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‘Because I should be happy to be a wife and a mother, right? Just stay home and look pretty, rather than getting my hands dirty in business?’ she snapped.
‘No!’ Seb’s eyes widened, and he put up his hands in a mock surrender. ‘That’s not... I only meant that you were always such a natural at business. You understood everything I ever spoke to you about, and you gave great advice. I just wondered why you felt you needed to study it again after, well...’ After she’d given it up to marry him, at her father’s request. Tactful, Seb.
But Maria’s expression softened a tiny bit anyway. ‘I’m sorry. I should know better. I just... I’ve been spending a lot of time with my father lately.’
‘Ah.’ Maria’s father had never wanted her involved in the family business. As far as he was concerned, her only job had been to marry well enough to bring in a man to deal with it—as shown by his actions when he’d run his own company into the ground, then married Maria off to fix it.
Seb knew his father would have undertaken the merger without the marriage, to help his friend. But old man Rossi had just had to have a physical marker, keeping his hand in the business, and Salvo had been happy to see his son settled so easily.
Sebastian had never had much respect for his father-in-law.
‘Yeah. He didn’t like me taking the course much.’ She looked up and met his gaze, and Seb listened carefully, knowing whatever she had to say next mattered. A lot. ‘But I wanted to finish what I started, all those years ago. I’m a grown woman now. I make my own choices.’
‘I never thought you weren’t,’ Seb said carefully. ‘And I would never want to make choices for you.’
He’d just really like it if she made the ones he wanted her to make. Did that make him as bad as her father? He wasn’t really sure any more.
‘Good. I just wondered because...’ She trailed off, leaving Seb to imagine what she might have been about to say.
Except he needed to know. He needed to know everything he’d done wrong so he could fix them. Otherwise in a matter of days she’d be walking away from him again—for good this time.
‘Because?’ he prompted.
‘Back before we were married—and even after for a while, I suppose—you used to talk to me about the business. Ask my advice, let me help you work out the best way forward for Cattaneo Jewels. And I liked that. It was something we had in common, to connect us. My father, he never wanted me anywhere near the business end of things, but you did. You made me feel like you valued my opinions.’
‘I did,’ Seb said, quickly. ‘Very much. You always knew the right questions to ask to help me work through things. You helped me get to the heart of whatever the problem was so I could figure out what really mattered.’ His dad had been giving him more and more control and responsibility, he remembered, setting him up to take things over when he was ready to retire. Having Maria to talk things through with had made that less scary.
Had made him feel less alone.
‘Then why did you stop?’ Maria asked. ‘The minute I got pregnant with Frankie, it was as if that was my only responsibility, the only thing I was good for any more. Giving you an heir.’
Seb’s eyes widened. ‘That wasn’t... No, absolutely not. That wasn’t what I was thinking at all.’ What the hell had he been thinking? Everything had been so confused and frantic since then it was hard to remember. But he knew he had to.
‘Then explain it to me.’ Maria sat back in her seat and waited.
‘I’ll... I’ll try.’ Seb saw a waiter hovering, waiting to see if they wanted more drinks or whatever. ‘Just...let me get the bill. I want to have this conversation properly, not here.’
He handed his card over to the loitering waiter, tipping generously as he paid, his mind still on the past—and its power over the present. So much of their history was tangled up in their fathers’ actions. Could they unwind all of that to find a new path, a new future together?
This conversation could make or break his marriage, he was almost certain. He had to get it right.
Besides which, he wasn’t ready for this date to be over yet. For the first time ever, he and Maria were being totally honest with each other. He didn’t want to call a close to that—not before he had a chance to tackle the issues that really mattered between them.
Then he looked out of the window and saw the perfect way to keep their bubble of privacy and truthfulness.
Smiling, he replaced his card in his wallet and put it back in his jacket pocket.
‘Come on,’ he said, reaching for Maria’s hand. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
CHAPTER SIX
ONLY SEBASTIAN WOULD think that a romantic sleigh ride was the perfect place for the most important conversation she’d ever had in her marriage. Possibly in her life. He really was going all out with the romance thing, given his total lack of prior experience.
Although, she had to admit, it did at least give them privacy.
Up ahead, the two bright white horses clip-clopped through the streets of Mont Coeur, out towards the snowy fields and hills beyond, tugging their festive green sleigh behind them. Their driver wore thick earmuffs and had barely even grunted a welcome as Sebastian had helped her on board, so Maria was fairly sure he wasn’t eavesdropping on their marital woes.
Still, they kept the conversation light to start with, each pointing out sights and sounds around them.
‘Look! Ice skaters.’ Seb pointed towards a frozen lake just beyond the village. ‘Do you remember that night we crept out to go ice-skating on the lake at your parents’ house?’
‘Of course.’ Maria smiled, a little wistfully. How could she forget the night she’d fallen in love with her husband? Even if she’d never told him.
Seb’s smile was more rueful. ‘I probably should have been locked up for taking you out there. It was stupidly dangerous, and you were only, what, thirteen?’
‘Fifteen,’ Maria corrected him. ‘And I wanted to go.’
‘That’s why I took you,’ Seb said, with a grin.
Maria looked away, settling back against the padded seat, the memory flooding back. It had been the Christmas holidays, the year before Seb had left for university. The year she’d looked at him and seen a man almost—and a gorgeous one at that. Seb and Noemi had been visiting for a weekend while their parents were away. Maria had been begging her parents all day to let them skate on the frozen lake on the estate, but they’d refused to budge. Too dangerous. Too risky.
But that was what Maria had wanted. A little risk, a little danger. Anything to make her feel less trapped in her parents’ house.
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, Seb had knocked on her door, a pair of ice skates dangling from his fingers.
She’d never felt more alive than she had that night, skating in the darkness with Sebastian Cattaneo. And she’d known then she’d never love anyone else either.
But she couldn’t think about that now. Not when there was so much still unsettled between them.
Dragging her attention back to the present, she made herself feel the sleigh beneath her, the icy air against her skin. She wasn’t fifteen any more. She had to remember that.
‘I’ve never been on one of these before,’ she admitted, watching as the snow-capped trees flew past alongside them. ‘Frankie would love it. Or be terrified. No real way of telling with toddlers.’
‘We’ll bring him into town to see the horses, then,’ Seb said. ‘See how he reacts.’
We. Together. As a family. She knew that was what Seb was getting at, what he was striving for. But she needed her answers first.
Shifting in her seat, she angled her body towards him, her gloved hands resting on her lap. He looked so gorgeous in the bright, reflected light of the sun on the snow, his close-cropped dark hair showing off his strong jaw and handsome features. His green eyes looked thoughtful, as he stared out
over the view of the Alps. Was he thinking about his answer? Or a work problem?
Probably the latter, since it was Seb.
‘So. Have you thought of a reason yet?’ she asked, not hiding the slight edge in her voice as she almost echoed his question from lunch. This was important to her. If they really wanted to repair their relationship—even if only so they could parent Frankie more amicably long distance—then she needed to understand what had changed for him. Why he’d started cutting her out just when she’d hoped they’d be growing closer.
‘It’s not so much thinking of a reason.’ Seb gave her a small, apologetic smile. ‘It’s remembering exactly what I was thinking and feeling. I tend to act more on instinct and logic with these things, rather than thinking them through sometimes.’
She knew that. She knew him. Which meant she also knew that if he could avoid thinking about emotions and such completely and swap them for spreadsheets and profit-and-loss statements instead, he would.
But she wasn’t going to let him get away with that today.
‘I think... You remember how ill you were at the start of your pregnancy?’ he asked.
Urgh. As if she could forget. She’d thrown up for twelve weeks straight, every day at eleven and four like clockwork. And in between she’d nursed a bottle of chilled water and a packet of plain crackers. It was not a time she remembered with fondness, even if it had been worth it to have Frankie.
