Chapter Five
She was lucky. Having done her own research on her condition, Marnie knew many pregnant women with it suffered the whole of the pregnancy.
A month into her second trimester and hers was easing by the day.
By the time they returned to London, she would be strong enough to go home, she was certain of it, and there was nothing that Domenico could do or say to stop her.
For now, though, she was determined to enjoy her time in his seventeenth-century villa. She loved everything about it.
Nestled in magnificent sprawling grounds in the foothills of monteverde, the green mountain, away from the bustle of Rome proper, it was reputed to have been designed with assistance from Giovanni Grimaldi.
A light sand colour, it had a five-storey central block from which three-storey wings spread out, its facade adorned with grand sculptures, the windows all topped with busts in hollowed roundels.
When you approached it, you could practically see Roman history coming to life before you.
When Marnie had worked for Domenico, their time had been spent pretty equally between London, Frankfurt, Rome, Washington and New York.
Domenico had homes in all those cities. Marnie and his other personal staff stayed in staff apartments, but when he did in-home entertaining, she was always expected to attend in her faithful supervisory capacity (although she’d never been quite certain what she was supposed to be supervising, considering all his homes had a full complement of live-in staff).
That had all stopped when they’d married.
The only travelling she’d done with him had been an extended two-month break in his home city of Rome.
Marnie had learned a great deal about the villa’s history and architecture during that two-month stay, mainly because after a month of dedicated sightseeing, there had been little else left for her to do. She’d seen little of her husband but had fallen madly in love with his city and villa.
The household staff who greeted them were the same faces she’d known for years.
Making the transition from personal assistant to wife had never felt more awkward than when dealing with people who’d once considered her a colleague.
Now that she’d transitioned to ex-wife, she felt the awkwardness even more keenly.
Here, in Rome, that awkwardness was compounded by the household staff being so very Italian.
The English staff had adopted a ‘nothing to see here’ approach to her temporary return.
It was as if the six months she’d been gone had never happened.
The Italian staff, on the other hand, were avid with curiosity, their stares continuously dipping to her stomach.
There was warmth in their curious stares, though, especially when Domenico disappeared to make a phone call, the sense they were welcoming home an old friend, which in turn put Marnie at ease and put the few doubts she’d had about whether coming to Rome was the right thing to bed.
It was a feeling that followed her a short while later when she stepped into her bedroom, a gorgeous space with a four-poster bed and frescoed ceiling…and then fell away when she saw the adjoining door.
She stared at it with mounting horror. How on earth had she forgotten about that?
It was around their time in Rome that the frequency of Domenico’s visits to her bed had started to increase from a couple of times a week to most nights, and suddenly she was hit with the memory of falling asleep after he’d had sex with her and then being woken around the time the sun had started rising by the adjoining door opening.
The mattress had dipped, the sheets rippled, and she’d been gently taken into his strong arms. His mouth had found hers, and with the sensation that they were both in a waking dream, she’d dove her fingers into his soft hair, wrapped her legs around him and welcomed his possession.
It had been slow and tender and exquisitely beautiful, and when he left her bed afterwards, it had been with a lingering kiss goodbye.
It was a coupling that had never been spoken of or repeated. Not repeated like that. Sex between them had returned to its usual detached but pleasurable exchange of orgasms. Their marriage had continued in its usual non-affectionate, non-emotional way.
For a long time, Marnie had wondered if she’d dreamed it.
A dream or not, it had been the beginning of the end for her. She’d had the tiniest glimpse of heaven, a taste of what their marriage could be like. Every coupling that came after it sliced a fresh wound into her heart.
No point in letting the memories slice her now, she reasoned, wiping away tears that had sprung from nowhere and inhaling deeply. This was Domenico’s territory far more than London was. This was the place he called home, and she needed to be on her guard, not slip into melancholy.
The view from her room was every bit as beautiful as the interior, and she climbed onto a windowsill to look out and centre herself into the here and now.
Domenico’s lands seemed to stretch forever.
Craning her head to the right, she glimpsed the gorgeous hedged maze.
Behind it, out of view, was the villa’s private chapel, behind which ran the wall with the secret door into the secret garden.
So secret was the garden that she’d only discovered its existence the day before they’d returned to London, and she vowed to explore it this time, while she had the chance.
The tap on her main door pulled her away from her secret garden thoughts. Assuming it was one of the staff with the cup of decaffeinated tea she’d asked for, she pulled a smile to her face and called, ‘Come in.’
The smile fell when Domenico strode in.
Unprepared for his appearance in her bedroom and with the memories of that dreamlike early morning still fresh, Marnie’s heart slammed. In an instant, the pounding ripples spread through her veins, and her world teetered.
Helpless to stop her gaze locking onto his, her eyes travelled the heartbreakingly gorgeous face she’d once loved with the whole fibre of her being, dipping to the sensuous lips that only once in the whole of their marriage had kissed her with emotion, and suddenly she could feel the memory of that lingering caress from that dreamlike early morning.
Feel his mouth on hers. Smell the musk of his skin.
Feel the texture of his soft hair on her fingers…
Her world hadn’t just teetered, it had stopped; a stretched beat of time where all that existed was Domenico.
The stretched beat broke with a snap when he moved from the doorway towards her.
It shouldn’t be possible for her heart to race any faster, but the closer each step took him to her, the quicker it cantered until he reached her, and it was nothing but a burr.
‘How are you feeling after all that travelling?’ he asked, holding her cup out to her.
Painfully aware of the burn of colour staining her cheeks, it took everything she had to keep her hands steady as she took the cup from him, careful not to allow the slightest brush of their fingers.
She had to swallow to say, ‘A little tired but okay.’ One thing she never did was lie to him about her physical health. The baby in her belly was Domenico’s every bit as much as it was hers. He needed the reassurance that everything was okay as much as she did.
He leaned into the wall by the window. ‘That’s good.’ His light brown eyes were watchful. ‘You’ll rest today?’
She nodded and wished he hadn’t chosen to stand so close to her.
Domenico hadn’t worn cologne since he’d realised literally every scent made her nauseous, but this close, she could smell the fresh cleanliness of his warm skin, and instead of turning her stomach, it turned her heart inside out with longing.
‘I’ll take it easy, don’t worry. You’re going to work?
’ That he’d changed into a tailored navy suit since their arrival pointed to that being the case, and she wished disappointment didn’t pang so sharply at the thought of him leaving the villa.
She wanted him to go. She’d only agreed to come to Rome on the unspoken assumption he’d spend his waking hours setting the world of corporate law alight.
He pulled a face, then grinned before casually saying, ‘I’ll be back early evening. Dine with me tonight?’
She experienced another sensation of her heart turning inside out before memories of the hundred-odd meals they’d shared crowded into her head.
When they’d first married, Marnie had dressed up for dinner, even applied a little makeup, but if he’d noticed the effort she made, he gave no sign of it, certainly never mentioned it.
After months of effort, she’d stopped bothering and had been utterly unsurprised when he’d failed to notice that too.
He’d been great company throughout all those meals, though, but in exactly the way he’d been great company when he’d been her boss.
And, just as when he’d been her boss, there hadn’t been an ounce of intimacy.
Her years-old fantasy of Domenico gazing at her lovingly and occasionally spooning food into her mouth had, like the rest of her fantasies about him, trampled into the dust.
Hating how those memories still had the power to hurt her, she looked back out of the window and with only a hint of snide in her politeness, said, ‘I don’t want to lose what little appetite I’ve found, so I’ll eat in here, thanks.’
Amusement laced his voice. ‘That is, of course, your prerogative. If you decide you’ve had enough of eating alone, you know where I’ll be.’
‘I’m perfectly happy in my own company, but thanks.’
His low rumble of laughter soaked through her skin, lancing her as deeply as the memories.
Marnie had always adored Domenico’s laugh. If she turned her head, she knew she’d find his brown eyes crinkled with the lines that always appeared around them when he laughed or smiled.