Chapter Six #2
‘Ivy? You mean, after you invited her to a wedding on the day that she knew you’d discovered that I was pregnant? I don’t think even the most gullible would have believed that it was true love, Micha.’
He sighed, impatient with her answer.
‘I told her that you were ridiculously happy. That it was the best news you’d ever heard,’ she said, her angry whisper the opposite of her words.
‘I told her that you confessed that you’d always loved me, ever since…
’ And she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bring herself to touch on the precious, tender, painful past they shared.
‘And that…you’d only ever imagined a future with me in it and…
that you wanted to marry me and make me and our child happy.
’ Her explanation stuttered out past hurts and long-forgotten dreams and heartache that felt fresh even to this day.
God, how she wished the story she’d spun around their betrothal was true.
Tears pressed against the backs of her eyes and she turned away, biting her lip until the sting of pain pushed back the emotional rollercoaster her pregnancy had pushed her into.
‘Va bene.’
She closed her eyes, hoping to compose herself, pressing a hand against the tight neckline that was making it hard for her to breathe.
‘Take that off. It’s making me uncomfortable,’ he ordered.
She scoffed. ‘Making you uncomfortable? You don’t have to wear it.’
‘Neither do you,’ he pointed out with infuriating rationality. ‘So, take it off.’
‘I can’t. You sent away the assistant,’ she threw at him accusingly.
He glared at her before closing the distance between them in long, powerful strides.
She watched him in the reflection of the mirror as he came behind her on the raised dais, gently kicking the wide expanse of the skirts out of the way so that he could get close enough to where the zip was concealed by a row of one hundred satin-covered buttons.
She felt the heat of him across the bare skin of her shoulder blades, inhaled the scent of leather and spice, something tempting.
Her heart pounded against her ribcage, her body craving his expert touch, aflame with need that whipped up like an unexpected tornado that touched down over them, keeping them in the eye of a storm that had not exhausted itself three months ago.
He stared down at the zip that would set her free. Breath caught in her lungs, pressing her chest deeper against the neckline that was so confining. And for a heartbeat his gaze flickered between her back and her chest in the mirror in front of her and she wanted to… She wanted to…
Surrender.
She was a madness in his blood. How could it be that he had not satiated his desire already? How could it be that even as he fought and railed against what he’d been forced to do—what he’d forced her into, marriage—that still he wanted her? Self-recrimination was powerful, harsh and swift.
He found the tab at the top of the zip and yanked it free, stepping away from the dais before he could do what he really wanted to do. Which was rip the dress from her body and take her like the animal he truly was beneath all outward signs of sophistication.
He gritted his teeth and shoved his fisted hands into his pockets as he focused solely on the dresses around him—anything other than where Maria was navigating her way out of that monstrosity and into a satin dressing gown that did nothing to hide the perfection of her body.
Cazzo.
But damn, it was better than the look in her eyes just before…the glistening of her eyes, the tremble of the lip she’d tried to hide from him. He hated that she did that, kept what she was feeling from him. But he understood it. After all, couldn’t he say the same?
They didn’t trust each other. How could they? But they would need to. If they were going to get through this, they would have to do it together.
‘Why did you let her put you in that thing?’ he asked, genuinely curious and a little surprised that she had let the assistant put her in that dress.
There was a moment’s hesitation.
‘She is trying to make me look…slimmer.’
Slimmer? He opened his mouth to object, until he realised what she was saying. She was trying to hide her pregnancy. Their pregnancy.
‘Are you ashamed?’ he asked, spinning round to confront her, struggling with the anger that was so quick to ignite. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow her to be ashamed of their child…of him.
He saw the clench of her teeth, the little flutter of the muscle at her jaw, the way her body straightened as if ready to fight, always ready to fight.
‘I am not, and never will be, ashamed of my child,’ she said with a blaze of glory that made him both proud and instantly relieved.
‘And I will do everything in my power to protect our child from whatever snide comments and meanness comes their way, from whatever quarter; family, friend or foe. But,’ she said, her shoulders threatening to slump, ‘I would just like to avoid, if possible, any nasty speculation on our wedding day.’
And when she turned her back to him to reach for a glass of water, he remembered how much she’d always dreamed of a huge white wedding, a church full of her friends and family, of the perfect dress.
He saw how that in some small way she was trying to keep hold of that fantasy.
And he understood that. He knew how mean the Gallos could be.
They were like a pack of hyenas when they got it in their minds.
But she was one of them. And she had chosen them.
She will always choose them.
Gio’s voice echoed in his mind as he scanned the rails of dresses that lined the walls of the dressing area.
A cream silk confection caught his eye and he pulled the sleek-lined dress from the rack.
Further down was another—a gently corseted dress with a sweetheart neckline, and one last one that was the complete opposite of either: lace detailed over the lightest gauze, with tiny little sparkling diamonds.
Just behind it, though, was a dress that stopped him in his tracks.
The neckline dropped in a sweeping V into a wide belted waist, long draped material fell from slightly puffed shoulder sleeves into cuffs at the wrist and the skirt fell away in a swathe of oyster silk.
It was soft, romantic, all the things Maria rejected, but had never managed to fully hide about herself.
It was the dress he’d have chosen for her eleven years ago.
But they weren’t seventeen. Not any more.
And too much had passed between then and now for them to go back.
Instead, he reached for the dress with the sparkling diamonds and placed all three on the back of an empty chair.
‘One of these will do,’ he said, forcing a boredom into his voice he knew she would view as a challenge. Far better for her to be angry than upset.
He checked his watch, trying to ignore the way a delicate blush pinked her cheeks.
‘I have to go. You will be okay?’
‘I was perfectly okay before you got here,’ she growled like an angry kitten and he tried not to smile.
‘You were about to let a woman convince you to wear a dress that made you look like a pornographic milk maid. You were not okay.’
‘Get out!’
This time he couldn’t hold it back. The laugh fell from his lips like sand slipping through his fingers, unstoppable and horrifyingly easy.
It wasn’t mean, there was nothing nasty in it, nothing tainted the air between them and he wasn’t completely sure but he thought he saw her smile, a glitter in her eyes that wasn’t sad, or hurt.
But then the laughter quietened, leaving a silence between them that wasn’t hot like it had been in Paris, or hurt like it had been earlier that week.
It was something that was too close to what they’d had before.
He nodded once, to himself, as if putting a full stop on the exchange.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow night.’
‘Tomorrow night?’ she asked.
‘Si, did you not check your emails? We have the rehearsal dinner.’
The pretty blush on her cheeks paled, leaving her looking wan under the harsh lighting. ‘We can’t,’ she said, and just like that, they were back to where they always were. At loggerheads, with her ashamed to be with him and him never being good enough for her.
‘We can and we will, cara,’ he decreed, before turning on his heel and cursing whatever foolishness had made him think, even for a second, otherwise.
Maria watched him leave, wishing that they could have held onto that moment just a little bit longer.
That brief reprieve from the constant anger and resentment that simmered between them.
But it was hopeless. Too much time had gone, too much hurt.
Gio had chosen Micha, Micha had chosen him and the only person Maria could choose was herself.
Then and now.
She looked over to the rack that Micha had chosen the three dresses from and, unable to help herself, crossed the room.
One by one, she flicked through the dresses, hoping to find what had caught his eye—the dress he’d not chosen for her.
She frowned as she passed glittering sparkles and lace, not thinking it would have been one of those until…
There. It was beautiful. Simple lines, the low V suiting her chest size, the soft, loose, but utterly elegant drapes of silk were romantic and would hide the small thickening of her waist without constriction.
‘Oh, that’s perfect!’ Ivy cried from behind her. ‘You must try it on,’ she insisted.
Maria bit her lip and swallowed. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she replied, instinctively knowing that it was perfect and that she should try it on. But if he’d wanted to see her in it…
And since when did you start doing whatever the men in your life wanted you to do?
Since they won, Maria mentally replied.
She settled the dresses back on the rack, hoping that the dress would get lost in among the others, but knowing that she’d find it again in a heartbeat if she wanted to.
She shook herself out of the melancholy of the moment and turned to Ivy with a smile.
‘The groom himself chose three dresses for me, so I suppose I should give those a go first, yes?’
Ivy nodded, but the concern was still bright in the light blue eyes that stared back at Maria. Forcing a little more effort into her smile, she rubbed Ivy’s arm in reassurance and returned to the dais with one of the dresses Micha had chosen.
‘You know that you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,’ Ivy said, her eyes firmly fixed on Maria, who concentrated on getting herself into the corseted dress with the sweetheart neckline.
Where was the assistant?
‘Maria?’
The zip was nearly impossible to undo and she hadn’t even got herself into it yet. Her fingers struggled with the tiny little piece of plastic, but everything was just so blurry she couldn’t see. She wiped her eye with the back of her hand and was surprised when it came back wet.
‘Maria,’ Ivy said, much closer to her this time, putting her hands over where Maria’s fingers clutched the zip.
Ivy gently pushed the dress away and wrapped her arms around her tightly, as Maria’s breath shuddered in her lungs.
So slowly, so slightly, Maria felt herself gently rocked and soothed by her cousin’s wife.
‘Let’s run away,’ Ivy whispered into her ear, and Maria let out a bark of miserable laughter.
‘Just you and me. Antonio will catch us up. Micha will never find us. You know what Antonio is like when he puts his mind to something. We’ll all live together, and raise our children and have nothing but blue skies, laughter and all the love we need. ’
Maria didn’t think her heart could take the idyllic picture that a woman who had quickly become like a sister to her had painted.
She wanted it so badly. But she knew she couldn’t do it.
Couldn’t have it. Because when she imagined it, Micha was there.
Not scowling or angry, or bitter. But smiling and happy and… That was nothing but a fantasy.
‘Let me do this for you. Let me kidnap you,’ Ivy begged.
That the English librarian who was so very different from Maria would do that for her warmed some of the hurt and filled some of the fractures in her heart.
She knew that Ivy felt guilty, that she and Antonio had fallen in love with each other.
And that if they hadn’t, then Antonio would have married her—as directed by Gio Gallo’s last will and testament—and they would have inherited Gallo Group, and Antonio would have given it over to her entirely, having no personal or professional interest in running it himself.
‘Grazie, Ivy. I believe you’d do it too,’ Maria laughed sadly.
‘I would,’ she replied fiercely. ‘You’re not alone, Maria. You will never be alone again.’
But Maria thought that Ivy was wrong. It was clear that Ivy didn’t realise that sometimes you could be lonelier in a marriage than you could ever be outside of one.
And it was devastating to Maria to realise that despite all her intentions to avoid being like her parents—like her mother—she had ended up in exactly the same position.
Only, unlike her mother, Maria thought as she swept a hand over her abdomen, she wouldn’t allow her child to become caught in the crossfire of such emotional neglect.
She would do better, be better. She would, Maria realised, fight everyone and everything to ensure that her child grew up never feeling the sting of being deemed unworthy or inferior for any reason.
But that had to start with her, first. She had to find her armour again, she realised as she looked back to the rack of dresses.
‘You’re coming to the rehearsal dinner?’ she asked Ivy as she swept the dress on the floor aside with her foot.
‘Yes,’ Ivy replied, unfazed by the sudden direction change of their conversation.
‘Good. Where is the shop assistant?’
‘Here, Signora Gallo,’ the harried young woman replied rushing back into the changing room.
‘I’m going to need a suit.’
‘A suit?’ the woman blinked.
‘Si. A three-piece suit. In white,’ Maria replied, unaware of the fierce glint, and sudden glow that made her features come alive.