CHAPTER TEN
LATER,CESAREWOULD castigate himself for a great many things but chief among them that his first response was astonishment.
He froze.
He and Beatrice stared at each other.
“You must go after her,” Beatrice said huskily. Shakily.
And he didn’t know why he needed her to tell him that. It was as if he didn’t know how to behave in the face of that much anguish, but then it didn’t matter.
He tore down the stairs, trying to anticipate where his sister would go.
His second bad decision was assuming that she would go to her rooms and barricade herself inside, as she had done on other occasions. He got down the stairs and across the house in record time, but she wasn’t there.
And by the time he made it outside and around the front of the house, it was too late.
His sister, who’d long had an affinity for vehicles she was too young to drive, had helped herself to one of the groundskeeper’s carts, leaving nothing behind but a cloud of dust.
She was headed for the vineyards. And likely the hills and winding roads that would lead to tiny, medieval villages, and, eventually, Firenze.
He called for the keys to one of the SUVs and followed.
Up one hill, down another, and Mattea knew he was following her. She kept trying to go faster, and when that failed, she began to drive more and more recklessly, as if she thought she could shake him off her tail that way.
Cesare was beginning to wonder if he should fall back, so she would stop the wild stunts with a cart that was not built for such maneuvers—
But then it happened.
Mattea tried to take a sudden turn, too quickly. And Cesare watched in horror as the cart hit stone in the makeshift roadway, launched into the air, and threw his sister free, face-first, into the dirt.
And when he ran to her, she did not wake.
Everything after that seemed like a greasy, slick wheel of adrenaline and self-loathing. Cesare gathered her up as best he could, fully aware that choosing to do that was a risk itself, as he was no doctor and he could not be sure she had not damaged her neck.
But he did it anyway, laying her in his vehicle and calling in for help as he drove back to the house.
Like a maniac.
Then there was the rush to get Mattea up to her rooms again, to lay her out carefully on her bed, as they waited for the doctor he’d sent for to arrive. He had sent his helicopter.
“You must step back and let me look at her,” Beatrice said, sounding unnaturally calm to his ears. His blood was so loud in his ears he could hardly bear it, but he let her push through, remembering that she had cared for a great number of students in her time.
That she was not the problem here. He was, just as Mattea had accused him.
“She is breathing. Her pulse is weak, but there.” Beatrice frowned up at him. “There is no blood. No broken bones, as far as I can tell.”
He could not bring himself to hope. Or even respond.
Cesare knew he would never forget standing by his sister’s bed, wondering how exactly he had let this happen. He, who had always had a plan. He, who had been merciless in the execution of that plan across the years.
He, who had prided himself on his perfection.
More than that, he had looked down on those—including his sister—who could not live up to his expectations of a perfect, blameless existence and it was all for nothing. It was all a lie. Some foolishness he’d told himself to prop up his own ego.
Because the truth was that he was a man without control who’d had a one-night stand in Venice. Without protection. And now had a broken engagement, whether he had done the proposing or not. He was about to have a baby out of wedlock with a woman he might find fascinating, but he knew full well his own father would consider her beneath him. Because deep down, wasn’t that where Vittorio’s fury at Cesare’s mother come from? He had believed that an actress was beneath him, and was therefore furious that he could not control her as he felt was his due.
And none of that mattered, because he’d only had one true responsibility in all of that, and it was to keep his sister safe.
He’d thought that taking her away from her useless father had achieved that, but it hadn’t.
Cesare had failed in the only way that could ever matter. She was hurt. It was his fault.
He could not bear to imagine all the ways he would fail Beatrice and his own child too.
When the medical team arrived, they were thorough. When they were done examining Mattea, making certain that her minor cuts and bruises were attended to and that any potential for serious injury was explored, they delivered the verdict.
Their expectation was that she would be fine.
Though they were going to have to wait for her to wake up to be certain.
“Leave us,” Cesare muttered, because he could not allow himself to feel relief. Not until she woke up and they knew for certain. “Thank you.”
And though he’d meant that all the staff should step out, he was somehow unsurprised that Beatrice did not obey.
“I wish to be alone with my sister,” he said gruffly.
She didn’t even look at him. “No.”
He glared at her, and that felt better. It was someone to blame, and he liked that.
But Beatrice only swallowed, hard, her eyes on Mattea, and he couldn’t blame her for anything. “She was very clear, Cesare. She felt both of us betrayed her. I’m not leaving her side again. Not until she wakes up.”
Cesare found himself pacing, and he ran his hands through his hair as he moved. “This is my fault. I have always known what is required of me and I should not have lost sight of it. I should never have allowed myself to lose sight of it. Of her.”
And he could admit, when Beatrice did not react the way he expected her to, that he was spoiling for a fight. That he really did want to put this at her door, when he knew better. Pretending that she was the problem when he knew it was him was just weakness.
His weakness.
He was the one who had leaned in, back in that vineria. He was the one who’d asked her to dance. He had extended the invitation to her to join him in his hotel.
If there was any fault here, it was his.
It was always and ever his.
“When she wakes,” he said then, in a voice that did not quite feel like his. It was too precarious. Too uncertain and rough. “I will make absolutely certain that she wants for nothing. That her every need will be met, always. That there is never any—”
“I have an idea,” Beatrice interrupted him. He stopped, because he was so seldomly interrupted that he was not certain how one was meant to behave. And she aimed that steady gaze of hers straight into him. “Why don’t you try loving your sister? Why don’t you start a new legacy with that? How about, when she wakes up, you hug her and say it? I love you. See? It’s that simple.”
But if it was simple, it would not feel like a tectonic crisis, deep within him.
“You forget yourself,” he managed to say. “I will not deny there’s a passion between us, Beatrice, but you know nothing of this world. It is the world that Mattea and I live in, and always have, and believe me when I tell you I know it well. I do not need childish advice—”
“Childish?” Beatrice threw that word right back at him, her voice rising. Quite as if she was shouting at him. Shouting. At him. “I’m not the one who had a night like we did in Venice and then decided that a great idea would be to go out and get engaged to another woman. I’m not the one who failed to recognize the other thanks to a different hairstyle and a pair of glasses. How is it possible, Cesare, that a person can be as obviously intelligent and powerful as you are, and yet so very dumb?”
He thought that something in him...exploded. He felt it, shattered pieces everywhere, and it wasn’t as simple as temper. He knew how to deal with that. He’d learned, long ago, to shove it down, to keep it out of sight, to make sure he did not lapse off into jealous rages like his father.
But he was in pieces all the same.
“I was raised by two people who talked all the time about the love they shared when they were in public,” he found himself thundering back at Beatrice, across his sister’s still form. “And yet at home they were toxic. It was poison.”
“People aren’t perfect, Cesare,” Beatrice threw back at him. “Not a single one ever has been nor ever will be. People are messy. They make mistakes. They hurt each other, and they can’t always fix it. They seek forgiveness, and they don’t always get it. The most you can hope for is to love the people that you love, as hard as you can and as best as you can, because that’s the only thing in this world that you can be sure of.”
“Beatrice.” And her name came out of his mouth like a plea. “I can give you anything you desire. We will make more children, as many as you like. If what you truly want is a family, I will give you one. But do not speak to me of love. Ever.”
And she looked crushed, then. As if she was the one who’d been tossed out of a cart like that, breakable and so fragile, then thrown face-first into the dirt.
That image broke something in him.
But if there was a way to repair it, he didn’t know it. He had the terrible notion that all of his wealth and all of his power could do absolutely nothing at all to fix this.
Why don’t you try loving? she had asked him.
Beatrice, his unflappable, indomitable headmistress, was shaking now. There on the other side of his sister’s bed, she shook, and he had done this. He had delivered that wound.
Cesare had never wanted to go to her more. The pull to her was so intense he thought it was possible it would cut him in half—
But then, the real tragedy was that he lived. He took a breath, and nothing was better. Another, and still she only stared back at him. One more, and his sister stayed still, while Beatrice waited for him to be the man he wasn’t.
Cesare could not seem to make himself move. And Beatrice’s gaze grew more and more haunted as she looked back at him.
This was how a vibrant creature like his mother, capable of lighting up a screen with her smile—not to mention every room she’d ever walked into—became so small. It happened over time. One disappointment after the next, each and every one of them delivered by the men she wanted to trust.
He opened his mouth to tell her this, but he couldn’t make his throat work. He slashed a hand through the air instead, but it did not convey the message he wanted. It did not warn Beatrice off.
All it did was change that look in her eyes to something worse. It looked like compassion.
“I can’t keep you from hurting your sister,” she said quietly. “All she wants from you is what you gave her today. Just love her, Cesare. Spend time with her, like she matters. That’s all she needs. That’s all anyone needs. Love, time, and hope that there will be more of both.”
“I can give you anything in the world,” he managed to get out, his voice the faintest scrape of sound. “But I can’t promise you that.”
“You don’t want to,” she corrected him. Cesare watched as she stood a little straighter. He could see her throat move. “But you need to understand that I won’t let you do this to my baby.”
That hit him like a blow. “Both of you will be cared for. Always. How can you doubt this?”
Beatrice’s eyes took on a light Cesare did not like at all. “I don’t want care. I had care, Cesare. I even had decent care, which is more than many people in my position could say. But I want love. And for this baby? I demand it.”
Her own words seemed to shock her. She drew in a breath as if she hadn’t quite intended to say that.
Cesare could only look back at her, stricken.
But she wasn’t done. “I want love,” she said again. “And if you can’t give it, I want you to leave us alone. I want a real family, Cesare. I refuse to give my child anything less. This baby will know only love at home, all its life. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”
And he wanted to tell her whatever it took to make her stay, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t make his throat work. His sister still lay so still in that bed, and he was responsible for that, too. On the very day he had tried to tell her that he loved her as much as he was able. And now the mother of his child was standing before him, asking him for things he could not give.
It was all a mess. It was his mess. But he could see no way out of it.
Across from him, Beatrice lowered her gaze. She’d pulled on clothes, but left off the glasses. Her hair was swept back into a bun, but this one was far looser. It was soft, with tendrils that fell out and framed her face. It suited her far more.
In the midst of all of this, it felt like a gift.
Maybe that was why, when she turned and headed for the door with something close to her usual determined stride, he let his eyes fall shut. He let his head go back.
And somehow, though his throat was tight, he got out one single word.
“Don’t.”
And when he didn’t hear her open the door, he forced himself, with everything he had inside, to get out one more. The one that mattered most, and one he rarely uttered.
Not when it could only be what it was. Cesare Chiavari, begging.
He almost thought he wouldn’t manage it, but he did.
For her, he managed to eke it out. “Please.”