PHOEBE WORKED ON automatic pilot. It was easy. She’d already made the plans for the house and just saw them through to perfection.
The staff in the villa looked after her well. All of them could speak English and translated anything for her that she required and dealt with any orders or deliveries she needed.
By the end of the week the villa was immaculate and ready for viewing.
And Matteo hadn’t called. Not once.
Nor did he call when she contacted the family solicitor to arrange the viewing.
Nor did he call when she arranged her flight home.
Curiosity was killing her. Her fingers found the Hampton house listed for sale on the Internet. The photographs were gorgeous, capturing the true beauty of the surroundings and the stunning views.
And it seemed that word had spread. Her phone hadn’t stopped ringing with offers of new jobs. The solicitor in Italy sent her photographs to use from the villa for her portfolio. She updated her website adding the Italian villa and the Hampton house.
She never discussed the flight home with anyone. The first flight she’d actually refused to board, frozen to her seat in the departure lounge, trying to remember all her breathing exercises.
Thankfully for her, one of the airline staff had taken pity on her. Marsha had experienced many nervous flyers and had been due to fly home herself. She’d distracted Phoebe before the next flight, and held her hand through the take-off and the landing. Laughing off the fact that Phoebe must have practically crushed every bone in her hand.
And after she’d returned, nothing. Not a word. Not a single word from Matteo.
* * *
“You tell us this now?”
Vittore was furious, and didn’t care who knew about it.
Brianna seemed calmer. She walked over to the bassinet and laid Jay down with barely a flicker of emotion. It was only as she moved back over toward Matteo, taking his arm and steering him sharply out of the room, did he see the little flicker at her jaw. She gestured with her head for Vittore to follow, before closing the doors firmly behind her.
“What?” was her only response.
Matteo licked his dry lips. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. “I wanted to tell you both before. But...it didn’t seem appropriate.”
Vittore was in his face in an instant. “In thirty years—you couldn’t find an appropriate time? We’ve spent our whole lives together, Matt. This was the first time you thought to tell us?” His face was scarlet and his hands were in fists at the sides of his body.
“Of course it wasn’t! But I haven’t known since I was five. I figured it out. Papa would never discuss it. Never. On the few occasions I tried to ask him about it, it was clear I was upsetting him. He always told me to leave it.”
“You found her. You never told us that before.” Brianna’s voice was quiet, but packed with emotion. Vittore turned to their sister, his face wracked with confusion; it was clear he expected her to be angry too.
Matteo sucked in another breath. “Yes.” His voice shook. He couldn’t help it. “I thought she was sleeping.”
Once he’d started telling his brother and sister, things had just spilled out, often in the wrong order. But he couldn’t keep it together any longer. He’d spent the last month practically on Brianna’s shoulder and it was clear she was suspicious of his overly protective behavior. At first, she’d thought he was just a smitten uncle. But after a few weeks, she’d become more in tune to his observations and questions.
Ever since he’d taken that panicked flight home from Rome he’d felt as if he’d been living on a knife edge. Phoebe’s words had constantly echoed in his brain. The last look on her face haunted him.
He tried to persuade himself it was for the best. He’d never be enough for the bright shining star that was Phoebe Gates. Things would cool, fade and be a disappointment for her. Walking away at this point was actually protecting her—saving her from any future pain he might cause.
But the truth was he’d been so focused on his family he hadn’t left any room for her. It was a mistake. A massive mistake. And the only person he’d been trying to protect was himself. Protecting himself from actually sharing the love and emotional commitment that came from being in a loving relationship with someone who could potentially hurt him. Just as his mother had.
He’d felt abandoned by his mother. Let down.
Surely if she’d loved him more she wouldn’t have committed suicide—wouldn’t have left him, Vittore and Brianna?
He’d also felt responsible. If he’d sounded the alarm sooner—maybe something could have been done—maybe his mother’s life could have been saved and he wouldn’t have grown up with his heart locked away. Scared to let anyone hurt it again.
All thoughts and feelings that any psychologist in the world could pick apart and dissect, and reconstruct in a more healthy, rational manner.
But never had it been clear to him until this moment.
He’d spent the last month tiptoeing around Brianna, watching for any sign of postpartum psychosis. Any sign that might alert him, as an adult, to what he’d missed as a child.
But Brianna was just Brianna. Initially elated and overwhelmed with parenthood like any new mom. Then tired, overemotional and occasionally irrational. Entirely just Brianna.
But there was something else too. A side he’d never seen of his sister. He was obviously imagining it, but sometimes he could swear Brianna just seemed to glow. Jay had put the biggest smile on his sister’s face that he’d ever seen. In fact, Jay had put the biggest smile on the whole family’s face. The little guy just had to make one squeak and there were ten adults around the crib, palms itching to pick him up.
Brianna walked across the room and wrapped her arms around her brother. “How long have you felt like this? Have you always felt like this? You thought she was sleeping?” Brianna shook her head as a single tear fell down her cheek. “That’s so much for a kid to shoulder. Didn’t you have anyone to talk to about it?”
Matteo shook his head. Vittore sat down on the chair next to him. “So...how did you find out? You said you figured it out.”
Matteo nodded slowly. “Do you remember Rosa, our housekeeper?”
Both shook their heads.
“Of course you don’t. You were both too young. Never mind. I tracked Rosa down. She could fill in all the details. She told me about the note and what was in it. She told me exactly how Mom had been acting—what she’d been saying. Rosa had been so upset about what happened. It turns out in later life she’d been diagnosed herself with depression. Her own psychiatrist and counsellor told her what Mom’s likely diagnosis was. Thing were different thirty years ago and it wasn’t well recognized or diagnosed. They helped her come to terms with the fact that she hadn’t done anything wrong. And she...helped me understand that my mother had committed suicide out of complete desperation. She didn’t want to harm her baby. She couldn’t stop the way she was feeling, and she couldn’t bear feeling like that. She didn’t feel as if she could be responsible for her own actions.”
Matteo’s words hung in the air as Vittore put his head in his hands, and Brianna stared wordlessly at the doors behind which her baby lay.
She put her hand to her chest. “So, the risks, the worry. Why were you worried about me?”
Matteo reached over and clasped her hand. “Because women who have a close relative who’ve suffered from postpartum psychosis are slightly at higher risk.”
“That’s why you’ve spent the last month looking over my shoulder?”
Matteo cringed and nodded.
“You couldn’t just tell me?” She held her hands out. “Tell us? Then I could have spoken to my physician. Asked him about the risks. Don’t you think that would have made more sense?”
He shook his head slowly. “It might seem that way. But how could I tell you? Your blood pressure was up, you’d had that scare... What kind of brother would I be if I’d told you something like that, at a time when the last thing you needed was stress?”
Brianna gave him a sad smile. “I understand. I do.” She looked around and put her hands on his shoulders. “Now I get it. Now I understand why you wanted to sell the Hamptons so quickly. Why you wanted to get rid of the place.”
Something washed over him. A realization.
He looked at them both. “You don’t?”
Brianna and Vittore exchanged glances. Vittore frowned a little. “Well, obviously it’s worth millions of dollars. But I don’t have bad memories of the house—to be honest, I don’t have any memories at all. I’ve always thought of it as a bit of a forgotten beauty. I’ve always been sorry it’s been neglected and left empty.”
“Do you want it?” Somehow that made Matteo’s skin prickle.
Vittore shook his head. “I spend most of my life in California. What would I do with a house in the Hamptons?”
Matteo turned to his sister. “Brianna?”
She shook her head. “I love my place here in the city. I don’t want to move to the Hamptons. But I don’t care about selling. I never really have. I just went along with it because you seemed so insistent.” She waved her hand. “I understand about the villa in Rome. It seemed ridiculous to keep it when we are never there. And your interior designer? Oh, my goodness. What a great job she’s done. The photographs are amazing. As for the selling price for the house...”
As Brianna’s voice tailed off Matteo sagged in the chair. Every time he’d thought about Phoebe in the last few weeks he’d felt instantly sick. He’d let her down. He’d left her.
He’d known exactly how worried she was about the flight, but he’d been so worried about Brianna he couldn’t even think straight. He’d convinced himself he was protecting Phoebe by leaving the way he did. Someone as closed off as him could never offer her the love and life she deserved. As soon as he was back, he’d arranged the transfer of her fee for doing all the work on both houses. The offer for the villa in Rome had been more than expected. It seemed that someone had their eye on the place and was waiting to snap it up.
But who was he kidding? Phoebe might need the money to pay her mother’s medical bills but, somehow, he knew that the transfer of the money was a cold, hard way to complete the end of their business.
As for the house in the Hamptons? He’d had three offers already. But something had stopped him discussing them with his brother and sister, and until this minute he hadn’t really understood why.
He lifted his head.
Now he was seeing the house through new eyes—eyes like Phoebe’s. Because now when he thought of the house at the Hamptons, his first thought wasn’t a sad, horrible one of his mother dying. Now his first thought was bright, and featured Phoebe dancing on the stairs in her yellow dress. When he closed his eyes he could see the brilliant light shining through all the windows in the house, leaving it clean and airy. When his mind drifted, it went straight to the red library with a fire burning, a comfortable rug and fireworks going off in the background.
Phoebe had done this. He’d made these memories with Phoebe.
All of a sudden he realized that the heart he’d been guarding so fiercely had a mind of its own.
“Matteo, what’s wrong?” Vittore was looking at him curiously.
Matteo ran his fingers through his hair. “I might have done something I shouldn’t.”
“Again?” Vittore raised his eyebrows.
Matteo stood up and started to pace. “I might have treated someone...not as well as I could have.” There was a hideous sinking feeling in his stomach. “I might have made a big mistake.”
Brianna’s eyes locked onto his. “What did you do?”
The sinking feeling changed to more like a plummet to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. This time there was no “thinking.”
“I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.”
Vittore looked at him in complete confusion. He turned to Brianna. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”
Brianna nodded. “Unfortunately, I think I do.” She gave a little smile. “And I think her name is Phoebe.”