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Maria looked up at the ornaments on the tree and remembered hanging them with Nicole in years gone by, a pang of sorrow pricking her heart again as she gazed around the room and saw the empty spaces where Seb’s parents would have been.
Nicole, she thought, would have been fussing around over everyone, keeping glasses topped up and the mood merry. Salvo would have been settled in his usual chair—the one that sat empty even now—by the window, watching the snow fall and enjoying the chatter of his family around him.
And, oh, they’d both have been so happy at Noemi’s news. Not so much the princess part particularly, or the moving away to another country. But the babies and the glow of joy that had followed her around since she and Max had figured out their future together would have thrilled them. Noemi was happy, so they would have been happy.
She had no idea what they’d have made of her and Seb now. Or even what they had thought about her leaving. She suspected Seb had told them to leave her alone, probably expecting all the time that she’d change her mind and come back if they didn’t nag her.
Maria remembered the day she and Seb had told his parents that they were expecting Frankie. While Maria’s own father had merely nodded and said, ‘Good job,’ and her mother had set about organising christening dates and invitation lists to show the baby off as soon as he arrived, Nicole and Salvo had each hugged her tightly and whispered loving congratulations in her ear.
She knew that giving them an heir to Cattaneo Jewels—along with the merger with her father’s business—was the reason she’d been married off to Sebastian in the first place. But the Cattaneos had never made her feel that way, even when her own family had. They’d been genuinely happy to have her as part of the family, and delighted at the news that that family would be expanding.
She’d been wanted here, in a way she’d never really felt wanted back home on her parents’ estate. Maybe that was the real reason why she’d agreed to the marriage in the first place.
No, she couldn’t lie to herself about that. It hadn’t been about business or family for her.
She’d fought against it to start with. When her parents had called her home from university, sat her down and told her she wouldn’t be going back, she’d thought they were joking. When they’d explained the financial predicament the business was in, she’d thought she could fix it. She, with half a business degree, had wanted to try. To help her father turn things around.
But he hadn’t wanted her to.
Instead, he’d arranged a merger with his old friend Salvo Cattaneo. One that would leave him better off and able to retire. But her father couldn’t let go of Rossi Gems quite that easily—he’d wanted a physical stake in the new company.
Her.
Her marriage to Seb would give him prestige, give her and her children the company name, and leave them all wealthy and happy—at least, that had been the plan.
But even her father hadn’t been able to make Maria marry a man she didn’t want to, not in this day and age. And so she’d argued, she’d cried, she’d bargained...and in the end she’d given in. Not because it was what her parents had wanted, or because it had made good business sense, but because of the small voice at the back of her mind that had told her that this was her chance. Her shot at happiness.
Maria had agreed to marry Seb because she was already in love with him—had been for years, long before she’d left for university. Ever since an icy night another Christmas, long ago, at the Cattaneo villa near her parents’ estate, when he’d made her feel like the most important girl in the world.
She’d hoped—naively, it seemed—that maybe one day he could come to feel the same way about her.
But if the other Cattaneos had welcomed her as family, she’d known deep down she’d only ever really been a convenience to Sebastian. He’d told her as much that last, awful week before she’d left. He’d needed a wife to appear the respectable businessman he was so desperate to be, and he’d wanted an heir to keep the family name alive. It hadn’t been the money or the business for Seb either, she was sure. Marrying her had made his father proud—and that was always what Seb had cared about most.
But now...now Salvo wasn’t there to judge Sebastian’s successes or failures any more. Would that change things?
Maria couldn’t help but smile at the glimmer of hope that it just might. That without his father’s overbearing presence Seb might finally realise that some things mattered more than the family business.
‘He’s almost asleep.’ Seb’s deep, soft voice startled her out of her reverie, and she made a small, surprised noise. Seb chuckled. How long had it been since she’d heard that sound? ‘And so are you, by the sound of it.’
‘I’m awake,’ Maria disagreed. ‘Just thinking. But you’re right about Frankie.’
The two-year-old was sprawled across her lap, his eyes starting to flutter closed. As Maria watched, his eyelids would start to fall, then he’d jerk himself awake, as if unwilling to miss a moment of what was going on around him.
‘He seems...happier to be here now,’ Seb said tentatively.
‘Max gave him ice cream and cookies,’ Maria replied. ‘A sure way to any boy’s heart.’
Seb’s answering smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘When Frankie first arrived, I was a bit worried he’d forgotten all about us.’
Maria winced. She was the one who’d kept Frankie away and, however good her reasons, she couldn’t avoid feeling some guilt about that. Especially when she thought about Salvo and Nicole, and how they’d missed out on watching Frankie grow the last months of their lives. Photos and video calls weren’t the same.
And now it was too late.
‘It’s been a long year for all of us,’ she said. ‘And a very long day for this little boy.’
Hoisting Frankie back into a seated position, she cuddled him around his middle. Then, leaning in, she whispered against the soft hair behind his ear. ‘Time for bed, piccolo.’
Frankie groaned his disagreement but he didn’t argue very hard, which Maria knew meant he was exhausted. Shifting him in her arms, she prepared to carry him up the stairs to their room—only for Sebastian to stand first and reach down to take him.
‘Can I?’ he asked, and the need in his voice made Maria’s heart hurt.
She could give him this much at least. ‘Papà’s going to carry you up to bed, Frankie. Okay?’
‘Mmm...’ Frankie said sleepily. ‘You come, too?’
‘Of course,’ she promised.
They said quick goodnights to Noemi and Max, who were also heading to their rooms—although from the way they touched each other, hand on hand or elbow, Maria suspected sleep wasn’t the first thing on the agenda for them—and made their way to the stairs.
She was so preoccupied with getting Frankie settled that it didn’t occur to Maria until they reached the suite that once Frankie was asleep, the moment she’d been dreading would have finally arrived.
She’d be alone with her husband for the first time in a year. And she had no idea what to say to him.
* * *
Sebastian held Frankie tight against his chest as they climbed the stairs, loving every moment of having his son in his arms. The way his small body moved in and out with every breath. The softness of his hair against Seb’s cheek. The tiny hand gripping his jumper. The long lashes covering hazel eyes, sooty against his skin. Seb drank in every second of the experience until it was a wrench to place him down on the small twin bed in the suite’s second bedroom.
Frankie was almost asleep now, barely able to keep his eyes open. Maria undressed him, murmuring reassurance to him the whole time, then changed him into his pyjamas with a quiet efficiency Seb couldn’t help but admire. She’d always been a fantastic mother, but the closeness between her and their son appeared to have only grown while they’d been away.
He just wished he’d been there to see
it.
‘Could you find his fox, please?’ Maria asked, motioning towards the half-unpacked suitcase on the other bed. Maria’s bed, he supposed, disliking the thought even as it passed through his head.
She should be with him. Not even because he wanted her physically—although of course he did, he always had—but just because he wanted to hold her in his arms while he slept, in case he woke in the night and thought her return was nothing but a dream, and needed the reassurance that she was really here, at last.
He just wanted to hold on to her. Was that so bad?
‘Seb?’ Maria was staring at him. Why was she staring at him? And looking meaningfully at the suitcase...?
Oh! The fox!
With a burst of speed Seb crossed the room and started rooting through the bag for Frankie’s toy fox. He’d had the stuffed animal since his birth, a gift from his grandparents, Seb’s parents, and Seb was touched to discover he still slept with it, even after so long away.
His mamma would have liked that, Seb knew. She’d spent hours searching the toy stores for exactly the right animal for her first grandson to love.
‘A first toy is important, Sebastian,’ she’d told him when he’d complained. ‘A first friend, a first love, a companion in this strange new world he’s been thrust into. Your son has to have the right one.’
‘You make it sound like a marriage, Mamma,’ Seb had joked, but she’d only smiled knowingly at him.
Since she’d always known a hundred times more about the world that he ever would, he hadn’t commented on it.
He missed that. Missed her. Missed being able to ask her what it was he didn’t understand yet.
