His Merciless Marriage Bargain

“But I hated seeing her sleeping in a chair.”

“If she’d wanted to, she could have slept on the bed. She used to do that with us when we were small and had nightmares.”

“Your mother didn’t come to you?” she whispered, leaning over the crib to check on Michael.

The baby was fast asleep, his round cheeks rosy. She smiled down at him, thinking he looked like an angel.

Gio reached into the crib and lightly stroked a wisp of Michael’s black hair. “If my mother was home, yes. But sometimes she’d travel with my father.”

Rachel felt a pang as she saw how gently Giovanni touched their nephew. From the beginning he’d been comfortable holding Michael, and she wondered if he’d had a lot of experience with children, or if he was just a natural. Either way, it was reassuring to see.

Giovanni sighed. “Speaking of Madre, I need to tell you something.”

“Is she on her way back home?” she whispered.

“Not exactly.” He hesitated. “Come, let’s go to my room, and I’ll explain all.”

It turned out that “Come to my room” didn’t mean Gio’s office suite, but his bedroom. Rachel felt a flutter of nerves as they entered the high-ceilinged room covered in dark beams with gold stencil, the walls a rustic pumpkin-hued plaster, the bed surprisingly modern and austere with a white linen cover. Two white slipcovered chairs flanked the stone fireplace. Books covered a farmhouse table, with more books stacked on the nightstand next to the low bed.

“Would you like a glass of port?” Gio asked, peeling off his coat.

“I’m good, thank you,” she answered, sitting down in one of the chairs by the empty hearth.

“Do you mind if I have one?”

“Of course not.”

He went to the long wooden table that nearly ran the length of the wall and drew the stopper out of the glass decanter and filled a small glass. He turned to face her, his expression shuttered. “Madre doesn’t live here anymore. And she’s not visiting her sister in Sorrento. She’s in a home in Sorrento. I had to make that decision earlier in the year. She has dementia, and it had become too dangerous for her here. I tried my best to keep her here, but there are so many stairs and halls and empty rooms…as well as windows and water.” He looked down into his glass. “I did have to fish her out of the lagoon more than once. It was awful. And then she didn’t know me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She doesn’t know about Michael. She doesn’t even know that Antonio is gone. She doesn’t know any of us anymore—” He broke off, brow furrowing. “I go see her once a month. I know it’s not enough, but it is incredibly painful to sit at her side and listen to her ask me over and over who I am.” His jaw jutted. “I don’t like feeling helpless. And every time I see her, I do.”

“I understand,” Rachel said softly, and she did.

“I, too, wrestle with guilt. I feel guilty that I am not there with her more, guilty that I wasn’t able to keep her here, in her own home. But it hasn’t been an easy year. Antonio’s death was impossible. It was like a dance step…quick, quick, slow. The diagnosis was quick, and then he was gone to travel and have his last big adventure, and he only returned when he was ready to die, while the actual dying part was brutal and slow.” He began unbuttoning his dark shirt. “Once he began dying, it took forever.”

“Were you there with him?” Rachel asked, watching his hands work, tackling one button after another.

“Yes. He wanted to die at home—his home, the one in Florence. I was there for the last thirty-five days. I haven’t been back in the house since. At some point I need to do something with it, but I have no desire to return anytime soon. Too many memories. Too much suffering.”

She felt his pain and it ached within her. “We’ve both had so much to deal with this year. I feel badly that I judged you—”

“Don’t go there. We were both doing the best we could. It wasn’t perfect but it was our best. One can’t do more than that.”

“Yet I always feel as if I should.”

Shirt unbuttoned, Gio looked at her, his blue gaze intense, the irises bright and hot.

“You set impossible standards for yourself,” he said.

“I do,” she said softly, thinking she’d never met anyone half so handsome. His cheekbones were high, his eyebrows were straight and black, his jaw was now shadowed, his mouth beautiful.

Her heart thumped as he crossed the room, his shirt open, exposing his broad chest and hard torso, to sit down in the chair opposite her. He was so close now that if she leaned forward she could touch his thigh. Her mouth went dry. She felt positively parched.