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It wasn’t until Gabby had gone skipping out of the villa in her suit and terry-cloth cover-up with swim goggles in hand that Sam acknowledged her true fear—being alone with Cristiano.
The kiss yesterday afternoon was never far from her mind.
If it had been a bad kiss, or a sweet kiss, something she could easily dismiss she’d feel different about being alone with Cristiano, but the kiss hadn’t been bad, and it was far from sweet.
Sam buttoned the bottom of her delicate green cardigan. “Is there something I can do to help Gabby settle in? Laundry? Prepare her room? Unpack?”
“I have people who do laundry and clean. That’s not your job anymore.”
“Then what is my job?” she answered, feeling completely at a loss. Growing up she’d thought the Rookery was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. It had seemed like a castle with its thick paned windows, beamed ceilings, narrow stairwells and secret passageways. But Cristiano’s villa was a palace. Indeed, it’d been built in the late nineteenth century, not long after King Leopold II of Belgium’s Les Cedres, and Beatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild’s Villa Ile-de-France.
“To come sit and talk with me. Relax a little.”
She buttoned another two buttons. “I’m not sure sitting with you would be relaxing.”
He looked at her and his lips curved, his expression knowing. He was confident, very confident, and that unnerved her even more. This was his world. And he was very much in charge in his world. “It’s a beautiful day. You should try to unwind a little. Go to the pool, or maybe try the whirlpool tub in your bathroom—”
“Cristiano,” she said, cutting him short. “This isn’t my home. I don’t belong here.”
“Why not?”
“Look around.” She gestured, the sweep of her hand indicating the Palladian windows, mosaic flooring and soaring marble columns. “This is palatial, and if this is where Gabby will live, then good. But I can’t live here. I…I’d feel lost. It’s far too grand. I’m not a grand person. I’m a nanny. A simple country girl. You saw where I was raised.”
“It might take some getting used to, but I think you’d be comfortable here. And safe.”
“But what will I do? I’ve always worked, and with Gabby in school five days a week, I’ll be at such loose ends. I’m not needed here—”
“Gabby needs you.”
His words drew tears to her eyes. He’d said earlier in the week that it was she who needed Gabby, and he was right. And he’d also said that Gabby should be raised by her family, her real family, and he was right about that, too. Sam was grateful as a child for Mrs. Bishop’s kindness, but what she really wanted, needed was her own family. Her own people. At least Gabby finally had her own. “She has you now, Cristiano. You are her family. Brother or father—it doesn’t matter. You are what she needs.”
“So you’d deny her a whole family?” he asked softly, and yet there was a thread of anger in his voice and she heard it. “You’ll make her choose—a mother or a father? She can’t have both?”
His anger stung her, and she hesitated, choosing her words more carefully. “She can have us both. We don’t have to live in the same house.”
“Then it’s not a real family. It’s her bouncing back and forth from one place to another, always packing a bag, and unpacking a bag. Is that what you want for her?”
It was close to the life Sam had known, at least the instability. “No.” Sam bit her lip, felt her throat thicken. “I don’t want her to have to juggle homes—lives. If I were her, I’d hate it.”
“That was my life growing up. There was always something forgotten, something missing. The coat left at one apartment. The school papers lost at another. I hated it.” Cristiano hadn’t moved but she felt him so intensely, felt his energy and his focus. “My mother and father divorced when I was young. My mother lived in Cannes and my father in Monte Carlo and I was always traveling between.” He took a breath. “Can’t we do better for Gabriela?”
