Chapter Nine #2
After posing for photos, they had a pleasant lunch, but both Patricia and Filomena tired easily.
Their small party broke up within the hour.
Filomena was returning to Sicily and Patricia wanted to rest before the tour of Lake Como that Luca had arranged for her and Kandili.
A private guide would collect them in the morning with his wheelchair-accessible van, taking her mother on her first proper vacation in over a decade.
Luca had promised Jade a honeymoon later this year. He had been interrupting other commitments while moving her into his home and organizing their wedding. He needed to get back to his work. In fact, they were flying to Portugal tonight because he had meetings all day tomorrow.
“You have time to nap before we leave. I’ll work out for an hour,” he said when he rose from consummating their marriage, not nearly as wilted by their lovemaking as she was.
He had started from the bottom with her gown, forcing her to stand very still when he reached the midpoint and decided he needed a lengthy exploration and taste before he could continue undressing her.
She rolled over beneath the sheet, naked and deliciously lethargic, watching him pull on black briefs that lovingly hugged the hard curve of his buttocks.
They had found a tentative accord in these weeks leading up to their marriage, one based heavily on sex, but it seemed promising, provoking a nascent hope in her that she was fearful of letting rise too high.
Which meant she shouldn’t rock the boat.
And yet, “I’m looking for a job.”
“Why?” He pivoted to face her.
“So I have my own money.”
“You have your own money.” An envelope with new credit cards had been waiting for her when they had arrived home from the wedding. The contracts she’d signed had left all her existing assets in her name, such as they were, while solidifying her joint ownership of his many homes and other assets.
“I’m not used to doing nothing all day.” She sat up and pinned the sheet across her breasts. “I had to organize moving Mum, but that’s all sorted.”
While Patricia was here in Italy, her things were being moved into a wheelchair-accessible house that was registered in Jade’s name on the outskirts of London.
“What about the baby’s room? Decorators always seem to need a lot of managing.”
“They’re scheduled to empty and repaint the room while we’re in New York next month.
My things from my flat in London have been put into storage and it’s been sublet.
I’ve met with the agent to find us a villa here, like you suggested.
One that could accommodate Mum and Nonna when they visit.
I’ve done preliminary interviews with the nanny agency.
The midwife and birth plan is sorted. I’ve accelerated my Italian lessons, but that only fills two hours a day.
I’ve spoken to all your household staff, by the way.
They’re coming due for a salary review so I said I’d speak to you about that. ”
“Are you not also growing a baby? You were fainting with exhaustion a few weeks ago,” he reminded her with a small frown of concern. “I expect you to look after yourself first and foremost.”
“I’ve been feeling better.” Her morning sickness was receding as she advanced into her second trimester, helped along by the ample rest she was getting and the absence of stress from her old job.
“I’ll find something that’s flexible enough that I can be available to whatever appearances I have to make with you.
I saw a posting for a grant writer that interests me.
I could do that anywhere, even after the baby comes. ”
His eyes narrowed. “You don’t trust me to meet all your needs.”
She tried to find a denial, but wound up breathing out a sigh of acknowledgment. She dropped her gaze, aware that a man of his caliber would find that insulting, but her father had always had ample resources and still resented her.
Luca released his own heavy exhale and came around to sit on the edge of the bed, facing her, expression solemn.
“I won’t pretend this doesn’t prick my ego.
The day my grandmother’s pension became her mad money was a very important milestone for me.
It’s…” His gaze flickered as though he was searching for words.
Or trying to decide how much to reveal. “It’s not masculine pride so much as a need to know that I can look after you and our child without being ashamed of the way I do it. ”
His gaze caught hers, still troubled and deeply introspective.
“Growing up, there were a lot of temptations for shortcuts and easy money. I worked my tail off to get to this place where I can offer my family a good life. I want to do that, Jade.” His tone was grave. “You don’t have to work.”
“I know.” She wanted to know it. To believe he would always support her financially. But it was hard to trust.
“But you need to feel self-sufficient.” He sighed again, this time with rueful resignation. He set his hand on her thigh and lightly squeezed. “So I suppose I shall have to meet that need of yours as well. Work if you want to. I won’t stop you.”
“Really?” She flashed her gaze up to his, chest filling with emotion at being seen so clearly. At being heard and supported.
He hitched a shoulder. “You’re bright and ambitious and I can tell that your ability to relax is about as well developed as my own. You’re not going to be happy unless you’re doing something that feels productive. Are you?”
“I’ve color-coded both sides of our closet. What do you think?”
“I wondered what had happened in there. But I did find the shirt I wanted very quickly, so thank you.” He smirked and cupped her cheek, setting a kiss on her forehead as he rose again. “Find something that interests you, then, and remember that you can afford to be choosy.”
“Grazie,” she murmured, almost ready to believe it.
Luca tried to see Jade’s independence as a good thing. He didn’t want her to feel neglected the way Trieste had. His work was very demanding and he appreciated that she needed more in her life than having her hair done so she could stand at his side making small talk.
He had been tempted to explain more fully why her desire to earn an income rubbed against such a deeply tender place within him, but it was a knot he had yet to untangle for himself.
It was a protective thing. At his basest level, he wanted to tuck her somewhere safe where the flotsam of life couldn’t reach her.
The way his father had done for his mother.
That was the heart of it. Even more than Jade, Helmina had wanted and needed Severo’s protection, but the lengths he’d gone to for her had been his father’s downfall. It had cost all their lives.
Luca didn’t want to sell his own soul to save his wife, but the closer he grew with Jade, the more he felt himself sliding into that same mind frame.
He wanted to hold himself at a distance, for both of their sakes, but he couldn’t help appreciate her more and more.
And, as much as he wanted to lock her in a vault, he wanted to be out with her, enjoying her company and showing her off.
Initially, their hurried wedding and Jade’s pregnancy had put amused, sometimes patronizing smiles on people’s faces.
Jade was a master at ignoring it and smoothly turning the conversation to something innocuous, though.
By the time they came back from New York, their shotgun wedding was not only old news, Jade had firmly established herself as a fashion icon.
It had started with her wedding gown, when their marriage was announced.
Then, while they were away, he took her to an opening night for a Broadway musical.
They’d been photographed meeting one of the stars and, the next morning, all of Manhattan had wanted to know where she’d found her one-shoulder black-and-blue dress with its peekaboo cutouts along the arc of her modest bump.
Now, six weeks into their marriage, she was photographed at every event they attended, whether it was here in Milan, Frankfurt, Paris or Brussels.
She was even growing confident enough to toss out a cheeky remark.
Last night, she had said, “Of course it’s one of Hiro’s designs.
I would never cheat on him. I’ve told Luca he’ll have to keep me pregnant because I’m not giving him up. ”
Luca did not think that would be a problem. He was deeply enamored with her voluptuous figure and now that her morning sickness had subsided, she was glowing and lighter in mood, quick to smile and very amorous. Why wouldn’t he want to keep her in that condition?
“Giselle is furious that I’m getting so much attention,” Jade said.
They were having a lazy breakfast because she had her midpregnancy scan this morning.
“Have you not blocked her?” He looked up from the agenda for his meeting this afternoon.
“It’s online. She’s questioning my taste. This is what I was dealing with the whole time I was working for her. She would post something like this that insults a designer and I’d have to run in and smooth feathers.”
“You don’t have to do that anymore, so quit reading it.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” she murmured.
“Is it? Or is it a type of self-harm?”
“I don’t like to be surprised.” She set her phone away and scraped her spoon through the last of her yogurt.
“I was seven when one the older children at school asked me if Noel Atbridge was my father. I’d never met His Lordship, but Mum had told me that was his name so I said yes.
That evening, he was in our lounge, yelling at Mum, telling her I had to go to boarding school up north so I wouldn’t embarrass his family again. ”
“At seven?” His sister had been nine when she died and he remembered her as very sensitive and vulnerable. That’s what tortured him most about the crash, how small she’d been. How she had always come to him when she was frightened and he hadn’t been there.
For the first time, he saw past Jade’s veneer of indifference to the frightened girl who must have felt completely abandoned from a very young age. Defenseless.