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‘How many did you read him?’ Maria asked.
‘Um, four? Maybe five?’ Seb shrugged. ‘He just kept handing me books, so I just kept reading them.’
Maria rolled her eyes—mostly to stop herself smiling besottedly at the husband she’d designated as nothing more than a business partner. ‘He’s normally only allowed two.’ But Frankie loved his stories, so would keep going as long as someone would read them to him.
Seb shrugged again, sinking onto the sofa beside him. ‘Well, I’ve missed out on a lot of bedtime stories. I figure I have ground to make up.’
And how was she supposed to argue with that?
‘I made some hot chocolate for us,’ she said instead, motioning to the mugs on the coffee table in front of the roaring fire. ‘Figured you might still need warming up a bit after your snowy adventures earlier.’
‘I love hot chocolate,’ Seb said, reaching for his mug. ‘Oh, and you even added marshmallows!’
‘Of course. I didn’t forget everything while I was away, you know.’ She hadn’t forgotten anything. But he didn’t need to know that.
The smile Seb gave her was just a little bit sad. It made Maria wonder if they’d ever manage a conversation that didn’t somehow come back to how she’d left him. If they’d ever move forward beyond that fact.
Maybe eventually. If she stayed long enough this time. And if Seb kept up the way he’d been that afternoon, she might have to.
He certainly seemed to be going all out so far to meet every expectation and objective she’d set him. If she’d realised sooner that this was the way to get cooperation from her husband she’d have tried it years ago.
But if he kept going on the way he had today, Maria would have to uphold her end of the bargain, too. She’d have to recommit to their business partnership marriage and stay, something that somehow both terrified and excited her.
They hadn’t set time limits on what would happen after Christmas. If he met his objectives until Christmas, she’d stay and give their marriage a second chance. It didn’t mean she couldn’t leave again if he reverted back to the old Seb.
If she could pluck up the courage and steel her heart to leave him twice, that was. Something Maria wasn’t at all sure about.
She remembered the winter she’d come home from college at twenty to visit the Cattaneos—just five months before she’d left university for good. She’d had two full years since she’d left home of trying to forget about Seb, and the way he made her feel. To forget his smile, or his hand in hers as they’d skated on the ice. To forget the way he’d look at her across the dinner table when her father said something awful, just to let her know he was on her side. To forget how hard her fifteen-year-old self had fallen for him.
He’d been away studying in London, and between that and starting work at his father’s company, it had been easy to avoid him, especially with her own studies and friends to keep her occupied. To be honest, it had grown almost embarrassing to be mooning after him. Even if no one ever said anything, Maria had never been able to shake the feeling that they all knew, and were laughing at her behind her back. What was cute at fifteen or sixteen was frankly humiliating at nineteen or twenty.
It had been easier to stay out of his way, entertain herself flirting with other boys, work hard for a degree she cared deeply about, and build her own life. By the end of her first year at university she’d almost convinced herself that what she’d thought she’d felt for Seb had only been a childhood crush.
Then she’d seen Sebastian again for the first time in two years.
He’d been standing in the snow with his father, waiting for her, the winter sun glinting off his short dark hair. And he’d smiled, and she’d fallen all over again, harder than ever.
She’d broken away from Seb once before, only to fall deeper in love when she’d come back. And now she was afraid history might be about to repeat itself—but she had no idea how to stop it.
Maybe it was already too late.
‘So, how did I do with our contract today?’ Seb asked, breaking through her memories. ‘Am I keeping up my end of the bargain?’
‘I think we could definitely say that.’ Maria reached for her own hot chocolate, thinking how happy, how young Sebastian had looked, playing in the snow with Frankie and Leo. She hadn’t seen that Sebastian in a long time. Hadn’t realised how much she’d missed him until today.
‘In that case...since things are going so well to plan, perhaps we could talk about something?’ Seb kept his eyes on the marshmallows bobbing in his hot chocolate as he asked, which made her a little nervous.
Maria frowned. ‘Of course. But what, exactly?’
‘How do you...?’ Seb took a breath and started again, meeting her gaze this time as he spoke. There was a cautious reserve in his eyes. ‘If you stay, if I meet all your conditions and you and Frankie stay with me...how do you see that going?’
As if they hadn’t already spent the whole morning hammering this out.
‘How do you mean? We’ve talked about this already—you will make time for family as well as business. You’ll involve me in your decisions. Do I need to get the contract back out for you to read it again?’
‘No, that’s not...that’s not what I mean.’ Seb looked awkwardly around him, as if wishing he’d never started the conversation.
But he had, and now Maria really had to know what he was trying to get at. ‘Is this about Frankie?’
Shaking his head, Seb put down his mug and reached for her, taking her hands in his. ‘No. It’s about us.’
* * *
As much as part of him wished he’d never started this conversation, Seb knew it was one they needed to have. He’d known it when they’d been hammering out the terms of their contract over coffee that morning, and he’d known it for certain when he’d seen Maria smiling at him through the snow. He just hadn’t been ready to address it until now—alone, in the evening shadows, with a fire and a hot chocolate.
Although a little brandy in the hot chocolate would probably help.
If Maria stayed, he wanted more than a business partner. He wanted his wife back. And everything that went with that.
‘What I need to know is...what sort of relationship do you see us having in the future, if you come home?’ He watched Maria’s eyes widen as she realised what he was asking.
‘You mean...will our relationship be purely business, or will we resume, um, our physical, well...?’ She trailed off, and Seb held back a laugh at the sight of his wife trying to make their sex life part of a business contract.
Then he realised how bad that sounded, and frowned. That wasn’t what he wanted at all. He didn’t want any relationship between them to be an obligation, something agreed on paper that Maria felt she had to do.
If he ever had Maria in his bed again, it would only be because she wanted to be there. Because she craved that physical connection between them as much as he did.
And they had connected. Really connected.
He may not have had any serious relationships in his life before he’d married Maria, but that didn’t mean he was inexperienced. He knew how sex could be with women he was attracted to, liked, and whose company he enjoyed.
None of them had ever come close to sex with Maria.
It wasn’t just her beauty, her gorgeous curves, or even the friendship they’d built over the years. There was something more there between them, something he’d never been able to pin down to a single word or phrase.
But it had been real. And it had taken his breath away, from the first time he’d touched her, and every single time since.
He didn’t want that perfect memory ruined by trying to make i
t part of their contract.
‘Maybe it’s a bad idea to talk about this,’ he said abruptly, dropping her hands. Yes, he wanted to know her intentions, but somehow the whole conversation had got twisted around, without ever going anywhere. Maybe he just had to wait until it happened naturally—or didn’t happen.
It was just a shame he was so bad with uncertainty.
‘No,’ Maria said, biting down on her bottom lip. ‘You’re right. Our physical relationship is an important aspect of our partnership. We should discuss it. I mean, we haven’t even spoken about whether we’d like Frankie to have a brother or sister one day.’
Another baby. One he could get things right for, from the start. A companion for Frankie, like Noemi had been for him, like Leo could have been, perhaps would be now. Maria had never had a sibling, and he knew she’d been lonely—when she hadn’t been with the Cattaneos, anyway. Of course she’d be thinking about this.
And he’d just been thinking about sex. God, no wonder she thought he needed a business plan to just be able to act like a normal human being.
His shock must have shown on his face, because Maria instantly started backtracking. ‘But you probably meant something else. Like...if this is a business relationship, are we free to see other people? Recreationally, so to speak.’
See other people? That was basically the opposite of what he’d been thinking about.
Did she want to see other men? She said she hadn’t dated while they’d been apart...but she wouldn’t, not with things unsettled between them. He knew Maria.
If she wanted to start a relationship with someone new, she’d make sure she tied up all the loose ends with him first, so she could move on free and clear.
Was that what she wanted? Either to be free of him for ever, or to have an arrangement that gave her enough freedom to seek her own happiness?
Anger and fear and confusion all warred inside him for prominence—until he took a moment to really look at Maria before he responded.
