His expression gave nothing away. ‘We have a history which makes the lie all the more believable. Everyone loves a love-wins-out-in-the-end story.’
‘Well, don’t expect me to get all gussied up for the wedding,’ Alice said. ‘Me in one of those big meringue dresses? Not my thing at all.’
There was a moment or two of silence.
The air seemed to ring with her words as if testing their veracity. Just as well Cristiano didn’t know about the stash of bridal magazines she had at home. Dozens of them. It was a silly little pastime but she rationalised it by insisting it helped her follow make-up trends for her clients. And it was a tax deduction.
‘You might never get married again,’ he said. ‘Why not go to town on this one chance to be a princess for the day?’
‘You’re darn right I’m not getting married again,’ Alice said. ‘I’m going to be drinking champagne by the bucket once our marriage is over.’
Once our marriage is over.
It was strange to say those words when most people entered marriage thinking it was going to be for ever. Weddings had never been Alice’s fantasy. She hadn’t dressed up as a bride as a child or pored over bridal magazines as a teenager. She’d always seen marriage as a trap to keep women enslaved to the patriarchy. A tool to maintain male privilege in society. Women lost financial traction once they married and had kids and few ever truly regained it. She had seen her mother lose self-esteem and money with every failed relationship. Alice had lived in near poverty too often as a child to ever think of getting married herself.
But lately, Alice had dealt with a lot of brides. Happy brides. Brides who were madly in love with their men and their men with them. The excitement of building a future with a man who loved you and wanted to spend his life with you had rubbed off on her even though she’d thought it never would. Every time she prepared a bride’s make-up for her big day she wondered what it would be like to be a bride herself. To dress in a beautiful gown and have her hair and make-up done. To walk into a flower-filled church and say the vows that couples for centuries had been saying to each other.
A lot of the brides she had done still came into the salon as regular clients. It might be an isolated statistic, but so far not one of them had separated or divorced. On the contrary, they seemed happier and even more radiant. Several of them had babies and young children now.
It made Alice wonder if her bias was a little unjustified.
‘What will you do with your share of the villa once we get an annulment?’ he asked.
An annulment? Wait, he was actually serious about not sleeping with her? But why the hell not? Alice knew she wasn’t going to be asked to strut down a catwalk any time soon but she hadn’t had any mirrors explode when she’d walked past, either. ‘Of course I’ll sell my share. It’s the money I want, not the property. I wouldn’t be able to maintain a property that size—even a half share in it—not while working and living in London. Old places like that cost a fortune in upkeep.’
Cristiano gave a single nod as if that made perfect sense. But Alice couldn’t help feeling he was disappointed in her answer. What did the villa mean to him? Would he want to buy her share back once their marriage came to an end? Her conscience began to prickle her. Why should he be made to pay for something that should rightfully be his?
‘Were you expecting your grandmother to leave her villa entirely to you?’ Alice asked after a moment.
‘Yes and no.’ His expression was masked. ‘I have enough property of my own without hankering after that old place. But that doesn’t mean I want to see it sold to strangers.’
‘It must hold a lot of memories for you.’
‘It does. Both good and bad.’ He reached for his water glass but he didn’t drink from it. Instead, his index finger scrawled a swirly clockwise pattern on the condensation on the side of the glass. ‘It was a happy place before it became a sad place. Over time it became happy again, mostly due to my grandparents’ commitment to making my childhood and adolescence as normal as they could under the circumstances.’
Alice chewed at her lip. When had she ever talked to him like this? Really talked? She had tried asking him about his childhood seven years ago but he had always brushed the topic aside. Told her he didn’t like talking about it. She had respected that and left well alone. But now she wondered if that had been a mistake. ‘It must have been devastating to lose your family like that...’
‘And then some.’ He let out a small breath and began drawing on his glass in an anti-clockwise fashion this time. ‘I still remember the day my parents and brother were kill
ed... I was staying overnight with my grandparents as I’d caught a stomach bug and couldn’t go to the party they were attending.’ His mouth came up on one side in a rueful slant and his finger left the glass. ‘Lucky me. Saved by a rotavirus.’
Alice swallowed against a knot of emotion for the little boy he had been. How lonely and desperate he must have felt to have his family wiped out like that. Never to see them again. Never to have the opportunity to say the words he’d wanted to say. All the questions kids ask their parents about themselves—the funny anecdotes of infancy and childhood that only a parent can relay.
Why hadn’t she asked more about how he’d felt when they’d dated? Why had she let him fob her off? Had he been riddled with survivor guilt? Wondering why he had been spared and not his brother? How could it not have an effect on him even now? He had grown up without the most important people by his side. Yes, his grandparents were marvellous substitutes, but they could only ever be his grandparents. He carried the wound of loss in every fibre of his being.
‘I wish I’d asked you more about your childhood in the past... You always seemed so...so reluctant to talk about it and I didn’t want to pry.’
‘I hardly ever talked about it, even to my grandparents.’ He continued to stare at his glass, his brow creased in a slight frown. ‘I thought it was my family coming back when I heard the car. But it was a police vehicle. My grandfather broke the news to me...’
The trench of his frown deepened.
‘It’s weird, but I never really thought about that until a few years ago. How it would have been for him to hear his only son and daughter-in-law and eldest grandson had died and then have to break that news to me in a calm and controlled and caring manner. He was so...so unbelievably strong. For me. For Nonna. I never saw him cry but I sometimes heard him. Late at night, in his study, long after Nonna and I and the staff had gone to bed. It was a terrible sound.’
Alice reached across the table and placed her hand over his large warm tanned one where it was resting on the snowy-white tablecloth. He looked up when she touched him, his gaze shadowed by memories. By sadness. Bone-deep sadness. ‘I’m so sorry...’ she said.
He pulled his hand away and leaned back in his chair. ‘It was a long time ago. I never lacked for anything. My grandparents made sure of that.’
Alice wondered if anyone—even grandparents as loving and stable as Cristiano’s—could ever make up for the loss of one’s parents and only brother. Children were known to be fairly resilient, but how hard it must have been for him to know he would never see his parents and brother again. He had all the money anyone could wish for and yet he couldn’t bring back his loved ones. Was that why he was so controlling? So rigid and uncompromising? Was that why he had insisted on marrying her seven years ago and wouldn’t take no for an answer? He had wanted stability because he had lost it in childhood.