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Ceo's Marriage Miracle
Sophie Pembroke
The CEO’s contract to save his marriage!Sebastian’s greatest mistake was watching his wife walk away with their young child. Now he has until Christmas to win Maria back. So Sebastian signs a contract with date night clauses and family time. But will it be enough to save his family for Christmas and for ever?
The CEO’s contract...
To save his marriage!
In this The Cattaneos’ Christmas Miracles story, Sebastian’s greatest mistake was watching his wife walk away with their young child. Now he has until Christmas to win Maria back. To prove his workaholic ways are behind him, Sebastian signs a new contract—complete with date-night clauses and family-time amendments! Will it be enough to get this CEO back together with his family for Christmas and forever?
SOPHIE PEMBROKE has been dreaming, reading and writing romance ever since she read her first Mills & Boon as part of her English Literature degree at Lancaster University, so getting to write romantic fiction for a living really is a dream come true! Born in Abu Dhabi, Sophie grew up in Wales and now lives in a little Hertfordshire market town with her scientist husband, her incredibly imaginative eight-year-old daughter and her adventurous, adorable two-year-old son. In Sophie’s world, happy is for ever after, everything stops for tea, and there’s always time for one more page…
Also by Sophie Pembroke (#u8a69bd25-8d4b-5cd4-bdb9-242d27cc18bb)
Island Fling to Forever
Road Trip with the Best Man
Wedding of the Year miniseries
Slow Dance with the Best Man
Proposal for the Wedding Planner
The Cattaneos’ Christmas Miracles collection
Cinderella’s New York Christmas by Scarlet Wilson
Heiress’s Royal Baby Bombshell by Jennifer Faye
CEO’s Marriage Miracle
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
CEO’s Marriage Miracle
Sophie Pembroke
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07842-9
CEO's MARRIAGE MIRACLE
© 2018 Harlequin Books S.A.
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to Auntie Barbara Roberts,
for always being my biggest fan.
Contents
Cover (#ua6a84ae9-60e7-54a8-880c-ee5b52640116)
Back Cover Text (#u0ae02a1d-672c-5a0d-b78c-9043a259ec21)
About the Author (#u337eea80-db89-5bd6-af5a-a4aeeff47441)
Booklist (#ub43ebb45-5e6e-52b5-98dc-b106b963a869)
Title Page (#u4a97cc91-7d9b-5599-bb3d-f871652c1043)
Copyright (#u1e1db979-f3de-5f52-b038-4a9363702e5e)
Dedication (#u5a87ef09-4808-560a-9cee-9bf9884eed4c)
CHAPTER ONE (#ud4449829-c06d-59bb-8d98-ccb8c25ca3e1)
CHAPTER TWO (#uee5f5b74-398f-58af-aecf-edd02c4ee02e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u081c11d4-5ea5-52b4-9446-951716a9af5b)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u14d2d108-640d-5393-9d8c-7a2a288f53f8)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u8a69bd25-8d4b-5cd4-bdb9-242d27cc18bb)
MARIA CATTANEO—NO, she reminded herself, she was going by Rossi again now, even if it wouldn’t officially be her name until after the divorce—gripped her son’s tiny hand a little tighter as she stared up at the luxury chalet before her. How could something so familiar feel so strange at the same time? She’d spent Christmases and ski trips at the Cattaneo chalet in Mont Coeur for years—long before she and Sebastian had married—and on the outside, at least, the chalet had hardly changed a bit in all that time.
The same wooden veranda surrounded the oversized but traditional-style chalet, with festive greenery and berries wrapped around its beams in celebration of the season. A large green-and-red wreath hung on the front door. Inside, Maria could see lights twinkling through the windows, and knew that an absurdly huge Christmas tree would be decked out in red and gold, somewhere out of her line of sight.
Everything was the same. Everything, except her.
‘Mamma?’ At her side, Frankie looked up, his little face almost hidden by the hood of his snowsuit. It was freezing out, and darkness was falling; she needed to get him inside.
Which meant knocking on the door.
‘Are you ready, piccolo?’ Maria asked, forcing a smile. If Frankie sensed her unease and discomfort, he would only become distressed himself. And that wasn’t going to make this enforced homecoming any easier on either of them.
‘To see Papà?’ Frankie nodded, his expression strangely set and serious for a two-year-old.
I’m glad one of us is ready, Maria thought, as she swept him up in her arms and climbed the steps. Then, with a deep breath, she knocked on the chalet door.
Maybe her sister-in-law Noemi would answer. Or even the mysterious new brother her husband and sister-in-law appeared to have acquired since Maria had left. Basically, anyone would be better than—
Sebastian.
The door swung open to reveal the familiar, muscular frame of her husband, and for a moment Maria was certain that nothing at all had changed. That she’d never left, that she was still in love with him, that they were happy...
She snapped out of it. She hadn’t been happy. That was why she’d left.
Happiness was hundreds of kilometres away, back at the small cottage on the edge of her parents’ estate, where she and Frankie had been living for the last year. It wasn’t here, in the Swiss Alps, at the Cattaneos’ luxury chalet. And it certainly wasn’t with Sebastian, whatever her younger self might have hoped and dreamed.
He couldn’t give her what she needed. If she’d thought for a moment that he could, there was no way Maria would have left at all. But the Sebastian she’d walked away from hadn’t been capable of the love she needed. She had to keep that thought at the front of her mind this whole visit, otherwise there was just no way she would make it through with her heart intact.
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.
