“Nothing?” he said, with such soft threat that goose bumps broke out over her skin. “Not even if I tell you that it’s my turn now, to have Simon live with me? You’ve had him for the first ten years, after all, so it would seem to be a fair division of time, and something to which I’m fully entitled, since, in another ten years, he’ll be past the age when he needs either one of us to provide him with a roof over his head.”
“You wouldn’t do that!” she said, almost fainting with fear. “You wouldn’t make him choose between us.”
“Are you so sure?”
“Yes,” she said, refusing to give in to the terror marauding her body and turning it into a mass of cowering flesh. “You’re angry now, Matteo, but you’re not really a cruel man. You wouldn’t try to take a boy away from his mother.”
He glared at her in silence, the light of battle in his eyes. And then, quite suddenly, it flickered and died. “You’re quite right,” he agreed roughly. “I wouldn’t. Which means that you and I must arrive at some sort of compromise.”
“What sort of compromise?” she asked, caught between relief and caution.
He paced the length of the room, and ended up at the window with his back to her. “We can resolve this impasse very simply. We can marry, thereby eliminating any need to involve the courts in a custody battle, and at the same time give Simon the one thing he’s never really known: two parents committed to his happiness and well-being. We will live here in Italia, far removed from the unpleasant influence of your father and elder brother. You robbed my grandfather of knowing my son, but you will not do the same to my mother or grandmother. How’s that for a civilized solution, my dear signora?”
Civilized? Perhaps! But to be issued a proposal of marriage based on such cold, unforgiving terms, to have him call her “my dear signora” as if the words left poison on his tongue, flayed her to the bone.
“You hesitate, Stephanie,” he remarked, swinging around to confront her again. “Did I forget something?”
“No,” she said, “but answer me this. Would you still have asked me to marry you, if you hadn’t learned Simon was your son?”
“Would you still be insisting you love me, if you hadn’t seen for yourself that I’m not someone you need to keep hidden away from your society-conscious father?”
“Yes.”
“Then I would have asked you to marry me. Just not for the same reason that I’m proposing it now, that’s all. Before, it would have been because I trusted you enough to believe we could build a life together. It would have been a love match.”
“And now?”
He shrugged. “Now, it’s become a matter of convenience. It will be an arrangement, a contract drawn up by lawyers, including my legal adoption of my son, which I consider a necessity in order to protect both his rights and mine. Now, I will marry you for his sake, instead of my own.”
“Love doesn’t turn off just like that, Matteo!”
He smiled at her, a cruel curving of his beautiful mouth which conveyed not a scrap of warmth or feeling. “Just because I said the words doesn’t mean I meant them.”
Stunned by the calculated ruthlessness in his voice, she recoiled as if he’d slapped her. “Then why did you act as if you did? Why did you insist on reviving our relationship?”
“For the same reason that I started it, ten years ago. Because you are a worthy accessory to a man of my standing. Because I find you desirable. Even now, I am hot and hard for you. I see you sitting there, in your pretty little nightdress, and I imagine tearing it off you, and having you lying naked beneath me, with your legs entwined around me, and your soft cries driving me to madness.”
“Then what’s holding you back?” she cried recklessly, her voice brimming with tears. “If that’s all I can give you, why not take me?”
“Because I am disgusted by my weakness.” He wheeled around and strode to the door. “And because there are less degrading ways a man can satisfy his carnal needs.”
“Such as what? By going to another woman?”
He tossed her another smile over his shoulder. “Use your imagination, Stephanie. God knows it’s stood you in good stead in the past!”
He’d have left her on that note, if she’d let him. But she raced after him, nearly tripping as her nightgown wrapped its soft folds around her ankles, and although it took all her strength to do so, she caught his arm and wrenched him around to face her.
“You haven’t changed at all,” she told him, her own anger at last matching his. “Underneath all your slick, sophisticated charm, you’re still the same heartless brute you’ve always been. You’ve just learned to keep it better hidden, is all.”
“You are so right, Stephanie,” he said softly. “I am all that you accuse me of, and then some. Do you remember a time, not so very long ago, that I told you you had nothing to fear from me, that I was not asking for your firstborn?”
She froze, the moment, the context, rushing back to her in vivid detail. He had been trying to persuade her to go to dinner with him, the day she and Simon had run into him in Ischia Porto, and she had done her utmost to resist the invitation.
“I see that you remember only too clearly,” he said, his unblinking, unforgiving gaze never once wavering from her face. “Well, I’m not asking now, Stephanie. I’m taking. One way or another, Simon will learn that I am his real father. He will learn as much as I can teach him about his Italian roots. And if you choose to come along for the ride, va bene. If you do not….” He raised his shoulders in an indolent shrug. “Then arrivederci, cara mia.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
THERE was no sleep for Stephanie, after that. She lay in the bed, reliving the exchange with Matteo, word by crushing word. And even though she repeatedly told herself his vitriolic attack had been prompted by anger, that he’d spoken in the heat of the moment, during the dark, fertile hours when nightmares crept in and chased out reason, his threat to steal Simon took root and flourished.
Such things did happen. The news was littered with stories of fathers kidnapping their own children; of mothers appearing on television and making tearful appeals to have their babies returned. Matteo De Luca was a fascinating mix of implacable will and burning passion. But bind the two together with a taste for vengeance and, if tonight’s display was anything to go by, she’d be a fool to underestimate him. What he could not achieve by fair means, he’d achieve by foul.
And he had the means to do so. A private helicopter close by, ready for take-off at a moment’s notice. Money. Influence. For her to think she could fight such a power-house on his own turf was absurd. If he were to spirit Simon away in what she now suspected were any number of places he owned, how effectively could she counter such actions in a country where she had no friends and didn’t even speak the language?
She couldn’t afford the risk of finding out, and by the time the sun rose, she knew what she had to do. Opportunity to put her plan into action was all she needed and, by happy circumstance, this fell into her lap when she joined the family in the breakfast room.
Several cousins had stayed overnight and were planning to spend the morning in Lucca—“at the antique market,” they explained, bombarding her with the same unflagging enthusiasm they’d displayed at dinner. “It takes place on the third Sunday of every month, in the Piazza Antelminelli and Piazza San Giusto. Come with us, Stephanie. Learn something of our local traditions.”
But she, casting a glance around the table and seeing no sign of Matteo, knew a surge of uneasiness. “Is Matteo going to be there as well?”
“No. He went riding earlier, and said he wouldn’t be back until lunch,” his mother told her, adding in an undertone as the general babble of conversation resumed, “He wanted to be alone for a while. You understand why, sì? He has much to think about.”
In other words, he was avoiding her. Or plotting his next move. “And what time is lunch?”
“Two o’clock,” Signora De Luca said. “We take our meals later on Sundays.”
It was now nine o’clock. Five hours allowed ample time to carry out her plan. She’d be long gone before he even realized she was missing. “Then I’d love to see the market,” she told the others. “How soon are you leaving?”
“As soon as you’re ready,” they said.
“I’m ready now.” She pushed aside her coffee cup. “I seldom bother with breakfast.”
Twenty minutes later, they’d all piled into three cars and were on their way. In order not to arouse suspicion, Stephanie carried only her purse. She’d send for the rest of her stuff once she and Simon were safely out of reach, and hope that Signora De Luca and Nonna would forgive her for leaving without thanking them. She would write to them later, and explain her reasons, and promise to bring Simon to meet them when the dust had settled.
They left the cars on the north edge of town, and proceeded on foot to the town center. It was, as Matteo had promised, a jewel of a place, with magnificent churches, palazzos, museums and gardens, and she’d have loved the chance to explore it at leisure. But she was a woman on a mission, and not about to waste a second of the time at her disposal.
Losing the cousins was easy. Once they’d entered the market area, they went their separate ways, arranging to meet later at an outdoor café in the Piazza Antelminelli. Pretending an interest in a gallery showing eighteenth century paintings, Stephanie waited until no one was looking, then slipped down a side street to where a sign outside a shop advertised cycles for rent. Ten minutes later, armed with a map, she was headed out of town on a quiet back road to the nearest airport, Galileo Galilei, in Pisa, some thirty kilometers away.
She’d covered about half the distance when she became aware of a car nosing up behind her. Steering as close to the edge of the road as possible, she waited for it to pass. Instead, it drew level.
It was a Ferrari. Low-slung and black. With Matteo behind the wheel.
He’d left her in a rage. Paced the night away in a fury. Met the new day full of pent-up frustration and doubt. And known he had to come to grips with his emotions before he saw her again.
Riding his favorite stallion in the hills behind the villa, with the cool, sweet air of a Tuscany morning blowing away his anger, he’d faced all the truth, instead of just part of it.
Yes, she’d kept knowledge of his son from him. But perhaps he’d driven her to such action by taking advantage of her innocence, then leaving her without a word. And yes, since coming back into his life, she had continued the lie, but then he was no less guilty.
He had misled her. Taken secret enjoyment in the way she’d misunderstood his situation. Worse, he’d told her last night that he hadn’t meant it when he said he loved her.
If she had played games, so had he. And in doing so, he’d lost sight of the bigger picture. Because, when all the raging and fury died to a whimper, what remained was that he loved her. He believed she loved him. And they had a son.
In the clear light of a new day, the enormity of such good fortune had struck home, and cutting short his ride, he returned to the villa, prepared to lay his heart bare before her. To cajole, instead of coerce. To coax instead of threaten.
He learned she’d gone to Lucca with his cousins, and followed, searching the antique market until he found them. Everyone but her. And one of his cousins mentioned seeing her enter the bike rental shop.
When Matteo inquired, the owner remembered the blond North American tourist. He’d supplied her with a bike for the day, and a map on which he’d marked the back road she should take. Because she wanted to see something of the countryside between Lucca and Pisa, she’d said.
But Matteo knew differently. She was running away again. With Simon. And it was all his fault. He jumped in the car, followed the road she’d taken and, within twenty minutes, caught sight of her pedaling furiously under the hot morning sun—a proud, willful, determined speck of humanity, with her blond hair flying out behind her, and her full skirt ballooning around like a parachute.
He started to smile. He couldn’t help himself. Cruising into low gear, he idled the car alongside the bike. “Hey, signora!” he called through the open window. “You’re breaking the law, speeding like this. Pull over.”
“Get lost!” she practically snarled. “You want me to stop, you’re going to have to run me off the road.”
Ahead, a wide green stretch speckled with wildflowers ran parallel to the road. “That can be arranged,” he said, and timed it perfectly, veering the Ferrari close enough to make her swerve into the long grass.
To his horror, though, instead of merely stopping, she went flying over the handlebars and landed in the grass. So hard, he thought she’d surely broken her neck. He’d broken her neck!
Dio! He slammed the car to a screeching standstill. Leaped out and raced to where she lay unmoving, face-down, with wildflowers springing up between the strands of her hair.
Anguished, he knelt beside her. Placed his hand on her ribs and felt his blood run cold when he discerned no perceptible sign that she was breathing. “Stephanie!” he whispered brokenly. “La mia innamorata, what have I done?”
Her body gave a sudden lurch, her lungs heaved, her head popped up and she struggled to a sitting position. “Tried to commit murder, if you ask me,” she gasped, picking blades of grass out of her mouth.
So relieved he almost wept, he cradled her against his chest. “I wanted to stop you, that’s all. I never intended you harm.” He eyed her anxiously. “Dove le fa male—where does it hurt, tesoro?”
She flexed her ankles and shoulders. Rotated her wrists. Touched her midsection gingerly and winced. “Here.”
“I must call an ambulance.”
He half rose, intending to go to his car phone, but she grasped his arm. “I don’t need an ambulance. I winded myself, that’s all. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I don’t suppose I do,” she said tartly. “You wouldn’t, either, if you’d just done a face plant in a field, or spent the night walking the floor, worrying that the man you thought you knew might try to steal your child.”
“I would never have done that.”
“So you say now. But it was a different story last night.”
“Last night, I was not myself. I spoke out of hurt pride and anger.”
“No. You spoke out of conviction, Matteo.” Her eyes grew stormy and her voice shook. “But so do I when I tell you that I will die before I let you take away my baby.”
He snorted, thinking Simon might very well have done the same, had he heard his mother referring to him as a baby. “You will live—with me!—and spare us both any such tragedy.”
“Another ultimatum?” She glared at him but this time, he saw, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “Is my-way-or-the-highway how you usually conduct business?”
“We are not business, Stephanie,” he said. “We are a man and woman who have fought the inevitable long enough, and it’s high time we accepted that we were destined for one another from the start.”
“Because of Simon?”
He cupped her face in his hands. “Because I love you and I believe that you love me. Because I can’t imagine my life without you. And yes, because I want to take my rightful place as Simon’s father. I want it all, Stephanie, just as I’m prepared to give all. That’s the kind of man I am.”
She turned her face and pressed her sweet mouth to his palm. “If only it were that easy.”
“Love is never easy, cara mia,” he said, his heart swelling in his chest at her simple gesture. “It is wild and complicated and greedy and unreasonable. It is what compelled me to drive us both to this madness today.”
“Both!” she scoffed. “I’m not the one who ran you off the road!”
“Indeed not. You are the one who devised such a crazy plan to escape me.” He nodded at the bike lying abandoned on the grass and was hard-pressed not to give in to another smile. “How far did you really think you’d get on that thing?”
&n
bsp; “To the nearest airport, and from there to Ischia, to Simon. And from there home to Canada, with my son at my side.”
“And if I told you that I wouldn’t try to stop you? That if that’s still what you want, you’re free to go, and I’ll even drive you to the airport in Pisa?”
She gave him another sour glare. “It didn’t take you long to decide you could manage without us, did it?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Stephanie.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“That I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, if that’s what it takes to be near you.”
“But your home is here.”
“Yes. But if I must choose between here and wherever you are—”
“I’d never ask you to do that. Italy is your home, and I…I could learn to love living here.”
“What about your life in Canada, your career?”
“My life would be with you. As for my career, it’s served its purpose. Now what I’d most like is the luxury to be a full-time mother and wife.” She sighed and leaned her head on his chest. “Am I asking too much, Matteo?”
“No,” he said. “Not even a little bit.”
“And can we really make it work?”
“Sì, if we want it badly enough.”
“But what about my family—or more particularly, what about the way my father has treated you in the past? How do we get past such things?”
“Your father is easy. He’ll accept me with open arms as soon as he understands that I’m as much a blue blood as he is, and not the penniless nobody he’s taken me for. Because he has yet to develop a mind of his own, your brother Victor will do likewise.
“Andrew will shake my hand and wish me luck, because he knows I’m going to need it with such a hellion for a wife, and also because we like and respect one another. Your grandparents will not be surprised, not by anything they learn. They see much more than we give them credit for. Your mother will realize that I make you happy, and that will be enough for her.”
The Italian's Secret Child Page 16