance. “He is not very good at taking things easy.”

Cass smiled but she wouldn’t meet Maximos’s eyes. Instead her gaze dropped to the baby he was holding in his arms, the infant curled so contentedly against his chest, Maximos’s powerful hand cupping the back of the baby’s head, holding the infant easily, comfortably, cradling her as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Her chest tightened with heartache. She and Maximos hadn’t just had sex. They’d created life. They’d made a baby.

Their baby.

Cass watched Maximos return his niece to his sister, and the baby, dressed in a small pink outfit, crawled up Annamarie’s shoulder, tiny hands grabbing at her mother’s sparkly teardrop earring, studying the earring intently.

For a moment Cass couldn’t breathe, pain shooting through her, a lance of white-hot heat. That could have been me, she thought, that could have been me with our daughter.

“What’s wrong?” Maximos asked Cass as Annamarie walked away, excusing herself so she could feed the baby.

Cass looked at Maximos, but she didn’t see him, just the ultrasound, that first glimpse of the daughter that wasn’t meant to be. “Nothing,” she said. “It’s nothing.” Because it was nothing now. Nothing she could do. Nothing she could change.

Even if she wanted to.

“You’re not very comfortable with kids, are you?” he asked.

Turning her head away, she stared out at the horizon of blue, trying not to scream at the injustice of it. “I like kids.”

She’d been thrilled she was pregnant. She’d been thrilled she was going to be a mother. Nearly thirty, it had felt right in a way she couldn’t explain…not even to herself. She was ready to be a mother, ready for this next step in her life. Maybe she was too strong, too independent to make a good wife, but she knew how to love and her baby would be loved.

Then came the ultrasound.

She had a daughter.

And her daughter wasn’t healthy. Nothing had come together quite right, limbs didn’t attach correctly—a hole in her tiny heart.

Cass had been dumbstruck. The doctor talked. Cass stared at the sonogram. Her daughter—her daughter—wouldn’t survive.

Sitting there in her robe, the cold gel drying on her stomach, time came screeching to a stop. After the doctor finally finished talking, she sat silent, her head buzzing with numbing white noise. And then the cloud cleared in her head and she was herself again. Tough. Determined. The fighter.

“How can I help her?” she’d asked.

The doctor’s brow creased. He didn’t speak. His expression grew more grim. “You can’t,” he said at last.

But it wasn’t an answer she accepted. This was her daughter. Her daughter…and Maximos’s. “There must be something.” She strengthened her voice, and her resolve. “Procedures done in utero.”

“It’s unlikely she’ll even survive birth. If she does, she won’t survive outside of the womb.”

Cass shook her head, furious. She wouldn’t accept a diagnosis like that, and she’d stood then. Brave, fierce, undaunted. “You’re wrong.” Her voice didn’t waver. “She’ll make it. I’ll make sure she survives.”

But Cass had been the one wrong. Two weeks later she woke up in agony. Rushed to the hospital, she miscarried that night.

“Do you want a family?” Maximos asked, ignorant that each of his questions were absolute torture.

“Yes.” Her eyes burned but she wasn’t going to cry, couldn’t cry about the devastating loss. Some pain went too deep, some pain caused insurmountable grief.

Losing Maximos had hurt—badly, badly—but losing their child had broken her heart.