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She blinked up at him.
‘You are going to be a terrific mother. You are already so in love with our baby. That’s the most important thing by far.’ His eyes scanned her face. ‘I am sorry that you never felt that from your own mother.’
His words were precious. They meant the world to Skye. She didn’t know if he was right or not, but having his support was so important.
‘What if I’m not?’
‘You will be.’ His confidence did something strange inside of Skye. It tied knots around her heart, knots that made everything seem fine, good and safe. But there was danger in that safety, because it was so like the happiness she’d felt before. The happiness that had filled her heart and made her believe that their marriage was everything she’d been waiting for.
That he was the answer to questions she didn’t even know she had.
Her smile was guarded. She nodded slowly, mentally putting essential distance between them. Their past lay before her—quicksand that could devour her at any point if she didn’t take care.
‘Matteo?’
‘Si?’
She turned away from the wall, walking once more. Slowly. Thoughtfully. ‘Tell me about our families.’
She didn’t look up at him, so didn’t see the way his expression tightened. The way his lips dragged downwards with sour memories. ‘What would you like to know?’
Skye turned her fingers into the handle of the carrier bag. ‘I don’t know. I guess everything. My dad’s lawyer didn’t have all the details.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Only that your mother had been engaged to my father. That she met your dad and it was...love at first sight. That she ran away with him in the middle of the night.’ Skye shrugged.
‘Si.’ Matteo nodded warily. ‘Your father was young and arrogant. He couldn’t accept that yo
ur mother preferred my father. So he made her life miserable.’
‘Miserable how?’ Skye prompted, thinking of her father, and frowning when she could hardly call his face to mind.
‘He moved to Italy and turned up everywhere my parents went. When my mother conceived me, and your father began to accept that it was over, he turned to the business. It was a tough time for my grandfather—he had expanded too quickly and the global markets faltered. He was vulnerable and your father acted on that.’
‘How?’ Skye pushed.
‘He actively acquired my grandfather’s competitors and then drove my grandfather’s businesses into the ground. Nonno borrowed heavily to prop up his failing business interests but it was not enough. Eventually, he had to sell almost everything.’
‘Including the hotel,’ Skye murmured.
‘Your father didn’t want my grandfather’s businesses.’ His tone was grave. ‘He wanted simply to destroy them. To take something good and strong and ruin it just because he could.’
Skye’s eyes glistened with shame at the description of her father’s actions. Actions that made her wish Matteo was wrong. But she knew he wasn’t. Strange that she could trust him so implicitly on this matter when he’d proven himself to be just as duplicitous.
Matteo stared at her long and hard for a moment before allowing the conversation to move onwards. ‘The bankruptcy broke him. I went to live with him around the time it was happening. I saw a man who was proud and intelligent, who had worked hard all his life, be destroyed by the actions of your father.’
The hatred in the words chilled Skye to the core. But what could she say to refute it?
‘My father used to talk about a woman he had loved. I suppose it was your mother. I think losing her destroyed him, in the same way your grandfather’s business losses—’
‘No.’ Matteo’s interruption was swift, his rebuke absolute. ‘You cannot compare the two. My parents fell in love. There was nothing malicious in what they did. Your father spent a decade tearing my family’s wealth apart. It was his sole mission. He was motivated solely by revenge and hatred.’
‘Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?’ Skye murmured. The pleasant atmosphere of only moments ago had turned dark and uncomfortable. She felt the animosity of their past, the tension that had dogged her in the first days of their second attempt at marriage, and it was back with a vengeance.
She stopped walking and looked in both directions of the street. ‘I’m a little tired,’ she said, not completely without truth.
Matteo studied her, as though he could see the truth of what she was saying if he looked hard enough. ‘Skye?’ He lifted a hand as though to touch her cheek but held it wide of her face, his expression confused. ‘What happened between them has no bearing on us.’
