The Temporary Mrs. Marchetti

But Alice hadn’t been in love with him back then...or had she? It was a question she always shied away from. She didn’t like looking back. Regrets were for people who weren’t confident in their ability to make choices.

She had made her choice.

She had chosen her career over marriage.

Not because she couldn’t have combined them both, but more because Cristiano wouldn’t have wanted her to. He’d wanted her to have babies and stay at home to rear them as his mother had done for him and his brother. He hadn’t wanted any talk of nannies or childcare. In his opinion, there was only one way to bring up a family and that was to have a wife and full-time mother running the household.

They had argued about it constantly. For a while, Alice had naively thought he was only doing it to get a rise out of her. That he didn’t really think so strongly about the issue but enjoyed the way she reacted when he expressed his opinion. But when he’d dropped that proposal on her, she’d realised he was deadly serious about it. For him there was no middle ground.

Marriage or nothing.

Alice had chosen nothing. Which had been fine when she was twenty-one with her whole life ahead of her. Now, at twenty-eight, with all her peers pairing up and marrying and starting families, and her own biological clock developing a recent and rather annoying and persistent ticking, she wondered if ‘nothing’ was going to keep her satisfied...if she had ever been so.

They finished their meal without much further conversation. Alice tried a couple of times to talk to him about his hotel plans for London, but he seemed disinclined to talk about anything but the arrangements to do with their marriage next month. His single-minded focus was a little unnerving to say the least. She wondered if he had pulled the drawbridge up on his personal life because she had got him to talk about his childhood in a way he had never done before.

When he led her out of the restaurant she half expected him to suggest they continue the evening by taking her somewhere else for a nightcap or coffee. But he simply drove her home and barely lingered long enough to walk her to the door.

Alice stood in the frame of her front door and watched the red glow of his taillights disappear into the distance. She flatly refused to admit she was disappointed. But when she went inside and closed the door, her beautiful house with its spacious rooms and gorgeous décor had never felt so empty.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE MEETING WITH the lawyer to deal with the prenuptial agreements was held the following day. Cristiano had organised to pick Alice up from the salon but she got held up with a client who had turned up late to her appointment, so when Alice came out to Reception she found Meghan talking to Cristiano, who had been kept waiting for nigh on twenty minutes.

Meghan turned around with a beaming smile. ‘Congratulations! Oh, my God, it’s so romantic. It’s all over social media—everyone’s tweeting about it. I knew there was something cooking between you two. I just knew it. You’re engaged!’

Alice had never considered herself a consummate actor, but right then and there she thought she was worthy of an Oscar and an Emmy.

She moved closer to Cristiano and slipped an arm around his lean waist. ‘Thanks. Yes, it is exciting. We’re very happy.’

His arm came around hers, his hand coming to rest on the curve of her hip, the heat of his broad palm sending a red-hot current straight to her core. ‘Aren’t you going to kiss me hello?’ he said, smiling down at her.

Alice smiled back through mentally gritted teeth. ‘Not in front of my staff. You know how I am about public displays of affection.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Meghan said, with her hands clasped in front of her as if waiting for the penultimate kiss scene in a romantic movie.

Alice eased out of Cristiano’s hold to collect her bag from behind the counter. ‘I’ll be out for a couple of hours,’ she said to Meghan. ‘I’ve called in Suze to help with my Saturday clients while I’m away on the weekend.’

‘I’m so happy for you both,’ Meghan said. ‘Can I do your wedding make-up? Please, please, please? Or are you going to do it yourself?’

‘Erm...we’re not having that sort of wedding,’ Alice said. ‘We’re going to do things simply—’

‘Not have a proper wedding?’ Meghan’s pretty young face fell as if all her facial muscles had been severed. ‘But you love weddings. You put so much time and effort into getting your brides ready. You’re the best at it in the business. Everyone says so. Why wouldn’t you want to be a bride your—?’

‘Because I just want to be married without all the fuss,’ Alice said before her young employee let slip about the bridal magazines under the counter. Yes, she had two stashes of them—one for clients and one for herself. ‘Besides, we’re being married next month. There’s no time to do anything extravagant. Cristiano’s in a hurry, aren’t you, darling?’

Cristiano’s glinting black gaze left no room for doubt on the subject. ‘I’ve been waiting seven long years to have you back where I want you. I don’t want to waste a second more than I have to.’

‘Show me your ring!’ Meghan said.

Alice took it out of the pocket of her uniform and slipped it back on her finger. ‘It’s a little loose but—’

‘Oh...’ Meghan’s expression failed to conceal her disappointment. ‘It’s very...erm...nice.’

‘It’s not the official one,’ Cristiano said. ‘That’s being designed as we speak.’

‘Oh, how wonderful.’ Meghan’s face brightened as if a dimmer switch had been turned to full beam. ‘Alice loves a good engagement ring, don’t you, Alice?’

Alice wanted to slip between the polished floorboards of her salon. Why hadn’t she been a little more circumspect when examining her clients’ engagement rings? She had oohed and aahed over so many beautiful rings. It was the classical settings she loved the most. Simple and elegant instead of big and flashy. She stretched her mouth into a smile. ‘Sure do.’