She knew it would be warmer down there, and she would be able to put away the winter clothes and break out her shorts and flip flops again. But would she? Matteo had chosen her clothes for her, basically. He’d given her a list of items to buy and had even shopped with her online to find appropriate apparel. It was only now, as she thought about her summer habit of flipflops and shorts, that she wondered if Matteo was… ashamed of her.
He was at work, at one of the warehouses possibly, and she was in the penthouse alone. She’d been happy to make sure she didn’t embarrass him in front of his family, that she looked the part of a woman he could be proud of, but now, she wondered if she’d have to buy new clothes to wear in the spring and then in the summer too. Would he let her wear her shorts or flip flops?
They still hadn’t said those three magic words, and she’d started to wonder if they ever would. Matteo would get this look on his face sometimes, a look that almost scared her because it looked like he was afraid. Helpless and on the verge of spilling all of his secrets. All those secrets that she could see on his face sometimes. She’d hold her breath until something in him would give, but it never did.
A wall would come down over those fascinating brown eyes, and he’d close off. The spark would fade from his face, that moment of absolute wonder would disappear, and he’d be the hard man that she’d seen him be around his aunt. The automaton that didn’t feel anything.
She knew she loved him, though. She felt it keenly sometimes, so sharp it almost hurt her, how much she loved him. It was the times when he’d turn away that she loved him the most because she knew it was hurt that made him turn away. It was fear and the past that he rarely mentioned that made it so very hard for him to let himself love her.
The fact that he never saw his mother, never spoke to her, that told her what she needed to know. The hints that his mother was an alcoholic that she’d picked up from Trina, suggested something even deeper about the entire thing. Celeste took over his upbringing and from the way Trina spoke about Celeste and how she’d raised him, Marie knew that his childhood had not been a good one.
It wasn’t easy to love Matteo but she’d known from the start that it wouldn’t be. Sometimes, he’d disappear for days, no explanation at all, but he’d come home eventually. All he’d want to do when he made it back was hold her. He’d come into the house, take her in his arms, and just stand there wrapped up in her. That’s how she knew he loved her, every now and then he showed it, even if he didn’t say it.
He made an effort to make her laugh when he knew she was down. When he could see the past was tormenting her, he’d do something for her like take her out for ice cream or to get cheesecake. He didn’t see shopping as a treat, and she was glad about that, she didn’t much like how much money he’d spent, even if he had bricks of it stacked in a safe at a bank. He didn’t use his money to show affection, he used it to give her the things he saw as necessities. He used his humor, his kindness, and the way he always talked to her like he saw her as a person.
It was the first time in her life that Marie ever felt adored. She’d felt friendship, and even love, towards the women that came in to help her with her mother. Trina gave her friendship too, and that also made her feel like a person that mattered. But what she felt for and from Matteo was different.
She needed him, wanted to be near him, and missed him on those days when he disappeared. In the beginning, she’d been awed by everything happening, overwhelmed at his generosity, and the fact that she was not in Louisiana anymore. She was also trying to deal with far too many things at once.
Her mother’s death, her whole life as her mother’s victim, a new romance, moving, being forced to marry, all of it. She sometimes wondered if she