by Amy Andrews
Julian!
Careful not to disturb Alessandro, she eased off the bed and groped around for her nightdress. Finding it discarded near the door, she threw it on and headed to Julian’s room.
The muted glow from the illuminated fish tank by the window silhouetted Julian’s tiny frame as he sat up in bed. ‘What is it, matey?’ she crooned.
‘I’ve been sick,’ he sobbed.
Nat, her brain still cloaked in slumber and her bones still heavy from sexual malaise, reached for the nightlight and snapped it on. Julian’s hair was mussy from sleep, his face flushed. She could smell the acidic aroma of vomit and noticed the soiled bed linen.
She sat on the bed beside him and put her arms around his shoulders, noting immediately how warm he felt. ‘It’s okay, matey. Let’s get you cleaned up and give you some more medicine.’
She helped him out of his soiled shirt and groped in his drawer for another. She picked him up and carried him into her en suite where she’d left his medicine just in case it was needed in the night. She administered the medication and then wet a washer and wiped his flushed face.
His fever now seemed to be accompanied by a runny nose and a slight cough. He denied a sore throat and ears and she resigned herself to shelving plans for a day at the beach and spending the weekend nursing him through flu. She carried him back towards his room but he clung to her neck and she didn’t feel comfortable leaving him all alone in his bed when he was obviously miserable.
It didn’t seem proper to take him into hers. She glanced at the open doorway at the end of the hallway. A memory from her childhood assailed her. She’d been seven and ill from something she couldn’t remember now. But she could remember her mother bringing her into her parents’ bed and how she had snuggled into her father. He had patted her back and curled his big arm around her and she had felt so safe and secure and loved. She’d felt like he’d held the cure for cancer in his palm.
It had been just before he’d left them and Nat cherished that memory like it was gold. Sure, her mum had always showered her with TLC when she was sick but without her dad and his big old arm there, she’d always felt a little less loved.
Nat didn’t give it another thought. Everyone wanted to feel they were loved when they were sick. It was just…human. She crept into the room and onto the bed and laid Juliano next to his father.
Alessandro stirred and reached for her before he realised the situation. He half sat up and frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’ he whispered.
‘Julian’s been sick. I think it’s flu.’
Alessandro’s first instinct was to refuse. Camilla hadn’t believed in Juliano sleeping in their bed and her iron-clad opinions were ingrained.
Nat could see the indecision on his face. ‘He’s four years old. He needs you, Alessandro,’ she said gently. ‘There’s no better place than Papa’s bed when you’re sick.’
Alessandro looked down at his son. Julian was looking up at him with dull eyes, a kind of hopeless despair giving them an added misery. He smiled down at him. ‘Naturalmente il mio piccolo bambino, viene al Daddy.’
Nat smiled. Her Italian may have been rusty but she knew enough to know Alessandro had consented, and by the look on Julian’s face, he knew it too. Alessandro lay down on his side, wrapped an arm around Julian, pulling his little body close. He rested his chin on his son’s head.
Alessandro’s eyes drifted shut as did Julian’s, but not before he’d tucked his hand in his father’s. Nat sat and watched them for a few moments, her heart filling with an emotion she didn’t want to investigate too closely.
They looked like father and son, like a family. Alessandro, the big protective patriarch, dwarfing Julian whose hand clung tight to his father’s. Julian looked how she must have looked all those years ago safe in her father’s embrace.
Content, secure, loved.
She sighed and eased herself off the bed, taking one long, last, lingering look before creeping out of the room.
Even as she yearned to join them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS amazing the difference a few weeks could make, Nat thought as she sat at a distance and watched Alessandro and Julian build a sand castle together down close to the shoreline. They’d spent the day at Noosa, swimming and playing beach cricket and eating fish and chips at one of the trendy little cafés that lined the boardwalk.
There’d been a subtle shift ever since Julian had been laid up with flu for those two days. Whether Julian had been too sick to find the energy required to stay aloof or whether it’d had been Alessandro’s complete attentiveness, they’d come out of it much closer. It was like a bond had been forged—newer and stronger.
And they’d blossomed under it, opening to each other a little more each day. Chatter and laughter filled the house now instead of stilted conversation and the loud buzz of longing.
Julian smiled at his father. Sat next to him on the lounge. Sought him out to tell him things. He looked for hugs and went eagerly into his father’s embrace. He’d lost that taut little set to his shoulders. The wary, defeated look that had haunted his features.
And Alessandro stopped looking a hundred years old.
It was heartening to witness and Nat just knew, as the sun beat down on her shoulders, that they were going to be okay. Sure, there would be moments when their grief and sadness would come upon them again, blindside them, but at least now they looked like they’d turn to each other for comfort and support.
At least they’d stopped looking to her for guidance.
‘Nat! Nat!’ Julian yelled, popping his head up from his all-fours position, waving an arm at her. ‘Come and look at what Papa and I built!’
Nat smiled and rose. She’d deliberately taken a back seat over the weeks, pushing the two of them together at every opportunity. It did her heart glad to see father and son doing things together. To see Julian acting like a normal four-year-old. To see Alessandro looking less and less haggard.
But as she walked towards them, their dark, downcast heads together again, beavering away a bit more on their creation, she couldn’t deny the tug at her heartstrings and the deep-seated yearning that rose in her chest. She knew it was good, as it should be, but she suddenly felt on the outside. Lonely.
‘Isn’t it great, Nat?’ Julian enthused as she drew level with them.
Nat felt tears prick her eyes and was glad of her sunglasses. It was great on many, many levels. ‘It’s totally awesome,’ she agreed, ruffling his hair.
Alessandro smiled up at her and winked. He was in a sun-shirt that clung to his torso like a glove and boardies that hugged his butt and thighs like a second skin.
‘Have I said that’s a great bikini yet?’ he asked.
Nat gave a half-laugh despite her heavy heart. ‘Once or twice.’
His lusty eyes laughed at her and stole her breath. They looked like the smoothed, flattened black pebbles on the beach, warmed by the sun and utterly inviting. She wanted to push him back against the sand and have her way with him. He was easily the best-looking man on the beach.
‘Papa and I are going to collect some shells. Can you make sure no one knocks the castle down?’
Nat dragged her shaded gaze away from temptation. She took a breath. Excluded again.
But it was good—so good they were doing stuff together. That Julian wanted to do spend time with his father now, looked to his father first. A few weeks ago he would have wanted her. So this was good.
She swallowed. ‘Absolutely, I shall guard it with my life.’
‘Come on, Papa,’ Julian said as he picked up the bright blue bucket and marched towards the lapping ocean.
Alessandro vaulted upwards his gaze tracking his son’s meandering path. ‘You’d better wear that bikini to bed tonight,’ he murmured, before moving off to follow Julian.
The next day they were all making popcorn in preparation for a movie afternoon. Alessandro and Julian had walked down to the video shop in the morning and chosen a couple of Disney cl
assics.
‘Ah, I think that’s enough butter, don’t you?’ Nat laughed as Julian drenched the popcorn.
‘Spoilsport,’ Alessandro teased, and then gave his son a wink. ‘Come on, matey, let’s go watch the movie.’
They brushed past Nat, who was momentarily paralysed by the teasing note in Alessandro’s voice and the way his sex appeal boosted into the stratosphere when the smile went all the way to his eyes. The fact that he seemed to have adopted the endearment ‘matey’ for his son was also rather…touching.
The doorbell rang, momentarily distracting her from her ponderings, and she absently called out, ‘I’ll get it.’
Quite who would be calling on a Sunday afternoon she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the little boy next door? He and Julian were the same age and she had told his mother that he was welcome any day for a play.
The entrance hall was warm and welcoming now with a large colourful rug breaking up the glare of the all-white tiles. Two large paintings decorated the walls on opposite sides and a hall mirror that had come from the ceramic ovens of the Amalfi coast hung by the door.
Last night Julian had helped his father hang a wind chime they’d bought in Noosa. He had passed tools to his father like a scrub nurse would to a surgeon and afterwards they’d stood, necks craned, Alessandro’s hand on Julian’s shoulder, admiring their handiwork.
The beautiful baby-pink mother-of-pearl discs, brittle and fragile, had cost a small fortune. But Julian had loved how they cascaded like a chandelier. And they certainly gave the entranceway a touch of mystique.
Nat opened the door. The person standing there was far removed from a little boy and very definitely Italian. He was tall and bronzed like Alessandro with an easy grin that emphasised killer dimples and a wicked glint to his brown eyes that would have put a pirate to shame.
So this is what Alessandro would have looked like had grief not hardened his features and permanently furrowed his forehead. The grin on the stranger’s face quickly faded and Nat realised that not only was he staring at her rather fixedly but he was also frowning.
‘Can I help you?’
As if he knew he’d been caught staring he recovered quite well and shot her a dazzling smile. ‘Er…hi? I think I might have the wrong house. I’m looking for Alessandro Lombardi.’
The accent was like Alessandro’s too and there was a similarity to this man that told Nat he was some sort of relation. She tried to ascertain his age. His face was smooth, unlined save for a few tiny crows’ feet around his eyes, no doubt from laughter and, unlike Alessandro’s, his hair was totally devoid of grey. A younger brother, maybe? Did Alessandro have brothers?
Bad time to realise she knew nothing about him. For crying out loud, she still didn’t even know his wife’s name.
Nat smiled back and held out her hand. ‘No, you’ve got the right place. I’m Nat.’
The man shook it, smile firmly in place, his gaze studying her face intently. It wasn’t creepy but it was disconcerting. Maybe he was surprised to find Alessandro shacked up with a woman so soon after his wife’s death?
She opened her mouth to explain, feeling unaccountably depressed as their hands disconnected. But what exactly could she say? She turned her head and called out, ‘Alessandro!’ He could explain. Maybe he knew what the hell they were doing.
Alessandro appeared in a few seconds, his face lighting up like she’d never seen before. ‘Valentino! Il mio cugino! Così buon vederlo!’
Nat understood enough to know the stranger’s name was Valentino and they were cousins. She watched as the men embraced and Alessandro kissed both of his cousin’s cheeks. It was surprisingly sexy. She’d always loved that about Italian men. The way they so openly expressed their affection, no matter which gender.
That just didn’t happen in Australian society. And she couldn’t help but feel it was the poorer for it.
They laughed and clapped each other on the back and then embraced again. Nat was jealous of their easy affection and she looked away as if she was intruding on an intimate moment.
‘Valentino, I’d like you to meet Nathalie.’ Alessandro looked down at her. He could see the confusion in her gaze and he smiled at her. ‘Nathalie, this is my cousin, Valentino Lombardi. All the way from London via Roma.’
He clapped Val on the back again. Considering they’d practically grown up together, it was wonderful to see him. Val had emailed last week to say he would be in town some time in the next month for an interview but he hadn’t expected him so soon.
‘Nathalie.’ Valentino reached for her hand and kissed it. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Nat blinked at the old-fashioned greeting. She got the feeling that Valentino Lombardi was an incurable flirt. Had she not been totally immersed in Alessandro, she might have even been charmed. But Valentino seemed like a boy in comparison. More like Julian than Alessandro. Too…carefree. Too…casual for her tastes.
‘Come in, come in.’ Alessandro ushered his cousin inside. ‘Julian will be dying to see you.’
As if he’d been called, Julian suddenly appeared. ‘Uncle Val?’ He looked at the person in the doorway for a second, not quite believing who it was. ‘Uncle Val!’
‘Juliano!’ Valentino held out his arms and the little boy ran straight into them. ‘Il mio ragazzo caro, meraviglioso vederlo!’
Julian hugged his uncle’s neck tight. ‘I missed you, Uncle Val.’
‘And I you, bello bambino.’
‘I’m not a bambino,’ Julian denied hotly.
Valentino roared. ‘Of course not. Scicocco me!’
Nat watched the family reunion, feeling even more on the outside than ever. ‘I’ll just go and put on a pot of coffee,’ she murmured, pointing in the direction of the kitchen and taking her leave.
Alessandro and Valentino watched her go. Valentino turned shrewd eyes on his cousin. ‘Alessandro, che cosa state facendo?’
Alessandro looked at Val’s furrowed brow. Good question. What the hell was he doing? ‘It’ indennitia di s.’
Val rocked Julian in his arms. ‘Fine?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘She’s the spitting image of—’
‘Conosco che l’fare di m,’ Alessandro interrupted. He did. He did know what he was doing.
‘Fate?’
Was he sure? Yes, he was. ‘She’s nothing like…’ Alessandro couldn’t say her name. Not in front of his son. ‘You il ll vede,’ he explained.
And Val would see. Alessandro knew it would only take his cousin a few minutes in Nat’s company to see she was nothing like Camilla. Not remotely. He didn’t see the physical resemblance any more. He couldn’t even remember the last time it had struck him.
They moved into the lounge and Val stayed for the afternoon, drinking coffee and beer and reminiscing. Alessandro felt a familiar spike of jealousy as Julian sat so eagerly, so naturally on Val’s lap. He’d always adored his Uncle Val.
It had taken for ever to build up the same rapport with his son. But, then, he supposed Julian had always associated wild and carefree Uncle Val with fun and good times. And Julian, beneath everything that had happened, beneath the sadness and grief, was still a four-year-old boy.
And Uncle Val’s lap was only temporary. Before too long his son switched places and had crawled onto his lap, content to listen to Val from the shelter of his father’s arms. Alessandro looked over at Nathalie, his gaze triumphant, and she smiled back at him with understanding eyes.
He doubted they ever would have got where they were without her.
Nat left them to it as much as possible. It was another of those family-type events that were important to Julian. Important to them both to bond as a family, and she didn’t want to intrude. Of course she caught snatches of conversation as she came and went, both in English and Italian, and it was obvious the cousins were close.
She remembered now that Alessandro had mentioned Val to Paige all those weeks ago. Was it Val’s mother who was the deaf aunt he’d mentioned? The one he’d spent a lot of
time with growing up? His second mother?
She guessed that explained their affection.
At one stage she caught the tail end of a conversation about women. Alessandro had obviously asked if there was anyone special in Val’s life. Along with a hearty laugh, he got this response. ‘The word is full of beautiful women, Alessandro. Why limit yourself to just one?’
It was pleasing to see Alessandro shake his head.
She asked Valentino to join them for tea but he excused himself citing jet-lag and the need to prepare for his interview in the morning. Alessandro and Val made plans to meet for lunch tomorrow.
As they stood to say their goodbyes Alessandro’s pager beeped. He took it off his belt. ‘Looks like we’ve just had our first confirmed case of swamp flu.’
Nat winged an eyebrow. ‘Where?’
‘Victoria.’ He embraced Val again, doing the very European double-cheek peck. ‘Do you mind if Nathalie sees you to the door? I really need to ring work.’
‘It will be my pleasure.’ Val grinned.
Alessandro glanced at him sharply as Nat headed for the door. Valentino, much like his name, was an incorrigible flirt. But this woman was off limits. Val was charming and despite there being only six months between them, used his younger years and baby face to his advantage. ‘Recidi, Valentino,’ he growled low but steady.
Val looked at Alessandro’s flinty obsidian eyes and nodded his head slightly. ‘Naturalmente.’ And he followed Nat out of the room.
Valentino joined her by the door momentarily and she smiled at him, holding out her hand. ‘It was nice meeting you,’ she said.
Val took her hand and once again turned it over and kissed it. ‘Thank you, bella.’ He released her hand and looked at her for a long moment. ‘Alessandro and Juliano are doing well. Much better than the last time I saw them. You’re good for him, I think.’
Nat blushed at the speculation in his gaze. ‘Oh, no, it’s not like that. I’m just…helping out until my place is built.’
Val gave her a small smile and bowed. ‘Arrivederci.’