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That was true. Maya had been downright startled watching Raffaele’s easy interaction with his little half-sisters. He was very good with them and clearly a man who enjoyed the company of children.
The two women watched the two older girls learn to ride their new scooters in the custom-built playground at the back of the house. After throwing a tantrum because she had not got a scooter as well, Emily had gone down crossly for a nap, still attired in one of her new princess outfits from the wardrobe of dress-up garments she had received.
Raffaele had provided the playground for his half-siblings with all its safety features and the canopied roof that allowed for its use on wet days. Claire had been very frank on the topic of money with Maya, explaining that she and Tommaso only accepted gifts for their children and preferred to maintain their independence, rather than take advantage of Raffaele’s wealth and generosity. Across the garden, Raffaele was standing talking to his father, a still-handsome man in his fifties. The two men had the same bone structure but Tommaso was smaller and slighter in build.
‘You know, Tommaso was convinced that Raffaele would never marry,’ Claire confided quietly.
‘My family were equally surprised by our marriage. We were crazily impulsive.’ Maya trotted out the same story she had told her own parents and, of course, her mother had thought it was madly romantic because a hasty supposedly love-at-first-sight match mirrored her own courtship history with Maya’s father.
‘It’s amazingly positive to think that Raffaele can doanythingcrazy,’ Claire remarked reflectively. ‘I used to think that, for his age, he was always a bit too controlled, a bit too sensible and when it comes to women...well...’ the brunette grimaced ‘...you’re the very first he’s brought to meet us and those I’ve seen him with in the media were pretty...er, trampy, for want of a better word.’
‘I knew I should’ve worn a short skirt and a plunging neckline to fit the mould!’ Maya teased with a chuckle, relaxing completely in the other woman’s candid company. ‘Raffaele likes those sorts of clothes on me, but Idon’t.’
At the sound of her laughter, Raffaele turned his head to look at Maya, noticing with satisfaction the healthy colour blooming in her cheeks and the smile curving her mouth. Maya had been as pale and silent as a wraith after she left the hospital but over the past few weeks she had gradually begun to return to normality. Restored to the company of her family during a lengthy stay in London, she had blossomed, vitality and humour returning to her clear green eyes. Only with him was she still reserved and withdrawn. He thought it was tragic that he had had to resort to using the company of others to draw her out and to make her relax again. But it wasn’t surprising, he acknowledged grimly, not after what had happened between them.
For the first time ever, he was doing what hehadto do even if it wasn’t what he wanted to do. HeowedMaya and he always paid his debts. Maya with her curtain of silky fair hair, long lissom legs and delicate curves, who made no effort whatsoever to be sexy but who could make him rock hard with one playful glance. He shut down hard on that very physical thought, reminding himself that all he could reasonably do wasattemptto redress the damage he had done before letting her go again. But, regrettably for him, letting go of a woman he still craved didn’t come naturally to him. The biter had been bitten, he acknowledged grimly. He was no martyr, no penitent, he wasn’t essentially agoodman, but he would force himself to go through the motions because that was what she deserved from him.
‘No, a woman capable of telling Raffaele where to get off is unheard of and exactly what he needs,’ Claire opined with a grin. ‘From what I’ve heard, he runs rings round most women. They’re too impressed by who he is while you seem to treat him as if he’s normal.’
‘Which he’s not,’ Maya conceded.
‘And he never will be with that dreadful background of his and all that money,’ Claire sighed. ‘But he still needs someone to treat him as though he is.’
Only, not necessarilyme, Maya reflected unhappily, already somewhat stressed by having recently heard her twin’s frank opinion of her marriage. Since Maya had told her parents about her marriage, she had spoken to her twin on the phone and given her the same story.
Unhappily, she hadn’t felt able to tell Izzy the whole truth either, not about the choice Raffaele had given her, not about their parents’ debts being settled with their marriage and certainly not about the baby she had willingly conceived and then lost. Maya refused to burden her pregnant, newly married sister with the disturbing facts of her own situation, deeming it better to let Izzy believe that she had tumbled headlong in love with Raffaele while working for him and had rushed foolishly fast into marrying him.
Ultimately, Izzy had been most shaken by Maya’s news only after she had acquainted herself with the online gossip about Raffaele. Izzy had called Maya back purely to raise the topic of Raffaele’s raunchy reputation as a womaniser and refer worriedly to the unlikelihood, inherapologetic opinion, of such a male choosing to stay faithful on a long-term basis. Her fear that Maya could not possibly hope to find lasting happiness with Raffaele had been unmistakable. Evidently Rafiq, Izzy’s new husband and the father of her unborn twins, didn’t have that kind of better-left-buried sexual past. Well, bully for him, Maya thought ruefully as she went pink with discomfiture.
Truth to tell, after all, Raffaele’s amazing versatility between the sheets was more of a colourful memory for Maya than a current event. Raffaele hadn’t shared a bed with Maya, never mind actually touched her in any intimate way, since she had lost their baby, and that distance he had forged between them hurt and made her feel more rejected than ever.
They were based in Raffaele’s penthouse apartment in London where they were occupying separate bedrooms. That had beenhischoice. In spite of Maya’s clumsy attempts at flirtatious encouragement, Raffaele had made no moves whatsoever. It was as though any sexual attraction she’d had had vanished after her stay in hospital. Evidently he wasn’t planning or hoping to get her pregnant again and he wasn’t interested enough in her to even approach her for sex. What did that tell her? Well, all it told Maya was that, in Raffaele’s eyes, their marriage was already over. He had changed from a guy who couldn’t get enough of her into a guy who didn’t even seem to appreciate that she was still alive and kicking.
And what about whatshewanted? Well, that was a ridiculously complicated question, Maya acknowledged ruefully. Every time she looked at Raffaele, she knew she wanted him, and being shot without warning from a passionate relationship into a platonic one was a shattering shock to the system. Naturally, she had told herself that she shouldn’t still be attracted to him. Obviously, she had told herself that she should be relieved that he didn’t expect to share a bed with her any more. But the logical approach hadn’t helped because during the weeks of their marriage, all those sunny lazy days exploring the Mediterranean, she had grown deeply,illogicallyattached to Raffaele.
How had that happened and did it really matter that she didn’t knowhow? The reality was that she had fallen in love with Raffaele. His dysfunctional childhood and his experiences since had made him cynical where she was naïve and too trusting; his droll take on his life, born out of those experiences, was nonetheless very entertaining and he often made her laugh. She had also learned that nobody could be kinder or more caring than he. But most of all, on the day he’d told her about his dogs being shot she had caught a glimpse of the broken-hearted, lonely, unloved boy inside him, of the terrible damage done to him and the lingering vulnerability that he worked so hard to hide from the world. And that had been that for Maya: her heart had opened up and taken him in and she knew she would fight like a lioness to protect him from hurt.
Yetshehad hurt him at the hospital, reminding him of their unlovely beginnings and the child he had persuaded her to conceive to seal a business transaction. And she had seen him acknowledge the wrong that he had done, had witnessed the deeper understanding that he was developing and the care and support he was so determined to give her. She had grasped then that, in many ways, Raffaele had been a case of arrested emotional development ever since his disturbing childhood experiences and now, finally, he was emerging from that shell to change and grow as a man. At the same time, though, she suspected that he was finding the emotions assailing him now almost as confusing and unsettling as she had once found his former emotional detachment.
It was mid-evening when they returned to the London penthouse. They had eaten on the flight back and Raffaele strode off to his room, leaving Maya marooned in the vast reception area with its sumptuous seating and fantastic view of the London skyline as night fell. She had never felt more alone in her life than she did at that moment, wondering why he was avoiding her, barely speaking, wondering why she didn’t have the courage to reach out and demand answers from him. Because she was afraid, she accepted numbly, because she was afraid of hearing the truth that their marriage was over. And once Raffaele said those words, he would be free to leave and stay at one of the many, many properties he owned across the world instead. Once he was gone, he would be gone for ever and the very thought of that simply terrified her...and yet, it shouldn’t, itshouldn’t. It would be a return to the life he had taken her from, and she couldn’t face the emptiness of that again. She hadn’t even known how empty her life was until he’d entered it.
‘I’ll see you...later,’ Raffaele murmured from behind her. ‘Probably tomorrow as I won’t be back early.’
Maya unfroze with a jerk and glanced across the room at him, shot rudely from her reverie. He had changed into an exquisitely well-tailored suit, a dark claret-shaded shirt with an expensive sheen open at his bronzed throat. ‘Where are you going?’
His sculpted mouth compressed. ‘Out... I need to go out. I’m feeling...’ he shifted a fluid brown hand in almost aggressive emphasis ‘...cooped up here.’
Already pale, Maya snatched in a deep quivering breath. ‘Fancy some company?’ she heard herself ask like an over-eager schoolgirl.
Stunning dark golden eyes rich as caramel, Raffaele tensed, his strong jaw clenching. ‘Not tonight, I’m afraid,’ he told her levelly. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll talk... OK?’
No, it wasn’t OK. Maya didn’t want him to go out, didn’t trust him to go out in the parlous state of their already broken marriage. She didn’t want to be around for the talk he had mentioned either. In fact, she wanted to run and keep on running from that possibility because, unhappy though she was with the current state of affairs, it was infinitely better than being deprived of him entirely. And not only did she not recognise herself in those cowardly reactions, she hated herself for that urge to shrink away and hide from a truth that would hurt.
As Raffaele disappeared into the lift, Maya lifted her phone and stabbed a single button. ‘Sal?’ she asked as the head of Raffaele’s security team answered. ‘I need to know where Raffaele is going tonight.’
Troubled silence fell on the line. ‘Mrs Manzini...’
‘Please...I don’t want him to do something stupid!’ Maya gasped.
