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‘A very physical one, since it involved me putting on a wedding dress.’
‘I suppose.’ Seb sounded doubtful, but that was exactly what they’d agreed to. Two families, and two businesses, brought together into one.
‘And I got to thinking last night...maybe the mistake was trying to make this marriage something it isn’t.’ Or, in her case, letting herself hope it could be something more, then feeling heartbroken when it hadn’t happened.
She’d known ever since her father had taken her away from the degree course she’d adored that love was off the table for her. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to think otherwise, even for a moment.
Which wasn’t to say Seb hadn’t made mistakes, too. Ones she hoped her plan would help him rectify.
‘Maria, I didn’t just marry you because it was good business. You know that, right?’ Seb asked, and Maria nodded her head.
‘Of course I do. You married me because your father told you to.’ Blunt but honest, that was the only way they were going to get through this. Get it all out in the open.
Except for the part about her falling stupidly in love with him, of course. What good would telling him that do? Besides, she couldn’t bear to see the pity in his eyes when he realised the truth.
‘That’s not—’ Seb cut himself off, rubbing at his eyes. She wished he’d pull the sheet up—his naked torso was simply too distracting for a conversation of this magnitude. Unfortunately, the chalet’s state-of-the-art heating system meant that while she was uncomfortably hot in her thick sweater, he was likely to remain half-naked for a while.
Which was a bad thing, she reminded her treacherous body. A bad thing.
‘We were a team, Maria. We were. I married you because I respect you, and more than that, I like you. And I don’t like many people.’ He looked at her balefully, and Maria felt a little of that guilt dripping back in. ‘It may not have been a conventional romance, or falling head over heels in love or any of that. But our marriage wasn’t nothing either.’
‘I never said it was.’ Sighing, Maria shifted to sit a little more fully on the bed, holding a hand out to him. He took it after a moment, and her shoulder muscles relaxed just a bit. ‘Seb, if this marriage meant nothing to me, I wouldn’t be trying so hard to save it.’ Yes, she’d walked out. But she’d come back when he’d asked. That had to count for something.
‘Okay, then.’ Seb squeezed her hand then let it go. ‘So, what do we do?’
‘Like I said, we need a plan. Like you would for any business partnership you were entering into.’ She sucked in a breath, then tried to get back on script. She’d spent half the night rehearsing it, after all. It would be a shame not to use it. ‘I think part of the problem was that we went into the marriage—and parenthood, come to that—with different expectations. And we never talked about them, never discussed what we both wanted out of it.’
‘And now we should?’
‘And now we should.’ Seb still didn’t look entirely convinced. ‘Think about it, Seb. What could it hurt? The worst that happens is that we realise that what we each want is incompatible, and that it can’t work out between us.’
‘So you walk away again and take Frankie with you?’ Seb said.
‘So we sit down and figure out a way forward that keeps us both in Frankie’s life,’ Maria corrected him. ‘I don’t want to take your son away from you, Seb. He needs you, and he deserves you in his life. But you have to make space for him, too. It can’t just be video calls at eleven o’clock at night, you know. That’s not fatherhood.’
He had the decency to look shamefaced at that. ‘I know, I know. So I guess that’s one point for our hypothetical agreement, then?’
Maria nodded. ‘Only there’s nothing hypothetical about this. We’re going to write it all down, sign and agree it, then live by it.’
‘In that case, I’m definitely going to need coffee,’ Seb groaned.
But he wasn’t saying no. That was definitely progress. Maria grinned. Maybe they could make time for caffeine. It might help.
‘Then let’s get some coffee. And my laptop.’
* * *
‘I want Frankie to know me.’ Seb met Maria’s gaze over their coffee mugs and the kitchen counter, as her fingers hovered over the keyboard of her laptop. ‘That’s my number one, nonnegotiable point. I want him to be as happy and comfortable spending time with me as he is with you.’
Maria glanced across at the baby monitor between them on the counter before answering. Frankie was still asleep—mostly because it was still insanely early—and Seb couldn’t help but feel that was for the best. With any luck, his parents would have ironed out all the wrinkles in his future and he’d have his family back by the time he woke up.
If Maria agreed to what he needed. And if she didn’t ask for anything too unreasonable in return.
Now he had coffee, Seb had to admit this whole idea wasn’t as stupid as he’d first thought. A marriage—any marriage, not just a convenient business one like theirs—was basically a merger, in lots of ways. And Maria was right. He knew how to handle those.
He could do this. He was almost certain.
He definitely had to give it his best shot.
‘Seb... I can’t give you that.’ Maria sounded apologetic, which wasn’t going to stop him arguing the point. But she put a hand up to stop him before he could even start. ‘No, let me explain. I’m not saying I’ll keep Frankie away from you or anything like that. I’m saying that your relationship with your son is down to you. And him, of course, but you’re the adult here, so mostly you.’
Seb stared down at his coffee. She had a point. Even before she’d flown back to Italy to her parents’ estate, he hadn’t exactly put the time in with Frankie. He’d been more concerned with building up a successful business for his son to inherit one day than with spending time with him.
Somehow, there had to be time for both. He might have to give up sleep, but it had to be possible. What was the point otherwise? It might have taken him a while—and some huge life changes—to realise how important all those individual moments with his son were, but now that he had he wasn’t going to carry on making the same mistakes.
He’d already lost enough of Frankie’s childhood. And he couldn’t let Frankie grow up not knowing his father, like Leo had.
‘Okay. I take your point—I need to make the time for Frankie. But it would be a lot easier to do that if we were living in the same house. I want to be able to come home from work at the end of the day and hang out with him.’ And, yeah, okay, so then maybe he’d put in another couple of hours in the home office after Frankie was asleep—because it wasn’t as if he could just give up all his responsibilities overnight. But he could rebalance them—if Maria worked with him on that.
She gave a slow nod, but somehow it didn’t feel like an agreement. ‘I think that’s going to depend on the rest of this document, don’t you?’ she said. ‘I mean, if we can find a compromise that makes us both happy...’
‘You’ll stay,’ he finished for her. But there was no nod this time. Seb gripped the handle of his mug a little tighter. ‘Maria, that’s why I’m doing this. Why I’m sitting here at godforsaken o’clock in the morning writing a business proposal for my life. What’s the point of it if you don’t stay at the end?’
‘I’m not saying I won’t!’ Maria protested, although he could hear the reluctance in her voice. That was exactly what she meant. ‘I’m just saying that there’s a lot more we need to agree on first.’
Seb shook his head, anger rising up in him as the caffeine settled into his bloodstream. ‘No. Frankie is what matters most—I thought we could at least both agree on that.’
‘Of course we do!’
‘Then I need a promise from you, before we go any further,’ Seb said, his voice harsh, even to his own ears. ‘If I agree to whatever plan you come up with her
e—’
‘We come up with,’ Maria corrected him, as if she honestly believed he wasn’t just following her lead. That he wouldn’t say yes to anything if it kept her and Frankie there with him.
‘Fine, that we come up with. If I agree to it, if I keep to it between now and Christmas, you have to stay. You have to give us a real chance to make our marriage work again.’
Maria’s eyes were huge. ‘You mean, if you really make time for our family, for Frankie, and everything else... I move back here?’
‘If I don’t mess things up over the next two weeks between now and Christmas. Yes.’ Was he being unreasonable? Seb wasn’t sure. But Maria had been right about one thing—he knew business. And the most important thing in business was being able to negotiate hard.
‘I’m not—’
‘I need an answer, Maria, otherwise there’s no point going any further with this.’ Ruthless, that was the key. There was no room for weakness in business. Or marriage, it seemed.
He could see the conflicting arguments playing out in her head, showing on her face as clearly as if she’d said them out loud. He waited, ignoring the gnawing feeling of wrongness about treating his wife this way that ate away at his stomach.
