He nodded once, to himself, as if putting a full stop on the exchange.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’
‘Tomorrow night?’ she asked.
‘Si, did you not check your emails? We have the rehearsal dinner.’
The pretty blush on her cheeks paled, leaving her looking wan under the harsh lighting. ‘Wecan’t,’ she said, and just like that, they were back to where they always were. At loggerheads, with her ashamed to be with him and him never being good enough for her.
‘We can and we will,cara,’ he decreed, before turning on his heel and cursing whatever foolishness had made him think, even for a second, otherwise.
Maria watched him leave, wishing that they could have held onto that moment just a little bit longer. That brief reprieve from the constant anger and resentment that simmered between them. But it was hopeless. Too much time had gone, too much hurt. Gio had chosen Micha, Micha had chosen him and the only person Maria could choose was herself.
Then and now.
She looked over to the rack that Micha had chosen the three dresses from and, unable to help herself, crossed the room. One by one, she flicked through the dresses, hoping to find what had caught his eye—the dress he’dnotchosen for her. She frowned as she passed glittering sparkles and lace, not thinking it would have been one of those until…
There. It was beautiful. Simple lines, the low V suiting her chest size, the soft, loose, but utterly elegant drapes of silk were romantic and would hide the small thickening of her waist without constriction.
‘Oh, that’s perfect!’ Ivy cried from behind her. ‘You must try it on,’ she insisted.
Maria bit her lip and swallowed. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied, instinctively knowing that itwasperfect and that sheshouldtry it on. But if he’d wanted to see her in it…
And since when did you start doing whatever the men in your life wanted you to do?
Since they won, Maria mentally replied.
She settled the dresses back on the rack, hoping that the dress would get lost in among the others, but knowing that she’d find it again in a heartbeat if she wanted to.
She shook herself out of the melancholy of the moment and turned to Ivy with a smile.
‘The groom himself chose three dresses for me, so I suppose I should give those a go first, yes?’
Ivy nodded, but the concern was still bright in the light blue eyes that stared back at Maria. Forcing a little more effort into her smile, she rubbed Ivy’s arm in reassurance and returned to the dais with one of the dresses Micha had chosen.
‘You know that you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ Ivy said, her eyes firmly fixed on Maria, who concentrated on getting herself into the corseted dress with the sweetheart neckline.
Where was the assistant?
‘Maria?’
The zip was nearly impossible to undo and she hadn’t even got herself into it yet. Her fingers struggled with the tiny little piece of plastic, but everything was just so blurry she couldn’t see. She wiped her eye with the back of her hand and was surprised when it came back wet.
‘Maria,’ Ivy said, much closer to her this time, putting her hands over where Maria’s fingers clutched the zip. Ivy gently pushed the dress away and wrapped her arms around her tightly, as Maria’s breath shuddered in her lungs. So slowly, so slightly, Maria felt herself gently rocked and soothed by her cousin’s wife.
‘Let’s run away,’ Ivy whispered into her ear, and Maria let out a bark of miserable laughter. ‘Just you and me. Antonio will catch us up. Micha will never find us. You know what Antonio is like when he puts his mind to something. We’ll all live together, and raise our children and have nothing but blue skies, laughter and all the love we need.’
Maria didn’t think her heart could take the idyllic picture that a woman who had quickly become like a sister to her had painted. She wanted it so badly. But she knew she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t have it. Because when she imagined it, Micha was there. Not scowling or angry, or bitter. But smiling and happy and… That was nothing but a fantasy.
‘Let me do this for you. Let me kidnap you,’ Ivy begged. That the English librarian who was so very different from Maria would do that for her warmed some of the hurt and filled some of the fractures in her heart. She knew that Ivy felt guilty, that she and Antonio had fallen in love with each other. And that if they hadn’t, then Antonio would have married her—as directed by Gio Gallo’s last will and testament—and they would have inherited Gallo Group, and Antonio would have given it over to her entirely, having no personal or professional interest in running it himself.
‘Grazie, Ivy. I believe you’d do it too,’ Maria laughed sadly.
‘I would,’ she replied fiercely. ‘You’re not alone, Maria. You will never be alone again.’
But Maria thought that Ivy was wrong. It was clear that Ivy didn’t realise that sometimes you could be lonelier in a marriage than you could ever be outside of one. And it was devastating to Maria to realise that despite all her intentions to avoid being like her parents—like her mother—she had ended up in exactly the same position.
Only, unlike her mother, Maria thought as she swept a hand over her abdomen, she wouldn’t allow her child to become caught in the crossfire of such emotional neglect. She would do better,bebetter. She would, Maria realised, fight everyone and everything to ensure that her child grew up never feeling the sting of being deemed unworthy or inferior for any reason.
