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‘No,’ Maria said simply. ‘It isn’t. Because the way I love you, Seb...it has nothing to do with business, or obligations, or expectations. It’s not even about Frankie, really. It’s just...all consuming. Like you’re the first thing I think about in the morning and the last thing I dream about at night. Even when I was away, when I had to make a decision or wanted to try something, you were the person I wanted to talk to about it. But I couldn’t—not because I’d left but because even before I did, you were never there to listen. You didn’t see me, or hear me. But you were my whole world. And being so invisible to you, that you only saw me when you needed me...that was going to destroy me in the end, Seb. And I can’t do that any more.’
Seb stepped fully into the room at last, reaching a hand out towards her, and Maria saw her chance to escape. She couldn’t stay and talk about this. She just wanted to be alone.
Darting past him, she made for the door, but he wrapped an arm around her waist to stop her, holding her close—too close.
‘Wait. Maria, please. Please, don’t go, not like this.’
Maria wriggled to get free and he released his hold with a sigh. ‘I’ll email when I’m home,’ she said, her words coming too fast. ‘We can work out a visitation schedule for Frankie. I... I wasn’t kidding about that—I want him to have you in his life. Although after today...’
‘I’ll make it up to him,’ Seb said—automatically, it seemed. But it only made her remember all the times he’d said it before.
‘You’ll try,’ Maria said wryly. ‘You can’t just buy kids off with more toys, you realise. He wanted you more than Santa.’
‘I’ll... I’ll fix it, Maria, I swear.’ He sounded so earnest, so desperate that Maria almost wanted to believe him. ‘Look, between now and Christmas—no, now and New Year—I won’t work at all. I fixed the contract thing with the Swiss team today. Everything else I can delegate! Probably. I’ll sort it somehow. And it will just be you, me and Frankie for the next week, after Noemi and Max head to Ostania, and Leo and Anissa go back to New York. Just us. Our little family. Please. Just give me another chance.’
He still didn’t understand, Maria realised. He never would.
It was a horrible echo of that last argument before she’d left. She’d told him he wasn’t capable of giving her what she needed. Nothing had changed. And even worse, he didn’t seem capable of even understanding what she needed. Of understanding the importance of love.
‘This isn’t something you can just fix, Seb. This is about who you are.’ And who he was would never love her—let alone love her more than work. Living up to his father’s legacy mattered too much to him.
‘You’re wrong. I can change. Look!’ Without any more warning than that, Seb pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, strode to the window, yanked it open and tossed the device out into the snow. Then he turned to her, smiling proudly. ‘See?’
Maria shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Seb. It’s not enough.’
She turned, walked out of the office, and up the stairs to the room she shared with Frankie. Where, ignoring all the mostly packed cases and toys, she threw herself onto the bed and cried herself to sleep just as Frankie had done hours earlier.
It was over. For good this time.
* * *
Seb stared at the empty doorway for a long moment. And then he reached for the whisky bottle.
She loved him. Truly, deeply, properly loved him. The way his mother had loved his father. The way Leo loved Anissa and Noemi loved Max.
The way love was supposed to be.
The way he’d never imagined he’d get to experience.
He’d never told Maria, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about it over the years. The first time his father had raised the possibility of a union with his business buddy’s daughter, he’d turned it down flat. He’d pointed out that Salvo had got to marry the love of his life. Why shouldn’t he?
Except...there was no love of his life. No time to focus on anything but the business, being the success that Salvo expected him to be. And, honestly, most of the time the business was more fun than half the women he dated anyway.
Which had led him back to Maria, whom he’d last seen when she’d still been a teenager, two years younger than him and just an old family friend. But then she’d come home from university, twenty and poised and so, so beautiful...and he’d thought, why not? He had been twenty-two. His parents had been in love for years already by the time they’d been his age—hell, they’d even got married and had him by that point. Why wait for some mythical true love when he could marry the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, make his father proud, save her father’s business and inch closer to his long-term goal of taking over the company.
It had been everything he’d needed, all wrapped up in one gorgeous package. He’d have been an idiot to turn it down.
Finding out that Maria was still good company, and had seemed to be as attracted to him as he was to her...that had just cemented the fact that the marriage was a great idea. So he’d told his father yes, had bought a ring and gone through all the traditional motions.
And he’d known it wasn’t love. He’d known that Maria had had her own reasons for agreeing to the marriage—reasons that had nothing to do with how she’d felt about him. So he’d never let himself think about what it wasn’t. Love had been off the cards for him—and how could he complain when he’d had everything else he wanted?
So he hadn’t thought about love. Not once.
But now it was all he could think about. A question he had to find the answer to if he was ever going to fix this.
She loved him. She’d loved him since they were teenagers. Suddenly her answers about why she’d married him, from their night at the lake, rang false—or at least incomplete.
She’d said yes because she’d hoped he’d fall in love with her. But she’d never told him—so he’d never even considered it as a possibility. Had never let himself consider it.
Did he love her? He’d always loved her as a partner and friend. And he’d admitted to himself this week that she mattered more than anything in his world. That she was everything.
Was that love? The way she said she loved him?
He’d never even thought about it. Even after she’d left a year ago, he’d not considered it. He’d just assumed that eventually she’d come back to him. Like he’d told Leo, sometimes when you loved someone, you had to give them space. Because of course he loved Maria. He’d just never stopped to think about how he loved her.
Because she was already his wife, so what did it matter?
Except now it mattered. It mattered a lot. To her. And so it mattered to him.
Taking a long swig from the bottle, Seb tried to imagine waking up every day without Maria there. Tried to picture coming home without the promise of her to talk to about his day. It wasn’t hard to do. He’d already lived it for the last year.
Then he shifted his focus. Pictured rushing home from work early just to spend time with her and Frankie—and maybe a younger sibling or two. Thought about crossing the hall from his office to hers at work to talk through the details of some deal or another. Considered that holiday they were going to take next year, just the three of them and the sunshine.
Most of all, he imagined kissing Maria good morning every single morning, and goodnight every single night. He thought about her happy, and realised with a shocked start that it was the only thing in the world he truly, desperately wanted.
Not the deal for the Swiss office, not the accolades and success for expanding the business, not Leo’s shares in Cattaneo Jewels. Not even his father’s approval, if he were still here to give it. And that was the only thing he’d ever fought for before now.
Now he had a new fight.
He wanted Maria to be happy.
Just that. Just Maria, and, of course, Frankie. The two of them ha
ppy. If he had that, he didn’t need anything else at all.
And that was his answer, right there.
Because he loved her. Exactly the way she loved him, even if it had taken him too bloody long to realise it. Even if he didn’t behave like he did. Even if she didn’t believe it.
He, Sebastian Cattaneo, was in love with his wife. And suddenly he understood a fundamental truth that his father had failed to teach him—probably because he’d thought it was too obvious to need to be said.
His family, and their happiness, was the greatest achievement he could ever hope to attain.
No other goal, objective or business plan could come close.
But it wasn’t one he could achieve on his own. He needed help.
He needed people who had been down this hole before, and knew the way out. People who’d fallen so desperately in love and had found a way to make it work. To be happy together.
He needed his parents. But in their absence...
He reached for his phone, before realising he’d already thrown it out of the window. Never mind—the person he needed most was already in the chalet. He just hoped she didn’t mind a late-night wake-up call, especially since it was all for the highest of causes.
Seb stoppered the bottle and headed for the door, certain at last of what he needed to do next.
He needed to find his sister, and then his brother. And his brother-in-law-to-be and sister-in-law-to-be, come to that.
