Almost as much as he craved a woman with flaming-red hair and a beautiful heart.
He slid his phone from his pocket. Thinking of the people he’d pushed away in the fear they would somehow leave him anyway. Losing them all the same because he hadn’t had the courage or faith that he was enough to keep them close. That stopped now.
He looked at his sister’s messages. Texts. The attempts to reach out that he’d tried to ignore. Took a deep breath. Called her number. She picked up immediately.
‘Matty?’
‘Flick. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. It’s been...busy. How are you?’
He tensed, waiting for the response. Was she well? Was she sick?
‘I’m really well. Busy too! Hey...’
The conversation washed over him, about a trip she was taking to Australia nannying for her employer, as did the relief. One bridge being rebuilt. And he needed to learn how to do that properly before he attempted to mend what would be the most important, if that was possible. His biggest failing and greatest loss.
Lulu.
She’d offered herself. Opened her heart and made a place for him in it. For the first time in his life, he’d felt settled. Now it dawned on him that she was right. He’d been searching for a home. His surprise was finally acknowledging that he’d found it. Not in a place, but a person.
He needed her innocence. He needed her love.
He neededher.
And he would fight to get her back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LOUISASATATa small table on an ancient stone terrace overlooking Lake Como. The universe had put on another perfect sunny day for her, as it had every day for the two months since she’d walked out of Matteo’s door. It hardly seemed fair when all she’d done for the first week was cry. Why couldn’t there be rain, as if the world were crying with her? But she’d been delivered sunshine and, in the end, guessed it was said universe sending her a message. That no matter walking away from Matteo had felt like an evisceration, she’d survive it.
The world kept turning. Life went on.
After leaving Matteo she’d holed up in apensionefor a day, trying not to crack and break into a billion pieces. Not to drown in the tears that had fallen when he’d rejected everything she’d offered him. Her heart. Herself. Her love. Then she’d taken a deep breath and tried to make a decision. Her first instinct was to run back to the UK, back to Easton Hall. She’d called Mrs Fancutt, who’d told her the home itself was still under repair, but the gatehouse was empty. She’d considered it, but something about going back there felt like immersing herself in the past when, for now, she needed to start dreaming of a fresh future. Because who knew what would happen with the Bainbridge challenge to the will? She wasn’t sure she could go back to Easton Hall only to have it taken away from her again.
Instead, here she sat, torturing herself in a tiny one-bedroom house she’d found on the lake for a good deal, when a long-term holiday letting had fallen through. She had money, she had time, and refused to allow memories of what had happened with Matteo taint this beautiful place. Of course, the universe had another trick up its sleeve. She looked across the wide blue expanse of water. A little boat zipping across the surface towards the small town in which she was staying. In the distance was a pale blotch on the landscape. In the days after she’d come to stay here, she’d discovered that what she could see across the lake was Villa Arcadia. Matteo’s home.
‘You’ll never survive on your own.’
She rubbed at the ache in her chest. Those words cut deep. Of all the pain she’d suffered in her life, none had hurt as much as that. She’d thought Matteo hadseenher. Come to know her. What a fool she’d been about it all, about him.
Louisa stood and left the terrace to stop herself gazing at a speck on the other side of the lake, obsessing over a man who didn’t want her. She walked inside to where some sketchbooks and pencils she’d ordered online, sat on a rustic kitchen table. Here she was, surviving despite him.
She’d learned to cook with the help of the Internet and the generosity of the kind woman who owned the home. Who’d taken one look at a heartbroken English girl and had seemed to feel sorry for her, teaching Louisa how to make pasta. She’d found more work, another commission. Otherwise, Louisa tried to make sense of her life, to reorganise it, without relying on anyone.
The one good thing about what had happened was that she’d finally grown up. Her life wasn’t in stasis as it had been when Matteo had first arrived on her doorstep, when she’d been frozen in time. Now she was growing into herself as a woman. If nothing else, she had that to thank him for.
Louisa slipped on her glasses, picked up a pen, and began doodling on the page. Scribbling little curlicues and circles, allowing her mind to wander. She’d been contracted to do some illustrations for a nature-themed diary. It was easy work. She didn’t really have to imagine much. Only the changing seasons. Drawing animals, fruits and flowers. Yet her heart didn’t seem quite in it. Part of that heart, she’d left behind in a villa next to a sun-drenched lake. Not her home, but the place she’d truly found herself.
She looked at the page and found herself drawing a little frog prince. Louisa dropped the pen, the ache in her chest intensifying. A sting in her eyes and burn in her nose. Despite saying it was something she’d never wanted because she didn’t think she’d survive the inevitable loss and betrayal, she’d fallen in love all the same.
Yet here she was, alive and breathing. And even acknowledging the pain, she had to admit one blinding truth. Had she been given the chance to do it all over again she would, with no hesitation. Because those moments with Matteo were pure, unadulterated magic.
It had sneaked up and caught her by surprise under that warm Italian sunshine. All the laughter, and happiness andwanting. The sense that what was happening seemed timeless and endless. It was only at the very end that she’d realised what she’d been looking at was a future.
Then he’d taken it away from her, because he didn’t want the same.
She wondered how he was. Whether he was fighting for Easton Hall and revenge against a family who had never truly accepted him. Whether he had found the peace and belonging that she knew he so desperately needed. But she couldn’t worry about him. Revenge had no part in her life, letting the anger destroy her. Louisa knew there had been choices to make and, in the end, she’d chosen to save herself.
Which was what she was doing right now. She picked up her pen again. Turned to a fresh page, ignoring fallen frog princes. Was sketching out a few more ideas when a knock sounded at the door. Today was Wednesday. Working Wednesdays, she used to call them. Her life less rigid now, fewer fears about everything. She wondered who it could be. Perhaps the owner of the house. She’d promised to teach Louisa how to make gnocchi next, since Louisa had admitted she loved it so much. She left her chair and trundled down the stairs, opening the front door.
