Chapter Seven #2
He pulled a face, shrugged and grinned. ‘Start at the beginning,’ he suggested, enjoying the way she rolled her eyes.
‘I just gave you a very succinct biography of your life, which I’ve committed completely to memory I’ll have you know. But what I don’t have much of an idea of is your grandmother.’
‘My grandmother?’
Charlotte nodded. ‘We didn’t actually cover her last night.’
‘Didn’t we?’ Dante felt the hint of misgivings.
They’d done an exceptional job the night before of going over the basics.
Actually, more than the basics. They’d gone over the essentials, the bread and butter facts a bonafide couple would know about each other.
Just enough to get them out of trouble if his grandmother were to launch into some kind of interrogation.
Which was not completely out of the question, given how much stock she put into Dante’s ‘happiness’.
Never mind that her idea of happiness—a big, Italian family—didn’t match up with his—no personal risks and being as successful as anyone could hope to be professionally.
‘Nope. I mean, the fact that she raised you, that you respect and love her, but nothing else.’
‘What do you want to know?’ There was scepticism in his tone though, because he didn’t want to keep having these kinds of conversations with her. He’d presumed they were done.
‘What are her hobbies?’
He leaned back in his chair, giving that thought.
‘Like, does she knit? Play bridge?’
He laughed then, shaking his head. ‘You have the wrong idea about her.’
‘So, what’s the right idea?’
‘For one thing, she’s not someone who’s giving in easily to the idea of aging. She might be an octogenarian but you wouldn’t know it to look at her.’
Charlotte was silent, pointedly waiting for him to continue.
‘She loves fashion,’ he said, thoughtfully, remembering the whirlwind trips they’d take to Rome each year, so she could re-stock her wardrobe with the latest couture. ‘It’s her one indulgence. She’s always dressed immaculately. She always has been.’
Come to think of it, the same could be said for Charlotte.
Except for last night, when he’d turned up at her place and she’d looked so beautifully mussed up, all casual and relaxed, that something had exploded inside of him.
Her hair was the only concession to her inner-wildness, a mane of red that couldn’t ever be fully tamed.
God, how he loved to wrap his fist around it, to feel those curls spring against his palm.
‘Okay. But what’s she like?’
‘Like?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What do you mean?’
Another roll of those deep green eyes. ‘Is she funny? Intelligent? Was she cross with you as a child? Does she cook?’ She asked shrugging. ‘How would you describe her?’
He furrowed his brow, considering that. ‘She was never cross with me,’ he said. ‘Which isn’t to say I didn’t deserve it.’ A half-smile crossed his lips. ‘I was always getting into some kind of mess.’
‘You?’ She sounded incredulous.
‘Surely that cannot come as a surprise to you.’
‘Well, yes, actually.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re just not someone I can imagine ever breaking the rules.’
He laughed then. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘No. You’re hyper disciplined. It’s part of what I like about you.’
‘You mean one of the few things you like about me?’ He teased because she’d said, that night she’d proposed to him, that she didn’t actually like him at all.
‘Right,’ she nodded. ‘Can I ask you something else?’
‘You’re done with my grandmother?’
‘No, it has to do with her.’
He should have expected that. The sight of one of his air stewards entering the main body of the jet was a welcome relief.
‘Can the interrogation wait until after refreshments?’
‘By refreshments, please tell me you mean coffee.’
‘I’ve got a theory, by the way,’ he said, as the steward approached and placed a tray on the table between them. He saw Charlotte’s eyes light up because there was indeed a pot of thick, dark coffee and two small cups.
‘Oh, thank heavens,’ she muttered. ‘My machine wouldn’t work this morning.’
He frowned. ‘It was working fine for me.’
Her eyes lifted to his and something sparked in their depths. Something uncertain, or accusatory. ‘What time did you leave, anyway?’
‘I didn’t look at the time,’ he lied. ‘Right around when I could feel my ribs bruising up thanks to your nightmare of a mattress.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re such a snob.’
He laughed again. ‘Which brings me back to my theory.’
‘Oh god. Do I want to hear this?’
He grinned. ‘You drink too much coffee.’
She visibly blanched.
‘But I think it’s because of your bed.’
She groaned. ‘Not this again.’
‘I’m serious. How can you possibly get a good night’s sleep in that thing?’
‘I will not have my love of coffee maligned. Nor my bed for that matter. And I have to tell you, you’re the first man to complain about it.’
For the briefest of moments, every single part of him froze.
Every. Single. Part. Even the parts that were in charge of keeping his blood pumping and his lungs inflating.
It was like someone unseen had waved a big magic wand and turned him completely to stone.
Only for a moment. But her words were like magic—black magic—because out of nowhere, he was forced to contemplate the men who’d come before him.
And he wasn’t an idiot. There had been men.
How many, he had no idea—that was just precisely the kind of information they didn’t discuss.
And what did it matter? She hadn’t been a virgin when they met. Beyond that, who cares?
Still, just the idea of the men who’d been with Charlotte, who’d gotten to drive her wild, who’d made her groan with pleasure, made him feel...angry. Angry like he’d felt the night he’d agreed to marry her.
Except, he realised now, it wasn’t just anger.
It was more complicated than that. It was a swirling vortex of darkness.
Of jealousy—yes, he was jealous—and dislike.
It was hatred and envy. It was ego and competitiveness.
A need to know that he was the best, he was different.
It was a soul-deep wish to be able to somehow go back in time and change everything around.
But how the hell could he? Besides, he’d been married to Jamie and some of those years had even been happy ones, before their inability to conceive had soured every aspect of their lives.
It was an errant, totally undeserved, unwarranted and unwanted reaction.
A purely emotional response that he quickly talked himself out of.
This was just casual. Fun. Nothing serious.
Charlotte could sleep with whomever she wanted and so could he, when this was over.
‘Coffee?’ She prompted, having poured her own cup and now hovering the spout of the pot over his.
He nodded once. ‘Please.’
‘I sleep fine,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter how much coffee I drink. When I’m tired, I sleep.’
He grunted, still not sure he was capable of more than a single syllable response.
‘So, your Nonna. What should I call her?’
‘Allegra,’ he said, glad he didn’t sound like the swirling darkness that was still inside of him, even as he tried to control it.
‘What did Jamie call her?’
He sat up straighter, instantly uncomfortable. If imagining Charlotte with another man was unpleasant, hearing her refer to his ex-wife was even more so. ‘Nonna. But they’d known each other a long time.’
Her features did something funny. Something slightly resembling the whirlpool inside of him, before she smiled serenely and reached for her coffee cup.
‘How did you meet?’
‘My Nonna? I imagine shortly after my birth,’ he said, deliberately misunderstanding.
‘You and Jamie.’
He hesitated. ‘My grandmother isn’t going to ask you that.’
‘I’m asking.’
His stomach tightened in an unmistakable warning sign.
Do not answer. They weren’t going to do this.
Questions for the sake of thoroughness were one thing, but he had no intention of opening this particular door.
But then again, it was a simple enough question.
It was probably somewhere on the internet, in one of the pieces that had been written up when they’d gotten married.
‘At an art gallery opening.’
Charlotte nodded thoughtfully. ‘She’s an artist?’
He shook his head.
‘A patron of the arts?’
‘She was a waitress.’ He told himself to stop talking, but somehow found himself saying, ‘Some guy kept hitting on her. He’d had too much to drink, wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Jamie ended up pressing her tray—filled with dainty little egg and caviar cups—at his chest. She got fired. I intervened.’
Charlotte’s eyes widened but otherwise her features were unreadable. A perfectly controlled mask of casual interest, as befitted their perfectly casual interest in one another.
‘And you fell in love?’
Again, he hesitated. ‘Yes.’
He saw the way her brow beetled, the question in her eyes, and he felt an answering question inside his chest. He had loved Jamie. He’d cared for her, immensely, and he’d known she needed him—ever since that first night. What was that, if not love?
‘I was young,’ he heard himself say, remembering that night.
‘And she was so different to anyone I’d ever known.
Right away, I felt as though I needed to protect her.
To keep her safe.’ The word ‘safe’ sat in his throat like a boulder, because it was something he’d thought about for a long time.
Why hadn’t he been able to keep his parents safe?
His grandfather? Why hadn’t he somehow protected them from the accident?
Why couldn’t he go back in time and fix everything?
He blanked the unsettling thoughts, frowning as he kept speaking.
‘There was such a vulnerability to her. A raw realness that I’d never seen.
I mean, all the girls I went to school with were so polished and confident, so sure of themselves and their place in the world.
Sometimes, I felt like Jamie was walking around without a clue where she was going.
’ He feigned a shrug, but everything felt stiff and heavy.
‘She was alone in the world. Orphaned, like me, but no Nonna to take her in. We had a lot in common on that front.’
‘That explains why she and your grandmother were so close,’ Charlotte said gently.
He clammed up. He had to.
Because if he didn’t, he’d start talking about why having a family mattered so damned much to Jamie.
Why she couldn’t just let the idea go. Why it had almost driven her mad, the desperate need to conceive and to hold their baby in her arms. Why she’d needed, more than anything, to feel that she belonged to a family, not just a partnership.
He felt his jaw tick as he turned away and looked out of the window. The seatbelt sign had been switched off right before the steward had appeared with morning tea and Dante took advantage of that now, unfastening his belt and standing abruptly.
‘Excuse me, I’m going to check in with the flight deck.’
* * *
Charlotte didn’t turn to watch him go, even though she was very, very tempted. And confused.
And...something else. Something she knew better than to think about, because it was part of the emotional toolkit she kept buried way, way down in the back of her brain. It was a part of her she wasn’t even sure she had access to. She’d cut off the blood supply so long ago, for her own sake.
Because she wasn’t going to turn into her mother.
Ever.
Nonetheless, Dante’s words had seemed to be spilling out of him, almost against his will, and she was as mesmerised by the picture he painted as he seemed to be by the memory of Jamie and the feelings she’d evoked in him.
Something else had been perfectly clear to Charlotte, too.
The fact that when he’d described the women he’d gone to school with, the women he’d implied were a dime a dozen because he knew so many of them, Charlotte knew he saw her as one of them.
Just like he’d enumerated. She was outwardly confident, composed, put together.
Never in need of saving by anyone, ever.
Even now, when he’d stepped in to do her a favour, it was on her terms. Her rules.
And her choice. She’d chosen him first, but if he’d stuck to his guns on the whole turning her down thing, she’d have found someone else and married them instead.
In other words, she was happy to rely on someone for help, so long as that someone knew that they were temporary and dispensable.
But the idea of Dante as a fixer, a saviour, took hold in her mind, and other parts of his personality started to make more and more sense.
Suddenly, she could see him as someone who would want to swoop in and make someone’s life better, who wouldn’t be able to sit with injustice and unfairness.
Was that the reason he’d had a change of heart regarding this marriage?
She could have sworn he’d been jealous, but maybe that was ultimately irrelevant?
Because not only was he fixing something for Charlotte, but also for his grandmother.
It all made complete sense. It was suddenly so logical and obvious as to why he had agreed to this.
But understanding him like this, seeing this side of him, represented a danger she feared it was too late to back away from.
For the last six months, she’d been absolutely convinced that they were, as she’d said to him, chalk and cheese.
She’d told herself, again and again, that their values and aspirations were completely different.
That he was superficial and shallow, driven only by a capitalistic desire to earn more and more money.
But what if she’d been wrong about him? What if beneath that arrogant, self-assured exterior was a man who had a heart and who wanted to do the right thing by the people he cared about?
And why did understanding that about him leave her with an ache in the pit of her stomach, long after he’d left the cabin?