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‘Why do you always put everyone else’s needs ahead of your own?’ Raffaele demanded in honest bewilderment.
‘I don’t, not always. I wasn’t kind to you last night,’ she pointed out guiltily. ‘I’m sorry that I lost my head like that.’
‘I can take a lot of hard hits without buckling,’ he asserted. ‘Particularly when I deserve them.’
But Maya was already losing colour, lowering her head back to the pillow with a sinking sensation as she recalled the dark hollow look in his gaze hours earlier when she had accused him of not feeling anything over the loss of their child. That look had stabbed her to the heart. She had hurt him. Sheknewshe had hurt him, and her distress was not an excuse. The problem with Raffaele was that he hid everything he felt and she had made assumptions and learnt her mistake the hard way after taking out her grief on him.
Raffaele left the hospital with the sense that once again he was doing the wrong thing because he didn’t want to leave Maya alone, even if it was what she seemed to want. He had plans to make though, he reminded himself. Maya needed a distraction and, whether she appreciated it or not, the time and the space to recover from her loss.
Later that day, Maya wakened at lunchtime to a room filled with flowers and magazines and a selection of her own nightwear available. Although she had little appetite, she ate the light meal that arrived for her because she wanted to regain her energy. She went for a shower, dispensed with the hospital gown and doggedly fought the sense of emptiness tugging at her. The loss had happened, and she had to deal with it. Without her agreement, her bright future, shining with the promise of her first child, had reshaped itself. Breathing in deep, she walked back into her room and stiffened when she saw Raffaele poised there, momentarily dazzled by the lustrous energising power of him as he swung round to face her, stunning dark golden eyes gleaming in his lean, beautiful face.
‘Did you manage to get much sleep?’
Raffaele shrugged. ‘Enough. Sit down. We’ve got plans to make.’
‘The doctor’s already been here to see me. We can try again as soon as we like,’ Maya declared stiltedly.
‘That idea isn’t even on the table right now,’ Raffaele countered with a level of incredulity he didn’t try to conceal.
Maya blinked rapidly, surprise and disappointment flooding her because there was nothing that she wanted more just then than the chance to conceive again. ‘What is, then?’
‘We’re heading back to London so that you can see your family.’
‘We can’t do that. They don’t know about us.’
Raffaele studied her intently. ‘They do now. I phoned andtoldthem. No, I didn’t mention what’s just happened because that’s private and nobody else needs to know about it. But I did tell your parents that we’re married, and they want to meet me.’
So taken aback was Maya that her soft full mouth fell open. ‘You told them?’ she whispered in astonishment.
‘We’ll see your family and then we’ll go up north to see my father and his,’ Raffaele completed with satisfaction.
‘You seem to have everything organised,’ Maya remarked stiffly.
Raffaele lifted the folder he had set down on the table and tugged some sheets out of it to toss them on the bed. ‘And now that I’ve given instructions for the house on Aoussa to be demolished, I could do with some ideas for the replacement dwelling. The architect wants some ideas from us concerning preferences.’
‘Demolished?You’ve started that already?’ Maya exclaimed, wide-eyed.
‘I hate the house. You were right: it has to go.’ Raffaele lifted and dropped a shoulder with graceful finality. ‘But I could do with some ideas about what to build in its place.’
Maya nodded slowly. She never knew what he was likely to do or say next and it was, she was learning, part of what made him so uniquely fascinating. He didn’t think or operate within conventional limits as she did. He made decisions at nuclear speed, followed stray impulses, did whatfeltright to him and stood by it even if, ultimately, it turned out to be a wrong move. She supposed marryingher, planning a child withher, fell into that latter category and now he was focusing his energies on other things.
Butnoton conceiving another child, she registered in confusion, wondering what that meant and wondering why on earth she should feel weirdly rejected. Was it because she had somehow become attached to him? It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love—she wasn’t fool enough to fall for a guy in a temporary marriage, particularly one who already had to be thinking of her as flawed and unfit for purpose because she had lost their precious baby within days of conception.
Her brain buzzed with conjecture. What washisultimate plan? What was the bigger picture? To work out Raffaele’s goal, she had to start thinking ashedid. And he was clever and calculating and unscrupulous. All of a sudden he was taking her home for a visit, restoring her to her family. Was it a guilt thing? Was he trying to undo the damage he believed he had caused?
Hadn’t he already pretty much admitted that he should never have offered her the chance to marry him in the first place? And never have acted on the plan for them to have a child together? Was it possible that Raffaele was already working towards putting her out of his life again and reclaiming his freedom? And why did that fill her with a sense of panic rather than relief?
CHAPTER EIGHT
THREELITTLEGIRLSengulfed Raffaele in a wave of giggling, chattering excitement. Andrea was five, Sophie was three and Emily was an adorable toddler with a mop of black curls. And every one of them reminded Maya of their half-brother, Raffaele, and tugged at her heart with a wounding sense of what might have been because, with their dark colouring, they gave her a very good idea of what Raffaele’s own children might look like. Clearly, the Manzini genes were strong, for Raffaele bore a striking resemblance to his father, Tommaso.
‘The girls are always like a mob of little thugs with Raffaele, all competing for his attention at once,’ Claire, a brunette in her early forties, groaned. ‘Luckily, they calm down after a while, particularly once the presents are open. I’ve told him so often not to bring them anything unless it’s birthdays or Christmas, but he doesn’t listen.’
Tommaso’s wife and Raffaele’s stepmother, Claire, was a social worker with warm eyes and an even warmer smile. The couple lived in a rambling old farmhouse outside Newcastle and it was very much a family home, from the children’s pictures stuck to the fridge door to the clutter that lay around the kitchen. Boots lay in a heap by the back door while piles of kids’ toys filled colourful baskets by the wall.
‘He does tend to do his own thing,’ Maya agreed, accepting the beaker of coffee her hostess passed to her. ‘Thanks.’
‘He’s very generous. He tries to stick to the budget I gave himmostof the time,’ Claire conceded wryly. ‘He’s fantastic with kids too, much more relaxed with them than he is with adults.’
