Page 154 of A Diamond Deal
‘WHERE ARE WE, ANYWAY?’ she said, much later that night, as they lay on a softer-than-clouds mattress, looking up into the night sky, naked limbs entwined, covered in a fine sheen of perspiration despite the cool night.
‘A winery in Frascati.’
She looked around at the silhouette of vines, now coated in milky moonlight. ‘Why here?’
‘Because the stars are never clearer than here,’ he said. ‘And because it’s private.’
She blinked up at him. ‘Is it yours?’
‘Of course.’
She bit back a smile at that. His confidence bordering on arrogance was so typically him. Her skin lifted in goosebumps as her soul recognised its pair, its partner, and her skin flushed all over.
‘I still can’t believe you did this.’
‘Can’t you?’ he asked, eyes roaming her face and practically jump-starting her heart. ‘Why is that?’
‘You just don’t seem like someone who would go to this kind of trouble.’
He reached out and touched a finger to her chin, gently angling her face to his. ‘You deserve good things, Amelia. You’ve fought hard, for too long. If nothing else, I’m glad this marriage has given you the freedom to live whatever life you choose.’
It was as though the weight of every atom in the universe were pressing down against her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe. To think. To weigh up the risks of what she now knew she must do.
‘I have to ask you something,’ she said, twisting her engagement ring between the fingers on either side of it, so his eyes glanced down at the ring before zipping back to her face.
Giving her vital seconds to rethink this.
But the weight on her chest made it impossible.
She had to know.
She’d always faced everything in life head-on. She was not someone to run and hide, nor bury her head in the sand. She was a fighter, and now she had to fight for her marriage.
If there was any chance he might feel for her as she did for him, she had to know. Because all of a sudden, not having said this aloud was suffocating her.
‘I have to ask you something,’ she repeated, because there was really no choice about it.
‘You said that already.’
She bit into her lower lip. ‘A few weeks ago, you told me that we were different in a vital way.’
His brow furrowed, as though he didn’t remember.
‘We were in the hot tub, talking about…’ she faltered slightly, gaze dropping to his chest, before lifting back to his lips, then his eyes ‘…marriage. Children.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I remember.’
‘You said that you’ve known for a long time you don’t want marriage and kids. That your mind is made up.’
‘Sì.’
Her belly hurt, but she was a fighter, and the fight wasn’t over. ‘I guess I’m wondering how firmly made up your mind is. Like, is there any part of you that thinks maybe you’re wrong?’
In the same way she would have felt a change in the weather, a shift in the wind’s direction, she felt the change in Massimiliano. The slight tension in his arms, the look in his face.
‘No,’ he said, after an infinitesimal pause. ‘Not even the smallest part of me wonders that.’
She closed her eyes in the most instinctive reaction to his statement that her body could muster.
