Michelle Smart - A Passionate Reunion In Fiji / Cinderella's Scandalous Secret

Livia had only ever travelled from her Italian homeland to the US; the scents that exploded through her airways when she stepped onto the small airfield were ones she’d never had the pleasure of smelling before.

She stared up at the rising sun before closing her eyes and savouring the sensation of the most incredible warmth on her skin.

Then she cast a glance at Massimo to witness his reaction at his first steps on his grandfather’s homeland.

Far from savouring anything, he’d immediately headed to the waiting golf buggy and was introducing himself to its elderly driver.

Like Livia, who’d changed into a knee-length red sundress, Massimo had donned summer clothing too, opting for a pair of black canvas shorts and a fitted navy T-shirt with the cover of a hellraising rock band’s album on it. Ever the chameleon, he looked as divine in these casual items as he did in a full dinner jacket but it only made her think that he never looked better than when he wore nothing at all, and she had to push hard to rid her mind of the vivid image of him standing before her naked. It was a battle she’d been losing for the past four hours.

She forced a smile at the two young men who were removing their luggage from the small plane and loading it onto a second buggy, and walked over to Massimo, who introduced her to the man he employed to run the island for him, first in English then in Italian for her benefit.

She shook the extended hand from the friendly looking man and carefully said, ‘It is nice to see you.’

She caught the dart of surprise that flashed in Massimo’s eyes but he said nothing about her attempt at English, indicating only that she should get into the buggy.

She slid into the back and was relieved when Massimo climbed in the front beside the driver.

‘How long until we get to the complex?’ she asked. The island was bigger than she’d envisaged. Naively, she’d imagined something around the size of a small field with a solitary palm tree as a marker.

‘Not long. Five or ten minutes.’

Soon the thick, scented flora they drove through separated and the golden sand she’d seen from the air lay before them, glimmering under the glorious sunshine.

Stunned, she craned her neck to take in the thatched chalets nestled—but not too closely together—along the length of a high rock formation that ended on the shore of the beach. A long wooden bridge led the eye to a further thatched chalet that appeared to rise out of the ocean itself. On the other side of the thatched cottages and lower down, separated from the beach by a wall, lay the chalet designated for Massimo’s grandfather. Beside it lay a handful of smaller though no less beautiful chalets. To the right of all these dwellings was the centrepiece, the huge, multi-purpose lodge behind which, virtually camouflaged by the coconut palms and other tropical trees and foliage that thrived on the island, were the structures that housed the great kitchens and the island staff’s living quarters. Further to the right, where the beach curved out of sight, were the mangrove saplings, recently planted in their thousands to protect the island from erosion and rising sea levels.

Everything Massimo had envisaged for the island of his grandfather’s birth had come to life in spectacular fashion.

The driver stopped in front of the main lodge and said something to Massimo before jumping out.

Livia’s heart almost dropped to her feet when Massimo followed suit and held his hand out to her.

Confused at this unexpected gesture, especially since they’d spent the past four hours after she’d inadvertently walked in on him naked ignoring each other’s existence, she stared into the caramel eyes that were fixed on her with an intensity that belied the easy smile playing on his lips.

A child’s cry rang out and in an instant she understood. Massimo’s family were already there. He was holding his hand out because they must be watching.

She reached out and wrapped her fingers loosely round the waiting hand.

At the first touch of her skin to his, her heart flew from her feet to her throat and her fingers reflexively tightened.

For that one singular moment in time, the world paused on its axis as she stared into his soulful eyes and a rush of helpless longing swept through her, long-buried emotions rising up and clutching her throat.

And then the ground beneath her feet began to spin.

These were emotions she’d buried for a reason—because they had never been returned with the same depth with which she’d held them.

Turning her head and blinking the brief spell away from her vision, she was thankful to see Madeline on the steps that led to the main entrance of the lodge holding her infant daughter, Elizabeth. Dropping Massimo’s hand, Livia hurried over to them and embraced her sister-in-law, careful not to squash baby Elizabeth, who immediately grabbed at her hair.

Massimo watched his wife and sister’s embrace, watched them exchange enthusiastic kisses, watched his wife rub a finger against his niece’s chubby cheek before lifting the child into her own arms, and had to fight to keep a lid on the emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

Livia had laughed at his suggestion that they have a child.

Slowly he made his way towards them, bracing himself for the rebuke that was certain to be coming.

Madeline didn’t disappoint. After the obligatory kisses, she took Elizabeth back from Livia and hitched her to her hip. ‘Massimo, meet your niece, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, this is the uncle you’ve heard about who’s been too busy saving the world to meet you.’

Were it not for the large blue eyes of his six-month-old niece staring at him with fascination, he would have sworn at his sister. ‘It’s been a long journey here. Can you save the harassment until I’ve said hello to everyone else?’

His sister smiled beadily. ‘Sure. The others are in the lodge waiting for you.’

The others were, in fact, his grandfather and his army of carers, and Massimo and Madeline’s parents. Tomorrow night his grandfather’s surviving siblings and their spouses, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren would either fly or sail to the island for the birthday party. It would be the first time his grandfather had seen all but one of his siblings since he’d left the island paradise, one of the remotest and smallest of all the Fijian islands, for Europe. He’d been the first Seibua to leave. In the almost seventy years since his emigration the rest of the Seibuas had, one by one, left the island of their birth too in search of better opportunities to raise their families. Most had settled on Fiji’s largest island, Viti Levu. The soon-to-be renamed Seibua Island had been uninhabited for over a decade before Massimo had purchased it.

The main lodge was everything the architect had promised. Massimo had wanted a space large enough to accommodate the entire extended family, whether it was for a sit-down meal or a party, and it had been created accordingly. Dining tables lined the walls to the left, plush sofas lined the walls to the right. A bar ran the length of the far wall. The space in between was large enough for a hundred people to dance or for an army of children to skid on and scuff the expensive flooring. He estimated that tomorrow evening there would be a minimum of fifteen children there to test it out.

For now, though, it was only immediate family there and the knotted weight of expectation that came with being them. Massimo hadn’t seen any of them in over a year. But Livia had, and he watched her embrace his parents as if she were the child of their loins and not a mere daughter-in-law. She had never understood where his ambivalence to his family had come from. In his wife’s eyes, he’d been raised with everything she’d wanted and been denied.