Maggie wanted to stay with them, but he had made it clear her presence would be an intrusion. In fact, Maggie suspected that if he had it his way, he would never see her again.
Trying not to be petty about the fact that she was jealous of her one year old daughter, she went back to the kitchen and continued rolling the date balls.
All the while, she could hear him chatting to May, making her laugh, showing her things of interest. Some time later, after she’d made all the balls and stayed out of the way for as long as possible, she popped her head around the corner. “Would you like a tea or coffee?”
“No.” He didn’t look at her.
Maggie padded back to the kitchen, tears stinging her eyes. She pressed her palms into them, feeling like she’d stepped off the edge of a cliff and got caught on a bramble half way down. She was in no man’s land. Here, in Spain, with a man who hated her, whom she was tied to for life, by their little daughter.
How could she cope? How could she go forward? Her own heart was breaking for what could have been. For what she needed. For what would never be.
“Mama, mama, mama,” May’s voice broke through her self-indulgent mood. She sniffed, and ran shaking fingers under her eyes. May had never seen her upset, and she sure as heck wasn’t going to let her do so now.
“Just a minute, honey,” she called back, her voice tremulous. She flicked the tap on and splashed some water into her eyes. She reached out for the tea towel that hung on the oven. It wasn’t there. She blinked, to see Dante standing with May on his hip, the tea towel extended.
Maggie flushed, and grabbed it from his hands. “Suncream in my eyes,” she murmured, forcing a bright smile to her face. She ignored Dante. She couldn’t bear to look at him and see his scorn again. “What is it, baby girl?” She held her hands out and May immediately lurched for them. She smacked her lips together in an approximation of a kiss. “Mama,” she grinned, putting her hands on Maggie’s cheeks. “Mama.”
“Yes, darling.” Maggie couldn’t help but laugh. “Have you been having fun?”
Dante stepped back a little. The love between Maggie and May was profoundly moving. May was wedging her little mouth against Maggie’s tear stained cheeks, and pulling her hair at the same time. He was pretty sure it would have been painful, but Maggie wasn’t reacting. Still. He reached forward and disentangled the little one’s fingers from Maggie’s spectacular auburn hair. It was a mistake. He had told himself that touching her would be disastrous, and he’d been right. Instantly, his gut kicked with desire. A muscle moved in his cheek as he stepped backwards, like the very fires of hell were licking at his fingers.
Maggie fixed her gaze on his shoulder. “May has afternoon tea around now. Would you like to join her?”
“Si.” He had a mountain of work to get through, but now that he’d spent time with his daughter, he didn’t relish the idea of leaving her again.
Maggie pulled some fruit out of the fridge and chopped it up, presenting it with unconscious beauty on a platter. She scooped some yoghurt into a dish and topped it with some coconut flakes, and then poured some milk into a sippy cup.
“I’m having a green tea. For you?”
“Coffee.”
She gritted her teeth, trying not to be upset by his abruptness.
“Shall we eat on the terrace? It’s a beautiful day.”
“Fine.” He reached out to take the fruit platter, and with that in one hand and May in the other, he moved across the villa.
Maggie finished brewing their drinks and then followed suit, her stomach in knots as she sat down at the table.
“It’s a beautiful view,” she said, simply to cut through the silence.
He grunted his assent, and downed his black coffee in one quick gulp. He’d placed May into the high chair, and she was banging at the tray in eagerness for her snack. Maggie lifted some pineapple and watermelon pieces onto a plate and handed it to her.
“Is it all Velasco land?” She prompted, trying for their daughter’s sake to seem civilised.
He sighed and looked at her warily. “As far as the eye can see, down to the ocean.”
“Amazing. And your vineyards are on the other side?”
He picked up a strawberry and twirled it distractedly in his fingers. “We buy a lot of grape in, now. Our operation is too large to be met with only our own grapes. We reserved those for special bottles. Such as the one we shared the night we met.”
It was a deliberate attempt to remind her of their war footing. She would not be deterred. “I remember it being delicious,” she remarked with a steady gaze.
He looked away. How could she joke? How could she even look at him? After what she’d done?
“My mother is anxious to meet her grand daughter. My siblings likewise. They are coming to the house tomorrow afternoon. I would like to take May to the main house for a few hours. Do you see a problem with that?”
“No, of course not.” She shook her head. “I can bring her over after her nap.”
His eyes glittered. “You do not need to trouble yourself. I will come and get her.”
“Oh.” Maggie blinked. His meaning was clear. She was not welcome. “I see.”
The hurt in her face almost weakened his resolve. But then, he looked at May, and it returned with a vengeance. This was the daughter he should have known. The daughter he should have spent the last year of his life loving. The daughter Maggie had gone out of her way to hide from him.
“Good.” His eyes glittered with purpose. “I’ll be over at the same time tomorrow.”
“I just… I just don’t know if it’s a good idea,” she said quietly, scanning May’s happy face.
“Oh?”
“She’s clingy. With me. She doesn’t like to be away from me.”
“She is my daughter.” He responded sceptically, trying to keep the animosity from his tone for the sake of the child.
“Yes, but she barely knows you.” She leaned forward. “I’m sorry, but it’s true. In time, she will feel more comfortable with you, but for the moment, she just needs to be around me. It’s an age and stage thing.”
He leaned forward also, matching her position, and lowered his voice so that May would not be able to discern his words. “Do you think I would believe you?” He flicked his gaze to their child. “You have kept her from me for over a year. You concealed your pregnancy from me. And now, you are blocking my attempts to spend time with her, without you?”
“No,” she insisted. “I’m simply telling you what I think you need to know.”
He narrowed his gaze. “I will take my chances.” He stood, placing the strawberry back on the platter. His expression softened as he turned to May. “Enjoy your fruit, May.” He dropped down and pressed a kiss on her soft dark curls.
“Thank you for the coffee.”
She pulled a face. “It was your coffee.”
He nodded. “Nonetheless…” He shrugged. “Goodbye, Maggie.”
He left, and she spent the rest of the day pretending that her heart wasn’t being split in two.
8
“She will not stop crying.” Dante was clearly frantic. Or as close to frantic as Dante allowed himself to become. He held May out to Maggie, and she saw that his shirt had a big, crumpled wet patch on the shoulder. Presumably, May had been using it to relieve her sadness.
Maggie pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to say, I told you so.
When May came to Maggie’s chest, she was almost hyperventilating. Her face was tearstained and her cheeks were pink. Though Dante had consumed her every waking thought for too long to remember, she instantly forgot he was there. “Hush, hush,” she cooed to the child, cuddling her tight and whispering in her ear. She reached for a tissue without loosening her grip, and gently dabbed at May’s cherubic cheeks.
“You were not exaggerating,” Dante said quietly, as the child seemed to relax before his eyes. Now, her dark gaze was accusing, as it levelled at him over Maggie’s shoulder.
<
br /> “I know,” she responded from gritted teeth.
“She was so good with me yesterday,” he murmured with obvious disappointment, not attempting to come closer.
“Yes, she was. But I was here too. Think of me as a security blanket for her. She is fearless, so long as she can see me.”
Dante thrust his hands deep in his pockets. “I am sorry I did not believe you.”
Maggie turned to look at him seriously. “I understand why you didn’t.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. A gulp of insurmountable seeming obstacles ran between them.
“Everyone is at the house. Will you come with her?”
Maggie looked over her shoulder. She had just been slicing some vegetables for a snack. “Give me five minutes.”
She returned them to the fridge, then slipped inside her bedroom. Her heart was pounding in the way it always did when Dante was nearby. She lowered May to the floor and opened her suitcase. She had packed light – figuring she’d be spending most of her time on her own. But of her clothes, a black jersey dress was the most suitable for a first time meeting with May’s extended family. She wriggled out of her jeans and jumper and pulled the dress on. Her cherry hair she lifted into a loose, high ponytail. To her face she added a touch of makeup, simply to disguise the fact she’d hardly slept in a month.
“Okay, let’s go.” She lowered a hand and May put hers into it. Together, they walked back to the lounge. Maggie was concentrating on their daughter, so she didn’t register Dante’s slow appraisal of her.
In under five minutes, she’d transformed herself from casual cook to absolute knock out. The dress was nothing special. A simple, clinging thing that covered her arms to the wrists and her body all the way down to her knees. But her figure was unmistakably goddess-like; her skin glowed, her hair shone. He forced himself to look away and take a deep, calming breath.
Maggie was off limits, for so many reasons.
“What is it?” She froze in the middle of the lounge, looking down at herself. “Is something wrong?”
He’d been staring, and she’d caught him. He narrowed his eyes, wiping any hint of desire from his features. “Not at all. I’m just wondering how you’d like me to explain things to my family.”
“Oh.” She bit down on her lower lip, in a way that he had always found adorable. He refused to buy into her vulnerability, though. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
He was merciless. “I mean, my mother had six children. We come from a big, knotty family. I don’t know if they’ll ever understand your decision to keep my own flesh and blood from me.”
Maggie’s stomach was what was knotty. “Right.” She nodded. “They probably won’t.”
“Won’t what?”
Her throat was clogged with guilty tears. “They probably won’t ever understand. I know you won’t. I don’t even know if I do myself.” Her eyes were so blue and so bleak when she looked at him. “I just did the best I could.”
She was a liar. She lied to men, made them fall in love with her, all to break up their marriages. He was no fool though. He would not fall for her again. “So long as you’re prepared,” he drawled with a nonchalant lift of his shoulders.
They walked at May’s pace… S-L-O-W-L-Y. Every tiny step forward increased Maggie’s anticipation. Half way to the main house, she snuck a sidelong glance at Dante. He was implacable. “Have you, um, lived here long?” She asked, finally, simply because the silence was making her nerve endings stretch impossibly taut.
“All my life,” he responded with a nod.
“But you run the business now?”
“Si. None of my siblings have quite my passion for the vines. Though my youngest brother Carlo is our head of marketing. And my sister Sofia does our label design. But my mother moved to Barcelona after my father died.” He looked at her without malice for the first time since she’d arrived. “She couldn’t stand to remain here without him. She insisted on a fresh start.”
Maggie nodded. “When did he die?”
“About five years ago,” he said, though he remembered the date clearly. It had been a week before his wedding.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a sympathetic smile.
“Thank you,” he nodded curtly. Conversation closed.
Maggie knew he was one of six children, but she wasn’t prepared for just how many people would be waiting at the main house. As she turned the corner into the courtyard, she was overwhelmed by the number of beautiful, dark, well-dressed strangers. Beneath the shade of an enormous old oak tree, they were rugged up against the cool day. All of them had their eyes on her. Her step faltered a little, and she might have fallen, had Dante not acted on his razor sharp reflexes. He snaked a hand out and clamped it around her waist, holding her upright.
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes flew to his, enormous pools in the midst of her face.
His gaze was heavy on hers, his eyes holding hers, while his hand seemed glued to her side.
“It’s my little lamb!” A tall, rake thin woman moved toward them, her face creased in a million lines as she smiled at May.
“Madre, this is Maggie Carrington. Maggie, my mother Sylvie.”
“Hello,” Maggie responded, her smile shy.
“’Ello,” the woman was not friendly, but nor was she horrible. Maggie took that as a good sign.
“What would you like May to call you?” Maggie asked the older woman.
“I am her abuelita,” Sylvie responded quickly, grabbing one of May’s little hands in her own and kissing it. May giggled, earning a round of laughter from the assembled guests. “Will she come to me?”
Maggie hoped so. Her guilt was a force of responsibility that was almost too much to bear, as she scanned the courtyard and saw how many people had come to adore May. How many people she had kept out of her life, simply because she wasn’t ready to face the music with Dante. “Darling, this is your abuelita,” Maggie stumbled a little over the foreign word. “Will you give her a cuddle.”
May, content that her mother was nearby, was happy to be passed over to her grandmother. The likeness between Dante and May was striking. Even more so between May and her grandmother.
Sylvie said something in Spanish to Dante, earning a flicker of a scowl from him in response. He did, however, deign to answer. “My mother would like me to introduce you to my family,” he said stiffly. His preference was obvious. He wished like hell she wasn’t there, and resented that May’s clinginess made her presence a necessity.
“Come.” He pressed a hand into the small of her back, and nudged her towards the group of people watching with undisguised curiosity. Maggie’s spine tingled at the contact, and she had to clamp down on her lower lip to avoid reacting.
“My sisters Krista, Sofia and Emilia,” he said, nodding to the three women. Each was as striking and glamorous as the next. Two tall and slender like Sylvie, and the third short but curvaceous in a way that reminded her of her best friend Rosie. Maggie lifted a hand to her hair, self-consciously, wondering what these women must be thinking of her. More people who would undoubtedly wish she weren’t there.
“And my brothers, Carlo and Enrique. Enrique is Emilia’s twin,” he added unnecessarily.
They all seemed to be staring at her. Five sets of eyes watching and waiting, and Dante wilfully ignoring her. Emilia, the shorter of the sisters, had a patient smile on her face. The rest reminded her of Dante for their analytical watchfulness.
They were waiting for her to speak. She cleared her throat and tried to smile. Her mouth felt filled with sawdust. “Hi,” she said with a nod.
“This is May’s mother, Maggie.”
May’s mother. Why did the simple description hurt? She forced an even broader smile to her face. Because he was swiftly underlining that there was nothing between them but the baby they shared.
And there wasn’t. A month ago they might have been in the middle of a weekend of incredible sex. But he hadn’t known then. He hadn’t known who he was sleeping with
really. She swallowed, frustrated by how emotional she’d become of late.
“We should move inside,” Maggie asserted with a confidence that was completely assumed. “It is not too cold out here, but for May, it wouldn’t be pleasant.”
“Of course,” Dante immediately softened, turning to his mother and speaking quietly in their native tongue. Sylvie nodded, holding May to her chest and beginning to move towards the house. May’s little eyes peered over Sylvie’s shoulder, found Maggie and then she relaxed down again.
Since discovering she was pregnant, Maggie had turned her life on its head for her baby. She and Rosie had sold the business they’d always dreamed of owning. It had been the logical choice – both pregnant. Life had moved on from the café. She had bent over backwards to make sure her baby had the best she could give her. This was no different. If she had to put up with a little veiled hostility from Dante’s family, and May got a large extended family to love her into the bargain, then it was a sacrifice she was prepared to make. Dante moved ahead, to accompany his mother, leaving Maggie completely on her own.
She walked slowly, feeling like a complete intruder.
“Your daughter is beautiful.” She looked up at the kindly spoken words. It was Emilia, the youngest sister.
Maggie’s look was so rich with gratitude and surprise that Emilia giggled. “We are not so bad, I promise. Dante is the scariest, and you seem to have conquered him.”
“Hardly,” Maggie demurred with a shake of her head.
“He’s a teddy bear really. But always the responsible one, he has forgotten how to have fun. May will be good for him, if he lets her. No way to be uptight with messy little fingers around.”
“No,” Maggie nodded. “Do you have children? It sounds as though you speak from experience.”
“I do, but not my own. I work as a kindergarten teacher.”
“Oh!”
“You are surprised?”