Happy Mother's Day!

Was it over? she wondered as she switched on the nightlight and slowly made her way downstairs.

Probably. And maybe it would be better like that—with all this need for pretence gone. She used to think she had everything mapped out, rigidly put in its place. She had thought that if you hid how you were really feeling, then you wouldn’t get hurt. But she had been wrong—because she had opened up the way for the kind of hurt which was a million times worse than anything else she’d ever experienced before.

She had grown up under a canopy of fear—and that had carried on into her adult life. But fear didn’t make a situation better—it made it worse. Fear that Gianluca might one day leave her or slowly edge her from his life was spoiling what time they had together now.

He was waiting for her in the smallest of the reception rooms with only a couple of low-lamps on and a fire which had been lit against the newly chilly evenings. Flames danced shadows over the walls and ceiling, and she could hear the crackle and spit of the logs.

He’d opened wine, too—she could see that it was a bottle from his own estate with its distinctive Palladio label—and he had poured two glasses. Viewed from here, it looked like a picture-perfect family scene. The husband and the wife who had just put their adorable baby to bed. The glow of the room and the pleasurable anticipation of the evening ahead. Suddenly, Aisling felt weak. She wanted to freeze-frame it and keep it, but it wasn’t real, and yet the pain in her heart had become so very real.

Gianluca saw her face whiten and his eyes narrowed. ‘What’s happened?’ he demanded. ‘Is something wrong?’

She hesitated. What would she usually say? No, I’m fine—just a little tired, that’s all. She wouldn’t want him to think she was less than perfect—because Gianluca wanted and expected perfection. But she wasn’t—and her elaborately constructed act wasn’t working anyway.

‘Yes, something is wrong,’ she said, slumping into the nearest chair and beginning to cry. ‘Something is very wrong. You know it is!’

Gianlucawatched her. Usually, he mistrusted awoman’s tears—for they were often used as tools of manipulation—but these were sliding down her pale cheeks and her mouth was twisting in pain. And this was Aisling, he reminded himself. She always hid her emotions and she was not amanipulator. She never cried.

His cool expression did not change as he sipped his drink. ‘A hitch at work, perhaps?’

Aisling flinched as if he had struck her—but then, in a way, hadn’t he done just that? Because a crushing emotional blow could wound just as savagely. ‘Is that how you see me, then?’ she questioned, her voice shaking. ‘As so driven and focussed that nothing but ambition can touch me?’

‘I thought that was how you saw yourself.’

‘If you knew how I saw myself—you’d run a million miles away, Gianluca.’ She lowered her voice, daring to voice her deepest fear—bringing it out from the dark cupboard of her imagination. ‘But perhaps you’re intending to do that anyway.’

The cord of tension which had been stretching tight within him suddenly snapped as he saw this cold wasteland of a life spread out before him with this clever, closed woman. ‘Sì, maybe I am,’ he ground out. ‘Because I think I would find anything tolerable to living with a damned mannequin!’

The awful confirmation that he was thinking of leaving her was momentarily eclipsed by his accusation. ‘Amannequin?’ she echoed in confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I am talking about a woman who might as well be made of wax—for all that she lives and breathes. For that is you!’ he declared. ‘A cool, controlled woman who never shows her feelings—except in bed! You think that I wish to be married to a block of ice?’

She clapped her hand over her heart, it was beating so hard. ‘But th-that’s what you wanted!’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘You told me that’s what you found so attractive about me—that you never knew what was going on in my head. That Iwas an enigma and that men liked awoman to be mysterious—especially a man like you, who had spent all their lives being pursued by women who were like open books!’

He slammed his glass down so hard that some of the wine slopped onto the mantelpiece. ‘Yes, that was what initially intrigued me—but certainly not all. Are you crazy—thinking that I would tie my life to a woman simply because she played hard to get? You do not think that I was attracted to your mind as well as your initial reserve?’ he questioned hotly, shaking his dark head.

‘And we have moved on since then,’ he continued furiously. ‘Or, rather, I was hoping we might have done. But it seems I have been wrong, my freddo bella. What am I supposed to think—if not that what I see is what I get? A woman who does not care for her man? A woman who does not know how to care?’

‘But why should that bother you, Gianluca?’ she questioned, her voice wobbling. ‘You really only ever married me because of the baby, didn’t you? Why, you’d never even have seen me again if I hadn’t been pregnant!’

‘But that was your choice, too, Aisling—remember? I don’t remember you longing to want to see me!’ He took a deep breath to control himself, but rarely had he been so on the brink of losing it. ‘Yes, the baby was the reason we married, but even if you did have my baby—do you really think I would have set up home with a woman if I found her boring? If I did not think there were areas of compatibility we could work on?’

She stared at him. ‘You mean, you think there are?’

His breath was coming in short, angry bursts and his eyes burned like hot coals. ‘Ah, Aisling—you drive the dagger so deep, don’t you? You think that I am responsible for everything, sì? You want only to shift the blame to me, so that you do not have to accept any responsibility yourself? Yet you ran from my bed that first night in Italywhen there was no reason for you to do so. You, the only woman I had taken there—and, yes, I admit it was probably because you were so damned enigmatic!’

Aisling blinked at him in sheer surprise. ‘I didn’t know that. And besides, I … panicked—‘

He gave an impatient wave of his hand. ‘Then, when I came to find you in London again—’

‘But you kept me waiting for weeks! You told me you were only there because you had business in London!’

‘You think I have no pride, cara—is that it?’ he demanded. ‘You think I will allow a woman to trample on my heart? So I took you to dinner and I took you to bedbut again, you could not wait to get away the next morning.’

‘But our pact—’