by Penny Jordan
Reaching for a towel, he threw it towards her, telling her coolly, ‘Russell is waiting to serve dinner. You’ve got five minutes. And let me warn you that my temper doesn’t improve with hunger.’
Five minutes. Julie didn’t even bother looking at the clothes which Russell the steward had said he’d hung in the wardrobe. She simply dried her body, plaited her wet hair, and then pulled on one of the thick white towelling robes she found hanging on the bathroom door.
She was out of breath and her heart was pounding when she slid into the chair that Rocco Leopardi pulled out for her.
‘Four minutes and fifty-five seconds,’ he commented as he went round to the other side of the elegantly set table and sat down.
If Rocco Leopardi found anything odd in the fact that she had chosen to eat wearing a bathrobe, he obviously wasn’t going to say so. Which was just as well, Julie thought fiercely, because if he did she would tell him that it wasn’t her choice that she was here on board his private jet, without a clean top to replace the one on which Josh had been sick.
It was, in fact, almost impossible to believe that they were actually on a plane and flying, Julie acknowledged, as she looked towards the bedroom door, which she had left propped open so that she could hear Josh if he woke up and started to cry.
Russell arrived with soup, putting Julie’s down in front of her and then placing a linen napkin on her lap before she could do so herself.
The soup—lobster bisque—smelled heavenly. Julie couldn’t remember the last time she had sat down to eat any kind of meal, never mind one like this, with beautiful napery and china, silver cutlery and Michelin-star-type food.
Russell was pouring them both a glass of wine. Julie looked at hers a little uncertainly. She wasn’t a big drinker and, given that she hadn’t eaten all day, alcohol on an empty stomach might not be a good idea.
‘I dare say your tastes run more to Cristal?’ Rocco said, seeing her expression and mistaking its cause.
Julie didn’t bother to respond. She doubted he would believe her if she were to tell him that she had never even tasted Cristal champagne.
The soup was delicious, but very rich—too rich, Julie suspected, for her digestive system, which was more accustomed to baked beans on toast and porridge: cheap, filling food that somehow she never seemed to get the time to finish eating.
She took a quick sip of her wine and then wished she hadn’t, when the alcohol went straight to her head.
If she was trying to impress him with her make-up-free face, and by wearing something that enveloped her from the neck virtually down to her ankles, she was wasting her time, Rocco thought grimly.
For one thing the bathrobe was gaping, so that every time she lifted her soup spoon he could see a bit more of the vulnerable curve of her throat and the soft pale skin below it, where her breasts lifted against the thick toweling, and for another he already had a perfectly recorded image of her standing naked beneath the shower imprinted on his memory.
The soup was good. Julie lifted another spoonful to her mouth and then paused, listening as she turned her head in the direction of the open bedroom door.
‘Josh is awake,’ she told Rocco, putting her spoon down. ‘I’d better go to him. He might be hungry.’
‘You’ve only just fed him,’ Rocco pointed out as he too heard the thin, fretful cry from the bedroom.
‘He’s had a digestive problem which means that he needs small, regular feeds,’ Julie told him.
Rocco frowned as he listened to her. ‘Perhaps,’ he pointed out, ‘if you were less concerned about preserving your admittedly exceptionally well-shaped breasts and were feeding him as nature intended babies should be fed, he’d be more satisfied?’
Clearly her argument that she needed to work hadn’t registered. Julie longed to tell him that his criticism was unfounded, but how could she without revealing the fact that she was not Josh’s mother?
An unfamiliar feeling gathered inside her in a tense ball. A mixture of self-consciousness—she wasn’t used to men commenting on the shape of her breasts—anxiety—she could hardly tell him why she wasn’t breastfeeding—and something that had nothing to do with either of those feelings but instead had rather a lot to do with the knowledge that he had seen her naked, had her body responding to that fact. She hurried into the bedroom, glad of an excuse to escape from the table and the unwanted proximity of Rocco Leopardi.
Josh’s fretful cry increased in volume the minute he saw her. At least now he recognised her and knew that she was the source of his food, Julie acknowledged, as she lifted him out of the travel cot. She’d have to ask Russell if she could use the galley to make Josh up a fresh bottle. She felt his nappy. He was dry and clean. She knew from experience that if she put him down he would get more upset and start to scream. Because Judy had often picked him up and then put him back down when he was hungry without feeding him? Her late sister had been the first to admit that she wasn’t maternal, and that she had found the responsibilities of motherhood an onerous and unwanted burden.
Holding him against her shoulder, Julie popped a dummy in his mouth and carried him back to the main cabin, where Russell was clearing away their soup bowls.
‘I need to make Josh a fresh bottle,’ Julie told him.
‘No problem,’ he assured her. ‘Everything is ready in the galley. I can’t hold back the lamb cutlets much longer, though.’
‘I don’t want to interrupt your meal,’ Julie told Rocco immediately. ‘Josh can wait until it’s been served, then I’ll go and feed him in the other cabin.’
Her comment about the baby was made so naturally that it was impossible to accuse her of trying to score points, but at the same time it so directly opposed the selfish, non-maternal character he’d assigned her it made Rocco frown. He didn’t like having his judgements challenged—especially when the person doing the challenging was himself.
‘I rather think that Russell was thinking about your dinner as much as mine,’ he told Julie succinctly, shaking his head as the steward reached for the wine bottle to refill his glass.
‘Oh.’ Julie smiled at the steward. A warm, natural smile that lit up her pale and thin face, illuminating it with the illusion—or was it the past shadow?—of a delicate, piquant beauty. ‘That’s kind of you, but I’m not really hungry.’
Russell nodded and headed back towards the galley.
He had just disappeared inside it when Josh spat out his dummy, his face creasing up as he started to cry.
‘You’d better sort his food out,’ Rocco announced. He had to raise his voice slightly over the sound of Josh’s cries, and he wasn’t looking very pleased.
Josh was probably getting on Rocco Leopardi’s nerves, Julie thought, hugging the baby even more protectively. He was the kind of man—rich, powerful and no doubt spoiled—who wasn’t used to having his wishes or himself taking second place to anything or anyone. No doubt when he had children they would be presented to their father only when he wished them to be. It would be someone else who would be there for the sleepless nights, the colic, and all the other exhausting aspects of parenthood.
He was the kind of man who would enjoy creating his children, though.
The thought slipped past the gates that should have barred it. Then, like a serpent, once it was there on the fertile ground from which it had been banished it luxuriated in its freedom and soon found a willing accomplice to listen to its dangerous story in the shape of a female instinct Julie hadn’t even known she possessed until now.
It struck too swiftly for her to escape its deadly venom. One minute she was picturing Rocco Leopardi as a selfish father—the next she was imagining him as an arrogantly sensual lover, wanting to impregnate his woman, wanting to make his mark on the future via the creation of a child that would carry his genes into that future with it.
Inside her head she could see the face of the woman, and in it her intense pleasure—her face.
Shock gripped her body in a violent tremor.
>
‘I’ll go through to the galley and sort out Josh’s bottle,’ Julie said, desperate to get away from Rocco even whilst she calmed her frantic thoughts. They ricocheted around inside her head in every direction in their flight to escape from what she had ‘seen’.
Turning on her heel, she bolted for the galley, her heart jumping inside her chest in a panicky, unsteady rhythm that made her feel slightly sick.
‘I’m really sorry about this,’ she apologised to the steward as he looked up at her, ‘but I think Josh is getting on Rocco’s nerves. I thought I’d better come and do his bottle.’ As she spoke she was measuring out the formula with practised ease, whilst holding Josh.
‘No worries,’ Russell reassured her calmly.
The lamb cutlets he was just sliding onto a serving dish decorated with wilted radicchio and mint leaves, before ornamenting them with white frilled ‘caps’, looked and smelled delicious, but Julie’s anxiety about Josh had killed her appetite. She just hoped he would take his feed this time, and not have another attack of colic.
Josh was still crying when she carried him back to the bedroom, where she settled herself down in a chair with him and offered him his bottle.
Surely there was no sound more satisfying than the hungry sucking and assorted snuffling sounds made by a baby who was enjoying his feed? Julie thought, smiling when Josh gripped her finger tightly as she held the bottle and he held on to her. She stifled a small yawn, and then a much larger one. Josh released the teat of the bottle, and looked up at her, but then reached for it again when she made to take it away.
Five minutes later Julie could see that his eyelids looked as heavy with the desire to sleep as hers felt. He was only sucking drowsily now, his eyes tightly closed. Gently she eased the teat away, and then winded him gently before carrying him back to the cot.
Predictably, the minute she put him down his eyes opened wide and his face crumpled. ‘It’s all right. I’m not going anywhere,’ she told him softly.
As though he understood what she was saying he started to relax, and then smiled at her, making her heart turn over with love.
She’d have to stay with him until he’d fallen asleep. She lifted her hand to her mouth to cover another yawn. She might as well lie down for a few minutes. She could see him from the bed, after all, and he could see her…
* * *
Rocco had finished his lamb cutlets, drunk his wine, shaken his head in refusal of pudding, and still Julie Simmonds had not re-emerged from the bedroom.
Rocco supposed irritably that he had better go and find out what was going on. He signalled to Russell to clear the table and strode over to the bedroom door, opening it and stepping inside the room, closing the door behind him.
A single lamp illuminated the room. Julie Simmonds was lying fast asleep on top of the bed, still wearing the bathrobe. If anything she looked even more fragile asleep than she did awake. She was lying with one arm outstretched, so that her hand was touching the side of the travel cot, as though even in her sleep her first concern was for her child. The towelling robe had fallen off her shoulder to reveal the fragility of her shoulder blade and its contrast with the soft fullness of her almost exposed breast.
An unfamiliar feeling shadowed Rocco’s thoughts like the melancholic darkness of a deserted and lonely home. He had been born into one of the most patrician and wealthy of Sicilian families, but he had never known the kind of tender maternal love that this child was receiving.
From a mother who was little better than an unpaid whore and who was more concerned about preserving the sexuality of her future than feeding her child?
Was he really trying to tell himself that he was envious of that? So his mother had died within hours of his birth. He had at least been brought up with every material comfort and luxury, and his loss had taught him the value of emotional independence.
Rocco was about to turn away, when a movement from the cot caught his attention. The baby was awake, but quiet—and watching him, Rocco realised. It was impossible to see his features clearly in the shadowy room, but Rocco knew that the boy had dark curly hair, and that his eyes were still blue. He had felt no sense of looking at a child of his own blood. How could he, when as yet it was not known whether or not he was Leopardi? And yet somehow there was something—some feeling within himself, some deep awareness of a child’s need to have a strong male protector and a man’s need to honour his duty to be the guardian of a child’s vulnerability—that called out to him as clearly as though the child himself had reminded him of that duty. Generation to generation, the responsibility was passed down, male to male, and when that golden chain of responsibility for the life of another was broken a small heart was left to bear the pain that was branded on it for ever: an imprint of what it was to be male, neither given nor received.
Someone had fathered this child; someone had to take responsibility for him.
Someone—but not him—not unless it turned out to be Antonio’s child, and then he would share the responsibility with his brothers.
The baby wriggled and smiled a wide gummy smile. Rocco started to move closer to the cot and then stepped back, shaking off the primeval feelings that had no place in his logical mind and his busy life.
‘We’ll be landing in half an hour. Rocco said to warn you that it will be cold and possibly raining.’
‘In Sicily?’ Somehow Julie had assumed that the island would have warm weather all year round.
‘The island faces three different seas, and its winters can be harsh. By the end of this month, though, the temperature will be rising and the weather will be much warmer.’
The steward’s entrance had brought Julie out of her unplanned sleep.
He’d brought her a tray of tea when he’d come to wake her, and to warn her that they would soon be landing, but after he’d left her Julie was too busy to have time to pour and drink it.
For one thing Josh had to be changed, and fastened into clean clothes and a padded outdoor all-in-one suit before she could even think about getting ready herself. She doubted somehow that Rocco would have much patience if they delayed him.
To her dismay there was no sign of her wet jumper in the bathroom, or in fact of any of her own clothes, and there was certainly no time to go and find Russell and ask what had happened to them. Trying not to panic, Julie pulled open the wardrobe door, remembering that the steward had said he had hung her clothes there. Thankfully Josh was content to lie quietly as she stood staring at the things hanging inside the wardrobe, whilst her heart sank.
Designer jeans—she recognised the label as one that Judy had coveted—a silk shirt, a cashmere sweater, and a beautiful trench coat with a thick, warm removable lining swung invitingly in front of her. Timelessly elegant clothes, every single one of them way beyond her budget, never mind all of them together—and paid for by a man who had already shown his contempt for her. Wearing them would be a form of accepting his contempt, accepting his patronage, becoming a Leopardi possession—a woman who could be bought as easily as Antonio Leopardi had bought Judy—but what choice did she have? Her own clothes had vanished. She could hardly leave the plane wearing a towelling bathrobe—which in any case also belonged to Rocco Leopardi.
Almost fiercely she reached for the clothes and pulled them on, her angry movements softening the moment she touched the cashmere and the luxurious silk. It was a crime to treat such beautiful fabrics so harshly and uncaringly. The cashmere clung to the pads of her fingertips, slightly rough from all the domestic work she had to do without the luxury of protective gloves.
She had told herself that she wouldn’t wear the expensive leather boots, but in the end she had to, when she found that her shoes had vanished along with everything else.
She was just folding the bathrobe when Russell knocked briefly on the door, and then came in carrying a butter soft suede bag of the type that Julie had seen A-list celebrity mothers toting.
‘I’ve packed all the babe’s things in it, and filled
a fresh bottle. I’ll make sure that everything else is sent on to Villa Rosa for you,’ he told Julie with a smile. ‘Oh, and you’ll need the raincoat.’ He pulled a wry face. ‘When it rains in Sicily in the winter, it really rains.’
She had her own nappy bag. Designer bags were an affectation and a waste of money, Julie told herself. But the butter- soft suede was already packed full. What was more important—her pride or Josh’s comfort? There was no contest, really, was there?
When Julie emerged from the sleeping compartment carrying Josh, Rocco had to admit that the change in their appearance momentarily caught him off guard.
Julie still had her hair in a plait, and her face free of make-up, but somehow that simplicity only served to accentuate how perfectly suited she was to the stylish elegance of what she was wearing. Even the way she was carrying herself had altered, Rocco noted. She was standing taller, her shoulders straighter.
The concierge service had done an excellent job and he must remember to thank them. He had simply instructed them to make sure that enough clothes to last a young mother and her child for a fortnight, including both indoor and outdoor things, were sent to his private jet in time for their flight, along with adequate supplies of baby formula and other necessities.
If he said one word about the clothes he had bought, which she had been forced to wear, she would rip them off and refuse to leave the plane until she had her own clothes back, Julie decided defiantly, lifting her chin. She certainly wasn’t going to thank him for them, was she? But somehow she heard herself saying huskily, ‘Thank you for…for providing everything for Josh and me. You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.’
Her voice made it plain that she was more resentful of his generosity than grateful, Rocco acknowledged grimly, and he told her, ‘One phone call to a concierge service is hardly going to any trouble.’
He’d put his suit jacket back on, and over it he was wearing a raincoat with the collar turned up—with that special kind of aplomb and style that Italian men were so very good at.