WITH EVERYTHING SO clear to him, Marco left the bedroom, found his personal phone and hit the contact button for the family jeweler.
Dex was surprised to hear from him. “What’s up? Forget a date and need to apologize?”
Realizing it was nearly midnight, Marco laughed. “No. And that won’t ever be happening again. I’m sorry for the late call, but I need an engagement ring.”
The dead silence from Dex made Marco laugh. “I’m serious.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
“Probably. But I’d like to come over tomorrow afternoon and see your prettiest rings.”
“Any price I need to stick to?”
Marco named a number and Dex snorted. “In other words, there’s no limit.”
“Just get the rings ready. I’ll be over after lunch.”
One o’clock on Monday, Marco walked the three blocks to Dex’s private showroom in snow that was wispy and cold. He brushed the annoying flakes off his shoulders as Dex greeted him.
A short round guy with thick black hair that seemed to blend with his big, mountain man beard, Dex came out from behind the counter to shake Marco’s hand. “I could have come to you.”
“Too risky. The past few weeks I’ve been learning just how much our staff talks.”
“You thought they didn’t?”
“I can be naive about some things.”
Dex laughed and took Marco’s coat. He handed it to a young clerk who scampered away with it. Dex led him to a small glass table sitting in a private corner. As Marco sat, Dex pulled a small velvet tray from the drawer below and set it on the table.
Diamonds winked at him. “Tell me what I’m looking at because I’m not really good with things like this.”
Dex pointed to the first row. “These are three carats. Good sized but discreet.”
He picked up the first one. “I think Eleanora would like something discreet.”
Dex smiled. “Here’s another selling point. I designed all six of these myself. I created them to be exclusive.”
As he spoke, one of the rings suddenly stood out from the crowd. The band was thick, and the diamonds were a sideways eight, the symbol for infinity.
“I don’t know much about jewelry, but I think this one sums up our relationship.”
Dex inclined his head. “Interesting choice. Particularly since it’s designed to be both the engagement ring and can be worn as a wedding band.”
“I don’t know why but that makes me like it even better.”
Dex sat back. “Sometimes buying a ring is all about instinct. If this one is the one that calls to you, I’d say it’s the one you instinctively believe she will love.”
“I do.”
Rising, Dex batted a hand. “Save your ‘I dos’ for the ceremony.” He laughed at his own joke, then motioned for Marco to join him again at the counter.
Twenty minutes later he walked out with the ring box securely in his jacket pocket.
With Eleanora working from home again, he got out his phone and smiled. He was about to make a date with her. A date. It seemed silly to be so excited, but suddenly he realized how much they’d missed. How much they’d gotten backward.
She answered quickly. “What’s up, Marco?”
“I’m calling to ask you to dinner.”
“Oh.”
Eleanora could have refused him. Maybe she should have refused him. But since their bad discussion about what would really happen after the baby was born, she’d put a lot of distance between them. Maybe too much.
She’d pushed him to see reality and she was pretty sure he had. Now, she could soften a bit so they could discuss their baby like two logical human beings.
“I’d love to go to dinner tonight.”
“Good. Wear your best dress. This is going to be special.”
Knowing how he liked making an event out of every little thing, she shook her head. “Okay.”
That night, Eleanora dressed in the best dress she’d brought to Manhattan. She saw this dinner was his way of trying to get their friendship back to its usual good place. As close as it was to December 23—when he’d be leaving for Vermont and she’d be on her way to Connecticut to visit her parents—the day she’d deemed the official end of their romantic relationship—she decided to go along with whatever he wanted.
It also wouldn’t hurt to get them back to the place where they were comfortable with each other. They might be on the same page about sharing a nanny, but visitation was back to being up in the air. Truthfully, that hiccup had shown her that they couldn’t plan everything. Most things would be decided by whatever was going on in their lives. Their baby could get sick or be teething or potty training on weeks Marco was supposed to have him or her.
A shared nanny would alleviate a lot of that, but Eleanora would never force a sick child to fly across the Atlantic.
Childrearing on two continents would be a constant negotiation.
Not a fight. Not a battle. A negotiation. And she couldn’t enter that phase angry with him for not loving her or avoiding him so she could stop herself from loving him. She had to get them back to normal now.
She waited for Marco to come home, getting annoyed that the later it got the longer she had to wait for dinner, but ten minutes before she might have called him her phone pinged with a text. Sam was downstairs waiting for her. Marco had told Sam to drive her to the restaurant.
Which was another thing. She would have to gently remind him that he couldn’t pull these kinds of stunts with their child. And she needed to be calm and collected for the conversation they were about to have.
Annoyed with him, she suddenly wondered if it was wise to continue their relationship until the baby was born. Maybe a few weeks of closeness was all they’d get because trying to have a relationship might actually be getting in the way of making good decisions.
Her heart pinged, but she ignored it, slipping into her black wool coat and riding the elevator to the lobby.
“Well, would you look at you!” Arnie grinned at her. “All gussied up.”
“I don’t know about gussied.” She glanced down at her black-and-white dress that did the best job of hiding her swollen stomach. “But I did clean up.”
Racing to get the door for her, Arnie laughed. “You crack me up.”
She smiled as he handed her off to Sam, who opened the limo door for her.
“Evening, ma’am.”
“Evening, Sam.”
“Going to a pretty fancy restaurant tonight. Big date?”
She downplayed the situation. For all Sam knew, they were friends sharing his penthouse while she worked at the corporate office. She wouldn’t give credence to any gossip. “It gets boring sitting in the penthouse all the time.”
Sam laughed. “That’s something I wouldn’t mind discovering for myself.”
She slid into the car and took long, slow breaths to calm herself as they drove twenty minutes to a restaurant in a part of town she’d never seen. She couldn’t believe she’d missed the obvious. While sharing the beginning part of the pregnancy had been joyful and wonderful, now that they had gotten down to the nitty-gritty of custody and visitation, their relationship was getting in the way.
Sam opened the limo door, then escorted her to the restaurant door, which he also opened. She walked into the quaint Italian place only to discover it was empty.
Just when she might have gone looking for a hostess or maître d’, an older gentleman approached her.
“Good evening, Ms. DeLuca.”
She smiled. “Good evening.”
He motioned for her to follow him. “This way.”
All the tables were dark, except for one in the back that was lit by a fat candle. Marco stepped into the glow of the small light and pulled out her chair for her.
She glanced up at him as she sat. “What’s this?”
He took his seat. “Privacy.”
“I know the gossip is getting to us, but—”
“I didn’t want privacy because of the gossip. I wanted privacy for us.”
She took a breath. “You closed down an entire restaurant so we could argue?”
“First, I own this restaurant. I’m allowed to take liberties.”
She glanced around. “Your family owns this?”
“I own it. I have several investments.”
“Oh.”
“And we’re not going to argue.”
“We’re not?”
A waiter brought small dishes of olives and cheese with two glasses filled with clear bubbly liquid.
Marco lifted his glass. “Sparkling water.”
She nodded, then took a long swallow, grateful for the drink. Before she even reached for an olive, the waiter returned with a platter of salami and mortadella, served with cheeses and crusty bread.
She recognized it. She’d spent enough time in Italy to know the popular seven-course meal. “Are we having a seven-course dinner?”
“I wanted you to have a little taste of home.” He smiled. “Your home in Rome.”
He clearly hated that they’d fought, and she took the lovely meal as a genuine apology.
“So good,” she said as she ate a piece of salami with the crusty bread.
“Don’t fill up,” Marco said. “That’s two courses. We have five more, counting dessert.”
The gesture and his good mood revived her hope that they could work out their child custody troubles, even if she was absolutely sure they needed to end their personal relationship.
Lasagna arrived next. Eleanora’s stomach seemed to sigh with happiness.
He asked about her day, and she gave him a quick rundown, keeping everything light and positive. Then she asked about his day, recognizing that they were building a bridge or maybe rebuilding their good feelings for one another so raising their child couldn’t be a constant battle.
Lamb arrived next, followed by the contorni, vegetables, and then the sorbet as a palate cleanser. By the time the salad arrived, Eleanora put up her hand. “I love to eat as much as the next person, but I think I’ve had enough.”
He laughed. “You’re not going to have dessert?”
“I’m stuffed. I can’t eat the salad or cheese and fruit. Though I wouldn’t mind having them wrap up our dessert for morning.”
With a quick motion of his hand, he caught the attention of the maître d’ and the short man raced over. “Everything was wonderful, but we’re done.” He smiled. “Although we would like dessert to go.”
“Absolutely.” He shuffled away, into the kitchen.
Marco took a long, slow breath. One of those breaths a person takes before they make a big announcement.
Eleanora’s heart jerked to a stop. What if this dinner wasn’t about making peace? What if he’d made some decisions without her and he was about to burst her bubble that they could co-parent by doing something heavy-handed like filing for custody?
She told herself Marco wasn’t that kind of guy, then she looked around at the restaurant he owned. She’d thought there were no secrets between them, but clearly she didn’t know everything about him.
Before she could say anything, he rose from his seat. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he went down on one knee.
This time when her heart stopped, she wasn’t sure she would get it beating again. He was proposing?
“Eleanora, we’ve been dancing around this for weeks. Even your parents could see we love each other.” He opened the box. “Will you marry me?”
She pressed her hand to her mouth. Every cell in her body wanted to say, “Yes!” She longed to spring out of her chair, hug him to her and accept the ring—
No. What she really longed for was for this proposal to be real.
No. That wasn’t it either. The proposal was real. Marco wouldn’t do something like ask her to marry him if he didn’t mean it. The problem was this wasn’t the proposal of a man so in love he yearned to be with her. What she wasn’t feeling from him or hearing in his voice was giddy romantic love.
The proposal was more of a duty—or an answer to a problem.
Her brain awoke. His reason for asking her to marry him came to her slowly. They’d had a blowout fight about custody, and Marco Pearson, smartest businessman she knew, pondered this from the vantage point of a work problem and he came up with the solution that solved everything.
They would get married.
She removed her hand from her mouth and swallowed hard. The ring winked up at her, surprising her with its beauty and meaning.
“It’s the infinity symbol.”
He smiled. “We have already been together most of our lives. This just carries us into the future.”
She wished he’d said he adored her, couldn’t live without her, saw them growing old together. He’d said things like those when he made love to her. But that was different, just for fun, throwaway words. When it came to the future, he didn’t think in giddy, happy terms. His mother’s death had introduced him to some harsh realities of life. The way his father had mourned—still mourned—had taught him to be careful, cautious, to always hold a piece of himself back.
“I’m not getting a good feeling here.”
She glanced at him, blinking back the tears that gathered on her eyelids. “Oh, Marco. I wish I could say yes. But we had our biggest fight over custody a few weeks ago. Our baby’s not even born, and we can’t make solid plans because in a lot of ways neither one of us can budge.”
She pulled in a breath and rose from her seat. “So, your business brain decided getting married was the answer.”
Her chest hurt so much from the urge to weep that she almost couldn’t speak. But she had to get this out. “I might not ever find a once-in-a-lifetime love. But I don’t want to be nothing more than the answer to a problem.”
She shoved her chair back so she could walk around the other side of the table and race out of the restaurant. Knowing Marco would follow her, she quickly told Sam she would be finding her own way back to the penthouse and ran up the street.
But Marco was faster than she’d thought. Her coat over his arm, he caught her before she even reached the corner.
Motioning for her to turn around so he could help her with her coat, practical, pragmatic Marco said, “Where are you going?”
“Back to Rome.”
He took a breath. “Look, I know how I asked you to marry me wasn’t very—”
“The problem wasn’t what it wasn’t. It’s what it was. Insulting.”
He put his arm around her. “You’re shaking.”
“It was pretty damned cold out here without a coat.”
“Yeah. Let’s go back to the penthouse and talk some more.”
Her sound reasoning began to desert her. When she thought as pragmatically as Marco, she’d realized they needed to part. His offering her a ring out of practicality hurt. But with his arm around her and the voice of her friend suggesting they go back to the penthouse, everything inside her melted. But that was the problem. She loved him enough that she always gave him the benefit of the doubt, always enjoyed being around him. Driving to this dinner, she’d known they needed to separate. That was why she’d so easily seen the truth in his proposal. She’d been with him enough that when she separated her wishes from the truth, pragmatic Marco remained.
She didn’t want to hear his reasoning. She didn’t want to give herself the chance to read more into what he said than what he meant.
“You know what, Marco? Lately it seems we get ourselves into really big trouble when we talk.”
“Okay. How about if we go back to the condo and rest?”
She nodded. He walked her back to the car and Sam silently opened the door.
After they were settled, Sam pulled onto the street.
Marco quietly said, “For the record, I didn’t ask you to marry me because of the baby.”
She shook her head. “Now’s not the time.”
“Is it so farfetched to think I could love you?”
She gaped at him. “It hasn’t even been a month since you told me you’ll never be all in in a relationship. That’s not love.”
He’d surprised her so much that she’d told him the truth. It hung in the air like a demon ready to strike.
But she wouldn’t take it back. She couldn’t take it back.