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Maya’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the sprawling mansion at the foot of the long straight drive. Somehow she had expected Raffaele’s home in Tuscany to be as aggressively modern as his London apartment, and the big graceful property with its landscaped gardens and much older design took her by surprise. Whatever, it scarcely mattered to her, she reasoned apprehensively when her wedding was only a few hours away, to be staged that very afternoon.
How could she possibly be getting married without a single member of her family present? And how could she be marrying a man she didn’t love? A kind of panic Maya had never felt before sat like a large immovable stone in her hollow tummy. That panic had nothing to do with logic and had not even been soothed by her family’s display of happy relief that week as her parents were freed from all their worst fears and were finally able to contemplate a fresh start in life. Her father, Rory, was actually looking for a job, admitting to her that he had only kept on trying to start up his own business because he had believed that a successful business was his only hope of amassing sufficient cash to pay off their debts.
But, worst of all, Maya missed her twin sister, because Izzy had always been her safe place when the cruel realities of life threatened to crush her. She was used to confiding in Izzy, being soothed by her sibling’s more light-hearted and optimistic nature. But she couldnotshare her current predicament with Izzy, because she knew that Izzy would’ve told her not to go ahead, and that their parents’ financial problems were not solely their responsibility to fix. Unfortunately, the hard truth of that belief, Maya acknowledged ruefully, was that therewasnobody else to fix those problems, and that watching poor little Matt suffer alongside their parents was more than Maya could bear when she had been put in a position where she could help. For that reason, there was no excuse for distressing her twin with a situation that could not be changed by wishful thinking. She would tell her sister afterwards, when the whole wretched arrangement was almost over...perhaps once she had conceived.
Of course, that wasn’t something she could think about when conception was inextricably linked to the necessity of having sex with Raffaele Manzini. He was gorgeous. Doubtless he would be charming and experienced and pretty much physically what the average woman could only dream of for her first experience. But what mattered most to Maya was that she had no sense of connection with him. Her body operated around him on its own agenda while her brain stayed free, recognising the cold calculation in him, the ruthlessness, the lack of caring. He could flirt, he could talk up a storm, in truth he could be incredibly entertaining, but it wasn’t enough for her...
Only ithadto be enough, she reminded herself doggedly as she climbed out of the limo that had brought her from the airport, fresh from the incredible luxury of her flight in the Manzini private jet. And now it was her wedding day and she had to settle down and accept the conditions she had already agreed, she told herself urgently. Deep down inside she was far too sensitive, far too much of a dreamer,weak, she thought, full of self-loathing at that moment. With Raffaele, she needed to be tough as steel and hard as stone to hold her own.
Raffaele watched her emerge from the limo, a slender graceful figure in jeans and a light top, blonde hair braided down her back, and that fast his body reacted. He was amused because that reaction was only telling him what he already knew: Maya had a weird effect on him. The sound of her husky laughter on the phone affected him the same strange way. He only hoped that she would be pleased with the surprise he had helped to engineer for her. Surely she would be delighted? Nobody appeared to be more family-orientated than Maya was.
Maya was disconcerted to find Raffaele poised in the grand hallway. Her luggage was being ferried past her while a maid waited to show her upstairs to her room. A smile curved his shapely sculpted lips and, for once, carried up to lighten his dark eyes to shimmering gold, and her heart stuttered as though he had punched her, she reflected with inner recoil at her response to him. Posed there in sunlight, blue-black hair gleaming, his flawless bronzed features smiling, and his tall, powerful physique casually clad in jeans and a tee, he took her breath away...whether she liked it or not.
‘I have a surprise for you. I can only hope it’s a good one,’ Raffaele murmured quietly. ‘Your grandparents are here, hoping to meet you.’
‘My... P-Parisi grandparents?’ Maya stammered in disbelief.
‘Aldo told them about the wedding, and they contacted me to ask if they could attend. They’re a little disappointed that your mother and your siblings won’t be coming but they’re very eager to meet you,’ he told her.
‘But I thought they wanted nothing to do with any of us!’ she exclaimed, taken aback by the development but wondering only briefly how to behave because she had been raised to always be polite and kind.
‘I think you’ll find that the passage of time and loneliness have changed their outlook. Your motherisan only child,’ Raffaele reminded her. ‘But be warned, your grandmother cries a lot. She’s very emotional.’
‘So is my mother,’ Maya confided with a sudden smile as she braced herself because Raffaele already had a hand at her spine to press her into the room.
Maya focused on the two people who had stood up to greet her. They were older than she had expected, must have been quite an age when her mother was born, she worked out, searching their faces for familiarity and finding it there in her grandmother’s damp dark eyes and her small, portly grandfather’s anxious expression. She could see her mother’s lineage in their faces, and it warmed her into moving forward and extending her arms to the weeping older woman.
‘Maya, this is Fortunato and Assunta Parisi, your grandparents,’ Raffaele told her.
‘I am yournonna,’ the elderly lady framed on the back of a sob.
‘I’ll leave you to get acquainted,’ Raffaele volunteered, closing the door again.
And there was much chatter and many tears from Maya’snonnaas the older woman looked in delight at the photos on Maya’s phone to see the daughter she had not seen for over twenty years and the pictures of her other two grandchildren.
‘You see, now we understand that life had moved on, but we had stayed the same,’ Assunta explained. ‘We brought up Lucia as we were brought up and expected her to be identical, but the world outside our walls was a different and more modern one and we ignored that influence.’
‘You threw her out when she was pregnant,’ Maya could not help reminding the older couple.
‘We wanted her to agree to have the baby privately adopted, and she wouldn’t.’
Maya sighed. ‘Thank goodness she didn’t or Izzy and I might never have known our parents.’
‘I didn’t think your father was good enough for her,’ her grandfather admitted reluctantly. ‘He was penniless and my daughter had never worked a day in her life.’
‘They’ve had their problems with money management,’ Maya confided wryly. ‘But they are still very much in love with each other.’
Her grandparents looked relieved to hear that news, as if even though that marriage might not have been what they had wanted for their daughter, they were still pleased it had worked out for her.
Raffaele reappeared. ‘Sorry to break this up but the bride has to start getting dressed,’ he announced.
And her grandmother was up in a trice, keen to accompany Maya. Before Maya left the room, he signalled a maid to show the older woman upstairs and said levelly to Maya, ‘Did I make the right choice in letting them come?’
Maya smiled brightly and nodded simultaneously. ‘Yes, you did. It was a little embarrassing admitting to them that this is a secret wedding, but I encouraged them to consider contacting my mother and I passed over the phone number,’ she confided in a rush. ‘I think there will eventually be a reconciliation. Everybody seems to be in the right place now for that to happen.’
‘And your family being happy makes you happy?’ Raffaele queried in apparent surprise.
‘Doesn’t yours?’
