Once a Ferrara Wife... (14 page)

‘Everything?’ His laughter lacked humour. ‘If we’re talking about the business then “everything” amounted to two small hotels which barely scraped a profit.’

‘I thought it was your father’s business?’

‘What I have now grew out of my father’s business.’ He stared through the open doors to the prettily lit terrace and the turquoise-blue shimmer of the infinity pool. ‘I was at college when my father died and suddenly I was in charge, thrown into the middle of something I knew nothing about. My mother was devastated, my brother and sister were still at school. My father owned two hotels on the island, neither of them doing that well. I was the oldest son. I was studying structural engineering, but that was irrelevant. Everyone was depending on me.’

And he’d only been in his very early twenties, she calculated. Studying in the US on the brink of his own adventure.

How much had it taken to give all that up and return home to continue his father’s dreams instead of pursuing his own?

‘What started as necessity became a habit. After a while I didn’t even question why I was working so hard. It was just the way I lived my life. It didn’t matter how much money I made or how successful the business became, I couldn’t forget
that everyone was depending on me. On my ability to expand and grow the company.’

And he hadn’t just been supporting his mother and siblings, Laurel realised, but employing huge numbers of his family. Not just his brother and sister but several cousins and two uncles.

They’d made him the Provider.

They’d leaned on him, and he’d braced his powerful shoulders and taken on that role.

‘Carlo advised me to walk away from the Caribbean deal because the price they were demanding just didn’t make it a viable proposition. We were about to give up when they came back with a counter-offer. We had twenty-four hours to make a decision on whether to go ahead or not. I thought that deal would secure the future of the company. It was a recession-proof investment.’

‘So you went ahead?’ She hadn’t questioned what had happened to the business after she’d walked out.

‘Yes. And it’s doing well. Better than even I predicted.’ He turned his head to look at her. ‘But Carlo was right about one thing. The price
was
too high.’

She knew he wasn’t talking about the financial implications. ‘I was selfish,’ she muttered. ‘I didn’t think about your responsibility to everyone else. I only thought about my needs.’

‘With reason.’

‘I thought,
It’s just another business deal.
I never thought about the pressure on you. I never once thought about all the people depending on you for employment. You never talked to me about it.’

‘I didn’t want to talk about work when I was with you. I was crazy about you. I’m still crazy about you.’ His tone was rough and decidedly unsteady. ‘I’ve been crazy about you
since the first day I saw you in your running shorts, shouting at Santo for slacking.’

There was no mistaking his sincerity and her heart stopped because she realised how badly she’d misunderstood the situation. ‘On our wedding day, I believed that you loved me. Whenever I was with you, I believed you. But we were together less and less. By the time I discovered that I was pregnant, we were spending virtually no time together. The fact that you didn’t come when I asked you to was the final straw. I saw it as evidence that you didn’t love me.’

‘I thought marrying you proved how much I loved you. I committed that cardinal male sin of taking too much for granted.’ He leaned forward and kissed her mouth gently. ‘It’s possible that I was a touch arrogant.’

‘Possible?’ She smiled against his lips because that statement said everything about his own healthy sense of self-worth. ‘And that single gesture—marrying me—was supposed to last me a lifetime?’

He eased back from her. ‘I wasn’t as bad as that. I gave you daily proof of my love for you. I sent you endless gifts.’

‘Actually, your PA sent me endless gifts,’ Laurel murmured. ‘Do you think I didn’t know that you said, “Send my wife flowers”, and she arranged it?’

‘I
chose
you jewellery.’

‘From a selection sent to your office to minimise the inconvenience and generally reduce the impact on your working day. I’m not saying you weren’t generous,’ she said hastily. ‘I’m just saying that none of those things made me feel secure.’

‘They should have done. They were supposed to.’

‘Why? They weren’t personal. They were generic gifts. Gifts that had probably earned you undying gratitude in the past but to me they had no meaning except to remind me that you’re a very wealthy man. And that there is a whole harem
of women out there just waiting to exploit the first crack in our marriage. Are you seriously telling me that I was the first woman you have ever given jewellery to?’

He cast her an incredulous glance because this was a topic they’d never really touched on and he clearly didn’t think they should be touching on it now. ‘No, I’m not telling you that. But you were the first and only woman I have ever loved.’

‘And I was supposed to just know that.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know how badly you’d been let down. Had you told me—’

‘I would have made myself even more emotionally vulnerable.’

‘A little more insight into the workings of your mind might have prevented me from getting things so badly wrong.
Not
that I’m blaming you for my failings.’

‘I admit that my past experience has made me cautious and I can’t do anything about that but I didn’t see anything when we were together to make me think that I was that important to you. Gradually you spent more and more time at work.’ She curled her legs up, feeling vulnerable just talking about it. ‘And then I reached out to you. And you didn’t have time for me. I wasn’t a priority and that convinced me you didn’t love me. And that is why I left, Cristiano. That is why I never had the confidence that our relationship could survive. You never gave me any indication that it could.’

And part of her—that horrid part of her that she hated so much—still wouldn’t let her just take his declaration of love and believe in it without question. She wished it could have been that easy and for a million other women it probably would have been. To hear Cristiano Ferrara say ‘I love you’ had been the pinnacle of ambition for many women.

For her, they were just words.

Frustrated with herself, Laurel slid off the bed, wrapped herself in a robe and walked onto the terrace. The fact that
he let her go so easily told her a great deal about the way he was feeling now that the depth of her insecurities had been exposed.

Fear was a cold, creeping sensation over her heated skin because she understood finally that the future of their marriage relied not on her ability to bear children, but her ability to trust him not to hurt her.

What did she mean, he’d never given her any indication?

Cristiano lay back on the bed, hands hooked behind his head, thinking back over the two years of their marriage and forcing himself to confront some uncomfortable facts.

He’d bought her jewellery. Flowers. Extravagant gifts that he’d believed had demonstrated the depth of his feelings. All arranged via the efficient channels that she’d so astutely identified.

The thought made him squirm.

She’d always thanked him, but what time and effort had he put into those gifts? He’d given her what he thought she wanted instead of what she really wanted and the harsh truth of that shamed him.

Guilt, an almost familiar companion since she’d arrived back in Sicily, was sharp and painful.

What thought had he given to any of it? He’d treated her the way he’d treated previous women in his life who had measured every gift by its monetary value. But expensive gifts from a wealthy man meant nothing to a woman like Laurel, who had been building her own business and was justifiably proud of her success. She hadn’t wanted financial security. She’d never been interested in him for his money. What she’d needed was emotional security and he, in all his arrogance, had never given her that. She’d thirsted for some demonstration of his love and he, with the same arrogance, had assumed that by marrying her he’d said all that needed
to be said. And when her confidence in their relationship had faltered, it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might bear some of the blame.

Swearing under his breath, he sprang from the bed and located her purse. Finding what he wanted, he curled it safely into his palm and prowled out onto the moonlit terrace but she wasn’t there.

On the run again,
he thought grimly.

Except this time he would track her down to the far corners of the earth if necessary.

In the end he didn’t need to go as far as that. He found her in his study, curled up on one of the deep sofas with a book in her hands and Rambo and Terminator lying at her feet, her own personal guard. He remembered her poignant tale about the room she’d loved, with all the books. About pretending it was a library.

Thinking of the cold, loveless wasteland of her childhood years sickened him.

He understood now that reading had been her way of escaping from her world. And a way of making up for everything that was lacking in her life.

The dogs growled at his approach.

‘It seems I have to fight my way through my own dogs to talk to my wife.’ He clicked his fingers and Rambo immediately rose to his feet and moved but Terminator stayed firmly by Laurel’s side, his head on his paws, refusing to leave her.

Cristiano had some sympathy for the dog because he was feeling pretty much the same way.

He looked at the book in her hand, floored by the enormity of what she’d achieved with her life. ‘If you never had books as a child, how did you develop such an interest in reading?’

‘I had a wonderful teacher at school. Miss Hayes. She was very kind to me.’ Laurel dropped her hand onto the dog’s
head, her fingers caressing his smooth fur. ‘Don’t send them away. I can’t bear to be parted from them after two years.’

Deciding that it was better to tolerate canine company than upset her further, Cristiano exchanged a brief man to man warning glance with Terminator just so that the dog knew who was in charge.

‘Put the book down. I really need to talk to you.’

Slowly, she lowered the book to her lap but didn’t speak.

Cristiano wasn’t finding it easy, either. ‘I didn’t see our relationship the way you saw it. I can see now that I took a great deal for granted.’ Just when it was imperative that the words spoken were perfectly matched to the situation, his habitual fluency had deserted him. ‘It’s true that I may have been guilty of a certain level of arrogance.’

Her gaze was steady. ‘May have been?’

‘All right—I w
as
arrogant, I admit it. I made far too many assumptions.’ Trying to right a wrong, he paced from one side of the room to the other. ‘But this whole situation has emerged because I didn’t know what you were thinking. Yes, I was very much at fault, but you were also at fault in not telling me more about your past. Had you done so, I would have understood the reason you find it so hard to trust anyone and could have addressed it.’

‘So then you would have added
reassure Laurel
to your bulging to-do list? I didn’t want to be a project, Cristiano.’

‘I didn’t say that!
Maledezione,
give me a chance to explain myself!’ His sudden explosion was greeted by a low warning growl from the dog by her side and Cristiano’s mouth tightened. ‘That animal is overprotective.’

‘He loves me.’

‘And apparently you accept that love without question whereas the rest of us have to work hard for that same degree of blind faith.’ He ended that forceful declaration with
a deep breath. ‘I have never felt for any woman what I felt for you.’

‘So you keep saying.’

‘Speak again before I’ve finished and I’ll find ways to silence you, dog or no dog,’ he vowed, watching as her cheeks turned pink and she closed the book. ‘I admit that I thought that by marrying you I’d demonstrated the depth of my feeling for you. I see now that I didn’t spend enough time showing you how much I loved you but part of the reason for that was that I had no idea that you were having any doubts about my commitment to you. I made a terrible decision that day, but you have to believe that I didn’t think you would lose the baby.’

Her cheeks turned a shade paler. ‘Do we have to go over this again?’

‘Yes, because we are not giving up on what we have so we have to both be clear about the way we feel. I married you because I loved you and wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. I didn’t spend enough time making sure you knew that.’ Acknowledging just how much damage that attitude had caused, he let out a long breath. ‘You have to understand that that lapse on my part was to do with pressure of work,
not
because I felt less for you than I should have done. At worst I can be accused of complacency.’

‘And arrogance.’

‘Yes, we’ve already agreed that—’ Cristiano spoke through his teeth ‘—but you didn’t once come and tell me how you were feeling. I made mistakes, I admit it, but I made them because I believed everything to be good and strong with our marriage. You did
not
feel that way and yet you didn’t tell me. Every time I gave you jewellery, you thanked me. You suffered my mother’s less than subtle comments without confiding in me.’

‘She’s your mother and you love her.’

And she’d never had that, he realised. She’d never had the luxury of knowing she was loved without question. Never been safely wrapped in the warmth of family. ‘You are my wife and I love
you.
My first responsibility was to you.
Is
to you. Always.’ He watched as her breathing turned shallow and discovered that he was holding his own breath as he waited for her response. ‘Say something. But no more observations on my arrogance. That lesson is well and truly learned.’

‘If we do this—’ she left the word hanging vaguely ‘—what about the family you dreamed of having?’

‘You
are the family I dreamed of having and as for the rest—’ ignoring the dogs, he leaned forward, removed the book from her hands and pulled her to her feet ‘—we’ll find a way through it. But we’ll find it together, not separately. Whatever you’re thinking, you must share with me and this time I will be listening with both ears.
Ti amo.
I love you.’ He scooped her face into his hands, feeling the softness of her skin against his palms. ‘By the time I’ve finished proving it to you there will be no room for doubt in your head.’