CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LAYLASTEPPEDOUT of the elevator with no memory of stepping into it.
The envelope was still clutched in her hand.
Not moving beyond the threshold, she stared around at the vast reception area where two nail-biting women were waiting nervously on the plush chairs, then gazed beyond the reception to the library where paralegals and others were reading legal texts, photocopying documents, chatting amongst themselves, and then turned her stare to the long, wide corridor. The fourth door on the left opened into her office. Like all the other solicitors, she now worked on a computer that was ultra-modern and ultra-speedy.
She gazed back at the two waiting women. They weren’t her clients. She knew neither of their stories. Looking more closely, she saw the remnants of a bruise under the eye of the woman to the left. A victim of domestic abuse? Was she here because she’d heard through Clayton Community Law’s growing network that this was a place she could get legal help against her abuser for free? Maybe the woman really had just walked into a door. No two people’s stories were the same, the only commonality between their clients being they couldn’t afford to pay for legal help or the free help they were entitled to wasn’t enough for what they needed.
And now they could help more people. A lot more people. They were already looking at premises in three other cities as they sought to expand their services to other areas of the country.
None of this would have been possible without Sebastiano. He’d been under no obligation to do anything more than pay her the money. He’d given the firm this vast floor to work from because he wanted to, and if it had been to salve his conscience as she thought then it meant he had a conscience. And if he had a conscience then it meant he was capable of redemption...
‘Layla? Are you okay?’
She blinked.
Audrey, one of her colleagues, was staring at her with concern.
Layla stepped back, her head alternating between nodding and shaking. ‘I need to go. I’m sorry.’
Holding her belly, she walked as fast as her heavily pregnant body would carry her to the elevator. Outside the building, she hailed a black cab.
Maybe her mother was right about fate because the sleet had cleared. The Monday morning traffic parted for them and every single traffic light stayed on green.
When the driver pulled up outside the large suburban house on the quiet street, she paid with her phone without even listening to the price.
Inside, music played loudly above her. Holding tightly to the bannister, she climbed the stairs and followed the noise to one of the guest rooms where she found her mum on a step ladder painting the walls a soft yellow, humming along to the music.
Seeing Layla, she stepped off the ladder and hit the off button on the radio. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Mum, what did he say to you to get you to move to Sicily? Please tell me.’
The anxiety disappeared.
After the longest time spent just staring at her, her mother sighed and smiled. ‘He said that you needed me.’
Layla’s heart caught and her hand fluttered to her mouth.
That had been the last thing she’d expected to hear.
What made it more unexpected was that it had been true. Layla had been thrust, pregnant, into a new world and desperately trying to swim in it whilst fighting against her feelings for her own husband. Sebastiano might not have recognised her fears but he’d recognised that she needed her mother when even Layla hadn’t recognised she needed her.
He’d known enough about the Sansom mother-daughter relationship, too, to know it was a need her mother would never refuse.
Her mother had only agreed to move from the hellhole because it was what Layla had wanted.
After resting the paintbrush she was holding on the tin, her mother lanced her again with her compassionate stare. ‘He isn’t your father. You do know that?’
Too choked to speak, Layla nodded.
‘Sebastiano loves you.’
She nodded again. He did love her.
And she loved him. Loved him with the same unhealthy obsessiveness that he loved her.
It was a love that had weaved into her veins and tightened its tendrils even as she’d kidded herself that she could guard her heart against him.
A ray of winter sunlight shone through the window and pierced Layla’s heart. She closed her eyes and let its warmth fill her, and when she opened them again, it was like opening them for the very first time.
Sebastiano loved her.
‘Mum, do you like this house?’
Confusion creased her mother’s brow. ‘You know I do.’
‘More than our old house?’
‘Much more.’ An impish grin widened her face. ‘It is nice to go into a garden and not be overcome with the fumes of cannabis plants when the wind’s blowing in the wrong direction.’
Layla burst into laughter. ‘I’m glad you said that, because it’s yours.’ Then she threw her arms around the woman who had sacrificed so much to bring Layla into the world and given her all the love and emotional security a child could wish for.
Holding her tightly, she whispered, ‘Thank you for everything. If I can be half as good a mother to my child as you’ve been to me then I will consider myself to have done a great job, but now it’s time to cut the apron strings. No more putting me first. You need to start living for you. Go and explore the world. Find yourself a lover. Find yourself two lovers! Whatever you want to do. Just get out there and start living.’
As she pulled apart from the embrace, tears welled in her mother’s eyes. ‘Oh, honey... I am so proud of you.’
‘Everything I am is because of you, so be proud of yourself.’
Her mum pressed a hand to her heart and sniffed as she smiled. ‘You’re going to him?’
Layla nodded and smiled her first real smile in so very long. ‘Yes. I’m going home.’
Home to the man she’d subconsciously found a different form of emotional security with from her very first night in his villa when she’d fallen into a deep, deep sleep.
It was late when Sebastiano returned to the villa.
He’d never felt so drained in his life. He had to force his leaden legs to climb the stairs.
He would sell the place. Find somewhere new. Somewhere Layla’s ghost didn’t haunt him.
He could smell her perfume, stronger than a memory, as if she’d very recently walked the mezzanine.
It was more than a man could endure.
But endure it he must. For the sake of his child.
Knowing that in a couple of months the life he and Layla had created together would be born was the one spot of brightness in a world that had turned so bleak.
He couldn’t even face sleeping in the bed they’d shared together. It didn’t matter how many times the sheets were changed—and he was having them changed daily for this very reason—her scent still permeated.
He dragged his legs into his bedroom. Her perfume was even stronger in here. He would brush his teeth and then get his head down in one of the guest rooms...
He came to an abrupt halt.
Closing his eyes, he counted to ten then opened them.
His lungs closed. His throat closed. His heart turned over.
Layla was on his bed.
She was naked. To her side was a pile of shredded paper.
Her left wrist was handcuffed to the bedpost.
Her beautiful forget-me-not eyes were staring at him, an emotion filling them that filled his own eyes with tears he could do nothing to stop.
He didn’t feel his legs move towards her.
Overwhelmed with the emotions swirling like a tempest inside him, he sat on the bed and gently placed his hand on her swollen belly. Movement beneath his palm turned his heart over again.
She smiled tremulously and nodded.
Wiping away a falling tear, he kissed the swell, right where his child had moved, and then reached for the tiny key she’d thrown out of her reach and unlocked the cuffs, pressing his lips to the delicate skin it had been wrapped around.
She gave another tremulous smile and palmed his cheek. ‘I love you, Sebastiano Russo,’ she said quietly, her forget-me-not eyes brimming with emotion. ‘With every fibre of my being. I love you and I do trust you.’
He sucked in a breath, hardly daring to believe what she was saying.
She smiled and kissed him gently. ‘You’re like a wounded animal when hurt but you never lie...except to yourself...and for all the wrongs you did after our night together and in the way you forced me to marry you, you always, always treated me with respect.’ She kissed him again then stared deep into his eyes. ‘You’re like a wounded animal when you’re hurt but I’m like one when I’m scared. The house was never about you, it was about me because I was too scared and you were too stubborn to admit the truth—that I belong to you and you belong to me and our baby belongs to us both until they’re old enough to belong to themselves.’
Overwhelmed, Sebastiano nuzzled his cheek against hers and breathed in the scent of Layla’s skin, still hardly daring to believe that he would spend the rest of his life breathing it.
Her hand cupped the back of his neck. Her nose rubbing into his temple, she whispered, ‘I’m not scared any more.’
And neither was he, Sebastiano thought dazedly as their mouths crushed together and their arms wrapped tightly around each other, and the light and warmth that came from the sexy angelic creature who loved him—Layla loved him!—seeped into his cold heart and brought him back to life.
It was a warmth that would fuel him for the rest of his life.