by Amy Andrews
‘Hobart!’
Alessandro chuckled. ‘For?’ he prompted as he turned the page.
‘Lamingtons!’
Julian just couldn’t seem to get enough of this damn book—it was their second time through tonight. He seemed to forget everything as the story unfolded. About Camilla. And being dragged halfway across the world. And the stiltedness of their relationship.
At the moment Alessandro was propped against the head of his son’s bed, his legs stretched out in front, his son cuddled into his side, Julian’s curls tickling his chin.
Nat had been right. This was a special time of the day.
But as happy as he was, it was moments like this that the vile sting of regret was at its most potent. He’d been so busy in London, so involved with his career, with making consultant, that he’d let Camilla drive a wedge between him and Julian.
His guilt at entering into the marriage for all the wrong reasons had convinced him his strained relationship with Julian had been his due. Some kind of cosmic payback. But, then, he’d never imagined his son would be motherless and he would have the sole care of his child.
A virtual stranger…
‘Nat bought me a lamington yesterday.’
Alessandro absently rubbed his chin against Julian’s soft curls, savouring the texture and this time together. Soon the book would end and Julian would become awkward with him again. Three nights ago Nat had insisted that bedtime was a special time and bedtime stories were a father’s role and firmly shoved the book at his chest.
Julian had pouted and begged her to do it but she had just smiled at both of them, kissed Julian goodnight and left them to it. And now here they were, both enjoying the night-time ritual.
Enjoying going to another world far away from their own and all its baggage.
‘Did she, now?’ he said good-humouredly. ‘Did it make you invisible?’
Juliano giggled. ‘No. But it tasted dee-licious.’
Alessandro smiled to himself as an image of delicious Nat with Napolitano sauce oozing a tempting streak down the swell of her breast rose in his mind. Not what his son had meant but he couldn’t think of a better description.
Had a woman ever tasted so sweet?
Not that it mattered. It wouldn’t matter if she tasted like fairy floss, cinnamon doughnuts and dark chocolate gelato all rolled in one. He was paying penance and Nat, who’d no doubt been sent by the devil to tempt him, was definitely off limits.
Nat could hear a low murmuring of voices as she collected her pyjamas from beneath her pillow. A high-pitched giggle carried easily, followed by a deeper, richer baritone that seemed to slither into her room on serpent’s wings.
She smiled at the baby steps of progress. Demanding that Alessandro be proactive was doing the trick. She tiptoed down the short distance of hallway between her room and Julian’s, unable to resist taking a peek. The sight that greeted her was heart-warming. Father and son stretched out on the bed in the way of father and sons the world over.
Alessandro was still in his work clothes. But he’d taken his tie off and loosened the top two buttons of his duck-egg-blue shirt. His feet were still encased in his socks. He looked relaxed for a change. Younger, even. Devoted, certainly.
Also hot, sexy and virile. What was it about seeing a big man with a small child that was irresistibly attractive?
Julian’s little body was curled up, knees to chest, snuggled into Alessandro’s side. His small hand rested on his father’s shirt, making it seem positively diminutive against the sheer size of Alessandro’s chest. He was looking at his father as he read the story like he could leap tall buildings in a single bound.
No one watching this scene would guess at the strange relationship that had existed between the two of them. The stilted politeness, their mechanical interactions, the distance. Right now it was as it should be and her foolish soft heart practically over flowed with joy.
She tiptoed away, a small smile curving her soft mouth, knowing that things were looking up and she was part of it.
An hour later, Nat, her heart thudding in her chest, knocked on Alessandro’s office door. It wasn’t shut, just pulled to, but, still, it was a barrier she didn’t feel comfortable breeching without an invitation. He shut himself away every night after Julian went to bed. The relaxed man who lay with his son disappearing the second he walked out of Julian’s room.
His message couldn’t have been clearer—back off. Keep out. He’d said they should pretend it had never happened and he was hell bent on leading by example.
She heard his soft ‘Entrato’ and hesitated briefly, girding her loins for the forthcoming battle. One thing she’d learned very quickly had been that Alessandro was an intensely private man. She didn’t think he’d take too kindly to her entering these particular waters. He didn’t talk about his wife, he hadn’t even let her name slip. Nat had no way of knowing how he’d react to the photo issue.
But she’d made a commitment to herself that she would raise this with him, for Julian’s sake, and she wasn’t going to back down. She took a breath and pushed open the door.
He was sitting in his black-leather, Italian-designed swivel chair. His computer was on. Open textbooks cluttered the surface of the desk and the floor around his feet. Piles of medical journals, some open, littered the area as well in some kind of order…she guessed.
The rest of his office was still stark. The walls were bare and the whiteness was harsh in contrast to the cluttered desk area. She made a note to attack those boxes this weekend. Surely Alessandro wanted familiar things around him too? Maybe he’d appreciate a photo of his wife for his desk?
He’d changed out of his work clothes into his pyjamas. Boxer shorts, the soft clingy kind often seen on models, not the loose, silky ones. They came to mid-thigh and revealed more than they covered. As did a snug-fitting white T-shirt. He’d avoided being ‘undressed’ around her, for which she was most grateful.
The occasional glimpses she’d caught of him sans shirt had been hard enough.
His hair was damp as if he’d not long been out of the shower. A soft lamp spread a glow around the office and settled against the angles of his face, emphasising the richness of his bronze complexion and shadowing his mouth. He looked dark and dangerous and breathtakingly good-looking.
Her very first thought was to turn around and run.
Alessandro raised an eyebrow. ‘You wanted something?’
Nat swallowed. His voice was a low purr, like Flo’s—on steroids. God help her, she did. She wanted him like she’d never wanted a man before. Not even Rob. She shut her eyes against the image of her and him going for it in his big old chair that flashed briefly through her mind.
No! They couldn’t do this.
When she opened them again his dark gaze netted her in its web. It was if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.
Alessandro flattened his bare feet in the carpet so he wouldn’t leave the chair and cover the short distance between the two of them and snatch her into his arms. Nat’s gaze had licked all over him and become all heat and steam and he suddenly felt like he was sitting in a sauna or a hot spring. He kept his gaze trained on hers despite the compelling tug to let it wander down over her cleavage and further to her long bare legs and feet he could see in his peripheral vision.
Inferno! This was crazy. ‘Nat?’
His voice was steely now, pulling Nat back from temptation. ‘I wanted to talk to you about…’ she swallowed ‘…something.’
Alessandro’s gaze took in her mouth as she talked and her nervous throat bob. The strange urge to stroke a finger down the ridge of her windpipe, place kisses along it, came upon him and he curled his hand around the arm of the chair, anchoring himself. ‘Okay. So talk.’
Nat nodded, still uncertain how to go about asking the question. ‘I was wondering if…’ He was staring at her mouth and she couldn’t process anything. She took a second. Probably best to just say it. ‘You had any photos of your wife?’
Alessandro’s gaze flicked back to her eyes in an instant. He felt the tension that was never far way come back into the muscles of his neck. ‘What for?’
Nat heard the note of foreboding, the no-trespassing inflection in his wary voice. And the urge to flee became an imperative. Her heart beat loud enough that she felt sure that Alessandro must be able to hear it. ‘I thought it would be nice for Julian to have a picture of her on his bedside table. Maybe one of them together?’
Alessandro stiffened, an immediate denial rushing to his lips. They’d made real progress this week. He couldn’t bear to see Julian return to the practically mute little boy he’d been in those few days and weeks after Camilla’s death.
His son was moving on, he didn’t want to take him back. ‘I think that would make him unbearably sad again.’
Nat steeled herself to be the bad guy again. ‘His mother’s dead, Alessandro. He’s allowed to be sad.’
Alessandro shook his head. She didn’t know how hard it had been. ‘It’s too awful to watch.’
Nat nearly gave up then and there. The anguish in Alessandro’s voice cut her to the quick. But she knew enough child psychology, as should he, to know he wasn’t doing his son any favours. ‘You can’t protect him from that. It’s healthy to be sad, to cry, to grieve. You can’t fast-forward this bit by pretending she didn’t exist.’
Alessandro’s head snapped up. ‘I’m not doing that,’ he denied, ice lacing his voice and turning his obsidian eyes flinty.
Alessandro’s fervent denial flared out at her like a striking snake. ‘There’s not a single photo of her anywhere, Alessandro,’ she persisted, keeping her voice even and gentle. ‘You loved her. She was the mother of your child. I know it’s hard for you to have reminders of her around —’
Alessandro’s snort interrupted her. ‘You have no idea.’
Nat frowned, surprised at the derision in his voice but ploughed on anyway, not sure she’d ever be brave enough to say it again. ‘He’s four, Alessandro. You know I’m right. Put aside the father, the husband, for a moment and think like a doctor. Like the good doctor you are. You know I’m right. You know this is good grief resolution strategy.’
Alessandro cursed her for being right. ‘And what if I can’t look at her?’ he demanded.
How long had it been since he’d looked at Camilla’s face? Conjured her up? He’d been trying so hard to banish the years of baggage he’d steadfastly refused to imagine her at all.
Of course, he didn’t have to look too far for a reminder. But funnily enough, the physical similarities between Nat and Camilla didn’t strike him any more—hadn’t since that first meeting. They were two different women in so many ways. Too different to be mistaken as the same one.
Nat swallowed. She felt his pain all the way down to her toes and felt dreadful, pushing. ‘I’m not asking you to commission a six-foot mural on one of these god-awful walls. Just a photo for Julian’s bedside table. So he knows she existed and she loved him and she’s looking over him.’
Alessandro wished it was that easy. Could he look at that photo every time he entered his son’s room? Could he look at it and not feel the knife twisting a little deeper?
He looked at Nat’s earnest face and sighed. Hadn’t she been right about everything else? Hadn’t she helped him reach out to his son already? Of course he could do it, if it helped his son mourn.
‘There are framed photos,’ he sighed. ‘A few. In one of the boxes.’
It had been his intention to get around to putting them out. In their house in London, photos of her, of them, as a family had been everywhere. They’d been so hard to look at afterwards. The hypocrisy had been torture. And frankly he’d been enjoying the emotional freedom.
Nat felt her heart sink at both the defeat in his voice and the thought of having to search through the remaining mound of boxes. Whoever the packing company had been, they’d done a lousy job. Most of them were marked miscellaneous so the photos could be anywhere.
But it was a start, a concession. And there was no rush now that Alessandro had consented—they’d find them some time in the next few weekends and with Alessandro on the same page it would be a good avenue to open discussion. And in the meantime they could sound Julian out about the idea.
She noticed how tired he looked and suppressed her natural soppy-female instinct to go to him. She wanted to put her arms around him, hug him, give him a place to rest his head. But she knew it would be a mistake. The urge to comfort might be her motivator but she doubted it would stay that pure for long.
‘Thank you. This is the right thing to do, Alessandro.’
Alessandro heard the note of genuine belief in her voice. She stood in his doorway, oozing certainty and confidence. God, he felt so out of his depth sometimes. And yet here she was in her T-shirt and shorts, all perfect and Zen and centred, telling him it was going to be all right.
He wished she’d come nearer. He wanted to put his arms around her, bury his face against her belly. Absorb some of that Zen she had going on. Maybe feel her hand sifting through his hair. ‘I hope so,’ he murmured.
Nat was almost paralysed by the longing she saw in Alessandro’s gaze. Was it desire to connect with his son or just plain old desire?
Desire with a capital D?
His eyes roamed over her and her skin felt like it was on fire. The room had become a furnace, heat roaring between them. She opened her mouth to say something but, as if he knew he’d already given away too much, he swivelled the chair back around to face his desktop monitor.
She stood in the doorway for a few moments, staring at the back of his chair, trying to catch her breath. This was a good thing. Something happening between them would be dumb—way dumber than Rob. He was doing them a favour.
And one day, she had no doubt, she’d truly appreciate his resolve. But right now a long lonely night stretched endlessly ahead.
Nat woke in the wee small hours to Flo miaowing and nudging her. Rain drummed on the colour bond roof. She wasn’t surprised. The day had been humid and a storm had been brewing as she’d climbed into bed. She stroked Flo, lying there for a second just enjoying the noise and luxuriating in being dry and snuggled beneath the covers. But Flo persisted with her nudging and Nat reluctantly got up.
‘All right, bossy-boots. I know you like to frolic in the rain, you crazy cat.’ She picked up a purring Flo. ‘Come on.’
Familiar now with the layout of the house, Nat made her way downstairs in the dark and opened the laundry door for Flo to go out. She watched the cat bound into the rain and grinned. Silly animal—giving up a dry warm bed snuggled into a doting little boy to chase a few raindrops around.
Nat shut the door, knowing Flo would be happy out there for hours. She stopped and grabbed a drink of water in the kitchen and headed back to the stairs. A chink of light from beneath the office door caught her gaze. Good grief! Alessandro was still up?
She knocked lightly on the door and waited for his gruff ‘Entrato’ but nothing. She pushed it open slowly, expecting him to swivel around with an annoyed look on his face. Instead, he was bent forward in his chair, head on desk, amidst the clutter of textbooks, his eyes closed.
‘Alessandro?’ she whispered, approaching carefully. He didn’t stir and she stood for a moment just looking down at him. His black hair fell across his forehead, disarmingly innocent, just like Julian’s did when he slept.
But the dark growth shadowing his jaw and his softly parted lips were one hundred per cent adult.
It was a shame to wake him—he always looked so tired. In fact, even asleep he looked utterly exhausted. But he’d have a hell of a sore neck in the morning if he stayed like this.
‘Alessandro,’ she called again as she gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
Alessandro startled, sucking in a breath and sitting bolt upright as he dragged his body out of the sticky depths of slumber. His hand automatically went to the twinge in his neck as his brain scrambled to get up to speed.
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Nat standing in his office. Nat standing really close in his office. Nat wearing some clingy T-shirt dress thingy with no bra standing close in his office.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, struggling with the urge to drop his gaze to the bounce of her unfettered breasts in his peripheral vision. ‘I must have fallen asleep.’ He used both hands to rub his neck for fear of where they’d go if they weren’t occupied.
He had a red mark on his cheek where it had been stuck to a textbook and Nat had a crazy urge to stroke it. ‘What are you doing up so late?’ she whispered. She wasn’t sure why she was whispering. It just seemed appropriate in the dead of night.
Alessandro shrugged. ‘I’ve been working on St Auburn’s readiness for pandemic status should the dreaded swamp flu reach our shores.’
‘It’s two-thirty in the morning,’ she chided. ‘The swamp flu can wait. Go to bed. Get some sleep.’
Alessandro let his hands drop. If only if was that easy. ‘I can’t sleep,’ he murmured. ‘I never sleep.’
Nat felt his weariness, his anguish, right down to her toes. He looked totally wretched and her instincts cried out to comfort him. ‘Oh, Alessandro,’ she whispered.
She didn’t give a second thought to moving closer, sliding one hand behind his neck and one into his hair, cradling his head, pulling it against her belly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Alessandro’s arms automatically encircled her waist, drawing her closer. He shut his eyes as he leaned into her, his face pressed into her nightshirt. She smelled like soap and rain and flowers. And he wanted her. ‘I’m tired. I’m so tired.’
‘Shh.’ She cradled his head and rocked slightly. ‘I know. I know.’ Because she did know. She knew what it was like to grieve the end of a relationship. To lose someone close.
He pressed a kiss to her belly and looked up at her. She was so beautiful. Her eyes were shimmering pools of empathy, her skin was glowing and her mouth was beckoning. He wanted to crawl into a nice, big warm bed with her and stay there for ever. ‘Nathalie.’
Nat shook her head. She knew that look in his eyes. Knew for damn sure it was reflected in hers. ‘Don’t call me that.’ Her voice shook. She hated how husky it sounded.