Marco's Pride

His dark eyes, the color of cocoa, met hers and for a moment she couldn’t breathe, the air bottled in her lungs, her heart constricting with anger and pain.

She’d never thought she’d be back, never in a million years. And hadn’t she thrown something like that in Marco’s face on their last meeting? Nothing short of death would make me come back to you!

Her head grew light. Her limbs felt heavy and brittle, as if coated with ice. Tiny black dots danced before her eyes and Payton forced herself to exhale, and then inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

She could do this. She had to do this. It was for the girls.

But looking at the girls—Gia’s small face almost white with shock, while huge tears filmed Liv’s dark blue eyes and clung to her lush black lashes—Payton felt a stab of utter despair.

They didn’t even know him! How could she leave them with him? How could she think this—he—was the solution? How could he be the solution? She had to be out of her mind.

Or out of options.

Dammit, it wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. Life had never given her a chance!

“Hello, Marco,” she said, trying to sound natural and failing miserably. Seemed like she was failing at everything these days.

“Hello, Payton.” He echoed her greeting and he sounded so coolly, casually composed. This was the Marco d’Angelo that faced the media, the Marco of a million magazine and newspaper stories, the Marco photographed a dozen times a week, the Marco that believed his own press.

Her jaw ached and she realized she was smiling hard, smiling a tight fierce white toothy smile as though her life depended on it, and in a way, it did.

No matter what happened to her, the girls would come first now. The girl’s future was all that mattered.

She might hate Marco d’Angelo but he was the father of her children.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she answered, forcing more air through her lips, praying she’d find her footing fast. She felt ridiculously disheveled her eyes gritty and dry after the all-night flight.

“You left word that you were arriving in Milan this morning.”

She felt rather than saw the narrowing of his eyes, the press of his lips. He was irritated. Which didn’t surprise her. She’d always irritated him. He’d been so impatient during their brief painful marriage, so angry.

“I left word so you wouldn’t be surprised when I rang you from the hotel—not to arrange a ride.”

“You need a ride,” he answered simply.

“There are taxis.”

“My children are not staying in a hotel.”

“I’ve already made reservations.”

“I canceled them.” His gaze dropped to wide-eyed Livia who practically quaked on Payton’s lap, her small knees pulled to her chest and her inky ringlets intensifying the stunning blueness of her eyes.

Marco’s hard jaw tightened. “She’s trembling like a mouse.”

Payton heard the unspoken criticism in his voice, heard the reproach that was always there.

In his book, Payton had failed as a wife, a woman and a mother many times over. An Italian woman would have never made the choices Payton had made.

But she wasn’t Italian and he’d never given her a chance.

Her chest burned. She felt like she’d swallowed fire. “She’s…overwhelmed,” Payton said even as she hugged Liv closer, letting her more timid twin hide her face from her father’s displeasure.

Liv’s preschool teacher had nicknamed her Tender Heart, and it’d stuck. Gia was the fighter. Liv was the lover.

“And this one?” Marco demanded, nodding at elf-like Gia who glared up at her father, her small mouth flattened, perfectly mimicking his dark expression.

“Gia lost her blanket and she misses it very much.”

“Her blanket,” he repeated flatly.

“Yes.”

“And she must have it?”

“Yes,” Gia answered for herself. Her father was speaking English. She had no problem understanding. “I miss blankie. I want blankie back.”

Marco’s and Gia’s gazes clashed and then held. Gia didn’t back down easily and she wasn’t going to be intimidated now.

To think she was only three years old! Payton knew already these two were going to really butt heads, as Gia grew older.

Marco looked at her. “They’re not too old for blankets?”

“No,” Gia answered smartly, indignantly. “They’re our lovies. The doctor says we can have a lovie.”

Again Marco’s gaze lifted and he stared at Payton rather incredulously. “You tell them this stuff?”

“No,” Payton replied. “Their pediatrician told them. Dr. Crosby explained to the girls that they were too old for pacifiers, but understood that Gia and Liv still needed a lovie. The blankets became the lovie.” Payton’s chin rose. Things you’d know if you’d been part of their lives, she wanted to spit at him, but wouldn’t, not with the girls here, not when they were already so unsettled.

The girls needed breakfast and a nap. They needed routine. They needed time and attention and lots of love, but Payton said none of these things, biting the inside of her lip so hard that she nearly drew blood.

Wasn’t it ironic that at Calvanté Design in San Francisco, she had was known for her warmth, her skill, her compassionate approach in dealing with people and problems, yet the moment she came face-to-face with Marco she felt wildly out of control?

“I’m not crazy about the word, lovie,” Marco said with a grimace, “but if she needs her blanket, we’ll get the blanket.”

He lifted Gia out of Payton’s arms and into his. Gia stiffened, resisting him. She turned her small face away, giving him her fierce profile but she didn’t utter a word.

Gia was scared. Gia, who wasn’t afraid of anyone, or anything, was afraid of her own father.

Payton’s heart squeezed. It was never supposed to turn out like this. It was never supposed to come down to this. If it hadn’t been for that lab report she wouldn’t be here now, either.

Marco reached into his elegant suit-coat and retrieved his phone. “When did you last have the blanket?”

“Sometime between boarding in San Francisco and changing planes in New York.”

Gia turned her head slightly to look at Marco.

“So it’s on the first plane,” he said.