“I know your father better than anyone in the world, and that includes your mother. He is my son…” She paused, and Massimo registered the grief in her voice. “And I can tell you that you are nothing like him. I should never have taken for granted that you understood that.”
Her tone was breathtakingly serious. He stared at her as she lifted her glass and took a sip. When she looked at him again, there was a hint of challenge that sparkled in her eyes. “Anything you have learned about love from your father you can unlearn. You have defied his example in every other way. Why would love be any different?”
Chapter Twelve
CATARINA STARED DOWNat the wand, lined up next to three others on a tray on her bathroom sink. Late at night, long after Massimo had left her aching in her lips, in her breasts and in her heart the previous night, she had awoken with cramps in her lower back. She had not allowed herself to analyze the sensation. Her body was speaking to her, but she was tired of listening to it.
Now the message was staring up at her, confirming her body’s signals with a finality that she could no longer doubt. The tests were negative. She was not pregnant. Catarina sat down on the floor, allowing herself to fully register the familiar tenderness in her breasts, the familiar cramping. These sensations that she had experienced over the past few days, the ones that she had interpreted as signs of pregnancy, were simply the usual signals of the end of her cycle. Nothing life changing. There was no baby.
Catarina waited for relief to set in, but it didn’t come. Instead, a strange stillness was settling inside her body, a numbness she was not prepared for. She had spent the past week worrying about the possibilities of a pregnancy she was far from prepared for, but with these possibilities came glimpses of a larger hope, not just for a baby but for something more, a hope for building the family that she craved. A family with Massimo.
Catarina took a final look at the row of pregnancy tests staring up at her, the single pink line unmistakably bright. Then she turned away and returned to the living room, sinking into her favorite armchair. On the table in front of her sat an enormous bouquet of red roses that had been delivered early in the morning. They seemed to sprout from the wide white vase, spilling over the edges with an excess that she couldn’t stop staring at. The scent had filled her flat, intoxicating her, but the card was blank except for a largeMscrawled across it. How fitting, she thought, to send something so intoxicating, excessive and yet withholding. Still, she ached for Massimo. Even when she should know better. She told herself the flowers were probably the work of his assistant, just another step in his well-calculated plan to make their marriage go through. And yet, her breath still caught when she looked at the bouquet. Her heart had swelled when her doorman delivered them. Wasn’t this the kind of romantic flair she had wanted?
She reminded herself that Massimo had told her in no uncertain terms that he could not—or, rather, would not—love her. He refused to give her what she needed, and she knew that anything less would destroy her.
The threads that had held this marriage arrangement together had frayed. All she had to do to snap them was call Massimo and deliver the news that their pregnancy scare was over. And yet, she could not bring herself to do it. Not over the phone. But if she went to him, stood before him and once again welcomed that tempting pull that threatened to drag her under, would she be able to walk away?Just a man, she reminded herself. A man like the mountains that rose behind her house in the fjord, unmovable and impossible to ignore.
Catarina had no idea how long she sat in her living room, staring at the overflow of red roses, but finally, the swirl of anxiety and want that mixed with hope, that stubborn companion that dogged her, became too much. She left her apartment, not bothering to call her driver. Instead, she walked. Massimo’s address was in a newer part of town, and the building was an impressive show of glass and steel. Catarina stopped outside the doors and stared up at it. It was infused with a starkness that she took as a reminder of everything Massimo Carandini was: powerful, impressive and remote. The truth of this visit hit her, paralyzing her in place: This was likely the last time she would see him.
“Catarina?”
His voice echoed through her, rich and deep, and the relief of hearing it was almost too much to bear. How was it that just his voice was enough to set off this electric current of desire that made her breasts heavy and her heart ache? She turned and found Massimo exiting his Ferrari, walking toward her with purpose in his eyes as the valet left with his car. As he came closer, the fire inside her jumped higher. His hair was combed back from his face, exposing the faint scar that healed on his forehead, and his eyes were dark and penetrating as he focused his gaze directly on her. She stepped back, trying not to be burned by it, but it was too late. It was as if something inside her was now linked to him, responsive to him in some deeper way.It will always be like this, said a voice inside her. This was a man who had made it clear that love was not on the table, who had stated he was done compromising. And somehow, this was the man she wanted. This was the man she had fallen in love with. It defied reason, and it was breaking her heart.
Catarina vaguely registered the people who passed them on the sidewalk, pausing to stare. A man in a three-piece suit holding a young girl’s hand. A well-dressed woman with a fluffy white dog. Massimo must not have noticed them because she knew he would retreat from even this small hint of public display of emotion. His family’s name and image would always come first. This last thought was the push she needed to speak.
“There is no baby,” she said, keeping her voice low and clear.
His eyes widened, and Catarina wondered if he, too, had not fully considered their path forward without a baby to bind them together. The surprise in his expression was followed by a glimpse of something else, something that made her wonder if Massimo felt just as lost as she did.
“Please, let’s talk about this in my flat,” he said with a roughness that was heartbreaking.
Catarina shook her head. If they were alone, she wouldn’t be able to resist him.
Massimo frowned down at her. “Perhaps we can move off the street? Just to the building’s courtyard?”
Catarina swallowed. Anywhere public, he would never risk showy emotions, she reasoned. He would never reach for her or lean forward for one of his devastating kisses, the kind that seemed to stop time and erase all rational thought. So she nodded.
Massimo led her through the lobby, all glass and shining surfaces, but when he opened the door to the courtyard, her heart gave a painful squeeze. His building took up the entire block, and in the center of it was an oasis of green. It was as if they had been transported away from the noise of the street and into the walled grounds of a castle. There were plants everywhere, towering trees, fresh herbs and flowers on the ground and vines that clung to the fences and archways that separated the space into smaller, more intimate areas. It was as if she had traveled through his remote, carefully controlled layers and found the part of him she had longed for.
She knew she shouldn’t hope, and yet she still did.
Restlessness had dogged Massimo the entire morning. After putting out a few fires, he had rushed to the jewelers’ and paid the woman a diamond’s worth to size the ring correctly while he waited. On the drive home, he played out potential scenarios, but when he stepped out of his car and found Catarina standing outside his apartment building, all his plans fell away. A powerful feeling shuddered through him, a surge of emotions too strong to ignore. His grandmother’s words still echoed in his mind.You must allow yourself happiness.As he looked into the depths of her dark brown eyes, those words had stopped him in his tracks. His parents had caused so much pain in his life, and he was still letting their actions shape his. He had been on the brink of letting the fear of this pain take away his chance at love.
Now that Catarina was seated on the sofa of his courtyard, her shoulders straight, determined, he registered that this scenario was not one that he had considered. He had been prepared for arguments, contingency plans and reminders of everything at stake, but not the possibility that there was no baby.
Massimo was stunned by a bone-deep feeling of loss. At first, he thought it came from the loss of his plans, or maybe the idea of the baby, but as Catarina stared at him as if she was preparing to say goodbye, the truth hit him, a thunderclap that rattled his entire being. What if he was too late? He was losingher, and he absolutely could not let that happen. The desperation from this coming loss overwhelmed him, and in the chaos of his thoughts, one idea shone clearly: He could not lose Catarina out of the fear he had been running from his entire life, that in loving someone he would become like his father. The only clarity in front of him was that this fear was nothing in comparison to the devastation that would stay with him if she walked away. He could not let Catarina go.
“I was wrong about all of this,” he started. Those simple words seemed to open a dam inside him, and all the feelings he had tried to repress tumbled through his mind. He loved her. Intensely. Desperately. But it wouldn’t be his downfall; instead, it would be his salvation. As she looked up at him from the sofa, her eyes wary, he searched for a way to convey this seismic shift inside him.
Massimo slowly lowered himself to one knee. He pulled the jewelry box out of his suit coat pocket, then reached for her hand. Her breath hitched, and for one heart-stopping moment, he thought she’d pull away. But when her gaze met his, the wariness in her eyes was fading, and in its place, he found hope and a connection that reverberated inside him.
“I’ve fallen in love with you, Catarina,” he started, not bothering to temper the raw emotion in his voice. “You deserve so much more than what I’ve offered you in these last days, but I will spend my life making it up to you. I want to surround you with the love you deserve if you will let me. Please, be my wife.”
Catarina blinked at him, like she couldn’t quite register what was happening.
“I thought you said you knelt for no one,” she finally said.
“I kneel foryou, Catarina,” he rasped. “I kneel only for you.”
