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THEKNOCKONthe door pulled Maya away from the mirror. Did people actually dress for dinner outside movies and royal palaces? Where did castles fit into the scheme of things? Maya did have some experience of palaces and, though her sister had instigated a more casual approach since she’d taken up residence, when it came to family dinners at least, her life still involved a number of tiara occasions.
Luckily here Maya was not the hostess, family or a guest, in any proper sense of the word, so it was just as well she didn’t possess a tiara or even a formal dress, at least not one she’d packed. She was normally a meticulous minimal packer and had not adapted well to the ‘throw everything into a case in five minutes flat’ approach.
But you worked with what you had, and her choice tonight had been between a good pair of jeans—aubergine velvet—an orange minidress she had worn once for a christening and a mid-length silk slip dress in a jewel-bright turquoise that could be dressed up or down.
The lack of jewellery to accessorise equated with dress-down, but the spiky-heeled ankle boots in a leopard print, which had involved the death of no leopards or, for that matter, any animals whatsoever, were definitely dress-up. They also made her appear quite tall, which although an illusion still felt quite nice.
She had worried when she’d first paraded in front of the massive ormolu framed mirror. True, the high neck of her dress revealed her collarbones, but nothing else. It was only when she turned around that you got thewowfactor or, depending on your viewpoint, thetoo muchfactor. The back of the dress dipped dramatically almost to her waist and, while shenormallydidn’t flinch from being slightly in your face clothes-wise, tonight she had to admit to having some doubts.
Twisting around to look at her rear view, she frowned, then caught herself thinking,What am I doing?
Self-doubt was something she had left far behind her, and it had not been easy to do. She was no longer that person, the one who had felt as if she were fading into the background. It was no figure of speech—there had a point in her adolescence when she hadliterallyfelt almost invisible, thanks to evil Edward. Rediscovering her love of colour had been a visible reflection of how she felt inside—and how well she’d recovered from the abuse he’d heaped on her.
But there was bold and then there was all that flesh... She solved this problem by leaving her hair loose so her exposed shoulder blades and all but the lowest section of the small of her back, just before the dip to her waist, were concealed beneath a curtain of curls ruthlessly tamed—with her hair there was no other way—by the brilliant product she had dragged through it with her fingers.
She took a deep breath, and pasted on a smile. Shecoulddo this, she’d just think of it as having a solo takeaway in front of the telly, except of course it wasn’t either. It was the solo thing that bothered her most, which was insane. This categoricallywasn’ta dinner date, or for that matter any sort of date at all!
The woman on the other side of the door was young, more a girl, really, and was wearing the sort of informal uniform adopted by most staff that involved a white shirt and dark trousers.
Maya struggled to keep her smile in place as the girl’s eyes widened in shock, doing a face-to-floor-and-back-again sweep. Her response was notquitea jaw-drop, but it came very close.
‘Hello,’ Maya said.
At the gentle prompt she flushed and rushed out, ‘I am Rosa and I am here to sit with the little one.’
‘Of course.’ Maya stood back to allow the girl to enter the room. ‘He’s asleep.’ She paused; it seemed ironic, considering the number of times she had been asked for ID to confirm her age, but this girl did lookveryyoung. ‘Are you sure...?’
Rosa seemed to correctly interpret the hesitation to hand over the care of the baby that Maya didn’t totally understand herself.
‘After school I worked in a pre-school nursery for a year. I begin my pre-nurse training at the university next month and I’m the eldest of seven.’
Which makes her much better qualified than me to take care of a baby, Maya mused wryly.
‘Wow, that’s, well... I’ve made a few notes for you if he wakes up.’ She handed over the sheets she had jotted down some notes on.
‘Thank you. Would you like me perhaps to get someone to show you down to the dining room...?’
It was an offer that Maya would have definitely appreciated had she not decided during the last ten seconds not to go down to the dining room at all.
‘Actually, no, would it be possible for me to have a sandwich here?’
The girl looked confused.
‘I’m feeling just a little tired and not so very hungry after all, so a sandwich in my room...that would be just fine.’
The girl tipped her head in compliance, very obviously struggling to hide the fact that she thought Maya was insane as she backed out of the room.
When the door closed, some of the tension left Maya’s shoulders. She was, she told herself, totally comfortable with her choice.
It was important for her to believe it was a decision that had nothing to do with backing away from a challenge. It had been one of the things she had promised herself that she would never do once she had rebuilt her confidence one painful brick at a time after her stepfather had destroyed it with his insidious campaign—a person got told they were worth nothing on a daily basis and eventually they began to believe it.
She told herself that she had recovered fully from what had happened, but the questions Samuele had asked about her business hopes had shaken loose some uncomfortable possibilities she had been unconsciously avoiding. She did not regret refusing Beatrice and Dante’s offers of assistance, but there were alternatives she could have taken. There were business loans available for new start-ups; she had done all the research into them, but at the last minute she had always backed away, telling herself that she didn’t want to start out weighed down with debt. But she could see now the truth was that she was scared. Somewhere in the back of her mind she could still hear her stepfather telling her she was hopeless, useless.
It wasn’t about pride or practicality; she was just scared, even if she hid it well.
And tonight? The strong reluctance to leave Mattio was totally genuine, and it had taken her by surprise, but wasn’t there an element of her using it as an excuse not to spend the next couple of hours with Samuele?
In her defence, even if there was, she couldn’t really be blamed; being around him was very exhausting because she couldn’t lower her guard. She wasn’t quite sure what she was guarding against, but she knew it was essential that she do so.
