Sophie Pembroke - Ceo's Marriage Miracle

When Sebastian had called and asked her to come for Christmas, with Frankie, her first instinct had been to refuse. Every other visit Sebastian had spent with his son, she’d managed to avoid, sending Frankie with his grandmother, or with Seb arranging to collect him from her parents’ house when Maria was out. There’d only been two or three visits in the whole year, so it hadn’t been hard to arrange.

But as difficult as it might be to go back, Maria also knew it was the right thing. Her son needed his father in his life. And Sebastian had been through so much lately...a Christmas visit from Frankie was the least she could do.

And then there had been that cryptic voicemail from Noemi on her phone when she’d landed, saying she hoped that Maria would be there tonight as she had something to discuss with the whole family.

As if Maria still counted as family. Even now.

Sebastian took a small step forward, and the light from the veranda illuminated his face. Maria held back a gasp, but only just. It had been twelve short months since she’d seen her husband, but from the weariness in his deep green eyes, and the lines forming between his brows, it could have been a decade or more. Sebastian had never really been the carefree, light-hearted sort—not like his sister Noemi—but Maria had never seen him looking quite so beaten down by the world before.

Was this because of her? She bit her lip as she waited for him to say something, but for a long moment he seemed content to just stare at her, and at Frankie, drinking them in. And she couldn’t help but do the same, looking up into his once beloved face. His dark brown hair was cropped close to his head, shorter than she remembered it ever being before, and somehow it made him look even taller—although at six foot one he had always been almost a foot taller than her. She’d liked that, she remembered despite herself. Had liked resting her head against his chest and feeling his heart beat against her cheek. As if they had been connected in a way much deeper than the wedding vows their families had arranged for them to take.

This man had been such a huge part of her life for as long as she could remember. They’d grown up together, in all the ways that mattered. How could she have imagined she could cut him out completely, however far she ran?

‘You came,’ Sebastian said, at last, his deep voice reverberating through her body. Maria bit back a curse. She’d forgotten too how much just being near him, just hearing him speak, could affect her.

This was why she should have stayed away. But she had been unable to because...

‘You asked me to.’

He gave her a small, uneven smile. ‘That was by no means a guarantee that you would.’

Another sign of how little he’d really known her, Maria thought. If he’d understood how much she’d loved him once, he’d have known she could never have turned down that request. Not when he’d sounded so desperate.

‘Please, Maria. I need you and little Francesco here for Christmas. Everything is different now. Please come.’

So, of course, she had. And at the back of her mind she had to admit that partly it was to see if ‘different’ meant what she’d always hoped it would. That their marriage could be what she’d once dreamed it would be.

Also because she still felt guilty—for leaving in the first place, and for not coming back sooner, when Noemi had first called with the terrible news.

‘I almost came before,’ Maria said, ‘when I heard about your parents.’ Salvo and Nicole Cattaneo had been second parents to her, too, and when she’d heard of their deaths in a helicopter accident in New York, Maria had thought she’d never stop crying. But, just like when she’d left Sebastian, she’d eventually straightened her spine and started over. The world didn’t stop for grief, however much she might wish it would.

It couldn’t have stopped for Sebastian either, she realised. He’d have been left dealing with not only the emotional fallout from his parents’ deaths but also the practical side. Keeping the business—the world-famous Cattaneo Jewels—running like he always had would probably have proved a happy distraction from his grief, knowing Sebastian the way she did. But the news that he had a secret brother he’d never known about—one who, according to Noemi, had been left a controlling share in the family business—that couldn’t have been easy for Sebastian to swallow.

She’d known how much he must be suffering, and her heart had ached for him. But still she hadn’t been able to make herself return to Mont Coeur until Sebastian himself had called and asked.

After all, it was the first real sign she’d had that he’d even registered that she’d left him, that she hadn’t just gone away for an extended holiday.

‘Why didn’t you come? For the funerals, at least?’ Sebastian asked. There was no accusation in his voice, no implication that she should have been there, as his wife. Just normal curiosity.

She supposed she had to give him points for that.

‘I wasn’t sure it was my place. Any more.’

I wasn’t sure you’d even notice if I was there.

‘Maria.’ Sebastian’s eyes turned darker, even more serious, in the snow-lit gleam of the winter’s early evening. ‘There is always a home for you here. For you and for Frankie. Whatever happens. That much I can promise you.’

It’s not enough. It had never been enough.

But if he hadn’t understood that when she left, he wasn’t going to suddenly get it now. Especially when he had so much other stuff going on in his life. So she said simply, ‘Thank you.’

Sebastian turned his gaze to Frankie, whose eyes widened under the scrutiny. As Seb reached out to take him from her, Maria’s hands tightened instinctively, even though her arms were aching from holding him for so long.

Frankie turned to hide his face against her shoulder with a tiny squeak of a whimper. She supposed she couldn’t blame him. He’d only just turned one the last time they’d been here at Mont Coeur. His visits with his papà had been in Milan, close to the main offices of Cattaneo Jewels, or the villa the Cattaneos owned near her parents’ estate. For all that the place and its people stirred up constant memories for Maria, for Frankie this must all seem so new and strange—and a little scary.

Seb’s hand flinched away, the pain clear in his eyes.

‘It’s been a long day. We’re both a little tired,’ Maria said, trying to ease it for him, as she always had.

Seb’s sad smile told her he appreciated the lie. They both knew that Frankie’s real reluctance had far more to do with hardly having seen his father in a year, and then mostly on a computer screen, if Seb had managed to video chat when his son was still awake.

Maria forced the guilt to the back of her mind. It wasn’t her fault that Sebastian had never lived up to his promise as a father—or as a husband. Just like she refused to feel guilty about leaving and seeking her own happiness.

How could she have possibly stayed, when staying had meant accepting that the love of her life could never truly love her back?

Knowing that Sebastian had only married her because his father had told him to was one thing. Hearing him throw it in her face that awful night before she’d left was another.

‘Come on, Maria. You knew what you were signing up for when you agreed to our fathers’ plans. You married me to save your family business, just like I married you to get the merger between our companies. And now you’re complaining that I’m spending too much time working at that same business?’

Except she hadn’t, of course. Yes, she might never have gone along with her father’s insistence on the merger if the family hadn’t been in such dire straits. But she’d had other plans, other ways to save it—if only they’d let her.