The Unclaimed Baby

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  ‘Not on the outside, but you are on the inside,’ she said. ‘I can see the glint in your eyes.’

  Luca placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘That’s because I am imagining you without those clothes on with me in the shower.’ He brought her up close to his body, one of his hands slipping beneath her silky dark hair, the other pressing against the small of her back. ‘We have just enough time if we hurry.’

  Her eyes flickered and then dropped to his mouth. ‘It’s hormones. Definitely hormones. I’m sure of it,’ she said in a soft, breathless little voice.

  ‘Hormones sound good to me,’ Luca said and, swooping down, covered her mouth with his.

  Bronte took a deep breath as Luca led her down the stairs to meet his mother and grandfather, who had just arrived. She could hear them chatting with Rosa in the salone, their voices full of excitement and anticipation.

  Luca had Ella in his arms and his mother rushed up to him as soon as the door opened. ‘Luca, caro,’ she choked as she reached for Ella. ‘She is the image of Chiara. Oh, dear God, how I have longed for this moment.’

  Bronte stood to one side as Luca’s grandfather cooed over Ella. She could see where Luca got his good looks from. Salvatore Sabbatini night be nudging ninety but he was still a tall man of proud bearing. He had the same air of authority about him that both Luca and Giorgio had. His hair was grey and his face a little lined but, even at that great age, he was still worth a double take.

  Luca’s mother too had clearly been a beauty in her day. She was small and delicately made, with salt and pepper hair that should have aged her but somehow didn’t. She had beautiful skin and had a natural elegance about her.

  ‘Mamma, Nonno,’ Luca said, cupping Bronte’s elbow. ‘This is my fiancée, Bronte Bennett.’

  Salvatore was the first to come over. He took Bronte’s hand and, just as Giorgio had done earlier that day, leaned forward to kiss her on both cheeks. ‘This is a very happy day for us,’ he said in heavily accented but still perfect English. ‘You have blessed us with Giovanna’s first grandchild and my first great-grandchild. I have lived for this day. I cannot tell you how it makes me feel to know the bloodline will continue.’

  Bronte knew her smile looked a little forced but she just couldn’t help it. ‘I am sorry you haven’t met her until now.’

  ‘Better than not at all,’ Salvatore said.

  There was a small silence.

  ‘Mamma,’ Luca prompted.

  Giovanna Sabbatini was still holding Ella, looking very much as if she was not going to let her go. ‘I am glad you finally decided to tell our son he was a father,’ she said. ‘But did you not think of how you were not just robbing him of all those months of her life but his family as well?’

  ‘Mamma—’ Luca’s voice was deep and full of admonition ‘—this is not the time to—’

  ‘It’s all right, Luca,’ Bronte said sending him a pained look. ‘Your mother is absolutely right. I didn’t think about anyone else at the time. If I had, it might have turned out very differently.’

  Giovanna refused to be mollified. ‘My oldest son is going through a very painful and, in my opinion, totally unnecessary divorce,’ she said. ‘That might not have happened if Luca had known about his daughter before now.’

  Bronte felt her back come up. ‘I hardly think it is my fault your son and his wife spilt up,’ she said. ‘I accept that I was wrong not to work harder at contacting Luca, but I was angry and hurt about him breaking off our relationship.’

  Salvatore placed a firm but gentle fatherly hand on Bronte’s shoulder. ‘Forgive my daughter-in-law,’ he said. ‘This is an emotional time for us all. We have been through a lot with almost losing Luca two years ago and, of course, my son, his father, Giancarlo five years ago now. And before that we lost little Chiara, my granddaughter. I am not sure if you know about her. It was a long time ago but we live with it daily. Ella is a blessing God has sent to us to help heal our pain.’

  Almost losing Luca… The rest of Salvatore’s words faded as those three reverberated inside Bronte’s head. They had almost lost him? She looked at Luca, standing so silently, a brooding frown stitched on his brow. She swallowed and tried to focus on what Salvatore was saying but her mind kept drifting back to those three ominous-sounding words.

  Dinner was a bit of a strained affair. Bronte had no appetite and, although Luca’s grandfather was charming and did everything in his power to include her in the conversation, it was clear Giovanna was not going to budge. Bronte could understand it, being a mother herself. She decided to be as patient as possible and not be drawn into any comebacks she might have cause to regret later. After all, this was to be her mother-in-law, not the easiest of relationships at the best of times.

  Once Luca’s mother and grandfather had left and Ella was sleeping soundly in her cot, Bronte waited for Luca in the bedroom. He came in after a good hour, which made her wonder if he had been hoping she would fall asleep before he got there.

  ‘Luca,’ she said without preamble, ‘I want to know what your grandfather meant about almost losing you two years ago.’

  The shutters came down over his face and his mouth went into a flat line. ‘My grandfather spoke out of turn,’ he said. ‘So did my mother. I am sorry about how she behaved. She will soften eventually. She was the same with my brother’s wife Maya. Although I can’t say they are all that close now.’

  ‘Look, I recognise the mother lion thing,’ she said. ‘But that’s not what we are discussing. What happened, Luca?’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ he said, averting his gaze. ‘My grandfather exaggerated the situation.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘You are imagining things,’ he said and pulled back the covers.

  ‘I am not getting into bed with you until you tell me what happened to you, Luca,’ she said with a determined jut of her chin.

  His hand dropped from the covers, his eyes locking with hers. ‘You want to fight or make love?’ he asked.

  Bronte felt a shiver of reaction course down her spine at his challenging look. ‘I don’t want to fight you, Luca, I want to understand you. You keep shutting me out. You’ve always done it. You always keep something back of yourself.’

  He drew in a breath at the same time as his hand scored a jagged pathway through his hair. ‘I have never been one for wearing my heart on my sleeve,’ he said. ‘I am not going to change now, not for anyone.’

  ‘Then God help us,’ she said, ‘for I can’t see this relationship lasting more than a month or two at most.’

  He clenched his hands into fists. ‘Why do you have to push and push and push?’ he asked. ‘Why can’t you just leave the past where it belongs? We both screwed up. I get that, OK? I am not blaming you. Not any more.’

  ‘Y-you’re not?’ Her voice came out as a whisper.

  He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face. ‘No,’ he finally said, holding out an arm for her. ‘Come here.’

  Bronte went.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LUCA wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him and, burying his face in her hair, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

  It seemed a decade before he spoke and, when he did, his voice sounded scratchy and uneven. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out like that,’ he said. ‘I wanted to spare you the gory details. I like to pretend it didn’t happen.’

  Bronte couldn’t stop the flow of tears. ‘Oh, Luca, don’t you see that I need to know everything because that’s the only way we can get our relationship to work?’

  He brushed at her tears with his thumbs. ‘I didn’t want to make you feel sorry for me. I couldn’t bear to be pitied. How could I be sure you were back with me because you wanted to be or because you felt sorry for me?’

  She swallowed a knot of dread. ‘Your grandfather said—’

  ‘He was right,’ Luca said grimly. ‘I had an unexpected complication. I had a bleed which put me into a coma for three weeks. No one knew how I would be
when I woke up, even if I would wake up. Just like what had happened to my father. I couldn’t bear ending up like that, sitting drooling vacantly in a chair with no recognition of all the people who most loved me. How could I do that to my family? How could I do that to you?’

  Bronte could finally see now why he had acted as he had. He had been so concerned for her that he had put his own hopes and dreams aside to set her free in case something went horribly wrong. Instead of seeing what he did as selfish and ruthless, she now saw it for what it was: the most honourable, selfless thing anyone could do for someone they loved. ‘That’s why you let me go the way you did, wasn’t it?’ she asked. ‘You wanted me to think you no longer had any feelings for me. It’s why you never told me what you felt the whole time we were together. You always were going to let me go because you wanted me to be safe from a lifetime of caring for you if it all went wrong because you knew I would never turn my back on you.’

  He met her gaze, his throat rising and falling over a tight swallow. ‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,’ he said. ‘I knew if I did it in person I would not be able to walk away from you. I was so close to telling you a couple of times about my condition but I talked myself out of it. I didn’t want your pity. I didn’t want to tie you down out of obligation and duty.’

  She choked over the words. ‘I…I would have stood by you, Luca, surely you know that?’

  ‘That was the problem, cara,’ he said. ‘I knew you would stand by me, no matter what, but I couldn’t allow you to do that. What if the worst had happened? I could have become an invalid or mentally disabled. It’s happened before. The brain can’t survive long periods without oxygen. Multiple seizures can cause irreparable damage. I just couldn’t risk ruining your life. You had the world at your feet. You were so talented. I was sure you would end up at the London Ballet academy. I would have held you back. I had to let you go.’

  Bronte put her arms tightly around his waist, her tears soaking the front of his shirt. ‘I never stopped loving you, Luca,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve been fooling myself for all this time that I hated you but really I didn’t. I could never hate you.’

  Luca breathed in the fragrance of her hair as he held her against him. ‘I was hoping I hadn’t totally destroyed what you felt for me,’ he said in a gravelly voice. ‘I had to wait until I was given the all-clear. I promised myself a full year without a single seizure and then I would contact you. It felt like a lifetime. I didn’t realise that it was a lifetime: Ella’s lifetime.’

  Bronte looked up at him with glistening eyes. ‘She loved you from the moment she met you, Luca. You don’t have to worry about her not realising you weren’t there for the first bit of her life. When she’s old enough, we can explain. The important thing is that you’re here now. You are her father. You have always been her father. I have never thought of you as anything else.’

  He smiled a half smile. ‘I love you, you do realise that, don’t you? I have loved you from the first time I met you. You are my heart, my reason for living. I love you so much it hurts.’

  Her eyes watered all over again. ‘I think it’s just starting to dawn on me.’

  He brushed a strand of her hair off her face in a tender gesture, his dark eyes meltingly soft as they meshed with hers. ‘I fell in love with you the day we met in that London bookshop. Do you remember when you bumped into me and you dropped your handbag and it scattered its contents all over the floor?’

  Bronte smiled. ‘That’s how you got my address, wasn’t it? You checked my diary before you handed it to me.’

  ‘What was a desperate man to do?’ he asked with a grin. ‘I wanted to see you again. I felt an instant attraction. I had never felt anything like that before. When our fingers met when I handed you your tub of lipgloss I felt as if I was being electrocuted. My fingers were still tingling hours later.’

  ‘Mine were too,’ she said, slipping her arms up around his neck.

  He bent down and planted a soft, lingering kiss to her mouth. When he finally lifted his head Bronte was looking up at him dazedly. ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ she said. ‘I used to dream of one day seeing you again. I never thought it would really happen.’

  ‘I am sorry things worked out the way they did,’ he said. ‘But I am not sure I wouldn’t do things the same way again. I loved you too much to wilfully destroy your life.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone about your condition?’ she asked.

  ‘Not until it was over,’ he said. ‘I had left a letter with my lawyer in case of an emergency. The doctors had orders to contact him if things didn’t go according to plan, which, of course, he then had to do when I slipped into a coma. My family, of course, were terribly upset, as you can imagine, my mother in particular. She had already lost one child and had never got over it, as you heard downstairs. Giorgio was very good about it but Nic was pretty cut up. But I think he’s more or less forgiven me by now.’

  Bronte caressed his face lovingly. ‘I’m so glad you told me, Luca. I was so worried about marrying you just for Ella’s sake. It didn’t seem right. I was frightened you might take her away from me, you know, fight for custody or something.’

  A frown interrupted his features. ‘I have seen the drama that my brother and sister-in-law are currently going through over their dog. Neither of them wants to compromise. I didn’t want to put either of you through that. I was determined to make things work out. I just felt you needed a bit of time.’

  She gave him a mock-reproachful look. ‘And a little bit of pressure.’

  ‘Well,’ he said with a sheepish grin, ‘a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.’

  She snuggled up even closer. ‘Definitely,’ she said on a sultry purr. ‘Especially if you are serious about wanting to make a brother or sister for Ella.’

  His eyes lit up. ‘You mean you’re ready to try for another baby?’

  She smiled and wriggled against him suggestively. ‘You bet I am. So how about you get on with it?’

  Luca smiled and pulled down the shoestring straps of her nightgown. ‘Just try and stop me, cara,’ he said and pressed her back down on the bed, his mouth coming down on hers.

  Two weeks later…

  Bronte stood at the end of the aisle and looked down at Luca, standing waiting for her by the altar. The organ was playing, the congregation was smiling, the flowers and their heady scent filled the air with hope and happiness and love.

  She caught her mother’s eye and smiled. Ella chortled in Tina Bennett’s arms and called out volubly, ‘Mummy pretty, Mummy berry pretty.’

  ‘Mummy is beautiful,’ Luca said as Bronte came to stand beside him.

  ‘Hi,’ she said softly.

  ‘Hi yourself,’ he said, taking her hands in his, squeezing them gently. ‘You’re trembling.’

  ‘I’m nervous.’

  ‘Don’t be, tesore mio,’ he said. ‘This is the beginning of our life together. Our life as a family.’

  The priest began the poignant service and at the end there was barely a dry eye in the house. Bronte was enveloped by Luca’s family as she and Luca came out of the church when it was over. Even Giorgio and Maya had seemed to put their enmity to one side so as not to spoil Luca and Bronte’s special day.

  Luca’s mother mopped at her eyes and smiled as she pulled Bronte into a bone-crushing hug. Over the last couple of weeks she had softened towards Bronte and had spent many a happy day preparing for the wedding with her. Bronte felt that Giovanna’s love for Ella more than made up for any ill feeling that had been there at their first meeting.

  ‘Welcome to the family, Bronte,’ Giovanna said. ‘You have given my son so much joy. You have given me so much joy. I don’t know how to thank you.’

  ‘He’s easy to love,’ Bronte said, looking in Luca’s direction, her breath coming out in a heartfelt sigh of happiness. ‘So very easy to love.’

  Giovanna smiled with maternal pride. ‘Yes, he is,’ she said. ‘I am so glad he found you again. I do
n’t think he would have settled for anyone else, you know. Luca’s father was the same, although the death of our daughter set him off course for a while, but he finally came back to me. He knew there would be no other woman who could love him like I loved him.’

  Bronte felt her heart give a little jump of excitement as Luca came back and slipped his arm around her waist.

  ‘What family secrets is my mother letting out of the bag?’ he asked playfully.

  ‘Your mother was telling me you are just like your father,’ Bronte said, exchanging a conspiratorial look with the older woman.

  Luca pressed a kiss to the tip of Bronte’s upturned nose. ‘Did she tell you that once a Sabbatini man falls in love it is for ever?’ he asked.

  ‘She didn’t need to tell me that,’ Bronte said on a blissful sigh as his protective arms enfolded her. ‘That’s something I already knew.’

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0182-8

  THE UNCLAIMED BABY

  Previously published in the U.K. as

  SCANDAL: UNCLAIMED LOVE-CHILD

  First North American Publication 2011

  Copyright © 2010 by Melanie Milburne

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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