Читать книгу Modern Romance January 2020 Books 1-4 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 20

MIA HELD ELLA to her as she stepped out of the limo into the warm spring morning. Sunlight glinted off the terracotta tiles of Alessandro’s villa, the Tuscan hills now covered in verdant green and bright blossom.

The place was huge and sprawling, made of white stucco, with terraced gardens on the hillside, bursting with colourful blooms. She could hardly credit that she was going to live in such a magnificent place, if just for three months.

Or maybe for ever.

Alessandro gently placed his hand on the small of her back as he guided her towards the imposing entrance. Mia’s eyes felt gritty, her body aching with fatigue and jet lag despite the few hours’ sleep she’d snatched on the plane, waking up so unsettlingly in Alessandro’s arms. For a second, before she’d woken up completely, she’d lain there, warm and comfortable, snuggled and safe.

Happy.

She’d been completely wrong-footed when she’d realised just how much she’d cosied up to Alessandro, and meanwhile forgotten Ella entirely. He still had that devastating effect on her, she realised. Perhaps he always would—the ability to melt her insides like butter, even as he fanned her to flame. It scared her, the power he could have over her if she let him.

After they’d landed, Mia had done her best to find a cordial but formal middle ground, although he suddenly seemed intent on being close to her whenever he had the opportunity, such as now, when he gently pressed his palm to the small of her back, sending shivers of awareness rippling through her, before he took Ella from her.

‘I’ll hold her for a bit. You look shattered.’

She was shattered, but Ella felt like her safety shield. Without her, Mia was exposed, unsure what to do with her arms, how to look or feel. Everything about this was so incredibly strange. Whether for three months or for ever, she couldn’t believe she and Ella were going to live here, with Alessandro, as a family.

She glanced around the soaring marble foyer in amazed disbelief. Several doors led off to various impressive reception rooms, and a sweeping double staircase led to the second floor.

‘This feels like a castle,’ she couldn’t help but say.

‘And you’re the princess,’ Alessandro told her as he hefted Ella against his shoulder. Already he was starting to handle Ella with more confidence, although he still carried her as if she was so fragile she’d break…or explode.

The flashes of uncertainty Mia saw on his face as he held their daughter made her melt in an entirely different way—he could affect her heart as well as her body. Both were dangerous.

‘You may do whatever you like to the place,’ Alessandro continued, a look of nervousness crossing his face as Ella began to fuss. ‘Redecorate however you want…it is your home, Mia. Yours and Ella’s and mine. Ours.’ He jiggled Ella uncertainly, and as their baby started to settle down he looked up at Mia with a small smile.

‘Do you think she knows me yet?’

‘She’s starting to.’ Ella gave Alessandro a gummy smile that made him grin back in delight.

‘She smiled. She actually smiled.’

Mia couldn’t help but laugh. ‘So she did.’ Watching Alessandro and Ella bond over something as simple as a smile made her heart ache. How could she ever contemplate ending this? Walking away from a family life that neither she nor Alessandro had ever had before?

It was just a smile, she told herself, and in any case, she didn’t yet know what kind of family life they would have. How it would work. No matter what assurances Alessandro made, she wasn’t yet convinced.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Where…where is my room?’

‘Our room is at the top of the stairs, to the right.’

She turned to him, appalled even as a treacherous excitement made her stomach flip. ‘Our room?’

‘It will be our room,’ he amended somewhat reluctantly. ‘For now you may have it. But I look forward to the day when we might share it.’

‘If,’ Mia couldn’t help but say and Alessandro gave her a knowing look.

‘When,’ he repeated firmly. ‘Definitely when. Now, why don’t you go upstairs and have a bath, relax for a bit? I’ll watch Ella, especially since she seems to like me now.’ He smiled down at their daughter.

‘She needs a feed…’ Mia began, torn between wanting to rest and needing her daughter.

‘I’ll come and get you if she fusses.’

‘You mean when,’ Mia returned wryly, and Alessandro laughed.

‘True enough. When.’ He smiled at her, and Mia found herself smiling back. Maybe she needed to relax…not just in a bath, but with everything. With Alessandro. It was going to be a long, tense three months if she didn’t.

Upstairs Mia wandered into the first room at the right, gaping at the sheer opulence of what was clearly the master bedroom. As Henry Dillard’s PA, and then, briefly, Eric Foster’s, she’d seen more than her fair share of luxury, even if she hadn’t partaken in it directly. But this room exceeded all her expectations.

It was enormous, for a start, its tiled floor supplied with underfloor heating so Mia’s feet remained toasty warm as she slipped off her shoes with a sigh of relief. A king-sized bed stood on its own dais, piled high with silk and satin pillows. A separate seating area with deep leather sofas had a stunning view of the garden below, with an infinity pool and hot tub large enough to seat twenty. Thick-pile rugs were scattered across the floor, so Mia’s toes sank into their exquisite softness as she walked towards the bed.

It looked amazing, inviting, and huge. And one day—if or when—she was meant to share it with Alessandro. Why did that thought not alarm her as it should? She couldn’t deny the lick of excitement low in her belly, even as she tensed at the thought. She knew that giving herself to Alessandro again would come at an emotional cost. He might just see it as sex, but she knew she wouldn’t. Already she felt herself softening to him, and it scared her. She had too many memories, too many fears, to let herself relax and trust Alessandro…even if he proved trustworthy.

She pushed such thoughts out of her mind as she turned to the bathroom, taking in the sunken marble bathtub, the shower big enough for two, the double sinks. She turned on the taps to fill the tub, and added nearly half a bottle of high-end bubble bath. She was going to have a good, long soak, and try not to think for a while, because if she did, her head might explode.

Twenty minutes later, having submerged herself in hot, soapy bubbles and nearly fallen asleep, Mia sat up suddenly as her breasts prickled and her body tensed. Faintly, so faintly, she heard Ella cry.

With a sigh she pulled the plug on the bath and swathed herself in the thick, velvet-soft terrycloth dressing gown she’d found hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She finger-combed her hair as she walked through the bedroom and then downstairs, following the sound of Ella’s now shrill cries.

She wandered through several empty, elegant rooms before she spied Alessandro rocking Ella in the kitchen, a cheerful and comfortable room at the back of the house, with French windows leading out to a wide terrace with steps down to the garden.

Mia paused in the doorway, spellbound by the simple yet heart-warming scene. Ella was crying with determination, while Alessandro danced around the kitchen, jiggling her rather desperately against his shoulder.

‘Now, bambina, you need to settle down or you’ll wake your mamma. Why are you upset, eh? What is there to be so sad about?’ He pressed a kiss to Ella’s cheek. ‘Are you hungry, cara? Is that the problem? Am I going to have to wake your mamma, after all?’

‘I’m already awake.’

Mia’s voice came out scratchy as she absorbed the scene in front of her, let it squeeze her heart. She’d never seen Alessandro look so gentle, or approachable, or…loving. He’d been loving. And it gave her a glimpse of a future that didn’t look as unfathomable or impossible as she’d assumed it would be. In a strange and surprising way, for a few seconds it had looked…wonderful. And that scared her too, because it was not what she’d expected, and it made her want things she was afraid to try for or even to dream about.

What if Alessandro was right, and they could have a relationship, a marriage, that was strong and true and good? Based on companionship and affection? What if that was possible?

Why did that thought both terrify and thrill her in equal measure?

Alessandro gave her an endearingly self-conscious smile. ‘I guess she is hungry, as you said she would be. I’ve been trying to calm her, but no luck.’

‘You can’t provide the goods in this case,’ Mia answered as she held her arms out, and Alessandro danced his way over to her, making her smile.

‘Here she is.’

‘Has she had a change?’

‘Her nappy? Yes.’

‘You changed it?’ Mia couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice.

‘It took a few tries, I admit. Thankfully there were enough nappies. Those tapes…’ He shook his head. ‘They were not designed for durability. I might have to take over the company that makes them, to ensure a stronger design.’

Mia laughed at such an outrageous suggestion. ‘Is that how you decide what companies to take over?’

‘Actually, no.’ He looked serious for a moment before he deliberately lightened his expression. ‘But perhaps it will be, as far as nappies are concerned.’

‘So how do you choose the companies?’ she asked as she settled in a sofa in the cosy nook off the kitchen. Alessandro joined her, sitting on the sofa opposite. Conscious of his gaze on her, Mia bent her head, her damp hair falling forward as she brought Ella to her breast. When she was sure she was presentable and Ella feeding discreetly, she looked up, everything in her jolting at the sudden, blazing look in Alessandro’s eyes…a look of pride and possession that made her feel a welter of unsettling sensations.

As he caught her gaze, it faded, leaving scorch marks on her soul. He gave her a small smile. ‘I choose companies that have corrupt and weak leadership.’

Startled, she shook her head. ‘But Henry wasn’t…’

‘Corrupt? No, perhaps not. But he was weak and lazy, and he was running Dillard’s into the red. I estimated that in another eighteen months, none of you would have had jobs.’

‘Surely not…’

He shrugged. ‘Two years, at the maximum.’

‘I always knew he was a bit old-fashioned,’ Mia said slowly. ‘And he did like his golf game…’ But she’d considered those qualities endearing, rather than damaging. Now she wondered.

‘As affable as he could be, he was a weak leader,’ Alessandro responded firmly. ‘And he would have proved disastrous for the company and its employees.’

‘And you care about the employees.’ Once she would have said as much incredulously, but now there was the lilt of a question in her tone. ‘Because I don’t understand that—your reputation is so ruthless, firing most of the employees of the companies you take over. And yet…’

Alessandro smiled wryly as he raised his eyebrows. ‘And yet?’

‘And yet that didn’t seem to be the case with Dillard’s. Most of the staff were given jobs elsewhere, better jobs by the sounds of it, and the people who were let go had very generous redundancy packages, which has to cut into your profit. But none of that seems to make it into the press.’

‘No,’ he agreed, sounding unbothered by that fact.

‘Why? Don’t you mind being portrayed as some ruthless monster?’

‘No, because I can hardly be a teddy bear if I’m going to take over a company. Having a reputation helps.’

‘But why do you do it?’ Mia pressed. ‘What are you trying to achieve?’ He hesitated for a long moment, and Mia had the sense they were on the cusp of some great and terrible revelation.

‘I do it,’ he finally said, ‘because I cannot abide having weak or corrupt people in leadership, and I will not stand by and allow them to ruin people’s lives.’ He paused. ‘Like my father did.’

Alessandro gazed at Mia, noticing the way her hair, like a golden slide of silk, hid her face, so he couldn’t gauge her expression. He hadn’t meant to make that admission, but now that he had he was glad he had. He could hardly expect Mia to come to trust him if he didn’t share something of his life and past with her…even if doing so made him feel uncomfortably exposed.

‘Your father?’ she repeated softly. ‘How…?’

‘He was the CEO of a company in Rome. My mother was a cleaner in his office.’ He could not keep the old bitterness from twisting his words. ‘It was, as I’m sure you can imagine, a short-lived affair. He made my mother promises he never intended on keeping. And when he found out she was pregnant, he fired her.’

‘Oh, Alessandro.’ His name was a soft cry of distress. ‘I’m so sorry.’

He shrugged one shoulder, half regretting having told her that much. It made him feel scraped raw inside, to have these old wounds on display.

‘What did she do?’ Mia asked softly.

‘She had me, and then worked one dead-end job after another trying to make ends meet, which they rarely did. She told me about my father when I was quite small, and I followed his career, saw how he abused his power and privilege, not just with women like my mother, who had nothing, but in all sorts of ways.’ He shifted where he sat, that old determination coursing through him again. ‘I determined then that I would never allow people like that to abuse their power. And I’ve made it part of the mission of my work to take over companies that are showing such signs.’

Mia shook her head slowly. ‘I had no idea…’

‘You’re not meant to. I can’t exactly publicise what I’m doing. Hostile takeovers are just that. Hostile.’

‘Still, to do something noble and never be known for it…’

The warmth in her eyes both discomfited and awed him. He realised he liked having her look at him like that, feel like that. And that was alarming.

‘It’s not as much as you think, Mia. Some people are still out of jobs. I have a reputation for a reason.’ Why he was trying to dissuade her from thinking well of him, he had no idea. Perhaps simply because he wasn’t used to it.

‘Still.’ She pursed her lips as she gazed down at their daughter. ‘I wish I’d known earlier.’

‘Well, now you know.’

Alessandro paused, watching as she cradled Ella in her arms, their daughter feeding happily, one fist reaching absently for Mia’s hair.

‘It occurs to me,’ he said conversationally, ‘that you know more about me than I know about you.’

Mia looked up, eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘What do you want to know about me?’

‘Everything. Anything.’ He realised he was truly curious. ‘But we can start with the basics. Where are you from?’

‘The Lake District.’

‘A beautiful area.’

‘You’ve been?’

He smiled. ‘I’ve heard.’

‘It is beautiful.’ She looked away, seeming almost as if she was suppressing a shiver. ‘Beautiful and isolated and very cold.’

‘That sounds like a rather mixed description.’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t like it growing up. I couldn’t wait to get away.’

‘Why? Just because it was cold?’

She hesitated, and he waited, sensing she had something more important to reveal. ‘No, because my father was…well, suffice to say, we didn’t get along.’ She kept her gaze on Ella, catching their daughter’s chubby hand in her own and gently removing it from her hair.

‘And your mother?’ Alessandro asked quietly.

‘She died when I was fourteen. I’d say of a broken heart, but I know how melodramatic that sounds.’

‘No.’ His mother had wasted away, worn to the bone by work and poverty. It was possible, Alessandro knew, to die of things that ate at you the same way a physical disease did. ‘Is your father still alive?’

‘I don’t actually know.’ Mia looked up at him then, her blue eyes icy with a hard anger he’d never seen before, not even in their stormiest moments. ‘I haven’t seen him in eight years, and that is fine by me.’

‘I see.’ Although he didn’t see the whole picture, he was starting to get a glimpse. Whatever had happened with her father, Mia clearly had emotional scars from it. He didn’t know what they were exactly, but at least he knew they were there.

‘Anyway.’ Mia shrugged, her gaze back on Ella. ‘With the background you just told me about, how did you get to be a billionaire by age—what? Thirty-something?’

‘Thirty-seven. I worked my way up.’

‘From slums to a billionaire lifestyle?’ She shook her head slowly, seeming impressed. ‘That’s quite a steep climb.’

‘Yes.’

‘How did it happen?’

Alessandro shrugged. ‘I was lucky and I worked hard. I started in property, buying rundown buildings and flipping them. It grew from there.’

‘It has to have been more than luck.’

‘Like I said, I worked hard.’

‘Very hard, I imagine. You’ve always seemed…driven to me.’

‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ Although, coming from her, he didn’t know whether it was a compliment or not.

‘What about your mother?’ Mia asked. ‘Is she still alive?’

‘Sadly, no. She died when I was nineteen, just when I was starting, but we’d lost touch a few years before.’

‘That’s sad.’ Mia hesitated. ‘It seems as if we have something in common.’

‘Yes.’ It saddened him, to think that both he and Mia had come from such fractured, damaged families—and it made him more determined to make sure their own little family wasn’t. ‘Our family doesn’t have to be like that, Mia,’ he said, a new note of urgency entering his voice. ‘This can be a fresh start for the three of us.’

‘I’d like to believe that,’ she said after a moment, but her tone sounded wistful, even dubious, and that stung.

‘Why can’t you?’

‘It’s just… I don’t know enough about you, Alessandro. And sometimes the past isn’t so easy to overcome.’

‘We’re getting to know each other,’ he persisted. ‘And we’ll keep doing that. What’s your favourite colour?’

‘My favourite colour?’

‘We’ve got to start somewhere.’

She let out a little laugh. ‘Green.’

‘Favourite food?’

‘Raspberries.’

‘Favourite season?’

‘Spring.’ She laughed again and shook her head. ‘I suppose I have to ask you all the same questions.’

‘Only if you want to.’

Her mouth curved, her eyes lightening. Alessandro liked her that way. ‘I do.’

‘Then it’s blue, steak, and autumn.’

‘We’re practically opposites.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is blue the opposite of green?’

‘Maybe not. But the others…’ Her laugh turned into a sigh as she glanced down at Ella, stroking her downy head. ‘I don’t know. Do such preferences matter, really? Shouldn’t we be asking each other more important things?’

Alessandro caught his breath as he stared at her intently, trying to decipher her mood. He liked what she’d said, but she’d sounded sad. ‘Such as?’ he asked after a moment.

‘I don’t even know. Such as what you want out of life. What you value. What you believe.’

‘What do you want out of life, Mia?’ He spoke quietly, knowing the question was important, the answer even more so.

She looked up, her expression serious, her eyes bright. ‘First, I want to keep Ella safe and healthy and happy.’

‘Of course. I want that, as well. Utterly.’

‘After that, I want to be independent. With my own money, my own choices. That’s…very important to me.’ Alessandro sensed a wealth of memory and meaning behind her words, and he nodded.

‘Understandable.’ He’d seen that all along, how she chafed against any autocratic commands…which, he acknowledged wryly, he had a tendency to give. But they could work on all that.

‘What do you want out of life, Alessandro?’ She glanced around the spacious kitchen, the sunny garden visible through the French windows. ‘It seems like you have everything already.’

‘I am thankful for what I have,’ Alessandro allowed. ‘But what I’ve wanted…what has driven me, as you’ve said…’ He hesitated, feeling his way through the words. ‘First, I want to protect and care for my family.’

‘Yes.’ The word was a soft assent.

‘And second…it is similar to what you want, in a way, I suppose. I want to be in control. I don’t want to have my life dictated by other people’s whims or poor choices, as it was for all my childhood.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘Yes, it seems you can. So once again we are in accord, Mia. I think you will find we are far more compatible than you once feared.’

‘Perhaps.’ She didn’t sound convinced, but Alessandro knew he could convince her. He had to.

‘I mean it, Mia. I want this to work.’

‘That’s something, then,’ Mia said with a small smile, and as their gazes met and tangled Alessandro found himself remembering a whole host of pleasurable things. The feel of Mia in his arms. The taste of her lips. How sleepy and warm she’d been that morning, snuggled up against him. And he thought how much he wanted to experience all of those things again, over and over.

Yet as his own blood heated, Mia’s seemed to cool, for she looked away, her hair sliding in front of her face. Alessandro felt her emotional withdrawal like a physical thing.

‘I should unpack,’ she said as she brought Ella to her shoulder, pulling her robe closed with her other hand. ‘And get dressed…’

‘Your things will have been brought up to your room by the staff by now, I am sure. Alyssa and Paulo are the couple who run this place. They’re very kind.’

‘I look forward to meeting them.’ She rose, clutching Ella to her a bit like a shield. ‘Will you be…returning to Rome? For work?’

‘In a few days.’ Alessandro couldn’t help but be stung by the question. Did she want him gone already? Resolve hardened inside him. He would break down her defences. He would get to know her…in every possible way. ‘Shall we have dinner together tonight? Alyssa is happy to sit with Ella.’

Her eyes widened and then slowly, seemingly reluctantly, she nodded. ‘Very well.’

It was a grudging acceptance, and one that irked him just a little. Why was Mia so guarded? Why couldn’t she enter into the spirit of what he was trying to do?

But what was he trying to do? Alessandro asked himself after Mia had gone upstairs and he headed to his study to check his work emails. Mia had asked him a host of serious questions that he had answered honestly, if not fully. What did he want from life? What did he want from this marriage? And how was he going to get it?

Already being with Mia was drawing emotion from him like poison from a wound. He felt it stir inside him, and it alarmed him. He did not want to be ruled by his emotions the way his mother had been, tossed on the turbulent waves of relationships that never delivered what they’d seemed to promise, and left destruction in their wake.

He’d always vowed he would never expose himself to that kind of horrible, humiliating risk. He would never need someone that way, let that need rule and ruin him. He would always stay in control—of himself, and of his emotions.

And he could be in control, Alessandro reminded himself. He wasn’t that lost little boy, hiding in the cupboard while his mother screamed and fought with one of her many boyfriends, or curled up on a narrow bed, wondering when she’d finally come home after a night out.

He was a man in control of his destiny and his family. His relationship with—and eventual marriage to—Mia would be on his terms. And they would be favourable terms for her, undoubtedly. He would be generous, thoughtful, kind. But they would still be his.