AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘You aren’t the only billionaire in the room, Montcour.’
‘Did you buy this?’
A pregnant pause filled the air before Sebastian reluctantly admitted that it was a long story. Matthieu looked sideways at Sebastian. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, genuinely concerned.
‘I don’t think you’re here to talk about me and my feelings, are you, Montcour?’
‘No, but—’
‘Don’t,’ Seb interrupted, slashing his hand through the air to cut off the direction of the conversation, and resumed his watchful stance over the painting.
Matthieu sighed. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to tell me?’
‘Only if you give me a good enough reason to,’ he replied, finally turning that powerful, predatory gaze on him.
‘I love her,’ Matthieu said simply. He let the truth shine from his words and fill the darkness in the room. In the last few weeks he’d spent hours thinking through his feelings, his fears and the darkest parts of him. Regretting almost every second that he’d not allowed Maria to help him in this way, but knowing that in reality it was better, healthier for him to have forged this realisation himself.
‘You might do. I might even believe that you do. But that doesn’t mean I will give you what you want.’
Matthieu couldn’t fault him for that. It took him nearly an hour to convince Sebastian to reveal where Maria was. As he returned to his car, he pulled out his phone and got his assistant to track down the telephone number for Theo Tersi. The conversation was brief and to the point and Matthieu put all thoughts of Maria’s brother aside the moment Theo promised to come to Siena as soon as humanly possible. Then, with his sole focus on Maria, he put the key in the car’s ignition and hit the gas.
* * *
Maria pulled into the driveway of the house she had rented in Umbria, both physically and mentally exhausted. She had visited with her father and Valeria and it had been...she shook her head at the direction of her thoughts. Difficult? Yes. Painful? A little. But better? Perhaps.
It had taken a good few weeks of soul-searching just to find the courage to face Eduardo. To be truly honest with herself. She had allowed her father’s withdrawal to dictate far too much of her life. She had allowed him to see her mother in her, not having the courage to stand and be Maria. And in the same way, she had sought only the idealised relationship she had dreamed of, not the father she did have. But it didn’t have to continue on that way, and it didn’t mean that there couldn’t be a relationship there. He might never have really been able to say it or show it, but deep down, despite his faults, she knew that he did love her. And for the first time in what felt like for ever, she had met with her father not beneath the blanket of pain at what he wasn’t capable of, or who she was not, but with the comfort of hope as to what he might be and who she was. And no matter how much devastation her argument with Matthieu had wrought that night, if this was the one good thing she could take away from it—she would take it.
She stepped out of the small rental car feeling both emotionally exposed from her visit, but also oddly stronger and more resilient, and walked towards the front door of the beautiful property she had found nearly a month ago. Using the money that Seb had set aside for her—the account she’d once sworn never to touch—she had fallen in love with it almost the moment she had seen it and leased it for at least one year. Settled in between sunflower fields and tobacco fields, the one-storey structure was everything Matthieu’s estate beside Lake Lucerne was not. Warm terracotta tiles sloped over the gentle roof topping ancient stone walls. Beautiful shutters held off the penetrating sun when it became too much and in the afternoon, as the sun passed overhead, a stunning pergola almost buckling under the weight of sprawling tendrils of clematis and honeysuckle provided shade for an outdoor courtyard that she had taken up almost daily residence in.
The villa was just under two hours from Sebastian, three from her father, and what felt like a lifetime away from Matthieu. She had thought at first that she would fall into a pattern of numb, exhausted moping—but she didn’t have the luxury to do that. Not to herself, not to her child. Instead of being drained by her separation from Matthieu, from the hurtful accusations they had thrown at each other that night, she had somehow been ignited by them, driven and determined in a way she had never encountered before. Driven, beyond all else, to discover who she truly was.
She had sat down with her accounts, with her wants and needs for both herself and her child, and made plans. And while it hurt that those plans were made in Matthieu’s absence, they formed a future that was created, not from fantasies and falsities, but the conversations they had once shared through nights where neither had been able to sleep. It was a future that honoured the desires of both parents.
But in the plans she was beginning to make for her own future, how she hoped to juggle parenthood with her jewellery making, for once not seeing the finances from Matthieu as a tie, but a gift that would allow her to explore both sides of who she was and what and how she wanted to be, she had found that inner sense of self, that sense of accomplishment she had felt had been missing.
For the first time in what felt like for ever, her future had a shape, had a solid direction that she had created for herself. And in that, she began to know herself. Her recent appointment with her new doctor had gone well, both her and her child flourishing here. She had even started to look at schools—which was a way off—and had bought a crib for her child. Yes, she had once imagined doing that with Matthieu and the thought of putting
it up herself without his involvement did hurt, but she would do it.
As for her thoughts of Matthieu, she didn’t seem able to touch them. To access them. They were sealed beneath the same closed door that she had accused him of shutting over his memories of the past. But now, she understood. Understood just a little of what and why he had been forced to do that. In time, she hoped that she’d have the courage to deal with them, as she had encouraged him to deal with his hurts. But this kindness she gave herself, because that door she had slammed shut was locked with a hope she barely dared acknowledge. Hope that he would come for her.
She had just poured herself a cup of lemon and ginger tea when the sound of a vehicle on the gravel driveway drew her attention back to the present with a little jolt of excitement. That would be the crib. She had spent far too much money on it, but for the first time she didn’t mind. Money didn’t have strings, or checks or balances that tied to a heart. Her brother had set her up with the fund out of love, not obligation, and she would embrace it for both herself and her child.
She put down the cup and made her way to the front doors of the villa, too busy pinning them back against the wall to see the form of the man standing in the middle of the entrance, blocking out all the light as if it was his right.
‘If you could just—’
Her words caught in her throat as she took in the sight of Matthieu, her quick, hungry eyes almost tripping over the features she’d gone to sleep imagining every night since she’d left Switzerland. The dark furrow of his brow, the strong jaw line, the impossible breadth of his shoulders and arms. All of it. She wanted it all.
Her gaze flew back to his eyes, shining a heady combination of hope, sadness and something she dared not put name to.
* * *
Matthieu felt the breath whoosh from his lungs with a sense of peace the moment his eyes finally rested on his wife. He knew, as sure as he knew anything, that he still had a mountain to climb, but allowed himself this one moment, because in all the days, nights and weeks since he had last seen her, he’d known only that a vital piece of him was missing. Something integral to his existence.
