He notched himself at her core, kissing her deeply. She felt the racing of his heart against hers, where their chests pressed against each other and it was as he whispered ‘mi amore’ into her ear that he pushed into her slowly, surrounding her in such exquisite pleasure she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began. Time lost all meaning as slow thrusts turned quick, powerful and deliciously hard. He filled her completely and left her almost never, as they spent hours and seconds and minutes discovering what it should have always been like between them. By the time another orgasm came for her, Micha was with her and when she fell, she was wrapped in his arms and they fell together.

  Micha watched Maria sleep. She was completely still. No movement at all. Her head was on his outstretched arm and he didn’t care that he was getting pins and needles. He wouldn’t move her for the world. She was so peaceful like this. None of the energy that forced her so determinedly through the day. It was fascinating.

  ‘Why are you staring at me?’ she whispered, with her eyes still closed, and he jerked back a tiny bit in shock.

  With a smile on her face she turned in to him, nuzzling closer, and his heart nearly careened right out of his chest.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ she whispered, making herself comfortable. ‘I like it.’ And with that she went straight back to sleep and he held her like that all the way until the morning.

  * * *

  Over the next couple of days, Micha wondered whether he was living in a dream. Every morning, they would have breakfast out on the beautiful sun-drenched patio. The sounds of birds and the sight of the sea were an accompaniment to freshly squeezed orange juice, mint tea, his espresso—of course—halwa dyal kouk, a type of coconut cake that Maria couldn’t get enough of, bread, olive oil, honey and other pastries filled with the flavours of orange and almond. The heat from the sunrise—Maria was an unconscionably early riser—was delicious. It crept slowly and seduced, relaxing muscles and sinking into weary bones. He tried to remember the last time he’d had a break like this. A holiday.

  Never.

  He’d been working so long and so hard, trying to outrun the poverty he’d grown up with and the insecurity he’d lived with daily.

  After breakfast, Maria would speak to one of the house staff and they would be whisked away on a magical mystery tour. On the first day, they’d visited Medersa Ben Yousef, the fourteenth-century religious school that was full of the zellij tiling that he was beginning to really like, ancient cedar wood ceilings and breathtaking stucco work. On the second day they visited Souk Semmarine, where Maria deftly handled negotiations with several store owners to acquire intricately detailed carpets and cut-brass lanterns. The leather work was impeccable and she bought a wallet for Antonio, and Enzo—her newly acquainted cousin—and bracelets for Ivy and Erin, their wives. And when she smiled at him and asked if there was something he wanted to buy, he just shook his head and smiled. Because there, in the middle of a market in Marrakesh, with the scents wafting over him from the ahba kedima, the spice market, and the smell of coals, and hot leather from the haddadine, the blacksmith’s alley, it hit Micha hard.

  He had everything he needed. Everything he’d ever wanted.

  And if there was a thought in the back of his head, an alarm bell, that warned him it was too good to be true, then he ignored it.

  On the third day, Maria took him to the Yves Saint Laurent Museum and the Jardin Majorelle, where he lived, where even Micha was awed by the incredible collection of art within such a beautiful setting. The design of the building was heavily formed by contrasting straight and curved lines, and radically different to where Saint Laurent had lived, where powerful colours sat perfectly with Moroccan architecture, and it made Micha realise that he’d not really thought of his home in such a way. But seeing Maria draw in all the colour, the inspiration, the architecture, seeing her come alive, he realised he wanted her to feel the same way about where they would live. He wanted to create that for her.

  And at night? Well, never in his wildest dreams had he imagined anything so incredible. They spent hours rediscovering themselves and each other. He placed kisses on her belly, where their child was growing each day, and each night he slept with his hand possessively and comfortingly placed over them.

  Maria beckoned him over from where she was bent at the waist, looking at a tray of jewellery that could cost less than their breakfast. He’d realised that for Maria, it wasn’t the cost that mattered, but how beautiful she found it. She’d just as easily wear a dress from the market as one of YSL’s haute couture pieces. As long as something about it caught her eye.

  ‘What do you think of this?’

  ‘I think you like it and that’s all I need to know,’ he replied, but cast a gaze over the handmade silver necklace. Rows and rows of tiny little beads, that rich blue of lapis lazuli. It was beautiful.

  ‘Wise man,’ the store owner said with a smile.

  Micha inclined his head in recognition of the high praise. Maria slapped him playfully on the arm.

  ‘Do you like it?’ she pressed.

  ‘Am I the one who will be wearing it?’ he toyed.

  ‘Yes. That and nothing else. In bed. All night long,’ she replied, deadpan, and the store owner coughed in shock and Micha threw his head back and laughed.

  By the time he stopped, he realised that she was looking at him in a strange way, and after buying the necklace he most definitely would not be wearing, they found a shaded table at an out-of-the-way cafe for Maria to rest the ankles that were, as predicted, getting a little swollen.

  After ordering their drinks, a mint tea for her and an espresso for him, he asked her about it.

  ‘It’s just…been a while since I heard you laugh like that. Even when we were younger, you were always so serious.’

  ‘And you were always trying to make me laugh,’ he replied, the smile on his lips evident in his tone.

  And then you weren’t there to make me laugh.

  ‘It’s nice. I like it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your laugh. It’s nice. You should laugh more.’

  ‘I will do whatever brings you joy,’ he said, the words out of his mouth before he realised how vulnerable that could make him. But when he saw the look in her eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to regret them. She looked as if he’d given her a gift far more precious than any stone, diamond or jewel in the whole of Marrakesh.

  Is this what we could have? Is this what it could be like?

  The question was in her gaze, so strong, so powerful, so in tune with what he was thinking that he wondered if it were even possible.

  And, of course, that was when the universe decided to answer.

  * * *

  Maria’s phone vibrated in her purse, the sound on silent. She wanted to ignore it. Unwilling to break the moment between them. It was so precious, these glimpses of what things could be like between them. Almost like when they had been younger, but better somehow. More mature.

  But the phone didn’t stop ringing, so she checked the screen and her heart thudded painfully in her chest.

  Papa.

  He never called. Which was why she knew, instinctively, whatever he was calling about couldn’t be good.

  She smiled up at Micha.

  ‘Excuse me for a moment?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, as she stood up and made her way towards the bathroom she knew Micha had believed had been her intended destination.

  Out of sight from the table, she pulled the phone from her bag and answered.

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked without preamble.

  ‘You need to come back,’ her father commanded.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, instead of saying No. It’s my honeymoon, I don’t want—

  ‘We’re calling a no-confidence vote against Rufina.’

  ‘What?’ she asked, her world seesawing, as her mind scrabbled to keep up. ‘We’ being the family, the board. Any one of whom could call such a vote.

  They were trying to oust Micha.

  ‘Tomorrow. Be there. And if you vote with us, when he’s gone we’ll vote you in.’

  The buzzing in her ears wasn’t enough to drown out what her father was saying.

  ‘He’s my husband, Papa.’

  ‘He’s a trumped-up street thug who got my daughter pregnant and will ruin this company.’

  ‘But we got Peterson on board,’ she tried to explain.

  ‘The paperwork hasn’t been filed yet. That’s why the vote is tomorrow.’

  ‘Papa, this isn’t right.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be right. The company should be run by a Gallo. That Rufina is at the helm is unacceptable.’

  ‘But I am?’ she asked. ‘Acceptable?’

  ‘You’re better than him,’ her father spat. ‘So, get back here for then, and cast your vote with us and we’ll put you in as CEO.’

  Maria clenched her jaw.

  ‘It’s everything you ever wanted,’ her father dangled. ‘Gallo Group will be yours.’

  Maria stared unseeing at the cafe wall for long after the call ended.

  What should she do? She had to tell him about the vote, but…

  We’ll put you in as CEO.

  She started when Micha placed his hand on her arm.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked, concern clear in his gaze.

  ‘No, I don’t think it is.’

  Micha remained tight-lipped on the car journey back to the villa as she told him that a vote of no confidence was being called tomorrow.

  He said nothing to her. Absolutely nothing. But he called his assistant to make arrangements for the jet to meet them at the airport and take them back to Rome immediately. She looked across the car to where Micha sat, grim faced and lock jawed staring out of the window. If she told him about her father’s offer, it would only make things worse.

  The car drew up to the villa and he got out, and although he came round to her side of the car, and held the door open for her, his gaze roamed everywhere but on her.

  She wanted to know what he was thinking. What he was feeling. And for the first time in her life, she hated Gallo Group. Hated what it did to her family. Hated how it made everyone and everything around her so desperate and selfish.

  How it made her feel desperate and selfish.

  Because she couldn’t deny that a part of her saw how much she wanted it. For years it was all she’d wanted. The company. To show what she could do. To prove herself, to her family. To her father. To Gio. To herself.

  But at what cost?

  She followed Micha into the villa, and through to the living room, disconcerted when Micha turned to stare at her intently.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Did your father say anything else? When he told you about the no-confidence vote?’

  Maria paused, her heart throbbing painfully in her chest.

  ‘No,’ she lied.

  And then she saw it. The knowledge. The betrayal. And she wished to god that she could call her words back.

  He shook his head, and turned away from her in disgust.

  ‘Micha—’

  ‘Do you really believe I’m so stupid as to not realise what he’s offered you in exchange for your vote against me? There is no one in the company even remotely suitable for the president and CEO seat other than you. He’s offered you the role.’

  ‘And you think I’ll take it? You think I’d choose that over you?’ she demanded outraged.

  ‘Of course I do! You did then.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Maria asked, confusion blooming in her heart and head.

  ‘Eleven years ago, the day Gio told me he was sending me to Paris. When I came to see you. We were on the lawn, remember?’

  No, she didn’t remember. All she remembered was the shock and hurt of confusion. The agony that had threatened to swallow her whole after he’d left without a word. She—

  I have to ask you something.

  The smell of grass and the feel of the sun on her skin.

  What would you do to become head of this company? If Gio offered it to you?

  Anything. You know that.

  Her stomach dropped, plummeting to the ground.

  She stared up at him in confusion.

  ‘You asked me that, without telling me what was going on?’ she demanded, feeling a rush of anger. ‘You asked me…without giving me the context,’ she said slowly, realising what he’d done. ‘You set me up to fail. Because there was no way I could answer that question properly without understanding why you were asking it! You didn’t trust me. You didn’t trust my feelings for you,’ she threw at him, her heart breaking.

  It hadn’t been her. All this time, it wasn’t something she’d done. It had been him. He’d always have left. Because he didn’t trust her. He didn’t think he was worthy of her.

  ‘You’ve wanted this company almost since before you could walk. All you did was tell me the truth. You should take their offer,’ Micha said, breaking her heart. ‘It’s what you’ve always wanted.’

  ‘You,’ she confessed, her throat raw around the word. ‘You were what I always wanted. From the very beginning. You are the only man I have ever wanted and…you are the only man I’ve ever been with.’

  Standing so close, she could see the impact her words had on him. The realisation that she had been a virgin in Paris. His cheeks flushed and his eyes widened. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but she didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t.

  ‘But if you’d told me back then,’ she pressed on, ‘if you’d trusted me, trusted my feelings for you, if you’d explained what you were really asking me, then I would have answered differently. But you didn’t. You didn’t trust me then and you still don’t trust me now. That’s why you left me. It wasn’t because I chose them, that’s just an excuse,’ she said, repeating Antonio’s accusation from the night before the wedding. ‘One you’ve hidden behind for years.’

  At her words, he shut down. As if all feeling had been shoved behind an impenetrable door.

  ‘That’s the way you see it? That I abandoned you?’ he asked, his tone horribly level compared to the agony in hers.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing!’ she cried, unable to call back the hurt that was spilling out of her. Why was he being so cruel? So harsh? So unfeeling!

  ‘Exactly.’

  Wait, what?

  She stared at him in confusion.

  ‘Maria, you have fought for absolutely everything in your life. You fought schoolyard bullies, you stood up to your grandfather before your uncles could even think to do such a thing. You worked harder and more determinedly at work, pushing back every single time they tried to discriminate and intimidate you.’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she said with pride, as the distance between them grew smaller and smaller.

  He was almost within touching distance now, her heart pounding in her chest, blood rushing in her ears. This argument had been brewing between them for years and it was finally here. He was finally here. His gaze was stormy, his breath seeming to punch the air between them. He was angry, she realised. Angrier than she’d ever seen him. This was nothing like the back-and-forth they’d had in Paris, where no matter how cutting or cruel, his impartiality had held him in check. But that was gone now. Here was the wild energy he’d had about him when he’d been younger. The passion that had drawn her, the drive.

  He raised his hand to gently sweep aside a curling tendril from her face and tuck it behind her ear, the careful gesture seeming painfully at odds with the tension in the room.

  ‘You fight everything Maria. So why didn’t you fight for us?’

  His words were a whisper, with the power of an atomic bomb.

  The shock wave cut straight through her, through the years, through the hurts, through the feelings and agonies she’d experienced to the heart of something they’d never dared confront. The devastation of it was made somehow worse by the fact his words weren’t a shout, weren’t a ferocious demand, as if he had long ago surrendered to the belief that he wasn’t worthy of such a thing. As if he’d already given up before she’d begun to see.

  To see the part that she played in the past.

  He searched her face as if finally, after eleven years, he saw what he needed to. The dawning realisation of what she had done.

  Or not done.

  ‘Why didn’t you fight for me, Maria?’ he asked.

  Her soul shivered beneath his question. The truth emerging from the deepest, most sacred part of her childhood hurts. He deserved the truth as much as she deserved to say it.

  ‘Because if I failed, if you still walked away, there would have been nothing left of me,’ she confessed, her heart shattering into a thousand pieces.

  He stared at her, as if understanding her pain, but that it didn’t change a thing.

  ‘So, who didn’t trust who, Maria?’

  Tears welled in her eyes, threatening to fall. Too much hurt and too much pain shimmered between them. He hadn’t trusted her to love her, and she hadn’t fought to prove that she did, because she’d been scared too. Hurt by his rejection of her, she’d built a steel wall around her so that nothing and no one could hurt her like that again. But if she’d tried…if she had reached out to him…

  ‘I—’

  ‘The car will take you to the airport,’ he said interrupting her, ending the conversation.

  ‘And what about you?’

  ‘I need some time to think. I’ll see you at the meeting.’

  And with that, he stalked out of the room, but to Maria it felt as if he was stalking out of her life. Again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Karl, her driver whenever she was in Rome, eyed her warily in the car’s rear-view mirror.

  ‘Shouldn’t you be going in there, Ms G—I mean, Mrs—’

  ‘Not yet,’ Maria said, staring at the entrance to the Gallo Group Headquarters in Rome, through the blacked-out window of the town car.

  She was watching them all arrive. Several generations of Gallo men, all dressed in impeccably tailored dark suits, with crisp white shirts and pinned ties. The family resemblance imprinted on similarly dark features.

 

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