by Penny Jordan
What was it, she wondered, about a certain kind of man that automatically set him apart and elevated him from other men, causing his own sex to view him with respect and her own with animated delight? Whatever it was, Rocco certainly had that quality in spades. The Leopardis might be lords of all they could survey here in this part of Sicily, but Rocco had no need of the Leopardi name to attract female interest or to prove that he was an alpha male, Julie thought ruefully. Even the way he pushed the buggy somehow reinforced and emphasised his maleness.
The place to watch the parade was in the piazza in front of the town’s main church, according to Maria, and it was there that Julie and Rocco headed, to rendezvous with the housekeeper and her family.
Their progress was held up by the number of people who came forward to pay their respects to Rocco, but finally they reached the square, guided through the crowd by two young men who had introduced themselves as Maria’s grandsons, with the information that Maria and her family had saved them a grandstand view.
A grandstand view would have been found for Rocco in any case, Julie guessed—which made it all the more touching to see the way in which he courteously thanked Maria for her trouble.
Josh had to be admired by Maria’s female relatives and passed round amongst them in a way that slightly alarmed Julie at first—until she reminded herself that this would be the custom in a large family clan, and it would be churlish to make a fuss.
By the time the parade started Josh was back in her arms, wide awake and gazing around—although of course he was far too young to be aware of what was happening.
For sheer pageantry the parade took one’s breath away, Julie admitted, wincing slightly at the noise from the trumpets of the brightly clothed heralds in their scarlet and gold tabards, followed by ‘men at arms’ dragging ‘prisoners’, and then floats filled with people in all manner of costumes.
On the other side of the square, during a small gap in the parade, Julie watched as a young couple embraced, the girl turning her face for her partner’s kiss. Their happiness, so very evident and joyous, made her feel very alone.
Someone wanting to get closer to the parade pushed past her, causing her to half stumble into Rocco. As he steadied her Julie started to apologise, but Rocco shook his head, telling her calmly as he put his arm round her waist and drew her closer to him, ‘Whilst we’re in this crowd I think it would be safer if you stood close to me.’
Since Rocco had already reached for the buggy with his free hand, whilst keeping his arm around her, Julie had no option but to stay where she was.
She would be safer, Rocco had said. Safe from being accidentally pushed by the crowd, perhaps, but certainly not safe from an even greater danger. The scent of his cologne, so barely and yet so tantalisingly discernible against all the stronger smells of hot food and sunshine, made her want to turn her head so that she could seek it out and breathe it in. But would she be able to stop at that? Wouldn’t she then be tempted to nuzzle the warm column of his throat, exploring it with her kisses and all the time moving closer to his mouth? Her heart slammed into her ribs, desire curling insidiously through her body as light as smoke and as dangerous as fire.
‘You are enjoying the parade?’ Rocco asked, his lips close to her ear so that she could hear him above the noise of the crowd.
Of course it was to hear him that she half turned into his body. His hand was a warm heavy weight against her hip, and Julie was thankful that he didn’t know that the ache in her breasts and the ache in her lower body were in competition over which was most intensely in need of the touch of his hand.
When it was time for them to go and have some lunch Julie didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed that there was no longer any need for them to share such physical intimacy.
It had been a wonderful day—a special, magical day out of time—and she would treasure its memory for ever, Julie decided happily later on in the afternoon, as she and Rocco made their way back to the car. Rocco was pushing the buggy, and when he reached for her hand to help her over a patch of rocky ground, then kept on holding it, Julie felt her heart somersault with delight.
They were back at the villa when Julie’s happiness was suddenly changed to shocked fear and disbelief.
The bleep of her mobile phone warning her of a voicemail message was unusual enough to have her immediately removing the phone from her handbag, and she excused herself to Rocco when she saw that the message was from her solicitor.
It was long and complex, and the news it contained was dreadful. It drove the happy pink flush of colour from her face, and she had to hear it again to make sure she had not misunderstood it.
Her solicitor reported that, due to the fact that her parents had remortgaged their house a year before their deaths and given a very large sum of money to Judy, and also the fact that for some reason her father had omitted to pay the premiums on his life insurance, there would be very little value in their estate for Julie and Josh to inherit.
And, if that was not bad enough, he added that he also had to inform Julie that a solicitor for James’s sister and her husband had been in touch, advising that they intended to ask the courts to revoke Julie’s status as Josh’s legal guardian in their favour because they did not think that as a single young woman she could provide the same quality of care and financial security for Josh as they could.
The fact that they were a couple and were far more comfortably circumstanced than she was herself, thus better able to provide Josh with a stable and secure home, meant that in his view their challenge had to be taken very seriously indeed, her solicitor warned her, adding that the process would be a long and very expensive one, and that in the circumstances Julie might want to think seriously about where Josh’s best long-term interests lay.
In other words, her solicitor thought that she should give Josh up.
‘No!’ The mobile slipped through her fingers to fall on the floor whilst Julie sat down on the stairs and covered her face with her hands.
Rocco scooped up the mobile, checking that Josh was still safely asleep in his buggy. When Julie failed to respond he autocratically listened to the message himself, and strode towards her.
Somehow she had managed to get herself under control and stand up, even though she felt sick with shock and despair. What was she going to do?
‘I don’t understand,’ she told Rocco. ‘Annette doesn’t even like children. She’s always refused to have a family, even though her husband desperately wants one. She wouldn’t even look at Josh, never mind hold him. She told me to keep him away from her in case he dirtied her expensive coat. I can’t let her take him. She won’t love him properly. I know she won’t.’
Her shocked distress aroused all Rocco’s protective instincts. He had grown up without his own mother and he knew the pain that caused. Josh had already bonded with Julie, and the truth was that he had grown attached to the child himself. Why should Josh be handed over to strangers just because they were a couple, when he could provide him not only with financial security but also with a father?
‘There is a solution,’ he told Julie, his mind made up.
‘What?’
‘Marriage.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘MARRIAGE,’ Julie repeated uncomprehendingly.
‘Yes,’ Rocco confirmed, telling her coolly, ‘If you and I were to marry, then there would be no question of anyone trying to take Josh from you.’
‘What? That’s…that’s not possible.’
Rocco frowned, his resolution, like his pride, hardened by her rejection and denial.
‘Why not?’
You don’t love me. How easily those words might have slipped from her lips—and how illuminatingly, shining an unwanted and far too bright light into the most private recesses of her own heart.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Julie told him weakly.
‘On the contrary—it makes perfect sense.’ Rocco overruled her. ‘I know what the lack of parental love an
d the loss of a mother can do to a child, and since it is within my power to ensure that that does not happen to Josh, then—’
‘But to marry me? Josh is not your responsibility after all.’
‘I cannot agree with that. Whilst you and Josh are living beneath my roof you are both as much my responsibility as my father’s people are his. That is what it means to be a Leopardi. I cannot abdicate that responsibility any more than I can deny my name and my blood. It is my duty to honour my responsibility to my blood and to you.’
‘That’s…that’s feudal—’ Julie began, only to have Rocco stop her.
‘You believe, do you not, that you have a responsibility towards Josh, and that you must put his needs first and above your own and do what is right for him?’ he said.
Julie nodded her head, her heart sinking as she realised where this conversation might be leading.
‘Then you must understand that I too have my own sense of responsibility.’
He meant what he was saying, Julie recognized, but she still shook her head and said, ‘But we are nothing to you…’
‘You are here beneath my roof. Therefore you are my responsibility,’ Rocco repeated, before continuing. ‘On the other hand, if I have misunderstood your feelings and you do not feel you have to put your nephew’s best interests first—’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then you will agree that in marrying me you will be doing exactly that and providing him not just with the security of two parents but also with financial security.’
What could she say? It was impossible to deny the logic of Rocco’s argument.
Every word he said reinforced for Julie what she had already come to know about him—namely that he was a man whose sense of responsibility was incredibly deep.
Her emotions see-sawed wildly between hope and dread, longing and revulsion, need and pride. Rocco was offering her a way to secure Josh’s future. But it was a permanent place in his heart that she longed and ached for, and that was never going to be on offer. Did she really want to submit herself to the emotional anguish of living with Rocco as his wife when he did not love her? Wouldn’t it be better for her own safety to reject his proposal? But what about Josh? Wasn’t it her duty to put his needs first? Hadn’t she been worrying about raising Josh on her own, all too aware of how important it was going to be for Josh to have the right kind of man in his life to model himself on? Josh had no male relatives of his own blood; he only had her. If she married Rocco he would not only provide Josh with material security, he would also be there for him as a father. No matter what her own personal feelings, didn’t she owe it to Josh to recognise how important a role Rocco could play in his life?
As though he had picked up on her own thoughts, Rocco continued firmly, ‘It is Josh we must both think of first here. He is a child who has already lost his parents and his grandparents. He loves you and depends on you. You have said yourself that this woman who wishes to claim him is not a fit mother for him.’
‘But marriage…’ Julie protested weakly.
Rocco shrugged. ‘You may think of it as a temporary business arrangement, if you wish.’
A business arrangement. How those words hurt her. But it was not her own feelings that mattered here, Julie reminded herself sternly.
‘As Josh’s stepfather I shall do everything within my power to ensure that he is happy and well cared for. And before you ask, no, I do not have any particular desire for children of my own. I am not my father’s eldest son, after all, with a duty to provide an heir.’
And of course any marriage to her would not stop him from finding whatever sexual pleasure he wanted outside that marriage. Pain ripped through her, tearing away the pitiful attempt she had made to conceal her real feelings about him. She wanted to be the only woman he sought for pleasure; she wanted to be totally and completely his; she wanted his desire and his love.
Julie could taste the sour bitterness of her awareness of the bleakness of her future. But if she refused Rocco’s proposal, and James’s sister did try to get custody of Josh, how was she going to feel? She did not have the money to fight a lengthy court case, and neither did she have the emotional and physical reserves to cope with months and maybe years of not knowing whether she would have to give Josh up. She couldn’t ignore the effect that kind of pressure was likely to have on Josh. And then there were the final implications of her solicitor’s message…
Why was she hesitating? Logically, what Rocco was proposing was the ideal solution—and if she wasn’t careful he might start probing to find out why she was holding back, what personal emotions she might be hiding.
The thought of her humiliation were he to discover that she had fallen in love with him galvanised her into saying unsteadily, ‘Marriage just seems such a big step to take.’
‘Too big? And yet you have told me over and over again how committed you are to Josh—and were to the man who fathered him. He can never share your life, but Josh can.’
‘I understand what you’re saying, and I’m grateful to you for suggesting it,’ Julie felt bound to say. ‘But…well, it seems so huge…I mean, for you to marry me to protect Josh. You are being very generous to…to both of us, but I have my pride too, and the thought of taking advantage of your generosity worries me.’
‘Does it? Or is it in reality the thought of me taking advantage of our marital status that is actually worrying you?’ Rocco asked her silkily.
Immediately Julie’s face flamed with guilt and longing.
‘That never crossed my mind,’ she protested untruthfully. Such a scenario had indeed crossed her mind, but she was afraid not of any advances on his part, but of her own reactions to him, and what they would betray. She could hardly admit that, though, could she?
‘We have no time to lose,’ Rocco told her, dropping the subject of her fears, much to her relief. ‘The sooner we are married the sooner Josh will be safe. Then you can reply to your solicitor that there is no question of you giving Josh up, since your circumstances have changed and you are no longer a single mother but have a husband. But of course the decision must be yours.’
Helplessly, Julie admitted to herself that there was only one decision she could make.
She nodded her head, and told him huskily, ‘Yes. I mean, yes—thank you. I would like to marry you.’
When Rocco had said that things needed to be done swiftly, that was exactly what he’d meant, Julie recognised two days later, her head spinning at the speed with which events were progressing.
Naturally as a Leopardi Rocco knew all the right people to talk to both in Sicily and in London in order to make sure that the practical legalities were dealt with, but Julie was still astounded to learn that they were to be married the next morning in the small private chapel attached to the villa.
All the paperwork in preparation for their marriage had been completed, and once dinner was over Julie excused herself. The events of the last few days had exhausted her—if anything, even more emotionally than physically. Her medication was helping her to overcome her anaemia, but Julie doubted that the doctor would have anything to prescribe for the heartache that she suspected lay ahead of her.
She had brought Josh downstairs and put him in his buggy whilst they were having dinner, because Maria had gone to see her family and Julie hadn’t wanted to leave Josh on his own in his bedroom.
Now, as she excused herself, Rocco got up to pull out her chair for her, saying something in Italian to his lawyer, who had joined them for dinner, before turning to her and stating firmly, ‘I shall see you both to your room.’ He wheeled the buggy towards the door.
Josh woke up when Rocco lifted him out of the buggy, and the look of recognition in her nephew’s eyes, and the happy smile that followed it as he looked up at Rocco, were all the proof that Julie needed that she had made the right decision for Josh.
The right decision for Josh, but what about for her?
She was marrying a man who aroused her sexually and with
whom she had fallen passionately in love—a man whose conversation stimulated her and whose personality intrigued her and challenged her. A man with whom she would never be bored and within whom she suspected there was a strong streak of compassion for others that with the right kind of encouragement could be harnessed to do so much good for others less happily circumstanced. There was nothing she wanted more than to be the true partner of such a man, to be loved by him as his one true soul mate. But that, of course, was a foolish fantasy.
They had reached her bedroom. Rocco opened the door for her and stepped back so that she could precede him into the room.
Three cream full-length dress bags had been placed on her bed.
‘Wedding gowns,’ Rocco told her. ‘Unfortunately there isn’t time for you to choose your own, so I arranged for a fashion house in Milan to send these out with Ricardo.’
Ricardo was the lawyer, and Julie wondered how he had felt about escorting three wedding gowns from Milan to Sicily.
Josh had gone back to sleep, so Rocco put him down in the middle of the bed, and then reached into his pocket, producing a small turquoise jeweller’s box.
Mutely, Julie watched as he came towards her. There was a horrible hard lump of misery in her throat, and an aching sense of loss and despair in her heart.
No doubt the ring she was about to receive would be as tasteful and expensive as the wedding gowns lying on the bed. And just as devoid of any of the real feelings they should have signified as their marriage itself would be.
Rocco had flipped open the lid of the box, and just as she had guessed the glittering dazzle from the rings inside it made her blink.