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He should have known better.
‘Are they all like this?’
She nodded, watching him carefully.
‘And you will also do these?’ he reminded her.
‘I will do every one that you do,’ she said.
He placed the piece of torn paper on the table, smoothing it flat with his fingers as if the sudden slap of pain raised by this simple request hadn’t caught him by surprise.
Take me somewhere from your childhood.
He cleared his throat.Cristo.
‘Veto,’ he said, not caring what weakness it revealed in him. He would never take her anywhere near his childhood. She nodded, looking sad but not surprised. Instead, she passed him the jar. He pulled another tear of paper, trying hard not to tense up from fear of what this one might say, and opened it.
Show me something you’re proud of.
And he soon realised just how clever she really was. There was no doubt that after even just a few of these that sense of connection he’d felt from the very first would be strengthened. At least, he could readily acknowledge, his child would have a mother who would fight for them and fight hard, no matter the cost.
‘Okay,’ he said, sliding back his chair. ‘Let’s go.’
Amelia was only a little surprised to be heading back to Italy. Part of her had imagined that they would be on their way to London, to The Ruby that was the heart of his and Gianni’s company or any of the other incredible buildings Rossi Industries had developed across the globe. But instead, they touched down at the same private airfield they had left the day before, the relatively short flight time between Italy and Morocco still a wonder to her.
Alessandro had been tight-lipped from the moment that he unfolded the first piece of paper. She’d caught sight of the one he’d vetoed and, although she understood why, it had still hurt to be shut out from such a huge part of what made himhim.
And she wassodrawn to him, she forced herself to acknowledge now. Handsome, powerful, brooding, absolutely and unquestionably. But it was the flashes of fallibility that sank claws into her, the lightness that he kept well hidden beneath that serious exterior—the way that, despite all his authority and power, he could still get flustered by her, that he could still be amusingly petulant. Beneath all the layers of hurt and damage done by his parents and her father, she could see glimpses of the boy he might have been and she grieved the loss of that boy with such intensity it shocked her to the core.
Amelia could understand the damage, hurt and fear that had led Alessandro to make that promise years ago. But in denying himself a future family, someone to love and be loved by, he had shrunk the people around him to one or two and she wanted more—not for her child and herself, buthim. She wanted more for Alessandro than what he had allowed himself.
Rather than the sleek black car she expected, a small Prussian blue old MG convertible two-seater sparkled in the sunlight on the runway. She frowned and cast her gaze back to the staff carrying their luggage.
‘Don’t worry,tesoro. Our belongings will be taken back to the villa. We’re just taking a detour along the way.’
The term of endearment was almost carelessly thrown her way, as if it hadn’t been one of the words he’d whispered over and over and over again to her last night as they’d made love. She wouldn’t, couldn’t regret it. It had been the most magical experience of her life so far, but she knew that it would make it so much more difficult if this plan—the plan for her child’s future happiness—went awry.
He opened the door for her, his chivalry ingrained in a way that felt natural and touching.
‘Where are we going?’ she couldn’t help but ask.
‘You’ll see. For now, just enjoy the ride,’ he said, slipping his sunglasses on, putting the car into gear and letting the engine loose in a roar that sent vibrations through her body. She laughed and the smile across Alessandro’s features took another bite out of her heart.
An hour later, they pulled up to a residential street on the outskirts of a small town. It was pretty, but she wasn’t quite sure what made it so particular to the billionaire beside her. He parked in a bay and got out of the car and, leaning against the silken surface, looked at a building on the opposite side of the road. It was the Italian equivalent of a two-up, two-down, Amelia thought as she realised that this was what he wanted to show her. A family came out of the door, the parents too distracted by their children to notice them by the car. Risking a glance at Alessandro, she saw a small smile pull at the corner of his lips as if happy to see the rambunctious family spilling from the house.
‘When we realised we couldn’t build on the land your father sold us, we were in trouble.’ He shook his head, and cleared his throat. He didn’t need to explain—she’d seen the terrible terms of the loan he and Gianni had taken to buy the land from her father, she knew how urgent the repayment schedule had been.
‘We had to do something else and quickly. Renovating and reselling was our best option, so we started with this one. This house. We worked day and night, just the two of us, grit, determination, and a hell of a lot of luck. So many things could have gone wrong. But we did it. Renovated, decorated, sold and bought. We did it over and over and over again, flipping houses until we had enough capital to pay back the loan and start developing our own property. But this? This was the first house. This was the one that started what would one day be Rossi Industries.
‘It’s humble and I’m okay with that. But what I’m really proud of? Was that we got back up. We didn’t let it break us. We got back up and we kept going, kept moving forward.’
His gaze, hidden behind his sunglasses, would have been full of vehemence but she didn’t need to see it to feel it. She knew that need. That driving force pushing you back up, pushing you on, unable to break no matter what was thrown at you. Because he’d had Gianni and she’d had Issy and another thread was woven in place, binding them together, even if it was against their own will.
‘Your turn,’ Alessandro said, twisting the conversation away from himself and his past.
Amelia glanced at the café at the end of the road and he levered himself away from the car, offering his arm in a gesture that was supposed to be ironic, but, when she slipped her hand through the crook of his arm, was anything but.
When they sat at a table on the pavement shown to them by a waiter who barely spared them a glance he smiled, realising that he missed this. The simplicity of having a coffee and not needing to rush because of a meeting, or decision or...
