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Tears surged to her eyes and she blinked rapidly, denying them now, just as she had denied everything else these past three years.
It was going to be rough getting through this, making the visit work, accomplishing what she’d set out to do.
Lunch over, Marco stood and said something about spending time with Marilena before returning to work. Payton heard the girls say goodbye to Marilena, their little voices chiming together, as they often did and Marilena leaned forward to kiss the girls once on each cheek before Marco and Marilena walked away from the table, arm in arm.
An hour later, Payton quietly stepped from the girls’ bedroom having tucked them in and reassured herself that they were truly resting.
She stood in the doorway and watched them sleep. Their dark curls spread across the pillowcase. They slept facing each other as if they’d whispered themselves to sleep.
They had so much Marco in them. She’d always found it bittersweet that she’d lost Marco and yet she’d been given these daily reminders of him. It wasn’t just one thing, but many…the way Gia arched an eyebrow, Liv’s tilt to her head, both girls impatience and pride. The girls might look delicate but on the inside they were tough.
Just like Marco.
Marco had fascinated her from the start. She worked at d’Angelo three weeks before she got her first glimpse of him. He was there with a circle of others and yet he seemed different. Distinct.
He might have taken over his father’s famous company, but he was a true designer in his own right and his work preoccupied him.
Payton loved watching him sketch. She found excuses to be near the salon when he directed a fitting. She listened to him as he talked, absorbing everything, wanting to know more. Always eager to learn more.
She’d call her mother on the weekends. They were brief calls, so expensive, but she was determined her mother be part of her great adventure.
“Fabric has masculine and feminine qualities,” Payton would breathlessly repeat. “The perfectly designed suit is a blend of male and female, structure and softness, power and restraint.”
Her mother loved it. And Payton had loved hearing her mother laugh. Had loved knowing she was doing something that made her mother proud.
Mothers and daughters…Payton swallowed around the lump in her throat. Daughters became their mothers.
Daughters replaced their mothers.
Fighting tears, Payton slipped from the girls’ room and closed the door gently behind her. Fighting emotion, she headed back to her room only to discover Marco waiting for her.
“Does it usually take so long to put them down?” he asked.
She blinked, willing the tears to quickly dry. “I was just sitting with them a while. Sometimes I forget to slow down. Forget to just be there with them.”
His dark eyes searched her face. “You seem different, Payton. You’re not the same.”
“It’s been a long year.”
“Working too hard?”
Her mouth twisted. “Doesn’t everyone?”
His head inclined. “Probably.” Marco glanced down the hall. “Do you think they’ll sleep for a while?”
“An hour at least.”
“In that case, maybe it’s time we sat down and talked. Marilena’s gone, the girls are napping. We can have a proper conversation without interruption.”
Proper conversation, Payton repeated as she followed Marco downstairs to the smaller salon. She knew what proper conversation meant. Marco was going to do the talking. It was all about control. He was determined to control his environment; he was a master at controlling himself.
Only that one time…that one time he lost control changed everything. Just one lapse in judgment and his secure, preordained life exploded.
Downstairs Marco didn’t sit. He jammed his hands into his trouser pockets as he faced her, black eyebrows flattened, expression tense. “Marilena and I had our first fight today.”
It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say at all. Payton pressed her hands against her lap and drew herself a little taller.
“It was about you,” he continued evenly, no emotion in his voice. “She knows I’m uncomfortable with you here. She knows that I’m feeling angry and she—” he broke off, jaw flexing “—she defended you. Said she liked you. She asked me to be kind to you.”
Marco looked away, swallowed, muscles popping in his jawbone near his ear. “I lost my temper with her. I lost my temper because I thought she didn’t know you. She didn’t know how dangerous you are.”
“I’m not a threat,” she contradicted quietly. “I’m not here to drive a wedge between you. I’ve already told you that.”
“So why do I fear you’ll destroy everything?”
She couldn’t look away from his dark smoldering gaze. “I don’t know.”
He laughed softly, laughed without mirth. “I have a million things on my plate at the moment and I can’t focus on any of them. It’s the fifty-year anniversary of d’Angelo. I’m getting married in less than two and a half months. I’m working feverishly to prepare for a Spring collection that has no backbone, no life to it. Dammit, Payton, I didn’t need this now.
“I love Marilena,” he continued. “I can’t allow you to come between us. I don’t know what to do with you, I don’t know if I need to send you to a hotel or send you home, but I can’t have Marilena caught between us.”
Payton felt a hint of panic. Marco couldn’t send her home, at least, not yet. They still had so much to settle first. “I’ll stay out of the way. I’ll work harder at being invisible—”
Marco’s laugh cut her short. “You, invisible? Payton, you’re fire personified. You enter a room and it goes up in flames.”
“I’ll try harder—”
“But it’s not just you,” he interrupted again. “That’s the thing you don’t understand. Payton, I don’t know what it is but you change things, you change something in me. I can’t ignore you. I…” He swore beneath his breath and shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
Payton’s eyes widened and her heart slammed into her rib cage. She’d thought he was so indifferent. She’d thought he was oblivious to her. “It’s just because we were married once,” she answered huskily. “It’s because we were…involved.”
His laugh mocked her. “I’ve been involved with lots of women before and felt absolutely nothing when they entered the room.” His dark gaze slid over her, and heat sparked in his eyes, heat and anger. “But I can’t let this happen. I can’t let the attraction destroy everything again. And it would destroy Marilena. She deserves so much better.”
He was warning her. Warning them both and their eyes met from across the room and held.
A door slammed in the front of the house. “Marco!” Marilena’s tremulous voice echoed in the entry. “Marco, are you here?”
Marco and Payton’s gaze remained locked for another moment before he abruptly turned away.
Marilena appeared in the salon. “I was so stupid,” she choked, rushing to Marco’s side. “I was upset and not paying attention.”
Marco lifted a hand to her temple. “You’re bleeding.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What happened?”
“I ran a light. Wasn’t thinking—I was upset, about us, crying, I think—and went through the light. I didn’t even brake.”
“Santo Cielo! Come sta?”
“Bene. I’m fine, but the car—”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does. I love that car. You gave it to me.”
“So I’ll get you a new one. Stand still. Let me look at you.” He was lifting her chin, scrutinizing her pale face. “How did you hurt your head?”
“I bumped it on something. The window, or the steering wheel. But it’s nothing.”
“You need to see a doctor. I’m going to take you to the hospital.” Marco turned and caught sight of Payton.
They stood there a split second, eyes locked, both remembering what had just passed between them and t
hen Marco slipped an arm around the princess and steered her through the front door to his waiting car.
Payton waited for Marco to call. The girls played with their dolls, dressing and undressing the baby dolls with Velcro fasteners in their nightgowns, while Payton stared at the phone.
Waiting, she thought, was always the hard part.
The days used to seem endless when Payton first left Milan for San Francisco.
The first six weeks had been the worst. Time took on a life of its own, time stretching, weighting, consuming her until Payton felt possessed by loss.
She had fixated on the phone. Maybe he’d call. Maybe he’d write. She checked her messages a dozen or more time a day. When he didn’t call she ached inside, the pain so bad she thought she’d do anything to escape it.
