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Matteo’s words hung in the air as Vittore put his head in his hands, and Brianna stared wordlessly at the doors behind which her baby lay.
She put her hand to her chest. “So, the risks, the worry. Why were you worried about me?”
Matteo reached over and clasped her hand. “Because women who have a close relative who’ve suffered from postpartum psychosis are slightly at higher risk.”
“That’s why you’ve spent the last month looking over my shoulder?”
Matteo cringed and nodded.
“You couldn’t just tell me?” She held her hands out. “Tell us? Then I could have spoken to my physician. Asked him about the risks. Don’t you think that would have made more sense?”
He shook his head slowly. “It might seem that way. But how could I tell you? Your blood pressure was up, you’d had that scare... What kind of brother would I be if I’d told you something like that, at a time when the last thing you needed was stress?”
Brianna gave him a sad smile. “I understand. I do.” She looked around and put her hands on his shoulders. “Now I get it. Now I understand why you wanted to sell the Hamptons so quickly. Why you wanted to get rid of the place.”
Something washed over him. A realization.
He looked at them both. “You don’t?”
Brianna and Vittore exchanged glances. Vittore frowned a little. “Well, obviously it’s worth millions of dollars. But I don’t have bad memories of the house—to be honest, I don’t have any memories at all. I’ve always thought of it as a bit of a forgotten beauty. I’ve always been sorry it’s been neglected and left empty.”
“Do you want it?” Somehow that made Matteo’s skin prickle.
Vittore shook his head. “I spend most of my life in California. What would I do with a house in the Hamptons?”
Matteo turned to his sister. “Brianna?”
She shook her head. “I love my place here in the city. I don’t want to move to the Hamptons. But I don’t care about selling. I never really have. I just went along with it because you seemed so insistent.” She waved her hand. “I understand about the villa in Rome. It seemed ridiculous to keep it when we are never there. And your interior designer? Oh, my goodness. What a great job she’s done. The photographs are amazing. As for the selling price for the house...”
As Brianna’s voice tailed off Matteo sagged in the chair. Every time he’d thought about Phoebe in the last few weeks he’d felt instantly sick. He’d let her down. He’d left her.
He’d known exactly how worried she was about the flight, but he’d been so worried about Brianna he couldn’t even think straight. He’d convinced himself he was protecting Phoebe by leaving the way he did. Someone as closed off as him could never offer her the love and life she deserved. As soon as he was back, he’d arranged the transfer of her fee for doing all the work on both houses. The offer for the villa in Rome had been more than expected. It seemed that someone had their eye on the place and was waiting to snap it up.
But who was he kidding? Phoebe might need the money to pay her mother’s medical bills but, somehow, he knew that the transfer of the money was a cold, hard way to complete the end of their business.
As for the house in the Hamptons? He’d had three offers already. But something had stopped him discussing them with his brother and sister, and until this minute he hadn’t really understood why.
He lifted his head.
Now he was seeing the house through new eyes—eyes like Phoebe’s. Because now when he thought of the house at the Hamptons, his first thought wasn’t a sad, horrible one of his mother dying. Now his first thought was bright, and featured Phoebe dancing on the stairs in her yellow dress. When he closed his eyes he could see the brilliant light shining through all the windows in the house, leaving it clean and airy. When his mind drifted, it went straight to the red library with a fire burning, a comfortable rug and fireworks going off in the background.
Phoebe had done this. He’d made these memories with Phoebe.
All of a sudden he realized that the heart he’d been guarding so fiercely had a mind of its own.
“Matteo, what’s wrong?” Vittore was looking at him curiously.
Matteo ran his fingers through his hair. “I might have done something I shouldn’t.”
“Again?” Vittore raised his eyebrows.
Matteo stood up and started to pace. “I might have treated someone...not as well as I could have.” There was a hideous sinking feeling in his stomach. “I might have made a big mistake.”
Brianna’s eyes locked onto his. “What did you do?”
