by Penny Jordan
A flashing light warned that their descent was about to begin, and broke the tension. Julie let Russell help her into her seat and fasten Josh into his, glad of the fact that their descent allowed her to escape from further conversation.
CHAPTER FOUR
IT WAS raining—hard. The rain bounced noisily off the umbrella that the steward was struggling to keep open over her against the fierce force of the wind as he escorted her to a waiting car, making sure she was safely inside it and settled comfortably in the rear with Josh in the baby seat before returning to the plane for Rocco.
The bright lights of the landing strip and the airfield illuminated a landscape that could have been anywhere: scrubby vegetation just visible beyond the perimeter fence under the flare of the lights, vanishing into an ink-black darkness that could have been land, sky or sea.
The cream leather upholstery of the car was so luxurious Julie was almost afraid of touching it. She looked at Josh, mentally praying that he would not be sick.
They were soon leaving the airfield and its lights behind them, to be sucked into the rain-lashed darkness. Despite the warmth of the interior of the car, Julie shivered. The darkness was so intense it almost felt as though it was pressing in on the car, driven by the same wind that was forcing the rain against the car windows with a buffeting roar.
She didn’t really know very much about Sicily, but she had never imagined it would be subject to this kind of violent weather.
Like a tightly wound spring, abruptly released to unravel too quickly, thoughts as wild as the night spun frantically through Julie’s head. What if Rocco Leopardi’s intentions towards Josh were not benign? What if Josh was an obstacle to him in some way? Why hadn’t she thought of this before? Who would know—or care—if tonight she and Josh were driven away into the darkness never to return?
Reaction not just to the extraordinary events of the last few hours but also to everything else that had happened over the last few months and which she had refused to allow herself to react to—first for James’s sake and then later for Josh’s sake—hit her, smashing her self-control and thrusting her headlong into the grip of an attack of panic and self-blame so strong that it seized her breath and made her heart thump so heavily and with such speed that she thought it was going to burst out of her chest.
Rocco knew every centimetre of the single-track road that led from his private airstrip to Villa Rosa, one of the Leopardi country houses, but as always, as he drove round the final sharp curve in the road to reveal the villa up ahead, he felt the familiar surge of pride and pleasure at the sight of it, rising from the fertile plain to dominate the landscape with its elegance.
The sight of the villa materialising virtually out of the darkness, its honey-coloured walls illuminated by the large wrought-iron flambeaux that threw a soft flickering light not just over the building but also over the setting that housed it, brought Julie a merciful release from her anxiety.
Who could not look at something so stunningly architecturally beautiful and not be entranced by the sight of it?
‘It’s almost too perfect to be real.’ Julie couldn’t keep the awe from her voice as she stared up at the high portal, where what she assumed must be the Leopardi coat of arms was illuminated by the light of the flambeaux.
‘It is real, I assure you,’ Rocco drawled. ‘It was built in the eighteenth century, originally as a summer retreat from the heat of the city. Caspar Leopardi designed it himself, and brought the very best craftsmen of the day here to work on it. He wanted to combine in the architecture all those things that were Leopardi— thus the front of the villa you see here is built on the classical lines of the eighteenth century, with reference to Greek and Roman architecture and thus the Greek and Roman influence on Sicily, whilst the enclosed courtyard around which the villa is built echoes the Arab influence on the island and on the Leopardi family.
‘The flambeaux you can see here on the walls were especially commissioned on the island. Each one embraces a different part of our history via an heraldic design, and the gardens are of the Italianate style that was so popular amongst the English who travelled to Italy in the eighteenth century.’
As he spoke Rocco was driving them through the portal to a formal courtyard dominated by an imposing marble stairway.
‘The marble was quarried in Carrera,’ Rocco told Julie, ‘and the stairs lead up to the piano nobile—that is to say the main floor into the formal reception rooms of the villa.’
Julie’s face burned with angry pride.
‘I do know what piano nobile means,’ she informed him sharply, but even if he realised he had offended her he certainly wasn’t going to apologise, she recognised.
The emotional switchback she had been riding since he had stopped her in the street outside her flat, culminating as it just had with a surge of terror followed by an equally powerful release of that tension, was beginning to take effect on her body, Julie recognised muzzily. She had gone through too much, climbed too far too fast and fallen back too quickly, to maintain any equilibrium. She felt distinctly odd—weak, breathless, trembling inside, whilst her heart raced and thudded.
Rocco had brought the car to a halt in front of the double flight of stone stairs. His arrogant, ‘I will take the child,’ as he got out of the driver’s seat, had Julie rushing feverishly to remove Josh from the baby seat, determined not to let him do so. She held her nephew tightly.
Instead of calming her, the sensation of the night air on her face made her feel slightly sick and dizzy. Holding on to Josh, she looked towards the flight of steps. So many of them, and she felt so very odd and weak—not like herself at all. Way above the porticoed entrance up at the top of the villa the carved stone heads of gargoyles and mystical animals stared down at her. All her growing doubts rushed in on her.
Why had she allowed him to persuade her to come here? Just as soon as she could she was going to demand some proper reassurances and explanations—and a lawyer to hear them, she told herself fiercely as she started to climb the stone steps.
She was halfway up them when it happened—her foot somehow slipping on the wet stone so that she half stumbled forward, with Josh in her arms.
Before she had time to cry out strong arms were gripping them, holding them both safe. She could smell male flesh— alien, and yet at the same time recognised by senses already attuned to him. She could feel male warmth, and had to fight to stop herself from simply wanting to relax into it, to give in to the weakness that had invaded her. She wanted to lie here against him, protected by him, never to have to leave that protection. She wanted his arms to close round her and stay closed round her. She ached almost desperately for a man like this one—a totally male, totally strong man—to lift the burdens she was carrying from her heart and heal the hurt inside her.
What was she thinking? The only man she had ever wanted— the only man she would ever want—was dead.
How long had passed? How many minutes had she been lying against him, her heart thumping sickly, too weak to move, whilst shocked tears of reaction and remorse blurred her vision? Too long.
If he hadn’t been close enough and quick enough—if she had dropped Josh on the steps—if he had been hurt because of her…
‘Give me the child. Unless, of course, you want to risk hurting him.’
He knew how to hurt her, she recognised. How to sense her weaknesses and use them against her.
Numbly, Julie handed the still-sleeping baby over to him.
It was Josh he wanted—just as it was for Josh’s sake that he had saved her, not her own. And now that he had Josh he was striding up the stairs away from her, leaving her to follow on her own.
Out of nowhere a terrible lethargy rolled over her, accompanied by a bizarre longing to lie down and close her eyes. She looked up to the portico, her heart thumping ever harder. She could not climb the steps. She could not climb even one of them. But she must. Somehow, leaning against the stair wall for support, she managed to drag herself
up one step and then another, closing her mind against the ache of pain in her legs.
Rocco took the steps two at a time, driven by the savage bite of his anger. Of all the stupid, irresponsible things to do.
She was a woman with pride.
What if he hadn’t caught her in time?
She had defied him.
She had lain against him like a trapped fawn, too exhausted to flee its hunter, her heartbeat shaking her whole body.
She had risked the child’s safety.
She had looked at the child with such anguish in her eyes that it was as though she had bared her whole heart.
She was a good-time girl—an easy lay who had no appeal for him.
She was a devoted mother who touched some chord deep within him that overran the settings of his moral criteria of what he found desirable in a woman.
Something frightening was overwhelming her. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The ache in her legs that had become so familiar to her over the last couple of weeks had intensified to such a pitch that it made her want to cry out.
Her heart was thudding so much it frightened her. She desperately wanted to sit—no, to lie down, Julie corrected herself tiredly, even as her fingers curled round the metal handrail, so that she could pull herself up the final few stairs and follow Rocco into the villa.
Normally she would have been entranced by the hallway, with its frescoes and its magnificent return staircase to the upper floors, its walls filled with paintings which Julie suspected were each worth a prince’s ransom. Normally she would have been thrilled by the opportunity to enjoy such a feast of artworks. But right now she longed so much to lie down that she couldn’t think of anything else. She was actually grateful that Rocco was holding Josh.
Rocco was talking to a plump woman whose dark hair was streaked with grey, and who Julie assumed from her demeanour must be the housekeeper. He was handing Josh over to her and she was beaming down at him.
Rocco was turning back to her.
‘A room has been prepared for you,’ he told Julie. ‘Maria will show you to it.’
Julie nodded her head and made to follow Maria, who was already walking up the stairs.
Rocco frowned as he watched Julie. Her face was bone- white and she was staring at the stairs as though she was terrified of them. She took a step towards them—and then stopped moving, suddenly crumpling to the floor.
Rocco covered the distance between them in three easy strides, catching Julie as she collapsed. She wasn’t, as he had first thought, unconscious. Her eyes were open and dark with confusion.
‘I’m all right. Just a bit tired, that’s all.’
Her face looked as bloodless as the marble steps, and he could feel the frantic tolling thud of her heartbeat through the silk blouse where her trenchcoat had fallen open. She was so slight that carrying her felt like carrying a child—except no child had such magnificent breasts. The sensation of them pressed against his own body as he carried her up the stairs stirred his body as well as his senses.
Rocco headed for the stairs still carrying her, ignoring her frantic demands to be put down, simply telling her tersely, ‘Keep still.’
Through her embarrassment and her exhaustion Julie had a dizzy impression of white marble stairs, ancestral portraits, a long corridor with white walls, and very dark polished and carved wooden doors—one of which was open.
It was heaven to be lying down, even if her heart was pounding so uncomfortably that it was making her feel sick and anxious.
The bed on which she was lying was large and canopied, in a room that looked as though it had come out of an eighteenth- century film set. A fire burned in the marble fireplace beyond the bed, and Maria was placing Josh in what looked like a brand-new cot at the bottom of the bed, fussing over him. Julie wanted to go to him, but she simply felt too weak.
Rocco frowned as he watched her, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the wall. Something was wrong—and, given her lifestyle, it could be drugs. He knew the signs; after all they were easy enough to recognise in these modern times. But, no—this was something other than substance abuse. She was very thin—dieting, then? She hadn’t eaten during the flight, and if celebrities were anything to go by it was the fashion to be skeletally thin—skeletally thin but with such large surgically enhanced breasts that women turned themselves into something close to physical freakery.
Maria spoke to him, telling him that the baby was asleep.
Nodding his head, he turned back to the bed and demanded curtly, ‘When was the last time you ate a proper meal?’
Julie tried to think, but even that was too much for her. What was the truth? Did she even know? Could she remember? Did she care?
These last weeks had been a nightmare jumble of trying to look after Josh whilst worrying about Judy’s debts. Making a meal for herself had been the last thing on her mind, even if she had had the money to buy proper food. And she hadn’t really felt like eating. She had lost James. Not just once, but a second time. Losing him to Judy had hurt dreadfully, but losing him to death had brought another kind of pain—this time not just for herself but for Josh, and for James himself as well. Just the thought of the physical effort it would take to eat had made her feel even worse. She simply had not had the energy.
Her tormentor was still looking at her. Waiting for her to reply. He wouldn’t leave her in peace to sleep as she so longed to do until she had answered him. She knew that.
She struggled to sit up.
‘I would have had a meal at home in my own flat this evening if I hadn’t been virtually hijacked,’ she told him, trying to inject a note of scathing contempt into her voice and wondering if it sounded as thin and frail to him as it did to her.
‘And before that—at lunchtime, for instance? You ate then? What?’
He was asking her too many questions and too fast.
‘There wasn’t time. The shop was busy, and Jenny the other girl didn’t come in.’
‘No lunch, then—breakfast?’
‘I had coffee and toast.’
It was a lie. She had made coffee and toast, but all she had had time for was a few sips of the coffee before she’d had to take Josh to nursery.
‘And every day is like that, is it? You deliberately starve yourself, out of some pathetic belief that being thin makes you more desirable to men like my late brother?’
‘No!’
There was real denial as well as outrage in her voice.
‘You say no, but it is obvious that you do not eat.’
Spirit flashed in her eyes as she told him fiercely, ‘We aren’t all rich enough to own private jets and have staff to cook for us, you know.’
Ignoring her attack, Rocco said flatly, ‘If you are not starving yourself out of some self-destructive desire to attract the attention of men who can only be aroused by women who look like children and behave like whores, then why are you not more aware of your responsibility to your child? He is wholly dependent on you. After all he has no one else.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Julie demanded, goaded beyond endurance. ‘Do you think I don’t think about that every waking hour?’ Her eyes were burning with the emotion spilling through her. ‘Do you think I don’t wish more than anything else that his father were still alive? That he was here to care for and protect his son as I know he would?’
‘Antonio?’ Rocco eased his shoulders away from the wall on which he had been leaning. He didn’t want to admit her championing of his half-brother had hit a nerve that was more sensitive than he had known, causing pain to strike searingly into him. His dead half-brother didn’t deserve such loyalty, and she was a fool for giving it to a man who was so unworthy of it.
‘The only person my half-brother would ever protect is himself—and if you don’t know that then you didn’t know him very well.’ His voice was harsh and unkind, its contempt making Julie wince as he added, ‘But then of course you did not know him, did you?
How long does it take, after all, to perform the act that created your child? Five minutes? He couldn’t even remember your—’
Just in time Rocco caught himself back. It went against his own pride to tell her that Antonio hadn’t even been able to remember her name.
Thank goodness he had interrupted her when he had, Julie thought sickly. Otherwise she would have said James’s name. She had been so caught up in her grief, but she couldn’t do that—not until she had some kind of assurance from Rocco that they would be returned safely to London.
‘Dr Vittorio, our family doctor, is coming tomorrow morning to take swabs from the child for DNA testing. Whilst he is here I shall ask him to take a look at you.’
‘There is nothing wrong with me.’
The dark eyebrows slanted in ironic query. ‘You cannot climb a dozen stone steps without collapsing and you say there is nothing wrong with you? I beg to differ. Did you stay in touch with Antonio when you returned to England?’
The question was casual enough, but it made Julie’s heart bound in fear.
What exactly had Judy said about Antonio? Julie wondered frantically, trying to remember. Her sister had implied that she had told Antonio she was expecting Josh and he had not wanted to know. That was when she had decided to tell James that the baby she was carrying was his.
‘I informed him that I was carrying Josh, yes,’ Julie lied. ‘But he didn’t want to know.’ That at least was the truth.
‘And yet you have just claimed to me that he would have wanted to love and protect his child?’
‘As its father, I would hope he would have wanted to do that,’ she felt forced to say—even though the truth was that she had been talking about James, who had loved Josh so much, not Antonio.
‘As I have already told you, if the child turns out not to be my brother’s then you will be compensated for your time and the disruption caused to your life. You will be asked to sign a confidentially agreement never to discuss the matter with anyone—for which you will be paid.’