Maria stared at him, her aching heart bound by the confining silk of the wedding dress as she drew in breath after breath as if she’d run a marathon. She knew, in that moment, that she would never forget his words as long as she lived.
He was, just like her, trapped. Not by their child, but by this situation that had spun so wildly out of control. She wanted to cry just from the agony in his tone when the confession that he’d hated himself that much was wrenched from his soul. She could see it. Could see the torture pulling him from each side. The need to be a better parent, a bettermanthan the bastard that had abandoned him and his mother, but the anathema of having forced her to marry him had damned him all the same.
And she was more than just complicit in that. She was integral. She had done that to him.
Guilt came thick and fast.Shehad done it to them when she’d gone to Paris determined to punish him. All she’d wanted was some kind of reckoning for her broken teenage heart, and instead, she’d doomed them both. But despite the shocking vehemence of his words, she couldn’t leave it like this. She couldn’t let him ignore her like her father, and she couldn’t say nothing like her mother.
‘But I did,’ she said, finally coming back to his wish that she’d never come to his office that night in Paris. ‘And I am carrying our child. And now, we’re married. And I…’ She hesitated, but pushed on. Because she needed to. Because their child needed her to. ‘And I don’t know where I’m supposed to go. I don’t know where I’m sleeping. I don’t know if you want—’ Maria swallowed ‘—expectedto share a bed. I don’t know if we’re going on a honeymoon. I don’t know what I’m going to do when we come back from a honeymoon if we do go on one. I don’t knowanything, Micha, because you are not talking to me. And you need to talk to me. I can’t…’ The words caught in her throat.
He looked up at her then, his expression unreadable. He had given her his truth. It was the least she could do for him.
‘I can’t have a marriage like my parents,’ she said, swallowing her shame and her hurt.
After a beat, he nodded slowly. He knew what she meant. Knew how much her parents’ marriage had haunted her. Her stay-at-home mother, who had nothing and no one to distract her from her husband’s abandonment. Her uncaring and unfeeling father.Cristo, she’d told him enough of her childhood hurts back when they’d been teenagers and in love. Or thought they were in love. Could it really have been that easy back then? Could they have made a real go of it? If he hadn’t left? If Gio hadn’t sent him away?
If she’d gone after him?
‘You were the one who wanted everyone to believe that this is a love match. I can work with that. But you need to help me. I can’t keep running along behind you playing catch-up to whatever you deem I need to know when you think I need to know it. The wedding was one thing,’ she conceded. But now that she was here, now that her mind had caught up, she couldn’t sit back and let things happen to her. She hadn’t before Paris and she shouldn’t now. ‘But the future is another. And I want to be partners,’ she said defiantly.
She let him gaze at her. There was nothing left to hide, nothing to conceal. She’d meant every word she’d said.
Again, he nodded slowly. With the firelight on the planes of his face, handsome didn’t even begin to describe the complexities of what he looked like to her. Familiar. Infuriating. Arousing. Angering. Powerful. Resentful.
‘London.’
‘London?’ she repeated, bringing her out of the spell cast by the shadows of the fire.
‘Our honeymoon. We’re going to London. It would have been Hawaii, but your father had other ideas.’
‘My father?’ Maria asked, feeling her face scrunch in confusion.
‘It seems that he is trying to get to me through Peterson, which perhaps wouldn’t have been possible if I’d been able to secure the contract with your help before now.’
She dismissed the light jab that she was—in some small way—to blame. In part because she knew it was true.
‘Why would he do that?’ she asked.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ he said, finally standing up away from the desk. ‘But first we need to pay Peterson a visit and get him back in line. Or the Gallos will have much, much more to talk about than our wedding. They’ll be sitting back and watching the end of Gallo Group altogether.’
‘Okay,’ she answered decisively. Gallo Group was where she felt strong. Where she knew what she was doing. ‘Do you want me to arrange a meeting with him or do you think it would be better coming from you?’ Maria asked.
‘I think it would be even better coming from GG’s chief financial officer.’
‘Of course,’ Maria said, nodding in agreement and looking away so he couldn’t see the slight wince of hurt she felt at her offer being rejected. ‘Is that Giovanni?’
‘No.’
‘Then who?’
‘You.’
Maria frowned. ‘What?’
‘If you’ll have it, of course. Giovanni will be on hand through whatever maternity leave you’d like to have, but he’s more than happy to step aside.’
‘I thought he wanted the job.’
‘He did. Until he realised just how awful the Gallos can be,’ Micha said, rubbing a hand over the back of his head.
