Sebastian looked between Noemi and Max. ‘So you’re moving to Ostania?’ He wasn’t sure how he felt about her being so far away. On the one hand, maybe they’d argue less. On the other, without Maria, and with his parents gone, and no commitment from Leo to hang around past Christmas, Seb would be on his own. Completely alone, for the first time ever.
His head spun at the thought.
‘I’m afraid that my duties are increasing and after Christmas I will need to spend the bulk of my time in Ostania,’ Max explained. ‘I’m sorry to take your sister away from you all, but you will always be welcome at our home.’
‘Don’t you mean your palace?’ Maria asked.
Max nodded. ‘Yes. And it has a lot of guest rooms.’
‘Guest rooms that I expect all of you to use regularly,’ Noemi said firmly. ‘Wait until you see this place. It’s beautiful. And they have great skiing. But I wanted you all to know that we will be here for Christmas. It’ll be a family Christmas just like Mamma and Papà would have wanted.’
With all them together—including Maria and Frankie. Even if it might be the last time it ever happened.
No. He wouldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t.
He had to fix things. And without his papà there to guide him, he was going to have to figure it out on his own.
‘Now you all know everything, we can concentrate on celebrating,’ Noemi said, clapping her hands together. ‘Max, I haven’t even properly introduced you to Sebastian’s wife. This is Maria.’
‘Mrs Cattaneo,’ Max said, with princely suaveness as he took her hand.
‘Not Cattaneo,’ Maria said, too fast. ‘I’m going by Rossi again now.’ Wait. She’d given up his name now, too? They weren’t divorced; legally she was still a Cattaneo. But the fact that she’d chosen her maiden name over his stung. Even worse was the way she’d said it so matter-of-factly, as if it were obvious.
Sebastian shot her a look. ‘Did we get divorced without me noticing?’
He saw Maria’s temper flare in her eyes. Good. He shouldn’t be the only one angry here. ‘Given everything else that happened in our marriage without you noticing, it wouldn’t surprise me,’ she said caustically.
‘And now it definitely feels like a proper family Christmas.’ Noemi rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, Maria. Let’s go show Frankie the master suite. I’ve had them set up the second bedroom there for the two of you.’
The second bedroom? Something primal rose up in Sebastian’s chest at the idea. Maria was his wife, and he wanted her back where she belonged, in his bed. In his arms.
Was that so much to ask?
His objections must have shown on his face because Noemi arched her perfect eyebrows at him in amusement.
‘What?’ Noemi asked her brother. ‘You didn’t really think she was going to just move back into your room, did you?’
Yes, of course he had, when he’d let himself think about it all. Which hadn’t been often. He hadn’t truly believed Maria would come home until he’d opened the door to find her standing there with Frankie.
But he’d hoped. And when he’d hoped, this hadn’t at all been the homecoming he’d imagined.
‘Frankie can stay here with me,’ he said softly. Another wish he’d had dashed this evening—a joyous reunion with his son.
He hadn’t thought it possible to miss such a little human as much as he had. But now it seemed that Frankie barely even knew who he was.
‘Frankie wants to see his room,’ Noemi said, sweeping aside his suggestion. ‘Don’t you, Frankie? Come on. You come with Auntie Noemi and Uncle Max and leave Papà to sulk here alone.’ She put one arm around Maria’s waist, guiding Frankie forward with her other hand until he stumbled. Maria swooped down to pick up the little boy, laughing and kissing him as she did so.
None of them looked back at Sebastian.
And then they were gone, his whole family disappearing through the door in a whirl of excitement and leaving him behind.
Leaving him alone.
Again.
MARIA KNEW SEBASTIAN probably better than anyone in the world, even—or perhaps especially—his sister. And she was almost certain that slipping back neatly into his life, into his bed, was exactly what Sebastian had expected. That she’d give up her little rebellion now she’d remembered what she’d walked away from. Or that she’d have forgotten the arguments, and the loneliness, that had made her leave in the first place.
Well. The bedroom situation was only the first of many disappointments he was likely to experience during her visit, then.
‘Are you okay?’ Noemi whispered in her ear, quietly enough that Frankie—who was playing a peek-a-boo game with his new uncle Max—wouldn’t hear.
Maria nodded, not trusting herself to tell the lie aloud.
Of course she wasn’t okay. She’d never be okay as long as she was here.
How could everything have changed so much? A new brother in Leo—and soon a sister-in-law, too, given how he was looking at Anissa—Noemi becoming a princess and mother to twins... And yet in some ways nothing had changed at all.
Not when it came to Seb, or their marriage, anyway.
Noemi sighed. ‘My brother is such an idiot.’
Maria didn’t argue with that.
The main staircase in the chalet wound up to the second floor, all warmth and wood and local charm. ‘Chalet’ was a ridiculous word for the Cattaneos’ home in the Alps, in Maria’s opinion. A chalet sounded like a small cosy wooden cabin or a rustic lodge you stopped in just long enough to grab a hot chocolate before heading home to a real house.
The Cattaneos’ chalet was neither small, cosy nor rustic. It was huge, spanning four floors with sprawling bedrooms with balconies, large, welcoming living spaces, a well-appointed kitchen and huge dining room for entertaining. Not to mention the heated indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool in the outbuilding.
Maria’s parents had always been wealthy enough—their own business portfolio had seen to that—but next to the Cattaneos they were paupers. And when their own business had gone through a difficult time—to the point of possible bankruptcy—well, it was no wonder her father had been so keen to marry his only daughter off to the Cattaneos’ only son and heir, in a merger that could not only save them but strengthen both their companies.
In her father’s mind, Maria had been nothing more than a means to an end, she realised now. While she’d been away, studying business, discovering a flair and aptitude for it that had surprised even her, he’d been making other plans for her future. His only child, his heiress—but only if there was a business left to inherit.
Except, while she was still an only child, Sebastian was anything but. Even if she discounted Noemi—who not only had no interest in the family business, according to Sebastian, but was now apparently running off to be a princess in Ostania, wherever that was—there was Leo to take into account, too.
It had taken a lot of questions to get the full story of Leo’s existence from Noemi. Maria’s father had returned from Salvo’s and Nicole’s funerals with news of a rumour—another Cattaneo child—and had demanded that Maria stop sulking and call her husband to find out the truth of it. She hadn’t, of course. She’d called Noemi instead.
It