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‘We never meant for things to go the way they did,’ Mateo said quietly, capturing everyone’s attention simply by the tenor of his voice. ‘The engagement story broke and I decided that it might be an idea for Maude and I to disappear for a while. I have a house in Tuscany...’
‘A mansion on an estate with vineyards attached,’ Maude filled in wryly.
‘Yes, one of those. Far from prying eyes, and handy, because I knew that there was some business there to take care of so I would be able to kill two birds with one stone. What happened was—’
‘Wasn’t meant to happen,’ Maude jumped in hastily, avoiding eye contact with everyone and focusing instead on the kitchen clock on the wall.
‘But it did, didn’t it?’ Mateo murmured, turning to look at her, satisfied when she reluctantly turned to look at him in return.
Just like that, the room shrank to just the two of them.
Maude had been aware of him moving from behind to sit next to her, with everyone else standing, so the focus of attention had been squarely on them. But she hadn’t realised how close he was until now because she had been making such an effort to keep her eyes averted.
‘And you said...’ Mateo locked his eyes on hers ‘...that there were no regrets.’
‘No,’ Maude said with wrenching honesty.
‘And...like a broken record... I maintained that what you saw was what you got with me.’
‘You don’t have to repeat the mantra, Mateo,’ she replied jerkily, ‘I got the message loud and clear.’
‘How can I begin to tell you that it was a message I was so accustomed to churning out that it never occurred to me that the day might one day come when it was no longer on point?’
‘What are you saying?’
She started when her father cleared his throat, and when she blinked back to reality it was to find her parents glancing at one another and shuffling.
‘I do think,’ her mother said briskly, ‘that these two might want to have a conversation without us all around picking apart every word they’re saying.’
Maude opened her mouth to vigorously deny any such thing but was overruled by Mateo, agreeing that he would appreciate a little bit of privacy.
At which point, all four sidled out, with her mother leading the way, and the kitchen door was shut quietly behind them. Maude turned to Mateo to ask what the heck was going on but he silenced her with a finger on her lips.
‘Let me talk,’ he murmured. ‘This is hard for me to say but I need to say it.’
‘No, you don’t. We’ve said everything there is to say. We can tell them about the pregnancy, but the ground work...’ Her voice trailed off. She couldn’t finish the sentence.
‘The ground work has only just begun, my darling.’
The way he saidmy darlingsent a thrilling frisson through her which she loved and loathed at the same time.
‘I told you that the message I always imparted was the same—no commitment. I wasn’t interested. As it happens, you are the only woman to know why. At the time, I didn’t even stop to question how it was that I had shared that confidence with you because it had seemed so natural.’
‘And I understood, Mateo. Iunderstand.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Mateo admitted quietly. ‘I don’t understand how I could have allowed my past to dictate the future to the extent that I simply shut the door on any hope of having a meaningful relationship with a woman. I just never questioned it.’
‘You were hurt as a child. How could you not be affected? I don’t blame you. I would have been the same, I’m sure.’
‘You forgive too easily.’ But he smiled crookedly at her and risked a light touch, his finger on her hand, letting it linger there for a few moments. ‘I never anticipated going to bed with you, Maude, and, before you tell me the obvious, I know—you never anticipated going to bed with me either. Making love to you... It was mind blowing, like nothing I had ever experienced before. I told myself it was because you were so different from all the women I’d gone out with.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Appearances have nothing to do with it,’ he admonished but gently, tenderly. ‘I never got the appeal of a woman who enjoyed giving as good as she got, but of course you were always that woman. You never shied away from saying what you had to say when it came to work. You were always happy to shoot down anyone you thought had flimsy ideas on whatever structures you were working on and, if that person happened to be me, then that never stopped you from loading the gun.’
He paused and looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Show me that woman and I would have told you that I wasn’t interested because what I wanted was someone soothing and non-argumentative. Who needs extra stress when your work life is already stress-packed and lived in the fast lane? But how wrong I was.’
‘Are you telling me that you enjoyed making love to me because of my mind?’
