Font Size:  

‘It’s got woods, acres and acres of woods,’ he commented.

‘Didn’t you ever want to build a tree house when you were a kid?’ she gibed in frustration.

‘My play properties were built for me,’ Raffaele admitted. ‘And I would never have got to run free in the woods because Julieta would have deemed that, like a tree house, too dangerous. She had a whole list of pursuits which I wasn’t allowed to follow and places I wasn’t allowed to go...her control only loosened after I started boarding school.’

‘Yes, but we’re not going to be the same with our child,’ Maya pointed out brightly, wishing she hadn’t mentioned anything to do with his childhood with his troubled mother because that only roused unhappy memories.

Raffaele sent her a sardonic smile and handed the brochure back to her. ‘And presumably, you’re planning to give me triplets at the very least. Grey Gables has an awful lot of bedrooms.’

‘But you’ll need those rooms for extra bathrooms,’ Maya tossed back, lifting her chin.

A couple of hours later, Raffaele watched as she toured the house while the agent waited outside to give them some privacy. Maya’s hair was in a long golden braid, as rigidly contained as she was, slender shapely legs outlined in casual cropped jeans mounting the stairs. She was beautiful, so beautiful, her delicate profile absorbed, her soft mouth still unnaturally taut because he had dared to mention the pregnancy test they had agreed to do every month. Her entire focus was on conception, which was why he was praying that it simply happened, and quickly, to take that complication off the table. Once that was achieved, she would relax, open her eyes, maybe even see what else was on offer...

Raffaele studied the gracious landing, ancient polished boards creaking beneath his feet. Grey Gables was pretty much everything he had avoided throughout his life but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t see the appeal of the Georgian gem set within its own estate. It was, primarily, afamilyhouse with a warmth that even he could feel. The owners were downsizing, their children long since grown up, but happy snapshots of the life they had led at Grey Gables, fashionably presented in black and white, abounded. Maya, predictably, paused again and again to study the photos because that was what Maya wanted even if she didn’t know it: she wanted a family life, a happy, perfect family life like the one she had grown up with. It galled him to acknowledge that truth but there it was. Maya’s debt-ridden parents had still, against all the odds, contrived to raise happy kids.

‘So, what’s this surprise you won’t tell me about?’ Maya pressed as she stood at one of the windows in the master bedroom, which looked out across the front lawns.

The main bedroom was a beautiful room in a very elegant house with the delicate ceiling and wall mouldings and gracious marble fireplace still intact. She had already pictured the bedroom with that fire lit on a winter evening and she bit down hard on her lip when she registered that she was imagining Raffaele by her side. By the time winter came, she would very probably be pregnant, and he would be long gone, only reappearing after their child was born. Her heart clenched as if someone had squeezed it and she forced herself to focus on the view instead. Beyond the window, she could see long stretches of well-maintained lawn surrounded by towering graceful lime trees. Their weeping branches of bright green leaves almost touched the ground and beyond the formal gardens stretched a dense belt of natural woodland.

Raffaele strode across the room, opening doors, glancing in at a superb well-appointed bathroom and a pair of formally fitted-out dressing rooms, which she had already inspected. ‘At least they didn’t stint on the details,’ he commented grudgingly.

Maya studied him. Even in faded designer jeans and a shirt, he still contrived to take her breath away at a glance. Nothing he wore said billionaire, aside of the slender gold watch on his wrist and possibly his handstitched shoes. His whole attitude of masculine command and expectation, however, screamed his exclusive status for him. She had seen the female agent’s fluttering, hair-tossing instant reaction as Raffaele had vaulted out of the chopper that had brought them to the estate and then paused to lift Maya out with the care he always utilised around her. The agent had had that glazed expression that women often wore in Raffaele’s presence.

He was drop-dead gorgeous from his lean, powerfully built, hard body to his chiselled, breathtaking features. All that and moneytoo, she had seen the woman thinking as she’d scanned him before staring at Maya as if trying to penetrate the mystery of how Maya had captured such a husband. No mystery, Maya had felt like saying, more of a trap sprung by Aldo, who had made both of them victims.

Raffaele could never just stand still in business. He had a great need to prove himself even if that meant competing against his own best performances year on year, and the prospect of anything new or challenging, like the current underperformance of her grandfather’s technology company, had grabbed his interest and held him fast. Maya, in comparison, had become the victim of the belief that she could save her family without harming or changing herself. She thought it was fair to say that neither she nor Raffaele had appreciated quite what they were getting into when they had married. They had thought they could do it without pesky feelings and personalities getting involved and both of them had got it badly wrong.

‘The surprise, Raffaele,’ Maya prompted a second time, hitching a fair brow in emphasis.

Raffaele lounged back fluidly against the door frame and in that one sleek, graceful movement ensured that her fingers literally tingled with the desire to touch him. She wanted to trail her fingers through that tousled silky black hair, trace the sensual line of that full lower lip, smooth her hand down over his tightly muscled abdomen. ‘We have guests coming this weekend.’

Maya struggled to drag her brain back out of the gutter, where his extraordinary physical pulling power had taken her. ‘Guests?’ she queried in surprise.

‘We’re holding a big family reunion,’ Raffaele extended with a twist of his shapely mouth.

‘You don’t have family... I mean, apart from Aldo and your father, and London is too far for Aldo to travel,’ Maya remarked, her smooth brow furrowing.

‘Yourfamily,’ Raffaele corrected silkily. ‘Your Parisi grandparents, your own parents and siblings. All of them are eager to have the chance to get to know each other.’

Maya blinked in bemused disbelief. ‘And you just decided to go behind my back and arrange this reunion?’ she exclaimed in disbelief. ‘Without even discussing the idea with me first?’

‘Your grandparents approached me. Someone had to step in and sort things out, although I can’t take the kudos in this case. Rafiq, Izzy’s husband, contacted me first.’

Maya froze in dismay at that admission. ‘Why? Why would Rafiq contact you?’

Raffaele dealt her a pained look. ‘Your twin’s been worrying about why you haven’t visited her or asked her to visit you. You’ve made a lot of ridiculous excuses and naturally she’s worked out that you’re avoiding her.’

‘I haven’t been avoiding her!’ Maya raked back at him angrily, outraged that he had got himself involved in something that had nothing to do with him. ‘My relationship with my sister is none of your business!’

‘I’m not standing by while you endanger a relationship that I know is very important to you, just as Rafiq wasn’t prepared to stand by and ignore Izzy worrying thatshe’sdone something to upset you. I told him about the miscarriage.’

Maya stiffened, all the colour draining from her shocked face. ‘You had no blasted right!’

‘And he immediately understood why you’d been keeping your distance and why you didn’t want to share that experience with Izzy right now. He won’t reveal your secret. If it’s any consolation, he believes you made the right choice even if I don’t. Of course, he’s looking at the situation from Izzy’s point of view, but I’m looking at it fromyours.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Maya slammed back at him tempestuously.

‘I know you’re still hurting and that your sister’s support might have helped you to adjust. And don’t tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about when I do,’ Raffaele warned her grimly. ‘But don’t worry. Izzy hasn’t been told and she won’t be told unless you choose to tell her. Instead, I’ve taken the fall to explain your unavailability in recent months.’

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
Articles you may like