‘The family seek to challenge the will.’
It was as if her heart forgot to beat. Like everything, the breeze, the birds, all...stopped.
‘Can they do that?’ She could barely get out the words. That they would try to take it all away...
‘They’ve been rattling their sabres. Seems they’re finally ready for war.’ His fists clenched. Released. Looking as if he was priming for battle. He gave a short, sharp laugh. ‘I expected it. They can try. But there’s no doubt they’ll fail.’
He strode to the balcony, planted his hands on the carved marble balustrade. Looking out over the lake, he reminded Louisa of a king, surveying his domain.
She stood, walked over to him. Her legs almost unable to support her weight. Her insides twisting in painful knots. What if theyweresuccessful? She’d lose her home. She’d lose everything.
This, here, Matteo’s house on Como. She loved it, but it wasn’thome. She’d be happy to travel, but there was a place of her own she always wanted to know she could come back to. Easton Hall. In that moment, she wanted to return. Ground her feet on the cool green grass, walk through the gardens, by the chalk stream with him. Make a home there, with Matteo. They could still travel together but they’d always have a place. It was then it hit her with a blinding strike of realisation, the endless possibility. How she...
How shelovedhim.
She could be his family.Theycould be a family.
‘What if—?’
‘No. This is the chance to truly destroy them.’ He turned his head towards her, his eyes bright. Almost fevered with a zeal she’d never seen before. ‘I own Easton Hall and they’llneverget it. Itwillbecome part of my company’s property portfolio. Generations will be able to enjoy it but none of them will be a Bainbridge ever again. It will be lost to the family for ever.’
Did he forget? He was a Bainbridge. Her mother had been one too. And there was the not so small matter of her inheritance.
‘But...what about me?’
‘What about you?’
The words hit her like a slap. She almost reared back. He wasn’t thinking of her at all. Hadn’t she figured as part of his plan for a future, for anything?
‘Easton Hall is my home.’
He snorted. ‘You can live anywhere in the world. Pick a place. My hotels, my retreats, they’re all available to you, free. Easton Hall is nothing but a crumbling symbol of a family that needs to be shown for what it is. Not paragons of virtue, but fake to the core. A façade for liars and cheats. You should have no interest in it, at all.’
‘And yet, Easton Hall isallyou can think about. You’re obsessed with it.’
He wheeled round to stare down at her, nothing on his face other than the hard clutch of fury. ‘Obsessed? I want to destroy what it represents. You should too after what was done to you.’
He still couldn’t see. This between them was worth fighting for, revenge wasn’t. It could only destroy, yet she finally saw a future and understood that love, the rightkindof love, could build.
‘Don’t you see, Matteo? You say you don’t care about place, don’t care about a home, but you do.’
‘You think you know me so well. You know nothing.’
She shook her head. He truly couldn’t see, so blinded by hatred of a family that wasn’t worthy of his time, it obliterated everything else.
‘You said my mother shouldn’t invade any of my thinking time, yet you’re not taking your own advice. Forget the family.’
‘Forgetthem?’ His eyes were wide, incredulous. A sneer of disbelief on his face. Yet he couldn’t see what she could. Louisa needed to make him listen.
‘Everything about you yearns to findyourplace. You’ve been searching for your birth parents. Discovered Italian heritage so bought a house here. What is all of that if not a need to find where you belong in the world?’
She hated the way her voice was so small, lost. Almost pleading. As though she had no agency here, when she did. She had the right to stay in the home till she decided to leave it permanently, or marry...
Marriage. She realised that with Matteo she wantedeverything.Louisa reached out, settled her hand on his arm, the whole of him tense, as if one wrong move and he’d shatter. It was a surprise that he didn’t pull away from her, but she had to make him see.
‘You don’t just want it. Youcraveit. Your safe place. Somewhere to call your own...’
Louisa took a deep breath to conquer her fear. To be brave and make her greatest pitch. To the man before her, to the boy he’d once been. ToMatty. To the universe. To crack open her chest and hand him her heart. Hoping with every beat that he’d take what she was offering him.
