CHAPTER EIGHT
“HOW WAS TUSCANY?” Emma bounced Ben on her hip, her eyes smiling.
Grace found it easy to return the smile. Emma was normal. Emma was sanity. Emma was her old life, her old assurances, from when things made sense.
“Grace? Tuscany? Everything okay?”
They’d been back two days. Two nights. Two nights in which Marco had come to bed. Teased her, pleasured her, aroused her until she was at breaking point. Two nights in which he’d proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, his body’s mastery over hers.
Just remembering the way he’d undressed her the night before was making her abdomen clench and her insides swell with warm heat.
“Good,” she managed to croak out, hoping her smile was more convincing.
“I can’t wait to go there,” Emma murmured, flicking the coffee machine to life and reaching for a pod. “Coffee?”
God, a thousand coffees wouldn’t be enough to erase her exhaustion. But strangely, when Marco touched her, she forgot that she’d barely slept in days; she was completely energized.
“I’m okay, thanks.” Then, belatedly remembering that Emma had been travelling too, Grace asked, “How was your weekend?”
“Amazing. Italy is so beautiful. I can’t believe this place.”
Grace could vaguely recall feeling a similar way when she’d first travelled here. “Yes,” she agreed quietly. If Emma thought the somber response was strange, she didn’t have a chance to query it. The doorbell rang and Grace, relieved to have an escape route, spun on her heel.
“I’ll get it,” she called over her shoulder, moving out of the kitchen towards the front door.
It was after six – Marco would be home soon. The thought was enough to make her pulse hammer. They were managing to maintain an air of civility now – no longer avoiding one another like the plague. They talked, but it was only skin deep.
The undercurrent of tension was thick enough to be cut with a knife.
At least, until they were in bed together. Then there was nothing but need. A sharp physical requirement that wouldn’t ease.
She wrenched the door inwards, a smile on her face. At first, she didn’t recognize the man on the other side. After all, they’d only met once. But then, after a few seconds of blank staring, a cautious smile spread. “Will?” Claudia’s husband. Coldness spread through her.
“Grace.” He stepped in, and paused, awkwardly going for a kiss on her cheek when she stepped back to allow him to pass. And though it was an uncomfortable moment, Grace laughed at the awkwardness, and the humour was a sort of ice-breaker.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said, holding the door wide as he moved deeper into the house then pushing it shut.
“No. It’s a spur of the moment visit. I forgot…” His expression was clumsy. “I forgot about you, actually.”
The British man had a sort of Hugh-Grantish diffidence to him, and his mop of dark brown hair added to that impression. Grace found herself warming to him despite the fact his wife would certainly serve her an arsenic biscuit if she was given half the chance.
“I’ve only been here a few weeks,” she pointed out.
Will laughed. “Claudia’s away,” he said, as though that explained everything. “And I always have dinner with Marco when she travels.”
Grace’s heart thumped. This little insight into normality was dangerously humanizing. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see Marco as a kindly family man.
“But I don’t want to bother you…”
“Oh! Not at all,” Grace shook her head. “Of course you should join us.” The idea was instantly palatable. Dinners with Marco were a tense affair which involved silent eating, ruminating, and finally, the heavenly conclusion. Had they really fed each other olives and tomatoes, their first night together, and talked until they were hoarse? It seemed like something that must have happened to two different people.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to impose…”
“Trust me, you’re not.” She moved back towards the kitchen, and he followed. “This is Emma, our nanny,” she explained. “She’s been with us since Ben was born.”
“Hi,” Emma waved, then pulled her coffee cup out of the machine, Ben still propped on one hip. But, when his little eyes landed on Will, he made a noise of excitement and held a hand up, as if to high five.
“Hey, buddy. You remember, huh?” Will skirted the island bench and dutifully returned the gesture of greeting. Grace laughed at the toddler’s obvious delight.
“What a clever boy,” Emma grinned. “I’m going to give little master here some dinner.”
She placed Ben onto the floor and, at the promise of food, he thumped through the kitchen towards the dining room. Emma followed behind, a tray in her hands which was weighed down with Pasta, a sippy cup of milk and her coffee.
“Wine?” Will offered, and Grace noted how much more at home he was in Marco’s kitchen than she. He belonged; she didn’t. It was that simple. She nodded, pleased to defer to him.
He pulled two glasses from above the fridge – she hadn’t even known there were glasses up there, and then rescued a bottle from a vintech bar beneath the island bench. “This is one of my favourite bottles. It’s produced in the North of Italy – cold climate grapes. It’s very dry. Try it.” He poured two generous measures and slid one across to her.
Grace allowed the fragrance to hit her nose first and then she swished it in the glass before lifting it to her lips and tasting it.
He was right – it was so dry it was almost acidic – yet there was an aftertaste of fruitiness that was deliciously moreish.
“Well?” He prompted, as she analysed the flavours.
“I like it.”
“Good.” A nod of approval. “Shall we sit on the deck?”
Grace usually joined Ben for dinner, but the thought of grown up company with someone other than Marco was impossible to resist. “Sure.”
She followed him onto the balcony that overlooked Rome. In the dusk light, the glow from the city looked almost like something from a fairy tale. She sighed as she sat down, glass of wine cradled in her hands. She brought her legs up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees.
“How long have you and Claudia been married?” She asked, as Marco settled into the seat beside her.
His eyes ran left to right over the view of the city. “Six years.”
“Oh! So long. I hadn’t realized.”
“We dated four years before that,” he said with a lopsided smile. “But I would have married her a week after we met.”
“Really?” She smiled at that. “Love at first sight?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, then sipped his wine.
“That’s so romantic.”
“What about you and your husband?” He swore then, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. I’ve put my foot in it. This is awkward as hell, isn’t it?”
Grace laughed; what else could she do? “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
“I don’t want to ignore the fact you were married,” he said. “But we don’t have to talk about it.”
“It’s okay,” Grace smiled. “I don’t mind. The thing is, Steve was my best friend.” The truth of their marriage, the secret she’d promised she’d keep, sat in her mouth like a stone she couldn’t expel. “I think, when I first met him, I was overwhelmed by him. And I’d never had that. I’d never had anyone look at me like I was their whole world. I loved the way he made me feel.” Her smile was self-condemnatory.
“You broke up with him before you came over here?”
“He proposed and it didn’t feel right.” She bit down on her lip.
“I see.”
Grace shook her head and then turned to face Will. He was looking at her speculatively. “I highly doubt that.” Her smile was kind. “It’s very complicated.”
“Life is,” Will shrugged. “I’m glad you and Marco have worked things out finally.”
“Finally?” She prompted, and Will shifted, instantly shutting himself off.
“Well, just because of Ben,” he explained.
“Right.” She nodded, ignoring the hope that had started to swell in her chest.
“He’s a cute kid.”
“Thank you.”
Silence gathered around them, but it was companionable, somehow. “You’re a lawyer?” He said after a moment, breaking it with the casual question.
“Yeah. Corporate.” She frowned. “I was, anyway.”
“No plans to go back to it.”
“Actually, I miss it,” she said honestly. And she realized then that she did. Completely. She loved Ben, she adored being his mother, but she’d spent so much of her life working towards the goal of her career; she didn’t want to hang it by the door like a hat she no longer needed. “I gave up my job when Steve … when he… when I lost him,” she rushed. “He left the company to me – God knows why, I’m terrible at what he did – but I didn’t have any choice but to take it over.”
Guilt darkened her cheeks. She hadn’t even asked Marco how things were running at Aztec. She’d been so wrapped up in her own issues and problems that she’d totally neglected what Steve had asked of her.
“Did you like it?”
“No.” She took another sip of wine, enjoying the way it tasted as it spread through her body. “I hated it.”
“Then you’re better off here,” he pointed out.
“Perhaps.”
“Why don’t you get your old job back?”
“In Chicago?”
“No, here. You used to work for Marco, right?”
“Oh.” She nodded slowly, the idea one that hadn’t even occurred to her. “Yes. I interned at Dettori.”
“So?” Will shrugged, as though it were that simple. “It’s a huge company. Aren’t there hundreds of people in the legal team?”
“Almost a thousand,” she agreed. “You’re right. There’d have to be something I could do. I mean, I know their systems. I speak Italian. And I’m good at that.” Her smile changed her face completely, and for a moment she looked like herself again. Grace, as she’d once been. “Thank you, Will. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this myself.”
“Well, I am a genius,” he grinned.
“Obviously.” She crossed one leg over the other, her eyes marveling at Rome’s change from daytime to nighttime, the air of mystery that cloaked it as dusk whispered her secrets across the ancient cupolas. “So you and Marco have dinner when Claudia’s travelling?”
“Yeah. She’s in Milan at least twice a month. I can’t cook to save my life.”
“And Marco can?” Grace teased.
“No. But he orders a mean take out,” Will responded in kind.
“We have some fish and rocket. I can make us…”
“No, no. I won’t hear of it. I didn’t come here to put anyone out. Besides, Claudia has me on some paleo health kick. These are the only nights when I get a good curry.”
Grace smothered her smile. “Fine. Curry it is.”
“I hope you weren’t bothered by her the other night, at Rosa’s.” He paused, studying Grace’s face, and she presumed her acknowledgement was visible, because Will continued with a heavy sigh. “She’s very protective of Marco.”
“I gathered,” Grace murmured, her spine bristling at the invocation of a relationship to which she must always be an outsider.
“You know, their dad died when she was only thirteen. Marco’s been like a father to Claudia. She doesn’t want to see him get hurt.”
“I don’t want to hurt him,” Grace said seriously, her eyes lifting to Will’s, begging him to believe her.
“You already have.” The words were delivered gently, in the spirit of helping her understand. “She saw what happened after you left and now you’re back and there’s Ben. It’s natural that she’s being guarded with you. But she’ll thaw. She’s the most beautiful, kind-hearted woman I’ve ever known. I think you and she will get along. One day.”
But Marco’s words weren’t making any sense to Grace. They were incongruous with what she knew to be the truth. “I don’t understand. Marco didn’t … what do you mean? What was he like when I left?”
Will shook his head, as if realizing he’d said too much. “You can imagine,” he said mysteriously. But Grace didn’t want to imagine. None of this made any sense. Marco had said he’d loved her. So why had he let her go? Why hadn’t he gone after her? If he’d told her how he felt, she’d have stayed. Instead, he’d asked her to be his mistress. He’d promised to give her a lifestyle she’d never want to leave. And the whole proposition had been filled with danger for Grace, because there’d been only one thing she’d ever wanted in life. Love
Proper love.
Steve had offered love. He’d offered acceptance and security, affection and friendship. But also, his undying love.
She’d married Steve.
She swept her eyes shut now as her own foolish weaknesses and fears reared their heads, and she blamed them wholeheartedly for the pain she’d gone through.
Marry me and I will give you everything you’ve ever wanted. The words Steve had offered had been so true. He’d understood her. She hadn’t needed heart-burning love and passion. She’d needed white-bread security. Safety.
“I was with him when he found out you’d got married.” The words were so quiet, they were like soft rain on grass. She wasn’t even sure he’d said them at first, her own thoughts were so loud.
“Mmm?” She prompted.
“He was … I’ve never seen him like that. He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe it.”
“God!” She stood up angrily, shaking her head. “This isn’t helpful.”
“I’m sorry,” Will murmured. “It’s just, you have to see it from our perspective. We were here when his world fell apart. We don’t want him to get hurt again.”
“I don’t want to hurt him.”
“I don’t think you wanted to hurt him then either.”
“Are we even talking about the same Marco? His heart is like stone! I don’t think he’s capable of feeling pain, let alone love. Whatever he felt when I married Steve was far more likely to be pique or whatever.”
“Trust me,” Will murmured quietly. “He was devastated.”
“Yeah, because I’m probably the first woman who ever said ‘no’ to him.” She tilted her chin defiantly, refusing to believe that he’d been wanting her when she’d been wanting him. It was all too much of a waste. It was easier to believe that they’d have made it work if it had meant to be.
“It was more than that.” He sighed. “You need to speak to him.”
“I’ve tried.” She spun around, clasping the railing with one hand and sipping her wine. “He isn’t big on communication.” Except in bed. There, he was a master of explaining how he felt, and if his body language was anything to go on, he was both angry and hungry for her. Neither of these things made her feel that he loved her. “I’ve tried,” she said again, thinking back to their conversation in Tuscany.
She propped her elbows on the railing, drinking in the city. But it was so hard to gain any pleasure from it when her heart was breaking. “He’s not the only one who was hurt, you know.”
Will was quiet, and Grace turned to him just as Emma emerged.
“This little guy needs some rest.” She spoke in the happy, sing-song voice she employed for Ben’s benefit. “Say goodnight, mommy.”
“Ni-ni, mommy,” Ben obliged, and when Emma set him down on the paved terracotta tiles he toddled over to Grace and wrapped his arms around her legs. She scooped down and lifted him up, burying kisses in his curling brown hair and breathing him in. “Ti amo.”
“Dee-arma,” he repeated, and Grace laughed, the words so sweet.
“Aw! Did he just speak his first Italian?” Emma cooed! “His daddy’s going to be so proud!”
A pang of hyper emotional awareness flooded Grace. His daddy.
That’s what Marco was. She nodded, her throat thick. “Yeah, he is.” She squeezed Ben tight and kissed his nose just as Marco stepped onto the terrace.
“What am I?”
“Hey,” Will stood, shaking his brother-in-law’s hand with easy affection. “Little Ben here just said his first Italian words.”
“Did he?” Marco’s expression was inscrutable, but his eyes shone with a happiness that Grace understood. “What did he say?”
“I love you,” Grace answered, and her cheeks flushed pink at the words. “He said, ‘I love you’.”
“Little flirt,” Marco laughed, apparently unaware of her moment of discomfort, extending his hands. Ben moved towards them without hesitation. Grace looked at the two of them together, her senses jolting wildly.
“I’ll put him in bed, Emma.” Marco’s dark eyes briefly clashed with Grace’s. “You should take a break.”
Grace watched the two of them disappear with a growing sense of something. A heavy feeling assailed her, one that wasn’t new to her, but that she suspected she’d never get used to. She was an outsider. Marco wanted Ben; he was prepared to tolerate her for the sake of their child. When he held Ben, he was happy. Whatever Will thought Marco had felt for Grace, it was all ancient history, forever destroyed by her idiotic, hurtful decisions.
“I suppose I should take a shower,” Emma agreed with a twist of her lips. “Seeing as I’m wearing half of Ben’s dinner.” She spread her arms wide and Grace noted for the first time that Emma was indeed coated in a fine sheen of spaghetti.
“Oh dear.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry about that.”
“Meh. I’m used to it. Table manners aren’t his forte, but dimply little smiles are.”
Emma gave Will a wave as she left the terrace and Grace went to sip her wine before realizing that the glass was empty.
“Let me top you up,” Will offered.
She was on the verge of declining but it had been delicious and she was feeling more relaxed than she had in weeks. “Thanks.”
He returned moments later with three glasses of wine, perching one on the table behind them, presumably in expectation of Marco joining them. The idea made her pulse throb.
“She seems like a great child-minder.”
“Emma?” Grace nodded. “She’s so much more than that. She’s family.”
“So much the better. It must be hard to leave him so often.”
Grace’s lips twisted in agreement. “Yes. And when we lost Steve, I was just so grateful to Emma. She kept us going, even though she was grieving too.” Grace lifted her face towards Will. “Ben’s had that continuity all his life. I’m so indebted to her.”
“She seems happy.”
“I hope so.” Grace stared out at the city. Gradually, the sky was darkening and the buildings were twinkling shapes against the skyline. “She loves Rome.”
“What’s not to love?”
“The weather. The cars. The smog. You usually complain non-stop about my city.” Marco’s laugh reached Grace and her stomach swooped with recognition. She didn’t turn around. She needed a moment to recollect her thoughts and to calm her body’s unsolicited reaction.
“Well, it’s no London, don’t get me wrong,” Will grinned. “How are you?”
Grace didn’t see Marco’s reaction, but he came to stand beside her, an arm casually placed around her waist that drew her nearer. “Hi.” The quiet greeting was intimate and husky and her startled face flew to his, her eyes showing obvious confusion. But then she remembered.
The pretense.
The fooling his family.
She wanted to tell him there was no point. Will and Claudia knew the truth about them; they weren’t fooled. But then he smiled. A real smile. And her heart tripped over itself in a rush to return it.
Why not go along with the ruse when it felt so damned good?
*
Grace almost choked on a piece of papadum, she was laughing so hard.
“So Marco comes out of the hotel room, dressed in only a towel, and if you’ve ever seen Marco first thing in the morning without at least five coffees – well, you know. It’s not a good look.” Will paused to spoon some more curry into his mouth and Grace leaned back in her chair. Marco’s arm was rested along it and his hand dropped to her shoulder naturally, his fingers curling over her skin. She tilted her head to him, her eyes skimming his face. He was smiling too. The sight of it made every cell in her body sing.
“It was not, as I recall, first thing in the morning,” Marco said with mock-affront, winking at Grace to make his mood obvious. “It was the middle of the night.”
Thump, thump, thump. Could he hear her happy heart tap-dancing in her chest?
“It was 5am. And this guy we’d been out to dinner with – what was his name? Ronald?”
“Regan,” Marco corrected with a laugh.
“Right. Regan, unbeknownst to me has booked on our floor. We’d had a few whiskies to finish the night and obviously he’s kept the party going in his room. At some point, he’s decided to smoke a pack of cigarettes and the damned smoke alarms have gone off. The whole floor’s saturated.” Will was laughing so hard the words were coming out as a wheeze.
“And there’s Marco, dressed in a towel, in the middle of the hallway, demanding to know what was going on, and who was responsible. You were furious!”
“Everyone was furious,” Marco pointed out, squeezing Grace’s shoulder; her stomach dipped.
“But you were incensed. As if you couldn’t believe anyone would dare do something like that to you.”
“Suffice it to say, we did no further business with Regan Halt.”
“Yeah, you put a halt to that all right.” Will shook his head and reached for his wine, sipping it and then laughing some more. “You like things to go to plan.”
“That’s because they generally do,” Marco agreed with a banal lift of his shoulders.
Grace angled her head towards him, studying his profile. Was she another part of his life that hadn’t gone to plan? Perhaps initially, but now? She was fitting in with everything he wanted. His plan was her blueprint. The thought brought a small flicker of a frown to her face.
She didn’t like to think of them in those terms. As though she’d lost her own agency in a rush to please him. And yet, didn’t he deserve that? She’d taken their child and cut him deeply with her decision to keep him from their lives. Wasn’t the reparation hers to make?
Besides, she was getting almost everything she wanted, wasn’t she?
Confusion filled her anew and it was that moment when Marco turned to look at her, the smile still on his face as his gaze locked to hers. He skimmed her troubled face and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to her lips. A kiss borne of kindness and something that, if she let the two glasses of wine she’d enjoyed do her thinking for her, she might even have called affection. Love?
No. Not love.
For him, this was just make-believe. And like everything Marco did, he did it well. Discontent made her pull away a little, and her smile when her blue eyes locked to his brown, was tight.
“You don’t like not getting your way,” she said quietly, and turned back to Will. It was so much easier to talk to him, without the undercurrent of history and tension that consumed her relationship with Marco. The doubt and self-doubt.
“Not particularly.” He squeezed Grace’s shoulder and then his fingers began to trace invisible circles that, even through the thin fabric of her shirt, made her nipples tighten and her stomach clench. She wanted him. That was a truth she couldn’t deny – the only truth she could lay claim to with any certainty.
“You’ve known each other a long time,” she heard herself ask, the words quiet but normal-sounding, despite the blood gushing through her body.
“Since school,” Will nodded. “My dad was a diplomat based in Rome,” he explained.
“Really? How interesting that must have been.”
“Not particularly. He travelled a hell of a lot, mainly to the Middle East, so I didn’t see much of him. My mom was based in the States.”
“They were divorced?”
He nodded. “Since I was a kid.” His eyes shifted sideways to Marco and he grinned. “The Dettoris became my family.”
Yes, Grace could see that. Will and Marco were obviously close friends; more like brothers.
“It was complete crap having my parents split across the world like that,” he said, and Will seemed to be such a genuinely nice guy that Grace didn’t think he was making a point, even for one second. It was her that was drawing the parallels, imagining a life in which she was in Chicago and Marco in Rome – imagining the way Ben would have felt forever split by geography.
“How come you didn’t stay with your mom?” Grace prompted. Marco’s fingers stilled on her shoulder for a moment before resuming their gentle exploration of her flesh.
“She didn’t want me.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Grace soothed.
“Nah. It is. But that’s okay. I’m a big boy. I’ve made my peace with it.”
“I’m sorry.” Grace couldn’t imagine that. The mood was somber suddenly, nothing like the joking humor of moments earlier. “Wait a sec,” she turned to face Marco. “How come you were in a towel?”
Marco’s grin was devilish and so, so sinfully sexy. “I’d just got out of bed.” He shrugged his broad shoulders and Grace wanted to lean closer, to press herself against his chest, put her head on one of those shoulders and close her eyes. “Should I have gone out naked?”
Naked. Of course. Because he always slept naked? Or because he’d been in bed with someone?
She swallowed away the unpalatable thought and leaned forward on the pretense of taking another spoonful of curry. His arm dropped away from her shoulder and she shivered at the sense of desolation.
Will reached across the table and topped up Grace’s wine glass. “Are you close to your parents, Grace?” He brought the conversation back to safer ground which only further fuelled Grace’s belief that Marco hadn’t been alone. And why would he have been? He’d always had an active sex-life. That wasn’t new information.
Feeling jealousy of that was illogical, yet jealous she most certainly was.
Grace was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she almost missed Will’s question. So too the way Marco was deathly-still beside her.
“Grace?” Will prompted, relaxing back in his chair, one knee crossed casually over his ankle.
“Oh. No.”
Marco was behind her, so she didn’t see his small flicker of a frown. But the question had knocked Marco sideways. It wasn’t the first time he realized he didn’t know everything about her, but it struck him as discordant now that he knew so little about her past. Her family. Her life.
“No?” Will pushed, his grin amused. None of the tension that was wrapping around Grace and Marco seemed to have found its way to him.
“No.” Her smile was tight.
“Why not?” The question came from Marco. Graveled and deep.
Grace swallowed, her past something she had run from for so long that she couldn’t imagine speaking about it openly now. And yet, she heard herself say, without looking at Marco, “My parents died when I was little. I barely remember them.”