“The harvest festival is this afternoon,” a young woman said. “Please, you must come!”
In the corner of her eye, she saw Stefano hesitate. He glanced questioningly at Tess.
“Please, Princess, make him come!” a girl pleaded. “And your sweet baby.”
“Of course we’ll come,” Tess said, smiling at them.
Everyone cheered. Speaking in rapid Italian, Gerlanda pulled off her apron.
“But you have traveled far. You must be hungry. Your bags are inside? Salvatore,” she snapped her fingers, speaking to a nearby man. The man immediately left the kitchen, smiling as he passed them.
Gerlanda turned back, cooing at the baby. “I will make you some lunch. Just to tide you over.”
“We’re not terribly hungry,” Tess began. She was still full from the lovely breakfast that Louisa had prepared them on the private jet.
“Of course you are,” the Sicilian housekeeper said briskly. “You are too skinny. You must keep up your strength! For Stefano! For Gioreale! And this sweet little one.” She stroked Esme’s dark curls. “The festival is hours away. You will starve. I will bring you food.”
Tess tossed her husband a pleading glance.
“Thank you, Gerlanda,” he interceded. “But I’d like to show my new bride around the estate. And perhaps,” he said thoughtfully, “visit the winery.”
“Yes!” The older woman’s face lit up. “See what you have done for us.”
“What has Stefano done?” Tess said.
“After his father died, Stefano always made sure to send money for the village. Even when his company was small and he had nothing. He always sent it to us. Always.” Her eyes gleamed with tears as she looked up at him. “Now you are here, so you can see your sacrifice was not in vain. Or your belief in us.” Abruptly she turned away. “You are not hungry, fine, so I will make you a picnic.”
Stefano stared after her with a smile tracing his lips. “Same old Gerlanda.”
“She calls you by your first name,” Tess said wonderingly. “No one else does. Not even your assistant.”
“Gerlanda was my nanny for two years, from the time I was eight until ten.” His smile lifted to a grin. “I think in her mind, I am still ten years old.”
“If she loved you, why did she leave?”
The smile dropped. “She didn’t. My mother fired her. She always got rid of any servant I started to care about. She didn’t want me to get too attached to them.”
Tess stared up at him in disbelief. “What?” she breathed. “Your parents abandoned you—then wouldn’t let you love any of your caregivers?”
“Not just caregivers.” His voice was casual, but she saw the tightness around his ey
es. “Anyone I loved would disappear. After Gerlanda was forced to leave, I made friends with kids in the village. But at the end of the summer, they were told not to play with me or their parents would lose their jobs. So I roamed over the countryside with the gardener’s dog.” He paused. “My parents thought it was vulgar. So they told the gardener to get rid of his dog. When he refused, he was fired.”
“Oh, Stefano,” Tess choked out, her heart breaking. How could anyone be so cruel, to systematically and deliberately remove all love from their own child’s life?
“It’s all in the past.” Stefano’s expression was cool. “I haven’t thought about it for years.” He took her hand. “Come.”
But was it really in the past? As he showed her around the sprawling castle, Tess felt sick.
Because now she knew and could no longer deny it.
She loved him. She was totally and completely in love with her husband.
And he’d warned her against it from the start.
You know I’m not good with...with feelings, right? Emotions? I like you a lot, Tess. Especially in bed. But that’s all I’m capable of. I just... I’d never want to make you unhappy or break your heart.
Loving Stefano, was Tess making the same mistake her mother had made—giving herself to a man who was totally unobtainable?