* * *
‘To summarise, I’ll take care of the legal side, Daniele takes care of the construction and Matteo takes care of the medical side. What about you, Natasha? Do you want to handle publicity for it?’
Francesca’s words penetrated Natasha’s ears but it took a couple of beats longer for her brain to decipher them.
She’d struggled to pay attention throughout the meeting Francesca had called, the outbursts of temper between Daniele and Francesca being the only thing that had kept her even vaguely alert.
‘I can do that,’ she whispered, swallowing back the hysteria clamouring in her stomach.
Ignore Matteo and keep it together, she told herself in desperation.
God, she didn’t know anything about publicity.
She knew Francesca thought she was doing the right thing, inviting her to this meeting of siblings—and the Pellegrinis considered their cousin Matteo to be a sibling—and that Francesca assumed she would want to be involved.
Any decent, loving widow would want to be involved in building a memorial to their beloved husband.
And she did want to be involved. For all his terrible failings as a husband, Pieta had been a true, dedicated humanitarian. He’d formed his own foundation a decade ago to build in areas hit by natural disasters; schools, homes, hospitals, whatever was needed. The Caribbean island of Caballeros had been hit by the worst hurricane on record the week before he’d died, wrecking the majority of the island’s medical facilities. Pieta had immediately known he would build a hospital there but before his own plans for it had fully formed his own tragedy had struck and he’d been killed in a helicopter crash.
He deserved to have this memorial. The suffering people of Caballeros deserved to benefit from the hospital Francesca would steamroller into building for them.
So Natasha had striven to pay attention, not wanting to let down the loving Pellegrini siblings who’d been a part of her life for as long as she could remember, since her father and Fabio had been old school friends. She’d never had siblings of her own and as soon as it had been announced she’d be marrying into the family the closeness had grown, even during the six long years of their engagement.
If only Matteo weren’t there she’d have been better able to concentrate.
There had not been one occasion in his presence in the past seven years where she hadn’t felt the weight of his animosity. Polite and amiable enough that no one could see the depths of his loathing, whenever their eyes met it was akin to being stared at by Lucifer, her soul scorched by the burn of the hatred firing from green eyes that had once looked at her with only tenderness.
She could feel it now, digging into her skin like needles.
How could Francesca and Daniele not feel it too? How did it not infuse the whole atmosphere?
A part of her understood why he despised her as he did and, God knew, she’d tried to apologise for it, but it had been seven years. So much had changed in that time. She’d changed. He’d changed too, turning his back on the reconstructive surgery he’d worked so hard to specialise in and instead going the vanity surgery route. With his twenty-eight clinics worldwide and the patent on a skincare range he’d personally developed that actually worked in reducing scars and the signs of aging, he’d gone from being a dedicated professional surgeon to an entrepreneur who fitted surgery in when he had the time. Matteo had amassed a fortune that rivalled the entire Pellegrini estate and Pieta’s personally accrued wealth put together.
He’d even changed his surname.
He’d become famous with it. Tall with dark good looks, olive skin, strong jaw and black curly hair that he’d recently had cropped short, it had been inevitable. ‘Dr Dishy’ the tabloids called him. It seemed she could barely pass a newsagent or log onto the Internet without seeing his seductive face blazing out at her, normally with some identikit lingerie model or other draped on his arm.
Today his usual arrogance had deserted him. Even with the laser burn of his loathing infecting her, she could feel his anguish.
Pieta had been more than a cousin and surrogate sibling. He’d been Matteo’s closest friend.
Her heart wanted to weep for him.
Her heart wanted to weep for all of them.
* * *
Matteo pulled his car u
p by the kerb and turned off the engine. The grand town house he’d parked opposite stood in darkness.
Slumping forward over the wheel, he closed his eyes.
What was he even doing here?
He should be in his hotel room, drinking the mini-bar dry. He’d made that arrangement assuming Natasha would be staying in the castello with the rest of the family. He hadn’t slept under the same roof as her since she’d accepted Pieta’s proposal.
But she hadn’t stayed. A couple of hours after their meeting to discuss the memorial for Pieta she had made the rounds to embrace everyone goodbye. Everyone except him. By unspoken agreement—unspoken because he hadn’t exchanged more than a handful of words with her in seven years—he’d kept a great enough physical distance between them that no one would notice they failed to say goodbye to each other.