Page 40 of Italian Baby Shock

Then she went up on her toes and pressed her mouth to his.

CHAPTER NINE

LARKFOUNDTHEnext few weeks unexpectedly happy.

For all that Cesare had told her that they’d go their separate ways during the day, he ended up staying at the palazzo quite a lot. He told her he was ‘working from home’ but seemed to spend a good deal of his time with Maya. Helping her ‘settle in’, apparently.

Not that she was complaining.

Not when every night she was naked in his bed, in his arms.

There was so much pleasure to be had from him, and yet another reason why she didn’t understand why he thought he was selfish, not when he was the opposite in bed.

He was inventive when it came to wringing orgasms from her, encouraging her to tell him what she wanted and how, then welcoming her passion whenever she gave it. He never refused her anything and seemed to get as much enjoyment from her pleasure as he did from his own.

There was nothing selfish about that, nothing at all.

Some mornings she’d come down to breakfast in the palazzo to find him lying on the ground with his daughter, letting her climb all over him and pull on his expensive silk tie with her dirty hands, or playing trucks, which really just consisted of banging them on the ground. Once, she’d come down to find Maya asleep in the crook of his arm and him singing softly to her in Italian.

That in particular had caught at her heart, her daughter’s red-gold curls nestled against the dark wool of his suit, golden eyelashes fanned over her rosy cheeks. He’d been looking down at her as he sang and the expression on his face had stolen herbreath. She’d had to look away, feeling as if she’d invaded his privacy somehow.

He’d told her the day they’d got married that it wasn’t Maya who was important to him, but his legacy, and maybe he believed that. But it wasn’t true and Lark knew it. Not when he’d also said, not five minutes later that Maya came first, always.

Whether he knew it or not, he loved his daughter. It was written all over his face.

He didn’t just spend time with Maya, though. He was very insistent that they do things together ‘as a family’. Again, not something she’d object to, since she enjoyed those things as much as she suspected he did.

Sometimes it was as simple as having dinner outside on one of the terraces, with Maya in a highchair and Cesare insisting on feeding her himself as he listened to Lark tell him about Maya’s day. Afterwards, they’d lie on a blanket on the lawn, in the warm summer evening scented with the lavender that grew in the garden beds nearby, idly chatting about nothing as Maya played with her growing collection of trucks.

Sometimes it was more of an outing, such as the time Cesare took them to spend a few days in Venice in a luxurious palace beside the canals. They’d had gondola rides and Maya had squealed with delight at the pigeons in the Piazza San Marco.

He took them to other places around Italy too, Tuscany and the Cinque Terre, to Florence and Naples, and Milan. He said he wanted to show Maya the country since she was part Italian, but Lark had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t quite telling the truth about that. Because Maya was very little and probably wouldn’t remember or appreciate the beautiful scenery, but Lark did. Lark did very much.

Then in Rome, after a day spent wandering the streets with Maya in a buggy and all three of them eating gelato, Cesare organised a private tour of the Colosseum, and even thoughLark had told him she’d already seen it, he insisted she go. Because Maya hadn’t seen it, he told her, and neither had she, not without all the crowds.

Privately Lark doubted Maya needed to see the Colosseum just yet, but she didn’t really mind. Yet as they stood there in the ruins of a once mighty empire, Cesare bent and picked Maya up, putting her up on his shoulders, and as her squeals of delight rang off the ancient stones, Lark remembered standing in this same place nearly two years earlier. And she’d watched a family standing together like this, a child on their father’s shoulders, the mother standing by. And she’d been hit by such a feeling of such isolation and loneliness, or wishing she’d had a family just like that one.

Now she had, yet it wasn’t the same. Not quite.

She had a daughter and a husband, but their marriage was lacking one thing. They were only married for Maya’s sake not their own, and while she and Cesare loved Maya, they didn’t love each other.

They respected each other—he’d kept his promise to her that he’d treat her with nothing but respect—but love wasn’t a part of that.

Why do you need love? You didn’t want it, remember?

She hadn’t, no. But now the lack of it made her worry for the future of their little family. Cesare had promised that Maya always came first and she agreed, but would that be enough to hold them together?

If she’d learned anything from her unsettled childhood it was that a broken relationship between a child’s parents could hurt their child, and Cesare too had been a prime example of that.

She didn’t want that kind of tragedy for her daughter. Not that she thought she and Cesare would suddenly turn on each other like their respective parents’ had, nevertheless... He’d promised he’d be faithful, but what if he got tired of sleepingwith her? What if he wanted someone else? What would happen and what would she do?

The very thought of it sent a hot, bright bolt of unexpected jealousy straight through her, and because Cesare had chosen that moment to glance at her, she’d had to turn away quickly in order to hide it.

How ridiculous to be jealous. He’d been very clear that love was something he didn’t want, and that they’d be sleeping together only as long as this desire lasted and then they’d be done.

She’d agreed to it. She’d let him put that ring on her finger. She’d known exactly what a marriage to him had meant. Being jealous hadn’t never been part of this scenario.

You never thought you’d feel something for him, though.

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