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Eventually, out of breath and still laughing, they fell down onto the snow beside the lake, hands still clutched together.
‘Feel better for that?’ Seb asked, and Maria nodded, unable to find the words. ‘Good.’ Releasing her fingers, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her up between his legs so she could rest her back against his chest. ‘Me, too. Much better than contracts.’
Maria laughed. ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that.’
‘I should have. Spending time with you...that’s always been better than any business deal or meeting could be.’
Something tightened in her chest at his words. ‘I’m happy to hear that.’ Did he really mean it? Because if he did...it wasn’t a declaration of love, of course. But for Seb, it was pretty close.
‘Can I ask you something?’ Seb said, after a moment.
Maria turned her face so her cheek lay against his chest, and listened to his heartbeat. ‘Of course.’
‘Why did you marry me?’
* * *
It was the perfect night. Him, his wife, the moonlight and the ice. He could feel Maria’s warmth pressed against him until it drowned out the chill of the snow beneath them as she relaxed in his arms.
Everything was just as it should be. Until he ruined it, like always.
‘Why did you marry me?’
Maria jerked away, sitting up and turning to face him. ‘What do you mean? You know why.’
Oh, well. In for a penny and all that.
Seb shook his head. ‘No. I know why your father ordered you to marry me. What I don’t know is why on earth you said yes.’
She could have had any man in the world. She was beautiful, intelligent, and so far out of his league that Seb hadn’t believed his father the first time he’d told him the engagement had been arranged.
He’d always wondered what her father had done to force her into it—especially after she’d left him. But he’d never had the courage to ask.
Until now.
Maria stared straight into his eyes for a long moment, and Seb held her gaze. He could wait her out.
They’d laid so much about their relationship bare already, but how could they keep moving forward without unpeeling this last, vital layer?
Finally, Maria broke away, her gaze skittering off towards the mountains, and whatever lay beyond them.
‘My father... I was away at university. You knew that, right?’ Her voice was soft, tentative, and she paused for Seb to nod an acknowledgement before she continued. ‘I was studying for a business degree, of course, and I had almost finished my second year when, one day, he showed up on the campus with no warning. I thought he must have a meeting locally or something. Thought it was nice of him to surprise me like that.
‘He took me out for lunch at the fanciest restaurant in town, just like he always would. You know my father—he likes things because they’re expensive, not because they’re good. But then, as I was sitting there eating my overpriced starter, drinking one-hundred-euros-a-bottle wine, he said, “The company’s going under. We either have to declare bankruptcy or you need to marry Sebastian Cattaneo.”’
Instinctively, Seb reached out to hold her close again, silently cursing Antonio Rossi as he did so. He’d always known the old man was a bastard, but he’d at least hoped he loved his daughter.
Apparently not so much.
Maria nestled back into his arms like she belonged there, and Seb allowed himself a moment of satisfaction before she continued her story.
‘I argued that there had to be another way. I wanted to look at the books, talk to the investors, figure out a way to save the company using everything I’d learned about business. But he wouldn’t even let me try.’
‘You never told me,’ Seb whispered, hating that she’d been so desperate not to marry him, and forced into it anyway. ‘When I proposed...you smiled. You said it was what you wanted.’
‘And you gave me an out.’ Maria looked up at him, her eyes wide and serious. ‘You told me that if I didn’t want to marry you, I just had to say the word and you’d find another way.’
‘But you didn’t,’ Seb replied. ‘You said yes. Why?’
Maria sighed, and looked away. ‘Because...because it was the best solution. If my father wasn’t going to let me be of any use to his company, better we merge with yours and I have a chance to make a difference there instead. Marrying you...it meant I escaped that mausoleum my parents called home. Meant I could stay a part of the Cattaneo family for ever, instead of just on visits in the holidays. And you and I...we were friends, always. I figured there were a lot of things worse than marrying you.’
Hardly a ringing endorsement, Seb noted. But all those things she’d wanted from the marriage, he could still give her. His parents were gone, but the Cattaneos were still very much a family. And they’d already proved they were a great business team that afternoon. As for friends... He hoped they could be much more than that. But if friends was all he got, he’d take it.
A horrible thought occurred to him. One he’d had before, but had never realised the depth of before.
‘I can’t imagine how bad life with me must have been, then, to send you back to your parents.’ The words came out choked, and Maria turned to kneel up in front of him, her cold palm pressed against his cheek. He gazed down into her dark blue eyes, shaded in the night, and realised a truth that had eluded him for far too long. Or perhaps he’d just never thought to look for it.
This woman is everything.
He had to make her happy. Had to give her the life she deserved. Had to be the husband she deserved, and the father that Frankie did, too.
Somehow. He’d figure it out.
Because nothing else mattered.
‘It’s getting better,’ Maria whispered.
Then she kissed him, soft and sweet and perfect.
And suddenly Sebastian Cattaneo had hope again.
* * *
‘Papà!’ Frankie came flying into Sebastian’s office a few days later, waving a sheet of shiny paper in his hand. His eyes were bright with excitement, and he bounced on his toes even when he came to a stop. ‘Look, Papà!’
Noemi followed close behind, smiling indulgently and giving Seb the distinct impression that whatever happened next was going to be his sister’s fault. Like so many other things in their childhood, actually. And this week.
Unbidden, Seb’s mind flashed back to ice-skating with Maria, and the feel of her lips against his again after so long. They’d been giggling as they’d raced back to the chalet, hand in hand, ice skates clanking in the bag on his shoulder. He’d hoped—oh, how he’d hoped—that they’d have a chance to follow up their new-found closeness when they got home. Noemi and Max would have finished reading Frankie stories by then, and he should be fast asleep.
Except when they’d arrived, they’d found every light in the chalet blazing and Frankie jumping around the Christmas tree on a sugar high of excitement, amplified by an afternoon at the toy store.
Maria had dropped his hand before they were even through the door. And since then there hadn’t been a moment when he’d felt the same closeness, or the same sense of possibility.
He had to find a way to get back there. And soon—because Christmas was nearly upon them.
They’d all managed nearly a week of harmony at the Mont Coeur chalet now, and things were starting to feel more relaxed, more natural, at least. He and Maria were both still keeping up their respective sides of the bargain, and Frankie was luxuriating in all the attention from his parents. Leo and Anissa had stopped in to see them almost every day, and there had been plenty of family dinners and conversations—enough to make Seb feel that just maybe they could be a real family, even after everything.
It probably didn’t hurt that the Christmas spirit had infused the place so completely that even Seb was dreaming of cinnamon
and pine needles.
Well, actually, that wasn’t true. He was dreaming about Maria, and that kiss. Every single night, as she slept in the next room with Frankie. Without him.
But he was feeling festive, which was a whole lot more than he’d managed this time last year. And so was everyone else, it seemed. The Mont Coeur chalet was a haven of good cheer and amicability for the first time in what felt like an age.
And Frankie had come to find him, of his own accord, because he wanted to see him. What more could he ask for?
Mindful of his agreement with Maria, Seb shut his laptop, hoping that the emails he’d only just started to deal with could wait a little longer, and gave Frankie his full attention.
‘What have you got there?’ he asked, lifting the little boy up into his lap.
Frankie shoved the shiny paper towards Seb’s nose, and Noemi snorted with laughter as he tried to prise it from his son’s tiny fist.
The paper was red, gold and green—and glittery. Clearly no expense had been spared in the preparation of this flyer.
