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He held the fox against his cheek for a moment before handing it to Maria, but if she noticed, she didn’t say anything.
Seb watched as Maria tucked the blanket around Frankie, even as his little hands grabbed the fox and held it under his chin, its fluffy tail brushing his cheek. For a moment he looked just like the baby Seb remembered. Like no time had passed at all.
He pressed a kiss to his son’s forehead and whispered, ‘Sweet dreams, piccolo,’ just like he had every night before he’d gone to bed when Frankie had lived with him.
Then he stepped back and saw Maria’s wary face, her shorter hair, her harder eyes, and knew that everything had changed.
And it was his job to change things back again.
Romance. That was his way in, he was almost sure. Maria had felt neglected before she’d left—had thrown it in his face when they’d argued the night before she’d packed her bags and walked out.
‘You don’t even see me!’ she’d yelled. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure you’d even notice if I left.’
But he’d noticed. Boy, how he’d noticed.
Seb may not have his mother there to set him right, but he knew exactly what she’d have said. Take care of your wife, Sebastian. Look after your family.
And so that was what he was going to do. Starting with talking to Maria. Listening to Maria. Letting her know how much he wanted her there, and how far he was willing to go to keep her with him.
Whatever it took.
‘How about a drink by the fire?’ he suggested, softly, so as not to disturb Frankie. Maria looked up at him in surprise. ‘I think we’ve got a lot to talk about. Don’t you?’
* * *
She should have thought about this more—about what she’d say once she was alone with Sebastian again. And she had, to a point. She’d been imagining this conversation for a year—ever since she’d left.
But she realised now, too late, that in her head the conversation was always Seb talking, and her unable to get a word in edgeways as he listed her faults and derided her for breaking her marriage vows. Told her what a terrible wife and mother she was. How disappointed in her he was. How he’d married her for only one reason, and she hadn’t lived up to her side of the bargain.
Just like her father had done when she’d arrived home with Frankie.
She hadn’t ever imagined they’d be sitting together on the squashy, cosy sofa in their old suite, drinking good red wine in front of the fire, waiting for each other to start.
Maria had never been much good at silence. She was always going to crack first.
‘Look, I know we have a lot to talk about. And that you must have questions. And... I don’t blame you for being angry with me—’
‘I never said I was angry with you,’ Seb said, so calmly she couldn’t help but believe him.
‘You’re...not?’ she asked, just to check.
‘I was,’ Seb admitted. ‘When you first left...just ask Noemi. I was like a bear with a sore head for months.’
‘She might have mentioned that.’ Only with slightly less polite words when it came down to it.
‘But looking at you now...’ Seb shook his head, a slight smile on his lips. ‘I may not have liked it, but I can see why you had to go.’
Maria blinked at him. Did he really know? Did he, at last, understand why she’d been unable to stay, been unable to see him smile at her while looking through her every day? Did he realise how much it had hurt to be so close to him and yet feel so much difference between them?
No. Apparently not.
‘I mean, you seem so much more content now. Like you’ve found yourself, I guess,’ Seb went on, oblivious to how her heart was cracking. ‘I get that I didn’t give you the attention you needed, that I worked too much, that you were alone with Frankie a lot of the time.’
‘That was part of it,’ Maria said cautiously. But Seb didn’t hear her caution, it seemed. The same way he hadn’t heard her words the night before she’d left.
‘This isn’t enough for me, Seb. And I realise now you can’t give me what I need. You’re not capable of it.’
Not capable of love. Or not capable of loving her. Either way, it added up to the same thing, really.
‘The thing is, I realised something today,’ Seb went on. ‘I don’t want to be an absentee father or even a detached husband. I don’t want to spend my life without you or without Frankie.’ He took a deep breath, and Maria couldn’t help but admire the way his broad chest moved, how handsome his profile was in the firelight.
Oh, God, was there really no hope for her?
‘I want us to use this time, while we’re all here together over Christmas, to find a better way forward,’ Seb said. ‘One that gives you what you need but doesn’t cut me out of your lives so completely. A way for us to work together, to make our marriage what we always promised it would be. A partnership.’
Maria met his gaze, and saw the sincerity there. He wanted this for real—wanted her, even.
Just not the way she’d always dreamed of.
He wanted his family back together—and wasn’t that only natural after losing his parents, and all the other changes he’d been through recently? She was familiar, easy. And, yes, of course he loved Frankie.
But none of that was the same as loving her.
‘What do you say?’ Seb shifted closer on the sofa, angling his body into her. They were so close she could smell the familiar scent of his skin, could reach out and touch his hair—kiss him, even. And it would be so, so easy to fall back into those old patterns. To let him hold her and to feel safe in his arms. To remember how they used to move together, and how incredible it had felt.
To let herself love him with her whole heart again, only to have it break even harder this time when he still couldn’t love her the way she needed.
Pulling back, Maria shook her head. ‘Seb, I’m not here to stay. You know that. Frankie and I... We only came for Christmas.’
‘I know, I know.’ Seb flashed her a devastating smile. ‘But can you blame me for wanting more?’
‘No, but... I have a life somewhere else now. And so does Frankie.’
Admittedly, her life mostly revolved around Fra
nkie, and her part-time business degree. Thankfully her mother, while endlessly disappointed in her, didn’t take out that disappointment on Frankie, who spent many happy days with his grandmother while his mother studied. If nothing else good had come out of this year, that at least was more than she’d truly hoped for when she’d left. And even if her relationship with her father was ruined for good after the last few months, in some ways that was a relief, too. She didn’t have to try to be the Maria he wanted any more either. She could just be herself.
‘Is there...? Have you met someone else?’ What was it she heard in Seb’s voice as he asked that? It sounded like...like fear, perhaps. But why on earth would Seb be afraid of that? Unless it was his ongoing terror of not appearing to have the perfect life.
The thing Maria had never been able to understand was that Seb was gorgeous, rich, funny when he wanted to be, and generally a good guy. He could have had women lining up down the street for him, especially since she’d left.
But Noemi had said he’d stayed completely alone. The only reason Maria could think of for that was that the business and his reputation were still more important to him than his own happiness—never mind hers or anyone else’s.
That was what had convinced her, finally, that she’d made the right decision in leaving.
But she’d never been able to take that next step herself. ‘No,’ she said, looking down at her hands as she shook her head slightly. ‘I mean, a couple of times people tried to set me up on blind dates and stuff, but no. There’s no one else.’
‘Good. That’s...that means there’s still hope.’
‘Hope?’ Maria looked up into his eyes and saw something else there now. The same sort of determination she was more used to seeing when he was undertaking a difficult new business deal. Or once, just after they’d married, when he’d set about finding out everything she liked and loved between the sheets.
A determined Seb could accomplish great things. Her body remembered. Vividly.
