The Italian's Christmas Secret

I care for you and my son.

He sounded like a robot intoning the correct response, not someone speaking from the heart. And his lack of emotion wasn’t the point, was it? She’d known about that from the start. She’d known the reason he was made that way and, filled with hope and with trust, had been prepared to make allowances for it. She bit her lip. When all the time he’d been plotting away and using her as a pawn in his desire to get his hands on this estate.

‘I understand that you’re known as an elusive man who doesn’t give anything away,’ she accused shakily. ‘But how many more people are going to come out of the woodwork and tell me things about you that I didn’t know? Can you imagine how it made me feel to hear that from Luciana, Matteo? To know you’d been buttering me up to get me to marry you? I thought... I thought you were doing it for your son’s future, when all the time it was because you didn’t want to lose a piece of land you thought of as rightfully yours! You don’t want a family—not really—you’ve just used me as some kind of incubator!’

‘But there’s a fundamental flaw in your argument,’ he grated. ‘If inheriting the estate meant so much to me, then why hadn’t I fathered a child with someone else long before I met you?’

‘Because I don’t think you really like women,’ she said slowly. ‘Or maybe you just don’t understand them. You never knew your mother and she died so tragically that it’s inevitable you idealised her. She would have had flaws, just like we all do—only you never got to see them. No woman could ever have lived up to her and maybe that’s one of the reasons why you never settled down.’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘And then I came along and took the decision away from you. A stolen night, which was never meant to be any more, suddenly produced an heir. You didn’t have to go through the whole tedious ritual of courting a woman you didn’t care for in order to get yourself a child. Fate played right into your hands, didn’t it, Matteo? Suddenly you had everything you needed, without any real effort on your part.’

His face blanched. ‘You think I am so utterly ruthless?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, and there was a crack in her voice. ‘Maybe you do care—a little. Or as much as you ever can. But you’re missing the point. I thought growing up without a father was difficult, but at least I knew where I stood. It may have been grim at times but it was honest and you haven’t been honest with me.’ She swallowed. ‘It feels like I’m in the shadows of your life—like someone in the wings watching the action on stage. I see the way you are with the baby—and with me—and it comes over as a performance, not real. How could it be, when Santino and I were only ever a means to an end?’

Matteo flinched as he met the accusation in her eyes, because nobody had ever spoken quite so candidly to him. ‘For someone so tiny, you certainly don’t pull any punches, do you, Keira?’

‘What’s the point in pulling punches? All we have left is the truth,’ she said wearily. ‘You’ve got what you wanted, Matteo. We’re married now and your son has been legitimised. You have continued the Valenti name and will therefore inherit the estate. You don’t need me any more.’

Matteo felt his chest tighten and his instinct was to tell her that she was right—and that he didn’t need anyone. He’d spent his whole life not needing anyone because there had been nobody there to lean on, nobody to get close to—why change that pattern now? But some unknown emotion was nudging at his conscience as something deep inside him told him this was different.

‘And what if I say I do need you?’ he said hoarsely as he attempted to articulate the confusion of thoughts which were spinning around inside his head.

Her eyes widened, but he could see a wariness in their depths of profondo blu. ‘You do?’ she queried uncertainly.

The moment it took for her to ask the question was all Matteo needed to shift things into perspective, because he knew he mustn’t offer her false promises or false hope. She deserved more than that. So stick to the facts, he urged himself grimly. You’re good with facts. Allow her to consider all the advantages of remaining here, as his wife.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And logistically it makes perfect sense.’

‘Logistically?’ she echoed, her voice a little faint.

‘Sure.’ He shrugged. ‘If we’re all living together under one roof as a family, it will be much better for Santino. Better than having a father who just jets in and sees him on high days and holidays.’

‘There is that, of course,’ she said woodenly.

‘And I’ve married you now, Keira,’ he said softly. ‘I have given you the security of bearing my name and wearing my ring. Your future is assured. You don’t need to worry about money ever again.’

‘You think that’s what it’s all about?’ she questioned, her voice trembling. ‘Money?’

‘Not all of it, no—but a big part of it. And we have plenty of other reasons to keep our marriage going.’ He curved her a slow smile. ‘What about the sexual chemistry which exists between us? That fact that you are the hottest woman I’ve ever had in my bed?’

She gasped as if she had been winded before staring at him—as if she were looking at someone she’d never seen before. ‘You just don’t get it, do you, Matteo? You list all the reasons I should stay with you and yet you haven’t mentioned anything which really matters!’

He flinched with pain as he met the undiluted anger in her gaze, but at the same time a strange sense of relief wa

shed over him as he realised that he no longer had to try. She was going and taking their child with him and he would just have to learn how to deal with that. And anyway, he thought grimly—why would he want to prolong a relationship when it could hurt like this? Hadn’t he vowed never to let anyone hurt him, ever again?

‘Okay, I get it. What do you want?’

With an effort he held up the palms of his hands, in silent submission, and the sudden wobble of her lips made him think she might be about to backtrack—maybe to soften the blows which she’d just rained on him, but all she said was, ‘I’d like us to separate.’

He told himself it was better this way. Better to go back to the life he was used to and be the person he knew how to be, rather than chase after the glimmer of gold which Keira Ryan had brought shimmering into his life.

‘Tell me what you want, in practical terms,’ he said flatly.

He could see her throat constricting as she nodded.

‘I’d like to return to London as soon as possible and to rent somewhere before I decide to buy,’ she said, before sucking in a deep breath. ‘But I want you to know that I’ll take only what is necessary for our needs and you’re not to worry. I don’t intend to make a great hole in your wealth, Matteo.’

And even that got to him, because he couldn’t even level the charge of greed against her. She wasn’t interested in his money, he realised, and she never had been. She’d taken the cash he’d thoughtlessly left beside the bed and had given it away to charity. She’d fought like mad against him buying her a fancy wardrobe. She was a jewel of a woman, he realised—a bright and shining jewel. But it was too late for them. The cold, pinched look on her beautiful face told him that. So let her go, he told himself. Set her free. At least you can give her that.