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When Victoria was around, the only thing he seemed to think about was her.
That notion—that he hadn’t allowed himself to admit before—was still turning over and over inside him, like a virus, when he found his way to a tiny house on the outskirts of yet another near-supernaturally lovely village. He pulled up outside, staring balefully at the cozy little cottage that bore the correct address on the front door, set behind a picturesque stone wall with a gate. It had been snowing on his drive out and the tiny house was covered in just enough of the stuff to make it look fluffy. He could see curls of smoke coming from the chimney, and there were candles in every window, casting the kind of good cheer out into the morning that made him feel nothing so much as baleful.
Possibly even broken, when he had never permitted himself even a moment of such self-indulgence in his life. It was nice for some that they got to waffle about, claiming brokenness and all manner of maladies, buthehad always had work to do.
He sat there, gripping the steering wheel of the SUV that had delivered him here. And he thought the vehicle was emblematic of this life that felt so suddenly meaningless all around him. He didn’t remember buying it. Probably because he had nothing to do with its purchase. He could tell that it was a newer model, quietly elegant and yet capable.
It wasn’t lost on him that he’d expected to view his wife in much the same way.
He had considered Victoria a perfect wife in theory, not least because she was so likely to be useful and quietly competent, but their marriage had never settled into that kind of functional ease. Instead, there was this monstrous swamp of emotion inside of him.
It had been growing, day by day, since that rendezvous in her uncle’s garden.
And had only gotten worse after Rome.
What Ago had been unable to stop thinking of, these last few days, was that he had been losing himself in a woman for the first time in his life. The only time.
And all the while, she had been intending to leave him.
Again.
Shameful though it was, he had not been kidding when he told her he was perfectly prepared to take extraordinary measures to keep her with him.
He’d known every member of his staff since he was a boy. He knew they would obey him without question. If he truly wished to chain his new wife to their bed, they would have happily obliged him.
Ago knew that he would have had no qualm whatsoever, and surely that should have scared him more than it did.
Not that it mattered, for now the only thing he wanted was for her to wake up.
So he could tell her that the world only made sense with her in it and he no longer cared where in that world she needed to locate herself.
He didn’t care what freedom looked like for her. So long as she was alive and well and happy.
Ago was almost certain he meant that.
There was a pounding at his window and he blinked, having completely forgotten where he was.
Outside, Tiziano stood beside the SUV, looking in at Ago with a quizzical sort of smile on his face.
“Are you coming in, brother?” he asked through the glass. “I rather thought you were the paparazzi.”
Ago pushed open the door and stepped out, not even wincing as the cold rushed at him. In truth, he hardly felt it.
“It’s not like you to drop by without an itemized itinerary,” Tiziano was saying, looking entirely too pleased with himself.Smug, Ago thought—or, then again, perhaps he was just jealous that his younger brother had found a way to give himself over entirely to emotion, and seemed to be the better for it. “An itinerary, a month’s notice, an advance team to scout out the area—”
“Victoria collapsed,” Ago belted out, out there in the crisp Gloucestershire morning. And once he’d said it, he couldn’t stop. “The baby is fine, though it was touch and go there for a moment. But she won’t wake up.” He found himself scowling at his brother, or maybe that was not the right way to describe the thing that was happening to him. That was taking over his face. “Shewon’t wake up, Tiziano.”
He regretted saying anything the moment the words were out. He didn’t even know why he was here. He had spent the whole of his life trying to whip his brother into shape. Trying to mold Tiziano into proper shape and form, according to all the rules he’d lived by his whole life. And Tiziano had disappointed him, every time.
Yet he’d gotten into the car and driven here with no real idea what he was doing.
“I don’t know why I’ve rousted you out of your little love nest into all this snow,” he gritted out. “I should have rung.”
But there was an expression he’d never seen before on his younger brother’s face. Tiziano reached out and clapped him on the shoulder. Then, astonishingly, slung his arm over Ago.
“Don’t be silly,” he said, but there was no trace of his trademark laughter in his voice. If Ago wasn’t mistaken, it was all compassion. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but then, he wasn’t sure how he felt about anything. “You’d better come in.”
Ago thought that really, he’d better get back to the hospital, but it seemed his body had other ideas. Because before he knew it, Tiziano was leading him inside. And it was the tiniest house Ago had ever seen. He had to duck to make it past the lintel, and he thought that if he dared pull in a deeper breath, he might smack his head on the ceiling. But inside, there was music playing, and everything smelled of Christmas trees and sugar. His brother’s woman—who Ago understood, today, was going to become his brother’s wife—peered out of what was clearly a kitchen, passed some silent communication with Tiziano, and then disappeared with only a little wave Ago’s way.
