Читать книгу Modern Romance January 2020 Books 1-4 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 19

MIA STARED OUT of the window of the private jet as it lifted into the sunset sky. Her stomach clenched with nerves, her insides swooping as the plane rose and then levelled out. She was doing this. She was really doing this.

Because she had to. For Ella’s sake, for Alessandro’s sake. She’d recognised that this morning, when Alessandro had spoken oh-so-reasonably, but she still resisted. Still hated the thought that she was being backed into a corner.

Three months. She could manage for three months. She could get to know Alessandro. She could try to get along. After that…

Mia had no idea what happened after that.

She glanced across the teakwood table that separated her from Alessandro in the jet’s sumptuous living area. Since waking up in Alessandro’s penthouse that afternoon, she’d felt as if she’d fallen into a fairy tale, unsure if she was with the prince or the big bad wolf. A little bit of both, perhaps. Alessandro was certainly solicitous of her every need; she couldn’t fault him even if she was still on edge.

While she’d been sleeping, something she hadn’t even thought she’d be able to do, he’d arranged for all her things to be packed up from her apartment and put onto his private plane. He’d had bags packed for her and Ella with everything they could possibly need for the flight. They’d gone directly from the hotel to the airport, which meant Mia hadn’t been able to say goodbye to anyone.

She hadn’t made many friends in LA yet, but she still resented his high-handed manner. She didn’t think he was even aware of it, which made it worse. Somehow, against everything she believed and hoped for her life, she was ending up with a man like her father. Maybe not in the needless cruelty or sneering manner—Alessandro was certainly better than that. Yet the result was the same—being controlled by a man.

Alessandro, at least, was showing himself to be an attentive father. When she’d stumbled from the sumptuous bed back in the suite, she’d found him on the sofa, cradling Ella in his lap as he cooed down at her, his face softened and suffused with love. Seeing him in that unguarded moment had given Mia the hope that maybe, just maybe, she really was doing the right thing by going to Italy. That maybe it could even be a good thing.

She glanced again at Alessandro, his profile both handsome and hard as he gazed down at his tablet, a faint frown bisecting his patrician brow. He’d shed his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, revealing powerful forearms, muscles flexed.

Looking at him now, Mia remembered how irresistible she’d once found him. How Alessandro had informed her it was her choice whether or not she shared his bed. Her choice…and yet she was afraid to make it, afraid of feeling even more under his control, because she knew when he touched her she’d lose her sense of reason completely. And yet she couldn’t get the images, the memories, out of her mind.

As if sensing her looking at him, Alessandro glanced up, his frown deepening as their gazes met. ‘Is everything all right? Do you need something?’

She shook her head. She’d just fed Ella, and her daughter was asleep in her car seat. ‘No, I’m all right.’

‘Why don’t we have champagne?’ Alessandro suggested. ‘To toast our future.’

‘The next three months, you mean,’ Mia couldn’t help but correct. She needed to remind herself of that safeguard as much as him. ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t drink too much whilst I’m breastfeeding…’

‘Surely a sip won’t hurt.’ Alessandro motioned to an aide, and then barked out a command in Italian. Mia watched him silently; he wasn’t even aware of how once again he’d exerted his will. It was a small matter, seemingly insignificant, and yet she felt it.

She also felt how, after just one day, she was too weary and defeated to challenge him. What would she be like after a month, a year, a decade? Would she become as worn out and ghost-like as her mother had been, drifting through life, half-heartedly defending her choices, or lack of them?

The staff member came back with a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes. Alessandro dismissed the man and then expertly opened the champagne, the cork giving a stifled pop before he poured them both glasses.

‘To Ella,’ he said as he handed her a glass. ‘And to us.’

Dutifully Mia clinked her glass against his before taking a tiny sip. The bubbles fizzed through her, pleasantly surprising; it had been over a year since she’d had any alcohol. In fact…

‘Do you remember the last time we had champagne?’ Alessandro murmured, and Mia stiffened.

‘I’m sure you’ve had champagne last week, if not sooner.’

‘I haven’t, but I meant when we had it together.’

Together. The word held memory as well as promise. Intent. Mia took another sip of champagne, just to steady her nerves. ‘I didn’t expect you to talk about that,’ she said after a moment.

‘Why not?’

‘The last time we were together, you wanted to forget it, just like I did.’ Her voice was unsteady, as was her hand as she put her flute of champagne on the table in front of her.

‘Things have changed,’ Alessandro answered with a nod towards a still sleeping Ella. ‘Obviously.’

‘They haven’t changed that much,’ Mia protested. ‘You said I had three months to get to know you…to decide.’ Something flickered in his face and she leaned forward. ‘Did you mean that?’

‘Of course.’

She scanned his taut expression, dark brows drawn together, gaze slightly averted. ‘Alessandro,’ she said slowly, ‘what will happen after three months?’

‘My hope is we’ll get married.’

‘Married…’ Was she a fool to think he might have relinquished that notion? ‘And if I refuse?’

His eyes gleamed as he leaned forward. ‘I will make it my life’s mission for the next three months to make sure you don’t want to refuse.’

His voice was a sensuous caress, yet to Mia the words felt like a threat…and one she suspected he could carry out all too well.

‘And how will you do that?’ she asked, her voice wobbling. She hadn’t meant to direct a challenge, but she realised she had as Alessandro smiled knowingly, his lingering gaze as tangible as if he’d touched her.

‘I think you know how.’

‘By seducing me?’

‘Do I need to remind you how explosive our chemistry was?’

‘No, but perhaps I need to remind you there is more to a relationship—to a marriage—than what happens between the sheets.’

‘Or on a desk,’ Alessandro murmured, his eyes glinting.

Mia’s cheeks heated and she looked away. ‘Indeed.’

Alessandro settled back in his seat. ‘Like I said, we have chemistry, Mia. Let’s build on that.’

‘That’s hardly the foundation for a good marriage.’ In fact she feared it could be a disastrous one. What about shared values, aspirations, ideals? And besides, she had never wanted to get married, anyway. She’d never wanted to be so in thrall to another person, so under their control…and yet here she was. It filled her with a feeling of fearful hopelessness.

‘Chemistry and a shared love of a child is plenty,’ Alessandro returned. ‘More than many, or even most, have, and something we can build on.’

‘Did your parents love each other?’ she asked bluntly, and he stilled, clearly surprised by the question, before he gave a terse shake of his head.

‘My mother loved my father, but he did not love her in return.’

‘So would our marriage be one of love, eventually? Is that what you would hope for?’

Alessandro stilled, a guarded look coming over his face. ‘Our love of Ella…’

‘You know that’s not what I mean.’

‘What do you mean, Mia? Yesterday you told me you had never intended on marrying. Are you now telling me you want something different out of your marriage?’

She deflated, wondering why she’d pursued the point. ‘No, I’m not saying that. I’ve never wanted to fall in love.’

‘And neither have I, so I think we’re a good match.’

Yet why did that make her feel so despairing, so hopeless? She’d never wanted to marry, yet now that she might, she didn’t think she wanted a marriage devoid of affection. She felt trapped, choiceless, and she hated that. At least it was only for three months. It felt like the only silver lining to an otherwise towering, dark cloud.

‘My parents’ relationship was stormy and difficult,’ Alessandro said after a moment. She had the sense he was telling her something he didn’t relate often. ‘They never married, and, as I told you once before, my father walked out before I was born. My mother spent the next fifteen years beaten down by life, working dead-end jobs, moving from grotty flat to grotty flat, all in pursuit of some man or other…toxic relationships with wastrels or drunks or men who only wanted one thing.’ He sighed heavily, his gaze turning distant, as if he was lost or even trapped in a memory. ‘And she gave her heart every time, or so it seemed to me. It was no way to live.’ Mia heard a raw note of sadness in his voice that she’d never heard before, and it touched her, made her see him in a new and surprising light.

‘That must have been difficult for you,’ she said quietly, the aggression gone from her voice.

‘It wasn’t easy,’ Alessandro agreed, a dark note in his voice that made Mia’s heart ache. She had an image in her head of a little black-haired boy watching with wide, grey eyes as his mother invited another man into their lives, as they were forced to move, as life upended for him again and again. His childhood had been as challenging as hers, if not more so, just in a different way.

‘And so this is the alternative?’ she asked after a moment.

‘It’s an alternative.’ Alessandro met her gaze directly, his expression now one of firm purpose. ‘Give us a chance, Mia. I’m willing to. We can have a marriage of companionship and compatibility. It doesn’t have to be some terrible truce, or a sorry stalemate.’

‘A loveless marriage?’

‘Love is overrated. You must think that yourself, with your own background. Why fall head first into something that spins out of control when you can have something so much better?’

He made it sound so reasonable. So possible. Still Mia hesitated. ‘We still don’t even know each other, Alessandro.’

‘Which is why we’re giving it three months.’ He smiled and downed the rest of his champagne.

Three months, Mia thought, and then he’d expect her to marry him. And at that point, she had a terrible feeling she’d be the subject of another hostile takeover…impossible to refuse or resist. Alessandro would make sure of it.

Ella stirred in her seat, and Mia rose from where she’d been sitting. ‘She needs a top-up,’ she said. ‘And I’m really tired. I’ll feed her in bed and then go to sleep, if you don’t mind.’

‘All right.’ Alessandro had a thoughtful look on his face as he tracked her movements. She unbuckled Ella from her seat and scooped her up, breathing in her sweet baby scent, savouring the innocence of it. All this was for Ella’s sake, she told herself. Fighting Alessandro at every turn would only end up hurting Ella. For her daughter’s sake, she had to get along with this man. She had to give this—them—a try, even if everything in her still railed against it.

‘Please let me or a member of staff know if you need anything,’ Alessandro said solicitously. ‘Anything at all.’

She nodded, knowing she needed to make an effort even though part of her resisted. ‘Thank you, Alessandro,’ she said stiffly.

Surprise flashed across his features, followed by a ripple of pleasure, and then he nodded. Mia turned and walked towards the back of the plane with Ella in her arms.

He should have thanked her back, Alessandro realised belatedly as Mia closed the door of the plane’s bedroom behind her. She’d thanked him; he should have thanked her, for going along with his plans, for agreeing to so much. But he hadn’t thought of it, and the realisation shamed him, an unexpected, unwelcome feeling.

What he was doing was reasonable and generous. He was offering Mia far more than she could ever have on her own—a lifestyle of which she would have never been able even to dream. And yet…in some way he was taking her freedom. He recognised that, just as he recognised she was taking his. Still, it had been his idea, his will. He recognised that too.

Restless, Alessandro rose from his seat to prowl the living area of the plane, knowing he wouldn’t be able to work or settle to anything. He should be feeling satisfied, having arranged everything as he’d wanted it. Within twenty-four hours of arriving in California, he had Mia and his daughter back on a plane to Tuscany.

All was going according to his plan. So why did he feel so…restless? So dissatisfied and hungry, in a way he didn’t expect or understand?

He sat down again, pulling his laptop towards him, determined to work. But after only an hour he realised he hadn’t got anything done; he’d been staring at a spreadsheet of profit margins for at least twenty minutes.

With a near growl, he pushed his laptop away and strode towards the back of the plane. He could check on Mia and Ella, at least, and make sure they were okay.

He opened the door as quietly as he could; the bedroom was swathed in darkness, the shades drawn down against the night sky, the only light coming from the adjoining bathroom, the door ajar.

Mia lay on her side, her hair spread across the pillow in a golden sheet, Ella in the middle of the bed, cradled gently in her arm, both of them fast asleep. As Alessandro came closer he saw that Ella had finished feeding; a milk bubble frothed at her lips, one fist flung upwards by her round cheek. His gaze moved to Mia, and something in him jolted as he saw she’d changed into a white cotton nightgown, its buttons undone so she could feed Ella, one creamy breast on display.

All of it together—mother, child—was beautiful to him, and made him ache and yearn even more than he had before. More than he’d ever let himself.

He wanted this. Not just Mia, not just Ella. All of it together. Them. A family, the family he’d always ached for but never known. Finally, it could be his. He hadn’t even realised how much he’d been missing it until it was here, offered up in front of him, tantalising and beautiful.

Resolution crystallised inside him, sharpening into focus. Whatever it took, whatever it meant, he was going to knit them into a family. He would make Mia leave her regrets and fears behind; he would work hard to make her want this as much as he did. He’d worked hard for everything in his life, he could work hard at this too, the most important thing. The most important business deal he’d ever make. Not a hostile takeover as Mia had once suggested, but a true and purposeful merger. A marriage.

Carefully, as quietly as he could, he took off his shoes and belt, leaving his clothes on for form’s sake as he stretched out on the bed next to Mia, gently putting his arm around her. She stirred, and he waited, his breath held, wondering what she would do. Then she let out a breathy sigh and relaxed into him, her body softening against his.

Desire and something far, far deeper roared through him, elemental and overwhelming. Yes, he wanted this. He wanted it with every fibre of his being. And he would have it. Eventually he would have it.

Alessandro didn’t know how long he slept, but he woke when Mia shifted next to him, gasping as she sat up, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, her face flushed.

‘I didn’t mean to fall asleep…’

Alessandro blinked the sleep from his eyes as he took in the magnificent sight of her, her body rosy and soft with sleep, her eyes bright, her nightgown still unbuttoned.

‘I thought that was your intention when you lay down in bed,’ he said, keeping his voice light.

‘I was feeding Ella, and then I was going to put her in the Moses basket.’ She nodded towards the sleeping basket that had been in her apartment, and had been brought to the plane. It was next to the bed, made up with a fleece-lined blanket.

‘She can go in there now.’

‘I shouldn’t have fallen asleep with her on the bed,’ Mia said. She sounded upset. ‘It can be dangerous…’

‘She’s fine, Mia. Look.’ With one hand on her shoulder, he turned her so they could both look at their tiny, sleeping daughter. ‘She’s fine. No harm done.’ He rubbed her shoulder, a touch meant for comfort but which made him decidedly less so. Her skin was warm and soft, her nightgown slipping off her shoulder. He fought the urge to slip his hand inside and cup the breast he’d already seen and that was quite, quite perfect.

‘Still…’ Mia muttered. She sounded half-asleep.

‘I’ll put her in the basket now.’ Awkwardly but tenderly Alessandro scooped Ella up, conscious of her fragility, her utter smallness. He still wasn’t used to holding her.

The baby barely stirred as he laid her in the Moses basket, drawing the blanket over her. Then he returned to the bed, where Mia had already fallen back to sleep.

Gently he brushed a tendril of hair away from her cheek, letting his fingers skim along her silky skin. Her breath came out in a soft sigh and she relaxed against him, her body warm and pliant.

Alessandro shifted so he was lying behind her, one arm around her waist. Awareness prickled painfully through him. Sleep, he knew, would be elusive. Then Mia sighed again and wriggled closer to him, so her bottom was nestled against his groin, her head tucked under his chin. Yes, sleep would be very elusive indeed.

Alessandro kept his body relaxed so Mia would stay asleep, savouring her closeness even as it remained an exquisite form of torture. He breathed in her citrusy scent, revelling in her soft warmth, the nearness of her.

He never slept with the women he bedded. He’d always operated alone, on every level. He’d been happy with that. Yet now he found her closeness comforting, a balm as well as an undoubted enticement. He desired her, but he was also content to have her simply lie in his arms. For now, it was enough. It was more than he’d ever had before.

For a few moments he let his mind drift back over the years of his childhood, the loneliness, the uncertainty, the endless turmoil of being moved from one grotty flat to another, the parade of boyfriends who had raged or sneered or used their fists. And his mother…

But that hurt most of all. He tried never to think of his mother, to remember the look of weary defeat on her face, the words she’d said to him, too exhausted by life to be spiteful. They’d been simple truth.

‘I wish I’d never had you.’

No, he didn’t want to think of that. And he didn’t want his daughter to wonder, even for a day, a minute, if he felt that way about her. He would love Ella the way his mother and father had never loved him. And he would build a marriage with Mia that would be better than the candyfloss froth of fairy tales, a solid relationship of affection and companionship without losing control or being vulnerable the way his mother had been. The way he’d so often felt, as a child.

And yet he recognised, as Mia slept in his arms, that he’d already lost control, in some small but elemental way. Already he’d been more open and vulnerable, more emotional, with her than he ever had with anyone before…not that she would recognise that.

He still did, and it unsettled him. He’d never told anyone about his parents, or how he’d felt as a child. Already she knew more about him than anyone else, ever.

Somehow he was going to have to find a way to have the family he wanted without losing himself in the process. He could not relinquish the solitary independence he’d cultivated since he could remember. He didn’t know who he would be without it. And yet he wanted Mia and Ella in his life. He wanted the three of them to be a family.

He must have slept, because bright sunlight was visible underneath the rim of the shades as he stirred in bed, Mia wrapped even more tightly in his arms. In her sleep she’d rolled over to him, and now she was squashed up next to him so he could feel every delectable line and curve of her warm, warm body.

Her eyes fluttered open and she stared straight into his, her body stiffening as she realised how close they were.

‘Good morning,’ he said softly. ‘Ella is still asleep.’

Mia glanced down at their nearly entwined bodies, her breasts spilling out of her nightgown, pressed up against him. Colour flooded her face as she tensed even more.

‘What…?’

‘You were asleep,’ Alessandro said. ‘So was I.’

Her cheeks were stained crimson as she scrambled out of his embrace, buttoning up her nightgown with fumbling fingers.

‘I didn’t…’ she muttered, unable to look him in the eye.

‘Nothing happened, if that’s your concern,’ Alessandro said equably. ‘I would never take advantage of you, Mia. I promise you that.’

She opened her mouth, and Alessandro braced himself for what he was sure she would say. You already have. But then she closed her mouth and shook her head.

‘I’m going to have a shower and get dressed before we land,’ she said. ‘Can you watch Ella?’

‘Of course.’

She looked as if she wanted to say something more, but then she just shook her head again, slipping out of bed and hurrying to the en suite bathroom. The door closed behind her and Alessandro winced as he heard the lock turn with a decisive click.