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How could he have failed to explain to her, to make her see just how important it was that personal preferences be put on the back burner when a baby became part of the equation?
Was he disingenuous in thinking like that? Yet, he couldn’t help himself. There was nothing he could ever say in criticism of his father, who had stoically brought him up, sacrificing much along the way, and always doing his best to make up for the lack of a mother figure.
He had had a good upbringing in that respect, yet Mateo was now beginning to realise just how much mother’s abandonment of her husband, her marriage andof himhad affected him down the years.
He had shut the door on love. Had the very fact that he had been born driven his mother away? On every level, that made no sense, but still, buried deep in his subconscious, was that fear which had driven him into barricading himself behind a steel fortress, protecting himself from the vagaries of emotions and everything that went along with succumbing to them.
But, more than that, he had realised just as soon as she’d told him she was pregnant that there was some yearning he had grown up with which he had never recognised to somehow fill the void in his life. He would never have dreamt of courting the rollercoaster ride of fatherhood but, now it had been thrust onto him, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of wanting his child to have what he hadn’t had—the stability of a home with two parents.
Yet, Mateo was honest enough to realise that there was justification to Maude’s refusal to get on board with that notion. The scars he carried weren’t hers and what she proposed was what anyone who wanted more from marriage than a simple, practical, workable union between two people for the sake of the child they shared would do.
They would both be there for their child, which was more than he had had. There would be no shortage of love.
Unfortunately, for Mateo, that wasn’t enough because he could easily think beyond that to a scenario he didn’t intend to accept. He thought about her finding Mr Right, if such a guy existed, leaving him to be the father who showed up every other weekend while some other man effectively got to bring his child up as his own.
That wasn’t going to happen.
But neither could Mateo force her to accept his marriage proposal. These weren’t Victorian times, and he certainly wasn’t dealing with a wishy-washy damsel who was in search of rescue.
That said, this cottage was step one in persuading her that, whilst it might not be her first choice, what they had was good enough to stay the course. Better, indeed, than merelygood enough.
He would be patient and let her come to her own conclusions and, in the end, if she dug her heels in, then he knew that he would have no option but to retreat, however much that retreat would feel like a journey walked on broken glass.
But he had no intention of retreating until he had given it all he’d got.
‘So, you’re saying that this cottage is foryou...’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
‘You’re a city guy, Mateo. Do you honestly expect me to believe you would be comfortable living out here, in the middle of nowhere?’
‘The M4 is a hop and a skip away,’ he pointed out, the very voice of reason. ‘And, as you well know, a lot can be achieved virtually. These aren’t the bad old days when we were all nailed to desks.’
‘Were you evernailed to a desk?’
‘Fortunately, that fate passed me by.’
‘You never told me that you were planning on buying a place out here.’
She’d swung round to look at him, hands on her hips, the overhanging apple tree throwing her into a mosaic of shadows.
Around them the air was rich with the smell of fruit and the dampness of earth, leaves, trees and nature. It was a garden that had run wild.
‘I didn’t realise I had to, considering we’ll be going our separate ways,’ Mateo said with a show of puzzlement, and watched her flush in response. ‘While you were doing your thinking over the past couple of days, I was likewise doing something thinking of my own.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Is there anything else you want to see while we’re here?’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘In that case—’ Mateo glanced at his watch ‘—we can go and have an early dinner somewhere local before we return to London.’ He held up his hand even though she hadn’t said anything in return. ‘And no point telling me that you want to get back now. Whether the time suits you or not, we have to hammer a few things out, Maude, and I suggest we start doing that today—now that you’ve been shown around the first step I’ve taken in dealing with this situation.’
Mateo waited for her to object and, whilst he waited, his eyes drifted over her face and then he lowered them to her still flat stomach and felt the tug of something bigger and more powerful than he could ever have imagined possible.
He clenched his jaw, hooked a finger over his jeans and raked one hand through his hair.
‘I suppose you’re right.’ She sighed and, without realising, cast one last wistful glance at the cottage, which was so damned perfect in every way imaginable.
