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‘I wish you could have told me this.’
‘You don’t think I’m mad?’
‘A little bit mad,’ Dante said, and he gave her that smile that chased cares away, at least for a little while. ‘Mia, you and my father—’
‘Please, Dante.’ She cut him off. There was more to be said, Mia knew that, though she could not face it now. ‘No more questions. At least not tonight. I know we have to speak, I’m just too tired now...’ She felt so depleted, yet so oddly calm in his arms, that she could not bear to break the gentle peace.
‘No more questions,’ Dante agreed, and he lay on the bed with her in his arms. He’d never thought he could be pleased that Mia had been married to his father but, yes, Dante was glad that his father had been able to help when she had needed it so badly. And he was glad, too, that she’d had the benefits of this gorgeous house, and Sylvia, and the horses and things as she’d recovered from a most terrible experience. ‘You can ride Massimo,’ Dante suddenly said. ‘If the doctor says that you can and it helps you relax.’
She laughed at his huge concession. She looked up from his chest into dark eyes and then blushed, though not in the way she usually tended to when she looked into his eyes. ‘I’m embarrassed you saw me like that,’ Mia admitted.
‘Don’t be. I’m glad you finally told me what has been scaring you.’
‘Really?’
He nodded and then came the balmy comfort of his mouth slow and soft on hers. His clothes were damp from the rain. It was the first time she’d noticed, but as he pulled her into him, she felt that he was damp, and his hair in her hands was wet too.
But it was his mouth, his mouth that brought both comfort and need, and the scratch of his jaw a sublime tiny hurt that chased bigger hurts away.
Until he halted them and moved his face back from hers.
‘Don’t stop.’
‘I am stopping,’ Dante said. ‘I am not going to be accused of taking advantage...’
‘You’re not,’ Mia grumbled, moving back in for a kiss, but Dante peeled her from him. ‘No, I don’t want you regretting me in the morning. We still have a lot to sort out and you might not want me any more when you hear what I have to say.’
‘What?’
‘I’m going to be in the baby’s life, Mia. I loved my father very much, but really I only saw him in the summer. I don’t want that with my child.’
Mia might not want questions but she had plenty for him. ‘So what do we do?’
‘What about you stay here?’ Dante said. ‘You were happy here. Of course I would have to sort out...’ He nodded his head towards the window.
‘You can’t exhume him!’ she said in horror.
‘No, but I’d think of something and you’d have a nanny and things.’
‘Where would you live?’
‘Rome,’ Dante said, as if it was obvious.
And to Dante it was. ‘Half an hour away in the helicopter, so we wouldn’t get under each other’s feet.’
He offered a very practical, very good solution, but he broke her heart with his absolute refusal to consider the possibility of them.
‘Under your feet?’
‘Yes.’ He was unapologetic. ‘I’m not relationship material, Mia. Surely to God you know that about me?’
‘I do.’
‘So, just think about living here,’ Dante said, ‘but not now. You need to get some sleep.’
And even with her breaking heart, he could still make her laugh as he checked behind the drapes. ‘Nothing hiding there,’ he said, and he even checked the dressing room. ‘No monsters there...’
‘Stop it,’ she said. She lay there in bed, thinking how honest and how wretched he was, to simply dismiss any possibility of them out of hand. And also just how gorgeous he was, and how he could make her smile, and just how much better things were when he was near. He was kind, but so cruel too, because he tucked the bedding in around her and was a complete gentleman when she didn’t want him to be.
