CHAPTER FIVE
LOUISAWATCHEDAS the landscape slid by through the car’s tinted window. Matteo had told her he had some surprises for her, then organised for their belongings to be packed, bundled her into another luxury vehicle and they’d exited his hotel, leaving the bustle of Milan behind them. Whilst she’d admired that he’d been a man of action in the days earlier, she was a little tired of being...bundled. Some hints might have been nice, minus the arrogance of Matteo’s certainty that she’d like what he had in mind.
Though she did rather enjoy this. They’d left the city and headed north, so she’d been told. Now, their car travelled along a narrow road bordered on one side by houses, stone walls and greenery, and on the other, a vivid blue lake before a backdrop of mountains. It was vast. Take-your-breath-away beautiful. The sunshine sparkling on the water, little boats dotting the surface.
Lake Como, he’d told her as the water had first come into view. At least he’d finally told her something.
Though talk about take your breath away... She dragged her gaze from the view to glance at Matteo, sitting next to her. Looking effortlessly casual in navy-coloured chinos and a white polo shirt that only accentuated the warm brown of his skin. A large golden watch gleaming at his wrist. He was talking on his phone again. Giving instructions in Italian. She wondered where he’d learned the language so fluently, and why. Another question that she wondered whether he’d give her an answer to. Even though he never seemed to stop working, he looked well rested, as though he had no worries in the world.
As if it were his to rule. When she still wasn’t sure some days why life was so chaotic and hard.
Oddly her life seemed a little less chaotic and hard now that Matteo was in it. Which was difficult to understand when he wanted to evict her from her home. She could refuse him. Say she was going to stay. Though she wasn’t sure how that would work, since the place was currently unliveable...
‘Where are we going to this time?’ she asked as the unfamiliar countryside flew past.
‘My villa.’
A tiny thrill ran through her. What would one of his houses be like? A modern masterpiece or something else? She’d noticed a subtle change in him as they’d travelled. He seemed more relaxed now, something about him less hard, more...fluid. Such a presence about him, he filled the cabin of the car with it. In this enclosed space the scent of him was like walking through some heady spice market. It scrambled her senses.
Then Matteo smiled and that smile reached his eyes, the corners crinkling as if he was truly happy. In that moment, she could barely breathe.
‘You’ll enjoy it,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
Promises were fraught things. They led to so much expectation yet often failed on delivery. Bitter experience with her mother had taught her not to believe in them.
‘Isn’t there a quote, promises were made to be broken?’
‘I don’t break mine.’ It was said as a fact she should simply accept. ‘And I told you I have a few surprises for you when we get there.’
He didn’t say anything more, yet the faint, self-satisfied smile on his face as they reached an ornate iron gate, which opened before them like magic, told her that he was pretty pleased with himself.
The car’s tyres crunched on a gravel drive that followed the lake. Soon, they pulled up outside a magnificent two-storey villa, painted a warm ochre with blue-shuttered windows. The gardens surrounding were clipped and restrained, unlike the wild tangle of Easton Hall. Yet whilst it was all so unfamiliar, something about the surrounds eased a tension inside her. It was as if her whole body could let out a sigh. The privacy of it all. Expansive lake on one side, tree-covered hills to the other.
He opened the door of the car, got out. She followed.
‘Home sweet home,’ she said.
‘As I’ve said before, I don’t have a home. Not as you define it. This is a convenient base when I have to take care of business in Italy.’
‘Then why have it at all?’
‘It was good value.’ He shrugged his broad, strong shoulders. ‘I contemplated turning it into one of my hotels.’
He led her towards the front door of the villa. She took a moment to stop, look out over the gardens terraced down to the lake beyond. Sucked in a deep breath. The air here was warmer than home. Scented with jasmine and citrus blossom. To the right of the door sat a plaque: Villa Arcadia.
Arcadia was the name of his hotel chains.
‘Which came first?’ she asked, nodding to the sign. ‘The house or the hotels?’
Something triggered in the back of her brain. Arcadia meant something. Louisa couldn’t remember what. She’d have to look it up.
‘The house. It’s the first I ever purchased.’
He unlocked the door and led her inside to an entrance hall with a marble floor topped with a Persian carpet runner. Furniture, the warm honey of polished antiques.
‘Why nowhere in the UK?’ she asked. She would have thought his first property purchase would have been there.
‘I have an affinity here. My heritage is Italian.’
That admission surprised her. ‘How do you know?’
Back when she was young, her mother used to speak of the benevolence of Matteo’s adoptive parents. How they’d taken in a foundling as their own, as if it was some great charity. Yet in her family’s eyes, it hadn’t made him a true Bainbridge.
‘Family history DNA.’ He shut the front door behind him and all of him seemed to shut down too, close off with the clear warning that this wasn’t something he wanted to talk about, so she didn’t press.
‘I thought you’d want to see your surprises,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’
Matteo gave her an encouraging smile to accompany the deft change of subject, focussing on her once more. Another smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He showed her through the house, in many ways like his hotels with its neutral colours. Bright with sunlight in every room. Yet this place was burnished with age. The eclectic combination of antiques with modern touches giving the villa an elegantly casual nudge into the present, which strangely felt like him.
‘I-it’s beautiful.’
Most rooms she saw opened onto a view of gardens or the lake, with expanses of glass. There was simply no place for any darkness here.
‘Thank you. I hope you’ll enjoy it.’
He led her up an internal staircase to the second floor, down another corridor, to a closed door.
‘This is your room,’ he said with almost a flourish as he pushed the door open and she walked inside.
Louisa took a few moments, scanning the space. The room had another glorious view of the lake but that wasn’t what held her attention. The space disoriented her because, whilst there was a different view outside, the inside seemed achingly familiar. Her heart stuttered.
It was almost as if her room at Easton Hall had been lifted complete and placed here. Her bed. The rocking chair in the corner that used to be her father’s. The rug on the floor. The paintings on the walls. Everything, down to the sketch pad and pens on the bedside table. Matteo stood at the door, head cocked to the side. Watching her. Not as if she were someone strange. But with a look on his face that was softer than she’d seen before.
Her heart filled with something warm and bright as the sunshine outside. A sensation gifting her that most cherished of feelings, hope, that in the mess of all of this, something could go right for once.
She didn’t know what to do, what to say. It overwhelmed her. Instead, she ran to Matteo and simply hurled herself into him. He caught her with an ‘oof’ and then his strong arms wrapped round her. Keeping her together. Keeping her safe. Like the night he’d carried her out of Easton Hall when she’d been too paralysed to move.
Tears prickled her eyes.
‘Thank you. It’s everything I could have wanted,’ she said, her voice cracking. Burying her face into his muscular chest. His heart thumping a steady, comforting beat. Other things came to her awareness. How solid he was. The heat and muscle of him. His stance didn’t change, but something about him relaxed into her. The way they began meld together. His hands loosely stroking up and down her spine. She breathed him in, the scent of freshly laundered clothes and the spicy scent she’d begun to associate with him in the car...
She craved to simply absorb him into her. Have him fill every empty space. Her nipples tightened in her bra. Heat built between her legs. Naked want became like a living thing. Grabbing her by the throat, leaving her breathless. He shifted his legs, spread them a little wider, his hand on her back drifting a little lower before stopping. He loosened his arms, and she looked up at him, tears pooling in her eyes. Not caring that he could see the emotion.
‘You can’t know what this means to me.’
‘I wanted to make you feel at home.’
His eyelids were hooded, golden brown eyes almost drowned out by his fathomless pupils. His lashes, impossibly long. Stubble darkening his angular jaw. Matteo’s lips parted as if trying to get more air, then his gaze flicked. To her eyes, lips, throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed in a swallow.
She wished she could be the sort of woman who’d know what to do here, rather than a person who sketched her fantasies instead of acting them out for real. If she were the type of person who took chances, she might get up on her toes and press her lips to his. But chances meant risk and risk had ceased to have any part in her life, long ago.
She tried to give him a happy smile, which halted with the merest of frowns creasing his brow as she stepped back from his embrace. Trying to pretend that nothing had happened, when it was as if the world had tilted on its axis.
‘How did you manage it? I thought we couldn’t go into the house.’
‘You’d be surprised what I’m able to do,’ he said.
She wasn’t, not now. Louisa thought he could achieve just about anything he put his mind to. Somewhere in the far reaches of her consciousness that realisation sounded a prickle of warning, but she was too overcome to pay it any attention.
‘I heard you talking to the stylist about your clothes. I’m having them professionally cleaned. The soft furnishings were smoke damaged, but I requested as close a facsimile as I could get for your room here.’
‘I-it’s very kind of you.’ What more could she say? She was completely overcome by the thought and his generosity.
He shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’
The unmoved expression on his face told her he thought it was nothing.
‘You don’t understand.’ She shook her head. How to make him see that this meant something more? ‘It shows that you thought of me. For so many years, people only thought of themselves. This is rare, because in my life not many people have been kind.’
Kind? He wasn’t kind. Other words were routinely used to describe him. Business magazines called him driven. His opposition called him ruthless. Women he dated might have called him focussed during the early stages, then remote just before their fling inevitably ended. He was a man who got what he wanted, and one word never used to describe him was kind.
He’d brought her things to Italy for his own ends because he wanted her comfortable. Comfortable was the place where he would encourage her to relinquish her right to reside. She’d see a world not to fear, but to explore. Why would she ever want to go back to Easton Hall after that?
Matteo turned and walked to the window, placing his hands on the ledge, pretending to look at the magnificent view he never really had the time to stop and take in anymore. Willing himself not to turn round, take Louisa into his arms again. Kiss her. He almost laughed. A kind man wouldn’t be thinking those thoughts.
It had been another moment with Louisa in his arms. The softness of her body. The curves. The warmth. With another woman, he might explore the situation. But he was no fool. There was no way she could be anything other than entirely innocent. Whilst he was all for something more casual, for a woman like her with sex would come love. They walked hand in hand, which was why in the past he’d only dated woman with the same sense of world-weariness as himself. Women who knew what they wanted, took it when offered, and walked away. This was a woman who’d want romance and gentle words, seduction and softness. Eliciting her sighs of pleasure. They’d be the sweetest of music...
Why was he even thinking of that? None of these things were for him. He didn’t do romance. He certainly didn’t do love. He didn’t know what it was. His childhood had proven to him that it didn’t exist.
Those thoughts were enough to crush any desire right out of him. He realised long ago that his sole purpose in life was to succeed despite his family, to exact his revenge of taking their most prized possession. His success was the only thing that made people want him. Buzzing about like bees to the wealthy honeypot. It was how it had always been, people wanting him, not for who he was, the orphaned boy, but what he could provide them. For his parents, being an heir until his sister was born and he was cast aside. As for others, it was all about his power, his position. At least people were transparent that way. No longer would anyone fool him into believing they wanted Matteo Bainbridge the man. It was easier to know they wanted him for material things. Life was predictable then. There were no cruel surprises.
Matteo took a deep breath. He couldn’t stare out of the window indefinitely. There was more he needed to show her. He turned round and Louisa was looking about the room. For the first time since leaving Easton Hall she seemed calmer. All of her, smoothed out. A slight smile on her face as her gaze fell on all of her familiar things. He wanted her to look at him again as if he was a man who could solve all her problems. There was something gratifying about it, something that stroked an ego he didn’t even realise was important to him. If it could get him what he wanted in the end? All the better.
‘There’s more to show you,’ he said.
‘More? Haven’t you done enough with this?’
She swept her arms wide around the room. This was nothing. Paying an engineer to urgently assess the living spaces of Easton Hall to safely allow people to collect her things. Hiring a team of interior decorators to find what matched the items that were smoke-and-water-damaged, fit everything in. Sure, he might have told them what room he thought suited best in the villa. The one with the finest view because Lake Como was beautiful at this time of the year.
But it happened because of his money, for no other reason.
Sadly, she didn’t seem to want the money to leave Easton Hall. That would change. It always did. He just had to find the right price.
‘I want to make sure you have what you need here,’ he said. ‘It’s downstairs this time.’
She laughed and it was a joyous sound, like birdsong in the early morning. ‘Why didn’t you show me that first?’
‘I thought you’d want to know where you were sleeping. That seems important to you.’
The smile on her face dimmed a little, all of her becoming more contemplative. ‘So few people understand.’
He didn’t. Not at all. Still, he could pretend.
But the thought of that pretence made something in his chest tighten. He rubbed at it, a strange kind of ache. Because in this moment he wanted to understand what made someone desire a place, a sense of belonging. Wanted to understand the woman.
Something about Louisa fascinated him. With so much hidden he was almost compelled to unravel all her secrets. What made a young woman stay in a home caring for her older relative? Eschew everything that appeared to signify modern style? Over the past years, working most days and rarely taking a break, he seemed to have lost his curiosity. Every interaction was one of problem and solution. Week after week, always on the move, putting out spot fires. With Louisa, he had the overwhelming desire to simply stop and learn more.
In the past, that curiosity had been dangerous.
‘Do you want to know why you don’t look like your parents?’
His whole life Matteo had been surrounded by people with blonde hair, pale skin and glacial blue eyes. He’d never really thought about why his skin tanned in the sun or his eyes were brown until his older cousin had pointed it out.
Then, he’d wanted to know.
‘You’re a fake.’
Curiosity killed the cat...
He’d approached his parents and that day they’d told him the truth. That he was adopted, but it didn’t make any difference. Until Felicity came along and fell ill. Then their lies were exposed.
Yet his adoption was old news. Not something he needed to think about any more. Being curious about Louisa would never be a bad thing. If he learned more, he could work out how to get her to leave Easton Hall.
All he needed was the right trigger point.
He almost looked forward to seeing how the game would play out between them. Whether he could coax anything more than the occasional whisper of pink on her cheeks from her. She seemed so...restrained. Then a vision flashed into his head of his fingers running through her glorious red hair, gripping it, drawing her head back to expose her perfect pale neck...
No. He needed to remind his errant body that seduction wasn’t the game here. He was simply reacting to a beautiful woman unlike anyone he’d ever met before. It was the novelty of her.
Novelties always wore off.
‘Come with me,’ he said, motioning out of the door of her room.
They went back down the stairs, Louisa walking beside him in one of the dresses she’d modelled for him a couple of days earlier. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction to see her wearing what he’d provided for her. To know that she liked it.
‘I can see why you have an affinity for this place,’ she said. ‘I think it would be easy to love.’
There was that word again. Love. He didn’t understand it.
‘The UK’s never seemed like home to me.’
‘Why?’
What admission could he make that didn’t damn him? The adopted child, unwanted by his birth mother. Unwanted by his adoptive family. What did that make him? Better to talk about what he could answer.
‘When I found out I had Italian heritage, I visited here.’
To see if he could find any hint of the family he’d been sure was out there, somewhere, even though the DNA testing had turned up no relatives. It was as if his birth mother, father, had dissolved into the past as though they’d never existed. He was the only evidence that they’d lived at all. In the end he had himself, and that was what mattered.
Except he now had responsibility for Louisa too...
She looked over at him. ‘And you felt something.’
‘Yes.’
‘If it were me, I’d say it felt like I’d come home.’
Was that right? It couldn’t be. He hadn’t wanted or needed a home in years, and it was freeing.
‘No. Here was a place to start.’
Italy was the country of firsts. This property, his first boutique hotel. Milestones of his success. That was all.
‘Have you ever looked for your birth family?’
‘A little.’
A lie. He’d paid a small fortune to a well-regarded investigator, without success. Matteo needed to shut the conversation down. He didn’t do this, the sharing. It was meaningless, reminding him of all that was wrong in his life rather than focussing on the important things, like moving forwards. Like the anticipation of showing Louisa the next room he had for her. Perhaps receiving another hug. Though how much better would a kiss be? Would...more be...?
‘Did you find them?’
Louisa had stopped so he did too. He looked at her, face soft, full of what he feared was empathy when she shouldn’t really care. No one else ever had. His throat tightened. Matteo shook his head.
‘My birth parents? I’ve accepted I never will.’
She reached out, not with an exuberant full body hug, but with her hand. Touched his forearm, squeezed. Her grip surprisingly strong. He’d always thought of her as so small and fragile, yet he was beginning to think he might have underestimated her.
‘I’m sorry, that must be difficult if you’ve wanted to meet them. Especially if you and your family...’
Her hand was hot on his forearm, burning like a brand. He pulled his arm away. Louisa rubbed her palm with her thumb. Her mouth slightly open. Those moss-green eyes of hers looking at him, as if deep into his soul. He didn’t like that look, or what she might find there if she searched hard enough.
‘I accept my life. It doesn’t bother me. Anyhow, this isn’t about me, it’s about you.’
He smiled, but there was no pleasure in it. The type of smile he’d cultivated to use in business, one that did the job with no emotion underpinning it.
‘O-okay.’
Louisa seemed hesitant as he led her to another room he’d chosen, one that had been an informal lounge. Large French doors leading out onto a paved terrace, decorated with pots of citrus trees, lavender and flowers. One of the best views of the lake from the bottom floor.
As Louisa walked in her gaze turned straight to the corner. Instead of flinging herself into his arms, she ran over to it. Her art desk, where she did her illustrations.
‘Her work’s really something.’
That was what one of his contractors had said, after they’d called him to report successfully moving her things. The jealousy that had spiked through him at those words, when he’d never seen her pictures, was like a knife to his belly. He wanted her to offer. To show him. Yet she didn’t say anything other than to check through the sketchbooks, as if cataloguing whether anything was missing. Louisa opened a drawer, peered inside the desk. Rummaged through everything with gentle, almost reverent hands.
‘It’s all here.’
‘I should hope so. When I ask people to do a job, they do it.’
There was no excitement this time. Not like upstairs. He didn’t know why that disappointed him, or what he’d really expected. She walked over to the doors leading to the patio. Tested one almost as if she wanted to escape, but it was locked. The light shone in from outside, and she was backlit, the skirt of her dress becoming sheer, her legs silhouetted like a soft pastel smudge through the fabric.
She said nothing, just looked out at the lake.
‘I hope you’re happy. I know how important the deadline is to you.’
Louisa reached up her hand to her face as if brushing something away. Then she turned. Her smile was a tremulous, fragile thing. Her eyes a little red, gleaming with tears. It was like a gut punch, striking all the air from him. He started forwards.
‘Louisa.’
Like a few days before, he wasn’t sure why the reaction to her tears was such a visceral thing. As he moved closer, he wanted to take her into his arms, wrap her tight and soothe those tears away. He could. It wouldn’t take much. A few steps.
Instead, he stayed right where he was.
‘Thank you, I...’ She took a deep breath, her shoulders rising and falling. ‘Your thoughtfulness... In my life...nothing’s ever really felt like it was about me.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘Life’s not fair.’
The words carried so much weight. A heaviness falling across everything. Of course, both her parents had died, leaving her in the care of Mae, who, in the end, she’d had to care for too. ‘No, it isn’t.’
She nodded, then turned back to the scene in front of her. This was one of his favourite rooms in the house. He hoped she liked it too.
‘It’s perfect. I couldn’t have asked for more in the circumstances.’
That was his reminder. He had a job to do, to convince her to leave Easton Hall. To fight off the family too, who were still making noises about challenging the will...
‘The world’s a beautiful place.’ He had hotels and retreats in some of the most sought-after places on the planet. ‘Venice, with its spectacular arched bridges and canals. Jaipur, the Pink City. Or the Whitsundays, with some of the most exquisite beaches in the world. I’ve been almost everywhere.’
‘I’ve never been to the beach.’
She said it quietly, almost as if it was some terrible admission. He couldn’t fathom it, not ever having seen the ocean. Not having travelled. Why hadn’t Mae pushed her harder? He gritted his teeth. Instead, Louisa was hidden away when there was a whole world to explore. If she was afraid to go on her own, he could show it all to her. The bright lights of New York, in the city that never slept. The pyramids of Egypt, with all their history. The beauty of Paris, the romance...
Why was he thinking of romance? Never once had thoughts of it entered his head before, not even when he’d bought his first hotel there. It was simply another place to stay in his nomadic life.
‘I have a beach here. On the lake. There are a few public ones but mine’s private. It might not be the ocean, but I can show you if you like? We could go there now.’
He wanted that look on her face again, of joy. Her laughter.
She smiled. It was a fragile, tremulous kind of thing. ‘I’d like that. Maybe a bit later? I want to set up my workspace first. Make a start. I—I’ve never missed a deadline before, and I’d like to get back on track.’
His gut clenched, almost like disappointment. Though why he should have any sense of that was beyond him. He had work to do. Another brief report from the structural engineer to read about Easton Hall. Insurance claims to consider. After that, he’d take her to the lake. They could treat this like a holiday for her, a grand adventure. Then she’d see that returning to live in a mouldering old stately home in the country was a complete waste. That there was a world to see and he’d pay her very well to allow her the means of doing so. If she travelled, she could stay at any one of his retreats or hotels, then he’d know she was safe and looked after. He’d be fulfilling his promise to Mae.
It all made complete sense. Though he wasn’t sure why the bile rose bitter in his throat, thinking of it all.
‘How long do you need?’
‘A couple of hours?’
She walked back to her desk. To the brushes and the sketchbooks. Her paints. There, he witnessed a look. It was difficult to define. Something like true happiness.
Had he ever found anything like it in his work? It was more a means to an end. Something he was good at. Was it his passion?
Matteo wasn’t sure. What he did drove him every day. He’d done better than he’d ever believed possible when he’d first started out. Was known around the world as providing the finest luxury retreats and hotels where privacy and comfort reigned. A home away from home only...better.
And what made him the best of the best were his drive and perfectionism. He rarely had a day away from it. Allowed himself no distractions. Yet Louisa seemed to be occupying more and more of his thinking time. Easton Hall he could understand, given that was part of his plan, yet that place and Louisa were inextricably bound. He needed to keep his eyes on the prize, finally wrestling the home away from the clutches of his family and into his business. The ultimate win.
He watched Louisa getting to work. Today, her hair was bound in a long plait down her back. How he longed to see it loose again, spilling long and red in its perfect copper waves.
Later.
‘I’ll be back in two hours, then,’ he said, before walking to the door. Already, Louisa had begun immersing herself in her work. She’d slipped on reading glasses. The first time he’d seen her in them since the day he’d arrived at Easton Hall. They made her look...cute. Almost studious. Another side to her that he craved to explore.
He shook his head. No. She was a distraction he needed to ignore.
Yet why did leaving the room seem like one of the hardest things he’d ever done?