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She sniffed and rubbed the fading mist from the window before settling back into her seat. ‘I’m sure it’s veryuncoolto be excited, but you know what?’
‘You don’t care,’ he completed seamlessly.
‘Not even a little bit. Florence may be your backyard but to me it’s...’ She mimicked one of his shrugs when words failed her.
‘I don’t take it for granted, though. Actually Ilikeseeing the world through your eyes, though only occasionally. Otherwise I’d have given away all my possessions by now to a charity for donkeys.’
‘It was a worthy cause and you shouldn’t have been looking at my bank statement!’
‘You left your laptop open on my desk.’
She gave a little snort and looked out of the window again. They had left the river and the cathedral behind when the car in front slowed. As they approached a building with a classical facade set back from the road behind an elaborate wall, Mattio stirred slightly, his sleepy brown eyes opening briefly before they closed again. They took a sharp right and drove through the archway into the private internal courtyard, and Maya straightened in her seat, bracing herself for the inevitable meet and greet.
‘You’ll be fine,cara, you have nothing to prove.’
Only she did, and he had to know it. He couldn’t be that naive, could he? She was about to marry Samuele Agosti, not only the most handsome man on the planet, but also a legend in his own lifetime. The interest in their engagement wasn’t just trending on social media, there were several column inches devoted to the upcoming marriage in all the serious financial journals.
She tried to focus on the pluses, which included the fact that Beatrice wouldn’t be here tonight. She loved her sister dearly, but not the awkward questions she would inevitably ask.
Poor Beatrice’s morning sickness had got worse, necessitating bed rest and an intravenous drip, so she had been admitted to hospital for a while. Back home now, she was being fiercely guarded by Dante and their mum.
Maya’s mother was set to meet Samuele next week when she would fly out to spend a couple of weeks at the castello.
So all she had to do tonight was cope with the world’s press, half of whom seemed to want to know up frontwhoshe would be wearing tonight.
The only thing that was stopping her running for the hills was the security of knowing that Samuele would be at her side. His support made all the difference to her.
As she slid out of the air-conditioned car into the fragrant afternoon warmth she knew her mind should have been on higher things than wondering which of the outfits she had brought with her to wear tonight. But first impressions counted, and photos that were taken tonight would be images the whole world would look at tomorrow and in the days and weeks to come.
Also her choice of dress was one of the few things she felt she had some control over. She tucked her finger, weighted down by the beautiful heirloom ring, into her pocket and emptied her mind of worries. She was determined to take pleasure from the beauty of the cloistered space with the rows of fountains, their spray catching and reflecting the light as it fell into a long central pool.
As she tilted her head to examine the seemingly endless number of windows that looked down from the wrought-iron balconies on three sides of the space, the sun dazzled her and made her blink as she brushed stray strands of hair off her face.
‘Good journey?’
Maya smiled as she identified the familiar lanky figure of Samuele’s male private secretary, Diego, a nice, friendly reception committee of one. A combination of his youth and his ready smile made Diego, who had travelled ahead with all the bags and baggage—one small child and a white tie event meant they were not travelling light—someone she could relax around.
‘And you?’
‘Fine—’ His glance drifted to where Samuele stood, a phone pressed to his ear, a daunting frown pleating his brow visible for a moment before he turned, presenting his broad shoulders to them.
Maya tried not to register the obvious tension in his back and widened her smile to include Rosa, who had stayed the night with relatives in the city and volunteered to help out tonight. ‘Hi, Rosa, I hope your family are well.’ She glanced towards the open door of the car and the sleeping child. ‘He slept all the way here. I probably should have woken him but he looked so peaceful.’
On cue Mattio opened his eyes and started squirming in his seat. Maya moved to unclip his belt but Rosa, neat in a practical pair of chinos and blue shirt, beat her to it. ‘I’ve already scoped out the nursery. Shall I give him his feed?’
‘Would you?’
Rosa opened the stroller that had been unloaded with a practised flick of her wrist. ‘We’ll be in the nursery when you’re ready,’ she said as she snapped open the safety harness, ignoring the wail of protest from her passenger.
Maya, who saw that Samuele had finally pocketed his phone, pressed a kiss to the top of the increasingly tetchy child’s head. She felt secure in the knowledge that he was safe with Rosa. She was so good with him, to the point when there were times she made Maya feel like an amateur.
Maya began to weave her way through the fountains towards the spot where Samuele stood, conscious as she did so that Diego had hung back discreetly.
As she got closer she sensed a tension in Samuele’s stance, but also an excitement, which made sense. Tonight was important for Samuele, she knew that, it was the culmination of the years of rebuilding the lost family heritage that meant so much to him, not just to preserve it, but to make it relevant to the twenty-first century. Could it be that despite his seemingly laid-back attitude he was more worried about tonight than he’d let on?
‘Good news, they have finally located the missing Agosti statues.’
‘Oh, that’s terrific!’ She knew how much this news meant to Samuele, in a symbolic, end-of-the-journey sort of way.
