THE NEXT MORNING they travelled in the helicopter from the island to the airstrip in Toulon, the entire journey conducted in tense, agonising silence.
Marietta’s chest ached from the emotion she was bottling up inside. Tears threatened at regular intervals but she forced them back, determined to remain stoic. Even throughout the long night, as she’d lain alone in the guest bed, she’d refused to succumb, afraid that if the tears started to fall they might never stop.
When Nico carried her from the helicopter to the jet and lowered her into one of the soft leather seats she clung to him for a few seconds too long, desperate to imprint every detail of him onto her memory: his clean citrus scent, his hard male body, the bone-melting heat he exuded.
He straightened. ‘Leo will collect you from the plane in Rome.’
She nodded; he had told her this morning that he wouldn’t be travelling to Rome with her. Impulsively she reached for his wrist.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For...for keeping me safe.’
Flimsy, inadequate words—yet what more could she say? She couldn’t tell him she loved him. Not when she knew she wouldn’t hear those same words in return. And everything else—hurtful or otherwise—had been said the day before.
His gaze held hers for a long moment. Then he leaned down, cupped a hand around the side of her face and dropped a brief kiss on her mouth that brought those foolish tears springing into her eyes again.
‘Au revoir, Marietta.’
And then he was gone.
A solitary tear escaped and she dashed it away, her insides twisting with the bitter irony of it all. Yesterday Nico had flung her fears in her face, and now he was validating them by walking away. Denying her the thing she wanted most. Him.
Twenty minutes later the powerful jet was soaring, and Marietta blinked as a glass half filled with amber liquid appeared on the table in front of her. She looked up. Evelyn stood by her chair, her mouth curved in a gentle smile.
‘I know you like your coffee, but right now I figure you could do with something stronger.’ She touched Marietta’s shoulder. ‘I’ll give you some space, honey. Buzz if you need anything.’
Marietta murmured her thanks, then sniffed the drink and blinked at the eye-watering fumes. It was whisky rather than her favoured brandy, but she sipped it anyway, hoping the potent liquid would warm the cold, empty space inside her.
It didn’t.
* * *
Nico swung the sledgehammer high above his head and smashed it down onto the centre of the beam. The wood split under the force of the blow and he finished the job off with the heel of his boot. The violent sound of splintering wood was gratifying, as was the burn in his muscles—the kind of burn only hard physical labour could induce.
It was almost a month since he’d been back here on Île de Lavande. After sending Marietta to Rome he had set himself a gruelling work schedule of back-to-back meetings and international travel, which had, for a time, kept him focused on work and nothing else. But in the end, no matter how deeply he buried himself in work, no matter how many meetings and travel destinations he piled into his schedule, he couldn’t escape the simple truth.
He missed her.
‘Nico!’
He looked up. Luc stood a few metres away, surrounded by the detritus of his family’s boat shed. The storm had rendered the small building unsalvageable and the Bouchards had decided to knock down what remained and rebuild from scratch.
Nico had offered to help with the demolition. He needed the distraction. Needed to escape the house he had once valued for its privacy and isolation but which now felt curiously empty and too silent.
‘Break time,’ said Luc, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder towards the bistro. Josephine stood at the entrance to the courtyard, waving to catch the men’s attention. Luc grinned and threw Nico a towel. ‘Let’s get cleaned up and grab a beer.’
Half an hour later the two men sat in the courtyard, along with Josephine’s father Henri. Chilled bottles of lager sat on the wrought-iron table between them and appetising smells wafted from the kitchen. A middle-aged couple dined in the far corner of the courtyard and a small group of locals drank inside, but otherwise it was a quiet afternoon at the bistro.
Luc cradled his beer and tipped his chair back on two legs. ‘How’s Marietta?’
Nico’s hand froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth. For appearance’s sake he lifted it all the way and took a swig he hoped wouldn’t choke him. ‘Fine,’ he said.
The younger man gave a couple of slow nods, exchanged a look with his grandpère, and then—to Nico’s profound relief—switched the subject to football.
Ten minutes later Josephine dragged Luc away to help his father unload some supplies, leaving Nico alone with Henri.
The old man regarded him. ‘You are troubled, mon ami.’
Nico tried to blank his expression. Henri might be long in the tooth but he was wise. Astute.
‘I am fine,’ he said.
Henri nodded slowly. ‘So...you are fine... Marietta is fine...but things between you are not so fine, oui?’
Nico picked up his beer, realised the bottle was empty and put it down. He folded his arms over his chest.
‘Things between us are...’
Over. Forgotten.
A peal of bitter laughter echoed in his head. Marietta forgotten? No. Far from it. She was in his mind every hour of every day, testing his resolve to forget. Only last week he’d been on the brink of flying to Rome. He’d travelled from New York to London for meetings and decided to spend the weekend at his penthouse in Paris. At the last minute he’d almost told his pilot to change the flight plan. Had entertained for a crazy moment the flawed notion that if he could have Marietta one more time, for one more night, he’d get her out of his system. His head.
Realising Henri was waiting for him to finish, he cast about for a suitable word and settled on, ‘Complicated.’
Henri slapped his thigh and chuckled. ‘Women are complicated, son.’ He sat back, studied Nico’s unsmiling face and grew serious again. ‘You do not strike me as the kind of man to fear a challenge,’ he said.
Nico’s chest tightened. Henri’s assessment of him was too generous. He feared a good many things—things Marietta had driven home to him, when she’d ruthlessly dished up a few unpalatable truths on that last night. Angry and offended, he’d accused her of labelling him a coward, but she was right. He was a coward. Because that night in Toulon during the storm, when he’d been out of his mind with worry, the truth of his feelings had struck with heart-stopping clarity.
He loved her—and the realisation had gripped him with unrelenting fear.
And instead of finding the strength to fight that fear he’d allowed it to control him. Had clung to his belief that loving someone again would make him weak because the fear of losing them would rule him, consume him.
But was it love that made him weak?
Or was it allowing the fear to win?
Mon Dieu. He had done exactly that. He had pushed Marietta away out of fear, to protect himself, and it wasn’t only cowardly, it was selfish.
He swallowed. ‘I have made a mistake, Henri.’
‘Perhaps you should tell her that.’
Nico stood. ‘Oui,’ he said, his thoughts clear, his mind focusing for the first time in weeks. ‘But first there is someone I must see.’
* * *
The Georgian mansion nestled in the heart of the sprawling Hudson Valley estate was unchanged from the way Nico remembered it, its distinguished brick façade with its shuttered windows, columned portico and black front door as pristine and imposing as ever. The lawns were still manicured, the gardens meticulously kept, and as he walked up the white-painted steps to the door Nico’s hands felt as clammy as they had the first time Julia had brought him here.
Before he could knock, the door opened and Barbara Lewisham stood before him.
A fist clamped tight around Nico’s heart. Julia and her mother had always looked alike, both of them blonde and petite in size. Barbara’s genteel face was older now, and lined with the remnants of grief, but still she reminded him of his late wife.
He braced himself, unsure of how his former mother-in-law would receive him in person. He had called ahead and, despite her obvious shock, she had been civil, polite to him over the phone. But then Barbara had always been a woman of manners and natural reserve. Even at her daughter’s funeral she’d held her emotions in check.
She looked up at him and for a moment he thought her grey eyes glittered with anger. Then she stepped forward, took his hands in hers, and he realised it was tears making her eyes shimmer.
‘Nico...’ she said, her smile tremulous. ‘It is so good to see you.’
The genuine warmth she conveyed threw him. He’d expected coolness from her at best. Hostility at worst. They hadn’t spoken much in the days leading up to Julia’s funeral, or afterwards. He’d assumed that she shared her husband’s view of things. Had he been wrong?
‘And you, Barbara,’ he said.
She led him into the grand foyer and closed the door. ‘Jack’s in the study.’
‘You told him I was coming?’
‘He’s expecting you.’ She gestured towards the wood-panelled hallway that Nico remembered led to Jack Lewisham’s study. ‘Go ahead.’
The door was closed when he got there—which was not, he thought, a particularly welcoming sign. He took a deep, even breath, knocked once and entered.
‘Hello, Jack.’
Jack Lewisham turned from the window where he stood across the room, and Nico kept his expression impassive as he registered the physical changes time had wrought in the man. He was still tall—six foot—and broad-shouldered, but the deep lines scoring his face and the grey streaking his hair made him look as if he’d aged twenty years rather than ten.
He didn’t stride forward to shake Nico’s hand. Instead he nodded a silent greeting, walked across the Persian rug to an antique sideboard and poured whisky from a crystal decanter into two cut-glass tumblers.
He took the glasses to a small table set between two deep leather chairs, and finally spoke. ‘Will you join me?’
The invitation was stiff, the words wooden, and yet more polite than Nico had expected. Wary, his palms still clammy, he crossed the room and sat down.
Jack sipped his whisky. ‘I see your company is doing well.’
Nico picked up his glass, inclined his head. ‘It is.’ He paused, then added, ‘I’m not here to talk about my company, Jack.’
The older man eyed him for a long moment. He took a larger slug of whisky. ‘I tried to talk her out of marrying you, you know.’
‘I’m aware,’ Nico said flatly.
‘As a kid, she always had a thing for strays.’
Nico slammed his glass onto the table and stood. Dieu. What insanity had brought him here? He turned and started towards the door.
‘Nico.’
Jack’s voice halted him. He turned back. The man was on his feet, his mouth set in a grim line.
‘I apologise,’ Jack said hoarsely. ‘It wasn’t what I meant to say. Please...’ He ran his hand through his hair. ‘Stay.’
Nico hesitated, tension vibrating in every muscle, his gut churning with anger and indecision. After a moment he walked back, sat again.
‘Thank you,’ Jack said, lowering himself to the edge of his chair. He rested his elbows on his knees, scrubbed a hand over his face before speaking again. ‘Julia had a good heart, is what I was trying to say. And she was smart—an excellent judge of character.’ He paused, looked Nico in the eye. ‘Despite my reservations in the beginning it didn’t take me long to realise she’d chosen a good man.’
Emotion punched through Nico’s chest, so swift and powerful his lungs were left airless for a moment.
‘Losing her was the worst thing that had ever happened to me,’ Jack went on. ‘I didn’t know how to handle it. The anger, the grief...’ He bowed his head. ‘I blamed you, but it was my fault...my fault,’ he repeated, his voice bleak, filled with self-loathing. ‘I was arrogant, stupid—’
He broke off, his body heaving with a sob that seemed torn from him, and Nico instinctively reached over, gripped the man’s shoulder.
‘You tried to save her,’ he said. ‘We both did—and we failed. But we are not to blame for her death. That responsibility lies with the men who took her.’
And for the first time in ten years, he truly believed that.
Jack looked up, his eyes deeply shadowed, his face ravaged by years of grief and self-recrimination. ‘I don’t know how to move beyond it.’
Nico firmed his grip on Jack’s shoulder. ‘You have to let go of the guilt,’ he said, his throat thickening as Marietta’s voice echoed in his head.
Jack nodded and they sat in silence for a moment. And then they talked—until the whisky decanter was nearly empty and the shadows outside had lengthened across the manicured lawns.
Barbara ventured in to ask Nico if he would stay for supper. He accepted, and then excused himself to place a call.
Though it was already evening, his assistant at his New York office answered on the first ring.
‘I need to travel on the jet out of LaGuardia first thing tomorrow,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. Destination?’
‘Rome.’
* * *
Marietta stared at the printout of the ultrasound image and felt all the same emotions she’d experienced the first time Helena and Leo had announced they were expecting: joy, excitement, happiness, and envy.
That last one she tried not to feel too keenly.
‘Oh, Helena!’ She leaned forward in her chair and threw her arms around her sister-in-law. ‘I’m so happy for you. A little sister or brother for Riccardo.’
Helena hugged her back. ‘I know—I’m so excited.’
Marietta was thrilled for her brother and his wife. They deserved every happiness. Their road to love had been rocky, and eight years ago their first child—an unplanned baby—had been stillborn. The tragedy had affected both of them deeply, even though Leo hadn’t learnt about his son until some years after the event.
Ridiculously, her eyes began to prickle.
Helena looked at her. ‘Marietta—what’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. I’m happy for you, that’s all.’
She blinked the tears back and forced a smile. She’d left Île de Lavande over a month ago and still she was an emotional wreck. She needed to pull herself together, get back to being her old self, and yet she’d started to suspect with an awful sinking sensation in her stomach that her ‘old self’ was long gone and wasn’t ever coming back.
Because her ‘old self’ would have celebrated the lucrative commission she’d recently landed with a night out with friends, instead of sitting at home alone with a glass of brandy and the DVD of a silly romantic movie—and, worse, crying over that movie.
Her ‘old self’ would have gone about her day with her usual vigour and would not have felt her heart surge every time she saw a tall dark-haired man, only to feel it shrink again when she realised it wasn’t him.
Her ‘old self’ would have noticed the black vehicles with their tinted windows and the occasional watchful man in the shadows and felt outraged, instead of feeling her heart swell with the knowledge that he was still protecting her, from a distance.
And her ‘old self’ definitely wouldn’t be sitting here feeling envious of her sister-in-law, wishing she had a handsome husband and children of her own to shower with love and affection.
Helena was still looking at her and she slipped her sunglasses on. They were sitting in the landscaped garden at Leo and Helena’s Tuscan villa, enjoying the late morning sun and some ‘girl time’ while Leo entertained Ricci indoors. Autumn had arrived but the days were still warm, and the air carried the fragrance of flowers and fruits from the neighbouring orchards. Marietta had travelled up for the weekend, hoping a change of scenery would lift her mood.
‘How far along are you?’ she asked.
‘Ten weeks.’ Helena frowned. ‘You know, you haven’t seemed like yourself since you came back from the island.’
Marietta tried to keep her smile intact but the very worst thing happened—her lips quivered.
‘Oh, Marietta.’ Helena reached for her hand. ‘What is it? Tell me.’
‘I slept with Nico,’ she blurted out, because she simply couldn’t keep it secret any longer. She needed to talk about it with someone or she’d lose her mind. She stared at her sister-in-law, waiting for the look of shock. Of censure.
‘Well,’ said Helena, ‘I can’t say I’m surprised.’
Marietta’s jaw slackened. ‘You’re not?’
‘No. I’m not.’ She let go of Marietta’s hand and refilled their glasses from a pitcher of homemade lemonade on the table. ‘I saw the way he looked at you on my wedding day, Marietta.’ She picked up her glass, sat back and smiled. ‘He couldn’t take his eyes off you.’
Marietta frowned. She remembered Nico from the wedding day. He’d been impossible to miss. Aside from her brother he’d been the tallest man there, and by far the most eye-catching in his tux. But she’d taken one dry-mouthed look at his powerful body and his chiselled features, reminded herself that men like him were out of her league, and then steadfastly kept her gaze off him.
‘I take it things didn’t end well?’ Helena said gently.
Marietta shook her head. ‘I ended up wanting more than he could give.’
Helena exhaled on a sigh. ‘Don’t tell me he’s one of those men who’s allergic to commitment.’
‘He’s a widower,’ she said, and this time her sister-in-law’s face did register shock.
‘I had no idea.’
‘Leo doesn’t know?’
‘If he does he’s never said anything. I’m guessing Nico has some issues, then?’
‘A few.’
She wanted to share more with Helena, but Nico was an intensely private man and talking about his past—particularly the gruesome story of his wife’s death—felt wrong. And then Leo appeared, carrying Ricci in his arms, and the little boy gurgled and squealed when he saw his mother.
Helena stood to take him, and he squealed again when she blew a raspberry kiss on his plump rosy cheek.
Leo put his hand to his wife’s back, said something in her ear. Helena looked at Marietta and frowned. Her mouth opened, but Leo cut her off with a few quietly spoken words and then urged her indoors. Helena resisted, gave her husband a stern look and walked back to Marietta.
‘I’ll be right inside if you need me,’ she said, squeezing Marietta’s shoulder, and then she took Ricci into the house.
Confused, Marietta looked to her brother.
‘Nico’s here,’ he said without preamble. ‘He wants to see you.’
Her brain stalled. Nico was here? She blinked, trying to process the fact. ‘How did he know where I was?’
‘He called me and I told him.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’
‘Because he asked me not to. And, frankly, he sounded...desperate.’ Leo scowled. ‘Do you want to tell me what the hell is going on, Marietta?’
She pulled in a deep breath, her heart pounding. ‘Not particularly.’
A muscle flexed in her brother’s jaw.
‘Do you wish to see him?’
She hesitated. Briefly. ‘Si,’ she said, and instantly her stomach quivered.
Leo strode into the house and a minute later Nico emerged. He walked towards her, smart and handsome in black trousers and a grey button-down shirt, his strong jaw clean-shaven, his dark hair cropped short. Her heart somersaulted. How could he look so good, so unchanged, when she felt so fundamentally altered? It wasn’t fair.
‘Bonjour, Marietta.’
His deep voice washed over her and just like that, with a few velvety syllables, all the heartache of the last month was swept away by a surge of heat and longing she was helpless to prevent.
‘Buongiorno, Nico,’ she managed, her voice cool. Composed. Silently she congratulated herself. No need for him to see how he affected her.
He gestured to the seat Helena had vacated. ‘May I?’
She nodded, and he moved the chair closer to her before he sat. His proximity made her skin tingle. Her pulse race.
‘I’ve missed you.’
Her insides clenched on another surge of longing. I’ve missed you too, she wanted to say.
‘Did you come all the way to Tuscany to tell me you missed me, Nico?’
The corners of his mouth tilted, as though he were amused, and she wished he wouldn’t smile. It weakened her.
‘I did,’ he said simply.
And that made her eyes sting, because she wanted so very badly to believe him.
Suddenly he moved, reaching towards her, and before she could stop him he’d pulled her sunglasses off her face.
His gaze narrowed. ‘You don’t believe me, ma petite sirène?’
‘Please don’t call me that.’
‘Why not?’
Did he really need to ask?
‘Nico, please...just tell me why you’re here.’
He hesitated. ‘I’d like to take you somewhere.’
‘Where?’
‘It’s a surprise.’
Her stomach fluttered. ‘I don’t like surprises.’
‘Please,’ he said, and she heard the distinct note of uncertainty, of vulnerability, in his voice.
It weakened her.
Still, she made him wait a few seconds more. ‘Okay,’ she said at last, and his features relaxed a fraction.
He stood. ‘Do you trust me, chérie?’
She nodded, because she did. She had always trusted him and she always would. All the same, she wasn’t expecting him to do what he did next—which was to lean down and scoop her out of her chair.
‘Nico!’ she exclaimed.
He carried her through the garden and round the side of the villa to the courtyard out front. A large black vehicle was waiting, a man dressed in black standing beside it. He opened the rear passenger door and Nico slid her into the back seat, closed the door, and a few seconds later climbed in beside her from the opposite side. He rapped on the dark glass partition that separated them from the driver and the vehicle started to move.
Nico reached across her—to strap the seatbelt over her, she assumed. But he hauled her into his lap.
‘Nico—’
He kissed her, and shamefully, wantonly, she made no effort to resist. Instead she surrendered, snaking her arms around his neck and kissing him back.
It was a hot, hungry meeting of lips, and when they finally broke apart he was breathing hard. His large hands cradled her face, his blue eyes heated and glittering. ‘Mon Dieu, I missed you.’
Marietta trembled. ‘Nico,’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
He pressed his forehead to hers, the gesture so sweet that her chest flooded with tenderness and something else. Something she was too afraid to acknowledge.
‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said.
‘Start at the beginning,’ she said softly.
He nodded, and took a deep breath. ‘The morning after the storm, when I got back to the house and found the shattered window and you nowhere in sight, it was like Julia all over again—arriving home, finding her gone... I couldn’t breathe...couldn’t think...’
Marietta’s throat ached. She laid her hand along the side of his face. ‘I’m so sorry for putting you through that,’ she whispered.
He placed his hand over hers, turned his head and kissed her palm, then tucked her hand against his chest and held it there.
‘Losing her inflicted wounds I thought would never heal, and I was determined to never feel that pain again. To never feel that sense of loss and devastation.’
He fell silent. Marietta waited.
‘You were right, chérie. I was afraid. Afraid to care for someone. Afraid to love again. But then...’ He gave her a crooked smile. ‘You came along.’
A jolt of warmth, of hope, went through her.
‘And you were right about something else,’ he said. ‘I needed to deal with my guilt—confront the past.’ He paused. ‘I went to see Jack.’
Her eyes widened. ‘And...?’
He grimaced. ‘It wasn’t easy, but we talked. Laid some demons to rest.’
‘Oh, Nico... I’m so proud of you.’
‘Don’t be.’ His mouth flattened. ‘I pushed you away, and that’s nothing to be proud of. I told myself it was the logical thing to do but it was logic driven by fear—a weak man’s excuse.’
She frowned. ‘You’re not weak,’ she declared. ‘And you’re not the only one who’s been driven by fear.’
Nico shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t have said—’
She pressed her fingers to his lips. ‘But you were right. I isolated myself, just like you did—but in a different way and for different reasons. I was afraid, too. Afraid of wanting what I couldn’t have.’
Nico took hold of her slender fingers and kissed their tips one by one. He loved this woman. When he’d walked down that garden path and caught his first glimpse of her—beautiful in a simple white top and long skirt, her glorious hair flowing loose over her shoulders—he’d thought his chest might implode.
‘And what do you want, ma belle?’
‘You,’ she said, a fierce light shining in her eyes.
He cupped her face in his hands. ‘Marietta Vincenti, will you do me the honour of letting me love you?’
Tears welled in her eyes. She placed her hands over his. ‘If you’ll do me the honour of letting me love you.’
The car stopped and he kissed her, briefly, but with enough intensity to let her know there’d be more to come.
‘I love you,’ he said.
Then he lowered the window and pointed towards the middle of the large meadow by which they’d stopped. She blinked, and her eyes widened as she saw a fully inflated, brightly coloured hot air balloon.
‘Will you come fly with me, chérie?’
Her mouth stretched into a grin. ‘I thought you said hot air balloons are dangerous.’
He’d also said it would be a frosty day in hell when he flew in one. Well...today hell was having a cold snap.
A short while later the ‘oversized picnic basket’—as Nico was fond of calling it—lifted off the ground. Marietta felt like a child. Breathless, giddy, excited. Or maybe like a woman in love. She sat on a special stool, high enough to enjoy the stunning view of the Tuscan countryside, with Nico’s arms circling her from behind, his chest solid and warm against her back.
She jumped at the sudden loud whoosh as the pilot fired the burner, and Nico’s hold tightened.
‘I’ve got you, chérie.’
She smiled up at him. ‘I know. I’ve got you, too.’
For ever.