‘It will always be mine, in my heart,’ he said seriously. ‘If no one else is to look after it, then I will.’ His smile was tight and didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I’m s
ure your father would have had me arrested for trespassing, if he were still alive.’
Skye said nothing. How could she deny it? It was obvious that the depth of her father’s animosity had run deeper than she’d appreciated.
‘I trust you will be kinder?’ He winked, the smile on his face making her stomach flip and flop.
She nodded, distracted, and stepped out of the room, moving beside him back towards the stairs. Her headache had disappeared and now her head was throbbing instead, a low, dull pain. She pressed her fingers to her hair, loosening it and hoping the discomfort would pass.
She didn’t want to cut their tour short.
‘What is it?’
His solicitous question had Skye’s head lifting towards his, and he was closer than she’d expected, so that she could have lifted up on tiptoes and kissed him. And she wanted to. She really wanted to.
Maybe it was the magic of the place but suddenly, though she was surrounded by the past, it no longer seemed to matter.
Let’s be happy.
He was her happy.
But he was also her pain, her head pointed out.
‘Skye?’
‘Oh.’ She nodded. ‘Just a headache. I get them when I fly, sometimes.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘I’ll be fine. What next?’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘I THINK WE should fix it.’
Matteo stared at Skye, pulling his attention away from the view of Rome to look at his wife. Here, finally, there was light. The rest of the hotel had fallen into a state of dinge and disrepair, but on the rooftop terrace he could imagine the hotel as it had once been.
Of course, back in its heyday, the terrace always had been full of Rome’s elite sipping cocktails, overlooking the city, listening to the music that was playing.
‘Fix what?’
‘The hotel,’ she murmured slowly. ‘It’s too beautiful, too grand, to be left like this.’
Matteo was very still, his eyes holding his wife’s as though nothing made sense. ‘You want to fix the hotel?’
‘Yeah.’ But his muted response made her doubt, made her pause. ‘Don’t you think it’s a good idea?’
He pulled a face. ‘Of course I do. It is what I intended to do when I...’
‘When you stole it back from me, your unwitting wife?’ She arched a brow meaningfully.
‘As soon as I could,’ he corrected. ‘Skye...’
‘It’s okay.’ Her response was soft. ‘I get it. I understand why this place means so much to you.’
‘Si?’
She nodded. ‘ I’ll never forgive you for what you did. But I think my dad raised the stakes. I think he should have sold this place back to you. No, I think he should never have bought it.’