‘I agree completely.’
‘And that it should be with his mother. With me.’
‘Ah.’ He shook his head. ‘No. My child is being raised in my home.’
‘Damn it, Matteo.’ Skye leaned forward. ‘I’m not saying we’re going to get divorced. I’m just saying we should have a plan in place in case.’
‘And I am saying I’m not prepared to discuss it,’ he dismissed. ‘Not now. Not ever. You are my wife. This is my child. We are a family.’
A family.
Skye froze, her face paling visibly.
A family?
All her life, it was the one thing she’d ever wanted, and this was not what she had expected it to look like. Nothing about what they were was what she’d imagined.
She swept her eyes closed, rejecting the description instantly.
‘We’re not family. We’re just two people stupid enough to get pregnant when they should have known better.’ She pushed her plate away. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Hey, hey.’ He reached for her hand, curving his fingers over it. His surprise was obvious. Skye felt it too. She wasn’t sure where her feelings were coming from, only that they were strong and they were real. ‘This is good news. We both want this baby, don’t we?’
She nodded, but her heart was heavy. She did, she wanted this baby so badly, but not like this. It was at such odds with how she’d imagined it would be. She pulled her hand away, clasping it in her lap, withdrawing from him in every way.
‘But wanting the baby isn’t the same as being a family. We’re not a family. We’re not even really a couple.’ She swallowed. ‘We both need to remember that.’
Matteo stared at her long and hard, his expression inscrutable.
A chasm of loss was swarming through him. But what could he say? How could he dispute her words? He had agreed to divorce her, when she’d come to Venice. Had he really been prepared to let her walk away?
Never to see her again?
The idea sat inside him like a strange kind of blade, running the sharpness of its edge through his body, his organs; tormenting him and wounding him in ways he was unable to appraise. But what could he say to her?
The reassurances he wanted to offer were buried deep inside him. It was only in bed that things made sense. There he could make her understand.
Unless...
The idea came to him out of nowhere, but instantly it was perfect.
‘Skye? There is something I would like you to see.’
* * *
It was only once they’d boarded the flight to Rome that Skye twigged as to where he was taking her.
And what to see.
The hotel.
Anxiety had met tension in her gut, but now she felt an overwhelming sense of fascination. This was the building, after all, that had formed battle lines between her husband and her father.
And it was a beautiful building. At least, it would have been at one time. Now it was in a state of complete disrepair, the once-grand foyer boarded over so that even the high ceilings and marbled floor couldn’t counteract the doom and gloom. But she knew what it was, even without his explanation. There were no signs out the front, there was no name on the door, but there was an air of importance that shrouded them as Matteo inserted a thick bronze key into the door and then scraped it inwards.
Pigeons had at some point taken up residence above, so that the step was covered in white splodges of poop, and there were empty soda cans discarded to the side of the door.
Matteo turned to face Skye with a raised brow. ‘Your father never bothered to change the locks.’ It was an indictment, as though the oversight was evidence that Carey hadn’t cared about the building at all.