‘Eat whatever you want,’ he said, placing a few things on her plate for her to start with, and then seeing to his own.
‘You’re still very considerate,’ she said, her index finger running across the rim of the blue-and-white textured plate he’d just given her.
‘I don’t see why that would have changed,’ he said with a small frown.
‘You don’t think that my family’s obvious and inherent selfishness could have whittled that out of you, if you had been a man of lesser character? That working with them for so long wouldn’t have rubbed off on you?’ she asked, curious. ‘Do you not thinkI’vechanged?’ she asked, and instinctively he felt wary of where this was going.
He gave her question some thought.
‘Yes, I think you did change. But it had nothing to do with the level of your character,’ he said, finally raising his gaze to her. ‘I think that your family gave you little choice. You were forced to fight for everything. But at least you know that you deserve everything you won.’
‘You don’t think you deserved what you have?’
‘I would have absolutely none of this were it not for Gio,’ he replied resolutely.
‘I don’t think that Gio is responsible for either your intelligence or your character.’
He clenched his jaw. ‘I think that Gio’s financial support gave me the luxury to be able tousemy intelligence and maintain my character. There were many who grew up like me who didn’t have that chance.’
Maria placed a hand on his forearm. ‘I did not mean to start an argument, I just… I sometimes think that perhaps you don’t give yourself enough credit for what you achieved. He may not have offered you the company first in his will, but he wouldn’t have offered it at all if he didn’t think you could run it.’
He reached for the pale yellow wine in the cooler to pour himself a glass, stopping just before he did so.
‘Go ahead,’ Maria said. ‘You can have a glass. Don’t feel you need not drink just because I can’t.’
‘Just the one,’ he said, pouring a glass and taking a mouthful before responding to her statement. ‘I was the stick. Antonio was the carrot. He always was.’
If Antonio had done what he’d said he’d do and divorce his inconvenient bride from England, if he’d married Maria, if Maria hadn’t come to see him… If Gio had never sent him away all those years ago.
‘I don’t think Gio saw it that way. I certainly didn’t,’ Maria pressed on, unaware of the direction of his thoughts. But her statement pulled him right back to the present.
‘How do you see me?’ he asked, feeling suddenly more vulnerable and exposed than he’d ever felt in his life. He knew how he saw himself. He knew that he’d forced her into this marriage, knew that he’d ordered her around and neglected her the night of their wedding, but only because he couldn’t stand the idea of being so close to her and not touching her. Last night had been torture to him. And for a while he thought he’d understood what she’d wanted from him. But now, when she was looking at him like she was, he wasn’t sure whether it was her desire he saw, or his own wishful thinking.
Maria bit her lip. She felt it, the precipice they were standing at. She’d felt it in Paris, but that had been different. That had been fuelled by anger and hurt and a very determined, powerful kind of energy. This was different. Now, she felt…curious, tentative, hopeful, wanting, nervous, vulnerable, desperate not to be left again.
‘How do I see you?’ she said, repeating his question. And wanted to stop fighting the instinct to hold herself back. Hold her thoughts back, her feelings, in case they would be rejected and spurned, like her father always had, ignored like her mother always had, or not enough as she’d thought had been the case with him.
‘I see you as powerful, as commanding, and proud,’ she said, thinking of how he’d handled Peterson, who had notoriously cowed many members of her family. ‘I see you as kind, as thoughtful,’ she continued, thinking of his mother and the women in his life, which now included her. She remembered all the little things he’d done for her, opening her door, holding her chair, thoughtless things to him, but utterly foreign to some men out there. ‘I see you as someone who is conscious of the impact of their actions and deeds,’ she said, knowing that there were some out there who would have turned her away if they’d discovered her pregnancy. ‘I see you as someone who is loyal.’ She thought of the man who steadfastly clung to Gio’s side long after he perhaps stopped deserving such fierce fealty. ‘And I see the boy in you that I once loved.’
All of her experiences crowded into her mind and heart, jostling to remind her to be careful, to warn her against answering a question that was surely a trap. But she was so tired of fighting everyone else that she no longer had the energy or the inclination to fight herself.
‘Do you think you could ever love the man?’ Micha asked.
Her heart pounded in her chest.
‘I think I could,’ she lied. And itwasa lie. Because, deep down, she knew that shealreadyloved him. That perhaps she had never stopped.
He didn’t move a muscle, but the golden glitter in his eyes exploded like fireworks. It was as if neither of them dared to breathe. And then slowly, ever so slowly, as if giving her every chance to stop him, to move away, to run, he stood from his chair and held his hand out for her to take.
This was the precipice. This was the moment. She would come back to this moment over the years, knowing how it had shaped her life, their lives. And she would never, ever regret what she did next.
She placed her hand in his and let him gently pull her to her feet. She was standing barely inches from him, close enough to feel the heat from his body, to see the little scar in his eyebrow, the mole on his cheek.
She was so caught up in her attention to him that she flinched when his hand cupped her cheek. He went to remove it, but she covered it with hers to keep it there. She leaned into the warmth of his palm, something in his touch that she’d never found anywhere else or in anyone else.
The scent of cedar, pepper and vanilla made her near dizzy with want for him. In Paris, she’d been almost out of her mind, out of her own body in some respects. Oh, she’d known what she was doing, but it felt as if she had been driven by the furies themselves.
This was different. This was slow, considered, grounded, rooted in something far deeper and stronger than the moment. She wasn’t carried away—it wasn’t thoughtless—but it was no less heady, no less intoxicating. If anything it feltmore.
