‘I know, but…’ His mother must have sensed something from his expression for her voice trailed off.
Livia had no such sensibilities. Pouring herself a glass of fruit cocktail, she said, ‘Your son is a workaholic, Sera. It makes for a lonely life for me. I could not bring a child into that.’
‘You could get help,’ his mother suggested hopefully.
Livia shook her head. ‘In America, any help would be from English speakers. I’ve been trying to learn but it’s very hard. I had a cut on my leg last year that needed stitching and it was very stressful trying to understand the staff at the hospital.’
Talk of that incident made Massimo’s guts clench uncomfortably and his gaze automatically drift down to her leg. The scar, although expertly stitched and incredibly neat, was still vivid. Livia had gone for a swim in their outdoor pool in LA. One of the pebbled tiles around its perimeter had broken away leaving a sharp edge that she had sliced her calf on when hauling herself out of the pool. He’d been at his testing facility when she’d called to tell him about it, saying only that she’d cut her leg and needed help communicating with a medical practitioner about it. He’d sent Lindy, fluent in Italian, to deal with it and translate for her.
He’d been furious when he’d returned home that night and seen the extent of the damage. Seventeen stitches, internal and external. Her reply had been the coolest he’d ever received from her—up to that point anyway—Livia saying, ‘I didn’t want to make a drama out of it and worry you while you were driving.’ He’d stared at her quizzically. Her lips had tightened. ‘I assumed you would come.’
It wasn’t his fault, he told himself stubbornly. He wasn’t a mind reader. He couldn’t have known how bad the damage had been.
The damage it had caused to their marriage in the longer term had been far more extensive.
‘Look!’ His sister’s exclamation cut through his moody reminiscences.
Everyone followed Madeline’s pointed finger. Holding Elizabeth securely in his arms, Massimo carried her to the balustrade. Swimming beside the yacht, almost racing them, was a pod of bottlenose dolphins.
Around thirty of the beautiful mammals sped sleekly through the water, creating huge white foams with their dives. It was as if they’d come to check them out and decided to stay for a while and play.
It was one of the most incredible sights he had ever seen and it filled him with something indefinable; indefinable because it was nothing he’d ever felt before.
He looked at Livia and the awed joy on her face and experienced a fleeting gratitude that she’d forced him from his work and enabled him to enjoy this priceless moment.
Elizabeth wriggled in his arms. He tightened his hold on her to stop her falling and, as he did, Livia’s blame as to their childless state came back to him and the brief lightness that had filled his chest leached back out.
Livia tried her hardest to keep a happy front going but it only got harder as time passed. Gianluca hadn’t answered her returned call and he hadn’t called or left a message since.
And then there was Massimo.
The excitement of the dolphins racing so joyously alongside them had waned once they’d finally swum off and the lightness she’d witnessed in his eyes had quickly waned too. Was she the only one to notice his underlying tension? She would bet the knots on his shoulders had become even tighter.
Her assumption that he would keep the reasons for his anger to himself was dispelled when they returned to the island. His family retired to their chalets for a late siesta before dinner, leaving them together on the terrace of the lodge drinking a coconut and rum creation the head bar steward had made for them.
The moment they were alone, he fixed her with hard eyes. ‘Why did you say all that rubbish about a baby?’
‘What rubbish?’
‘You let my family believe the issue of us not having children lies with me.’
‘I’m prepared to pretend that our marriage is intact but I’m not prepared to tell an outright lie.’
‘You’re the one who didn’t want a child. Not me.’
Confused, she blinked. ‘When did I say I didn’t want a child?’
His jaw clenched. ‘You laughed when I suggested we have one.’
‘Do you mean the time you suggested we have a child to cure me of my loneliness? Is that the time you’re referring to?’ Of course it was. It was the only time the subject of a baby had come up since their first heady days when they’d spoken of a future that involved children. ‘I laughed at the suggestion, yes, because it was laughable. And even if you hadn’t suggested a child as a sticking plaster for my loneliness I would still have laughed and for the reasons I shared with your mother—ours was no marriage to bring a child into.’
His hand tightened perceptibly around his glass. ‘You made it sound like you’re a neglected wife.’
‘I was a neglected wife,’ she bit back. ‘Why do you think I left you? To pretend otherwise is demeaning—’
‘You’re here this weekend so my grandfather can spend what is likely to be his last birthday on this earth believing everything is fine between us,’ he interrupted.
‘We’re not going to do that by pretending that you’ve suddenly turned into a model husband, are we? Your grandfather isn’t stupid—none of your family are, and they’re not going to believe a leopard can change its spots. I visited your family on my own and made excuses for you for over a year before I left and I’ve been doing the same for the last four months and they have been none the wiser about the state of our marriage. When we finally come clean that we’ve separated, the only surprise will be that it’s taken me so long to see sense.’
Livia knew she was baiting him but she didn’t care. She wanted him to argue with her. She’d always wanted him to argue back but he never did. It was a circle that had only grown more vicious as their marriage limped on; her shouting, him clamming up.
True to form, Massimo’s mouth clamped into a straight line. He pushed his chair back roughly and got to his feet but before he could stride away as she fully expected him to do, he turned back around and glowered at her. ‘Unless you want a fight over any divorce settlement, I suggest you stick to the plan and stop putting doubts about our marriage in my family’s head. I don’t care what my parents or sister think but I will not have my grandfather having doubts about us.’
‘If you want a fight over the settlement then I’ll give you a fight,’ she said, outraged at his threat, ‘but I am sticking to the plan! You’ve neglected your family for so long that they think it’s normal that you neglect your wife too.’
‘I’m not having this argument again.’
She laughed bitterly. Her hands were shaking. ‘We never argued about it. Whenever I tried to tell you how unhappy I was, you walked away from me. You never wanted to hear it.’
‘You were like a stuck record.’ He made crablike pinching motions with his hands. ‘I’m bored, Massimo,’ he mimicked. ‘I’m lonely, Massimo. Why do you work such long hours, Massimo?’ He dropped his hands and expelled his own bitter laugh. ‘See? I did listen. Maybe if you’d ever paused for breath between complaints I might have felt more incentivised to come home earlier each night.’
‘I only complained because you work such stupid hours!’
His eyes were cold. ‘I didn’t force you to move to America. I didn’t force you to marry me. You knew the kind of man I was before we married but you thought you could change me. Instead of solving your problems