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How could she have cancer? She was so young! And she didn’t look the least bit sick. In fact, he’d never seen her so radiant.
Today at the photo shoot she’d taken his breath away and he’d found himself enchanted with the curve of her cheekbone, line of her jaw, high arching eyebrow. She was like a work of art herself and even if they didn’t always agree, and even if they’d had problems between them, he’d never wish her ill. Never, ever.
“I’m sorry, Marco.” She was looking at him, dark blue eyes worried. They were Livia’s eyes, and she was looking to him for reassurance. Forgiveness. It wounded him. Did she think she needed forgiveness—and from him of all people?
They’d had problems, a lot of problems, but there had also been moments of good—not to mention moments of lightness and sweetness that he’d never known with anyone else before. Payton might not be regal and controlled like Marilena but she was warm and funny and passionate about life and that passion was addictive.
She was addictive. He’d responded to her from the beginning and it had happened again tonight—the attraction, the desire, the hunger for someone and something utterly different from himself.
“You have to know I never wanted this to happen,” she added huskily. “Never wanted to hurt the girls, or inconvenience you.”
The words were endless, he thought, sound and more sound and he’d heard enough. There were words and there was action. There was what one said and what one did.
He was sick of getting nowhere and accomplishing nothing. Endless talk. Wasted time.
Three years of wasted time.
Payton realized she was the only one talking. Marco wasn’t saying anything. He was just staring at her, and there was no expression in his eyes or face.
If only he’d say something. Anything. “If they’re happy, I can be happy,” she whispered, her voice was thickening with unshed tears. “If I know they love being with you then I’m okay when I go home and do what I’ll have to do.”
“When did you intend to go home?”
Marco’s question flattened her. She drew a breath, held it in and then slowly exhaled. “I’m holding a reservation for a week from Tuesday.”
“Nine days from now.”
“Yes.”
“And your treatment would begin when?”
“A week or so after that. There are some details to still be hammered out. More tests, and then hospital scheduling.”
Marco moved away, walking toward the other end of the courtyard. Payton watched him pace. He seemed lost in thought and periodically he reached up to rub the back of his neck. “You want the girls to stay here, with me, while you begin treatment?”
“I think it’s best.”
He stared at a fixed point, his expression shuttered. “They’ll be frightened being left behind.”
“Perhaps a little, but I think we can ease their fear if we’re united on this. If we’re friendly and the girls know they’re not being abandoned.”
He’d begun to pace the room. His chest burned and his head throbbed and the last four years flashed past him like a video on fast forward.
Payton the beautiful young American intern. Payton dressed in a daring one sleeve silver gown at the Trussardis. Dancing with Payton and watching her eyes light as she laughed.
Leaning back against the window, he pushed open the shutter and stared at the garden bathed in moonlight.
The garden reminded him of Marilena and smacking the window shutter with his palm he realized he’d forgotten to call her, forgotten to stop by after dinner as he’d promised.
Dammit.
His hand fell from the shutter and turning, he leaned against the wall and looked at Payton. “Is there any pain yet, anything that hurts?”
“No.”
“Good.” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets, the weight of the world pressing on him. Payton. Marilena. The girls. Business. There weren’t any easy answers in life, were there? No clear cut direction. No obvious solution. It all came down to listening to one’s conscience. To following one’s heart.
“I know you had a plan,” he said at length. “When you came here you had an idea of how you wanted this to go. What is it that you want? How can I help you?”
He listened to her, heard her out, and then when she was finally done talking he nodded. “Fine.”
Marco had never appeared on Marilena’s doorstep un-announced, and rarely before noon, but if the princess was surprised to see him at nine the next morning she gave no indication. “Buongiorno,” she said, when the maid showed Marco in.
“Buongiorno, mia Amore,” he answered, kissing each cheek. “How is your head today?”
“Bene.” She smiled. Fine.
His gaze traveled her pale face before resting on her bruised forehead. “Your black eye is getting worse.”
“It gets uglier before it gets better,” she answered, making space for him on the small sofa in her private salon. “But I deserve a bump on my head if I’m going to run stoplights. It was stupid of me.”
The maid soon returned with two small coffees on a gold tray. “How are things at home?” Marilena asked, cradling her cup.
“Fine.” He looked up and discovered she’d been watching him, her smooth forehead slightly furrowed.
“Something’s wrong,” Marilena said softly.
There was no easy way to do this, no easy way to say this. Marilena was too intelligent, too perceptive to know that his news would change everything.
“Yes?” she prompted gently. And yet there was a new light in her eyes, wariness. Caution.
“Payton’s sick.” He didn’t know how else to break the news. It was difficult to say without skirting the issue. “She has cancer.”
Marilena’s lips parted, eyes widening. “Cancer?”
“Yes.”
“The poor thing.”
And Marco felt like a heel all over again. He was doing the right thing, telling Marilena, letting Marilena know that he had to support Payton as much as possible, and yet he knew this was hard for her, just as this would be difficult for all of them.
“And the girls,” Marilena added, correctly naming his chief worry. “Do they know? What will they do?”
He patted his coat, itching like mad for a cigarette. “They don’t know yet, and—” He muttered an oath, hating all of this, hating the hard decisions that would soon have to be made. “Yet I know what Payton wants.”
He glanced up, met Marilena’s gaze. “She wants the girls to stay with me.”
Marilena didn’t move. Didn’t blink. She just stared at him. “Stay with you? Payton, too?”
“No, not Payton. Just the girls. Payton wants us—you and me—to keep them while she goes through chemotherapy.”
“Oh.” Marilena stood, took a slow turn around the room, her long legs even more elegant in her slim slacks and high leather heels. “Good Heavens.”
“Yes.”
She turned a little, rubbed her temple and looked at him. “What do you think?”
“I think Payton’s terrified. She loves the girls dearly. They’re practically her whole world—”
“She does have a job, Marco. A very visible job as a designer for Calvanti.”
“But she’s taking a leave of absence. She’s not going to try to work, at least not during the first part of her treatment, and she can’t imagine lying around the house sick and having the girls be part of this.”
“She’s certainly been candid with you, hasn’t she?”
“She’s desperate.”
Marilena blew a slow stream of air. “So, what are you proposing? What about the wedding? The honeymoon? Us?”
“We’re still us. We’ll still be us. We might need to make some changes.” He saw her smooth brow knit and her teeth catch her lip. “But in the end everything will work out. We’ll get married, have our trip. It just might be a few weeks—months—later than we planned.”
“But we’d have the twins.”
“Yes.”
“Before our honeymoon or after?”
He felt a surge of irritation. “Does it matter?” And then he saw from her expression that it did.
He straightened a little, a strange coldness forming in the middle of his chest. “You don’t want the girls?”
She held her breath a moment before answering. “They’re charming girls. Delightful children. But I’ve always hoped to be a bride before a mother.”
He didn’t say anything and she calmly continued. “I’m happy to help Payton however I can, but I think we have to be careful. I think we have to remember our goals. We’ve always talked about us starting a family together. Having babies of our own.”
But the twins were his own. They were a huge part of his heart. Of his life. They were his daughters.
