Though trapped was too simple a word to describe what her life had become. Because she did have her freedoms and, more, his focus. At night, they had begun to talk less of jewellery and more of hopes and dreams...names for the baby, plans for its future. All of which painted a picture that Maria feared was more spellbound than real, as if one wrong turn and it could vanish in the air like a wisp of autumnal mist.
She reached a part of the woodland that broke over the stunning view of Lake Lucerne towards the edge of Matthieu’s property and let out a weighted sigh, lost in the way the horizon met the mirror-smooth lake, the parallel beauty of two shades of blue so close they seemed two halves of the same whole. Something would break the harmony she’d discovered in the last week, whether it was her, Matthieu or someone else, she was sure of it. The fragile détente they had found between them...it just couldn’t last.
* * *
She returned from her walk, her muscles pleasantly aching, the pressure from the too-small waistband not so much. She reached for her phone, determined to find some better-fitting clothes online, when she saw the screen display fifteen missed calls from her brother. Fear spiked through her mind, which panicked while she hit the call button and waited to be connected to Sebastian.
Come on, come on, pick up.
When she heard his gruff voice answer she barrelled questions at him in rapid fire.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened? Are you okay?’
‘I don’t know, sis. You tell me.’
‘What?’ Maria asked, dropping into the chair by the table, relieved at least that he sounded okay.
‘Well, I don’t hear from you for a couple of months—perhaps not so unusual given your tendency to get lost in some project or other—’
Maria couldn’t help but flinch at the way Seb dismissed her work.
‘And then... Bam. There you are, front cover of over fifteen different magazines in several different languages, looking decidedly pregnant and apparently very much married? So you tell me if something “is wrong”, if something “has happened”, and by God, Maria, if you are okay!’
Maria knew on some level she had been blocking thoughts of Seb from her mind. Unable to find the words to explain. And she suddenly realised that she’d plunged her head in the sand and tried to ignore the reality of it all. Was this what was going to break the spell between her and Matthieu? Harsh reality?
‘Seb, I—’
Her brother’s exhale was harsh and loud in her ear. ‘You said you were in Switzerland visiting “a friend”,’ he accused. ‘Please, Maria, just tell me you’re okay.’
‘I am,’ she assured him. ‘Truly, I am.’
Over the next half an hour she lied to her brother—something she’d never done before—weaving a veil of fiction so thin over the way she had met and married Matthieu she could almost see the truth through it. But no matter what she said, it wasn’t enough. Sebastian wanted to see her, to meet Matthieu, and Maria wasn’t able to refuse the invitation, which was more of an ultimatum, to attend a dinner at his estate just outside Siena in a couple of days’ time. And suddenly thoughts and fears cascaded through her mind on an endless loop.
* * *
By the time Matthieu pulled into the sweeping drive of his estate, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to swing the car round and drive away, or throw the car into park and rush towards the wife he couldn’t quite figure out.
Ever since the night of the gala, he’d been unable—no, unwilling—to sleep in a bed without his wife. And he couldn’t explain it. It had just felt...wrong. The moment he’d taken her to his bed, he’d felt something shift within him, something that soothed the raging beast in a way he’d never experienced. It wasn’t her touch, her cries of pleasure. Unsettlingly it had nothing to do with the incredible heights of passion they’d shared. No, worse—it seemed that it was her mere presence that calmed him in a way nothing before ever had. Each night, when she couldn’t sleep, he’d asked her questions...just to hear the sound of her voice. He’d lie awake at night, just watching the rise and fall of her chest, and their child that was to be. Because the night of the gala, the way she had brushed past the dark headlines and focused on the good ones, she had shown him something that he’d never seen before. Survivor. The word still rang round his head, making him wonder if that was how their child might see him, making him want it.
He stalked down the hallway, frowning as he heard Maria’s steps taking her, what sounded like, back and forth. Matthieu was well versed in the patterns of pacing and was already frowning as he rounded the corner to find Maria turning on her heel, and twisting her hands round each other.
‘What’s wrong?’
She looked up, startled and almost guilty, then turned back to her pacing.
‘Maria?’
She shrugged a shoulder, aiming for nonchalant, he presumed, and failing miserably. ‘Oh, you know.’
‘No... I don’t, which is why I asked.’
She batted a hand in his direction without stopping her passage back and forth in the living area. If she didn’t stop she was going to make him—Fear, sudden and crashing, carved a jagged wound in his heart. ‘The baby—?’
‘Oh, God, no. Fine, the baby is fine,’ she said, stopping the movement of her feet and looking half appalled that he might have thought such a thing, before resuming her pacing.
His heart juddered and he took a few deep breaths to try and pull back the raging speed it had leapt to.