Chapter 23
Matteo and Grace were driving to the speaking engagement she’d taken over for her father.
It had been a beautiful day up until about an hour ago, but clouds were moving in, darkening the landscape.
He’d checked the weather before they left the house, the future radar showing their destination on the edge of a winter storm.
It was expected to rain, but it wouldn’t be cold enough for the icy mix or snow that was expected just to their north.
He stole a glance at Grace. “How is it to be out of the house without the baby?”
“I don’t know. I have moments where I feel blissfully free and unattached, followed by this yearning sort of desperation I can’t even explain. It’s weird.”
“You should try to enjoy yourself while we’re there. You don’t get to do enough for yourself these days.”
She looked out her window. “I’m worried about leaving Nico with a bottle. He’s not used to that.”
“I’m sure he’ll be okay.”
She didn’t respond. He was missing the mark, and he knew it. “I know it isn’t easy. I see how you two are together and I can only imagine how hard it is to be away from him.”
It’s going to be hard for me when it’s time to go.
She turned back toward him. “Thank you.”
“It will only be six or seven hours, tops. Are you all set for your speech tonight?”
“I am. I used to do this a lot during my father’s last campaign. I like politics, and I know he’s good for our country. My mom always encouraged me to help him. I think she wanted us to be closer.”
“What about you? Is that something you want?”
“For my father and me to be closer? I stopped believing that was possible a long time ago.”
Matteo decided to let that go for now.
They’d just reached the city limits when the rain turned over to sleet.
Matteo frowned. If the temperature was dropping, they could be in for a hell of a time.
It was too late now to turn around, so he kept his concerns to himself as they checked into the hotel Grace had insisted they book, claiming she needed a home base.
It took her an unusually long time to get ready, and they made it to the auditorium with only fifteen minutes to spare before her speech.
Grace was calm despite the pressure, as if she did this sort of thing every day and could simply swing in on a rope dangling from a jet plane, give her speech to thousands of people, and swing back out again.
This was a side of Grace he hadn’t seen before. The businesswoman, the politician, and he was impressed.
By the time Matteo made it to his seat near the front of the auditorium, he was downright curious to hear what she had to say. Would she be mild-mannered and polite, or would she surprise him yet again?
A couple behind him was talking.
“I don’t care what the media says. He scares me.”
“Clearly, he is not being upfront about his plans for the future or his relationship with Russia. I’m just not sure Vasile is the answer.”
“I know. He’s getting old. Did you see him on the news last week? He’s not looking so good, either. I wonder if he’s sick.”
The man clucked his tongue. “I wish he was younger. You’d think they could come up with a better candidate who didn’t have one foot in the grave to fight Trane.”
“You’re still going to vote for him, aren’t you?”
“I’m not sure.”
The lights in the theater went down, and the couple stopped talking, but their comments bounced around in Matteo’s head for the next hour. He knew Vasile wasn’t well—even less well than he appeared in public, since at the house he was without makeup.
Grace was more than holding her own, clearly grabbing the audience’s attention while she went over her father’s plans if he was elected to another term. But from where Matteo was sitting, Grace was the one who was shining.
“I can speak to my father’s ideals because I share them. We all share them. We want to live in a free and independent state. We want our children to grow up knowing they are safe in a land that can defend itself from the hostile intentions hidden in an otherwise beautiful world.
“Because make no mistake, there are those with hostile intentions toward our country and if we do not actively resist the propaganda that is being fed to us as if it were truth, we will find ourselves living in a place we don’t recognize with ideals we can’t support.
“Victor Trane advocates for those in charge of our country to listen to the changes being suggested by Russia. Just listen. Let me ask you a question. Do you really believe all he wants you to do is hear them out? Of course not. His loyalty lies with Russia, and if he is elected, he will give control of our country to them.”
Applause erupted all around him, the crowd instantly on their feet. Grace had issued a battle cry that had resonated with every person in that room. Matteo could feel it.
“Now there’s someone I could vote for,” came the voice of the woman behind him.
Matteo furrowed his brow. Did Grace want to follow in her father’s footsteps into politics? He let his mind wander, considering the possibility.
What do you care? You’re not going to be here anyway.
That was true. Any future for Grace would not include him, and she would be a single mother—at least until she met someone she truly wanted to marry. Considering the situation with her father and the whole reason Matteo was here, he knew that would hurt her chances of succeeding in that arena.
He made his way backstage, rounding the corner of a long hallway to see Grace shaking hands with the throng of people who were clearly giving her congratulations.
She was glowing, and Matteo’s breath caught in his chest. He already knew she was beautiful, but now he’d seen inside her to her intelligence, wit, and sharp mind.
Grace Vasile was the whole package, and he had the uncanny feeling he was looking at someone who would become an important figure in history.
She caught sight of him and smiled, making several heads turn in his direction to see who the lucky man was.
It’s her husband, of course.
Yes, no one here would find it strange that he was looking at her with such pride and admiration. Even if they noticed the spark of attraction that grew into a steady flame as he approached, it was all completely normal for a newly married couple.
He didn’t need to mask the attraction he felt for her, didn’t need to tear his stare away from the high color in her perfectly sculpted cheeks.
His body tingled with wanting her. He opened his arms and kissed her on the lips. “That was fantastic, honey.”
“Thank you.”
The flash of a camera went off.
His hand lingered on her, dropping to the small of her back when he moved to stand beside her. The final congratulations were made hastily, and then they were alone.
She turned to face him. “Thank you for doing that.”
“What?”
“Standing here and being my husband and front of those men. They are important people to my father.”
I wanted to do it.
“You did a great job out there. I’m proud of you.”
They fell into step beside each other and he took her hand as they went outside. Everything was blanketed in several inches of snow.
“Oh, no,” said Grace, pulling her hand out of his and her cell phone from her purse. She flashed a worried glance at Matteo. “What do you think the roads are like?”
“This was supposed to miss us. I’m sure it changes over to rain not far from here.”
The weather radar loaded on her screen, vibrant colors covering every part of it. She cursed under her breath. “We were supposed to miss this. It goes all the way back home. What are we going to do?”
“It’s okay. We have the hotel room. We can stay overnight.”
“But the baby!”
There was such panic in her voice that concern pulled at him. “Is there enough milk for him at the house?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then he’ll be fine.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself. This isn’t something you can control.”
“He’s never been away from me for more than a couple of hours. He’s the one this is going to be difficult for.”
“I know. And I understand, really, I do. But look at this.” He took the phone from her hand and zoomed in on the pink area between the snow and rain. It covered most of their way back.
“That’s freezing rain. The roads have to be an ice rink, especially for the sedan.
” He handed her back the phone, wishing he could do something that would erase the dejected look on her face.
“I’m sorry. If it were just snow, I would get you back there, but we’re not going to be able to make it tonight. ”
“Stupid ice storm.”
His arms ached to hold her, comfort her. He spoke before he could think better of it. “Do you know how often I want to put my arms around you?”
She looked at him with red eyes full of tears and leaned into him. His arms came around her. He kissed the top of her head. “It will be okay. I promise you.”
“I know. It just sucks.”
He held her for a long time, letting her be the first to let go. When she stepped back, she wiped her eyes and sighed.
“Do you want to get some dinner?” he asked.
“Can we go back to the hotel first?”
“Sure.”
Forty-five minutes later he was sitting on the hotel room bed waiting for her to finish getting ready. She’d already been in the bathroom for quite some time, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing in there.
She eyed him sheepishly as she walked out. “Sorry. I had to pump.”
He tried to hide his surprise and must have failed miserably, because she explained, “My body keeps making milk. If I don’t feed the baby for a while, it hurts, so I have to pump.”
“Oh.” He didn’t know anything about this shit. His knowledge of female anatomy and physiology pretty much stopped at how to bring a woman to orgasm. “I didn’t know that.”
She skirted around him in the small room. “I was thinking, since I can’t feed the baby and I still have to pump, what’s to stop me from having a drink or two?”
“What’s your poison?”
“I like wine. And tequila. But not together.”
The wine was no surprise, but he wouldn’t have taken her for a tequila girl. She was full of surprises, and the idea of spending the evening with her was more appealing than he wanted to admit, though the last thing they needed was to let go of their inhibitions around each other.
“Sounds good to me. Chinese food and a Riesling?”
Her blue eyes sparkled. “Make it champagne and you’ve got a deal.”
Three hours later they were sitting at a table in the darkened corner of a Chinese restaurant, a half-empty bottle of champagne sitting in an ice-filled metal bucket.
“It felt good to be up there tonight,” she said.
“You were amazing.”
“Amazing?” She laughed. “I don’t know about that. It’s been a long time since I stood behind a podium.”
“Yet it looks like you belong there.”
She took a sip of her champagne. “You should have told me you weren’t drinking. I wouldn’t have ordered the whole bottle.”
“I’m here to keep you safe. Besides, I wanted you to relax. You’ve earned it.”
“Thanks.”
“Do you see yourself in politics one day?”
Her eyes went wide. “Me? I guess I never really thought about it. That was always my father’s thing.”
“Then what was your thing?”
She laughed. “I was the one who always screwed everything up. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me and the noticeable absence of my baby’s father.”
“Tell me about him.” He should’ve been sorry that he’d spoken the words, but he wasn’t. He wanted to know. Hell, he’d wanted to know since he first set eyes on her.
She cocked her head and stared at her glass. “Et tu, Matteo?”
“Yes, me, too.” He sensed the question caused her pain, but he couldn’t stop himself from wanting the answer. “You don’t have to tell me, of course.”
“I already did. I thought we were in love. It sounds stupid now because I know it wasn’t true, but then it was the only truth in the whole wide world.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Listen to me. I sound like a foolish young girl.”
“Relationships are always changing. Just because you are not in love at the end doesn’t mean you weren’t in love at the beginning.”
“He told me he wanted to marry me months before I got pregnant. I had no doubt in my mind that’s what would happen.
We would get married, I would have the baby, and we would be a family.
We’d live in Switzerland away from politics and my father and everything that was wrong in the world.
” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “And then he left me.”
“Do you wish he’d come back?”
There it was, the question he really wanted answered, and his stomach clenched in anticipation of her response. She had already told him about her lover, but she’d left this part out.
They were alone in a strange town, stuck here for the night and sharing a bedroom. They’d already come very close to making love. Her answer had the potential to change everything between them.
The words of the priest who married them came to mind.
God works in mysterious ways to bring us the people we are meant to have in our lives.
Was he meant to have Grace in his life forever? In the short time he’d been here, he’d already come to care for her and Nico deeply.
He was falling for his wife.
She met his eyes and the tension between them sharpened to a fine point. “Sometimes,” she whispered.
There you go, you asshole. You just had to ask, didn’t you?
She wanted her lover back. Hell, she was probably thinking about him while he was ogling her in the mirror like some kind of peeping Tom, longing to stroke himself in the darkness and appease this desire for her that was becoming unbearable.
He was tired of jerking off in the shower. It was time for him to let go of this fantasy.
“I’m sorry, Matteo.”
“No need.”
“I need to use the restroom.” She stood up, taking a large black bag with her, and this time he knew what she was doing. He’d have a good long while to sit here and stew over her rejection.
It’s for the best, and you know it. His mind went back to the annulment he needed to get when this was all over. That woman was forbidden fruit, and he sure as hell had better remember that.