“Until it was verified . . . no, that’s a lie. It was verified. I saw the birth certificate. Or a copy, at least, in Toni’s things. But I felt I had to tell my aunt and uncle first. She was their granddaughter. She is, still, I suppose. Or something like it. It wasn’t my place to tell you.”
“Fuck you and your place, Nick Sullivan! I had a right to know. Shit, Toby has a right to know. Do you get what this means? Toni didn’t cheat on me!”
Nick reared back as if he’d been slapped.
“That’s it? That’s what you’ve got out of all this? You’re vindicated and you discover your precious boyfriend was ultimately loyal? Christ, Caroline, lives are going to be completely disrupted over this! Irrevocably changed. My family will be so desperately hurt.”
“And you don’t think I’ve been hurt? My life was pretty irrevocably changed too, remember. When I was left alone and pregnant, when I reared my son practically single-handedly, when I found out his father was dead and then discovered what I believed was another family! How do you think I’ve been feeling?”
Caro was shouting. All the anger and pain and bereavement pouring out. Along with it came new hurts, for herself, for Mia and for Toby.
And for the di Lucas.
God, she hurt all over.
She dashed tears from her cheeks, irritated that she was crying now, of all times. But, feck it, her life was a complete mess, and Nick didn’t seem to be aware of just how guilty and miserable she felt. Yet again, because of her meddling, more people were going to have their lives uprooted and changed. Forever. Caro turned from the furious glare of Nick’s eyes and bumped straight into the inspector.
Oh, no. How long had he been there?
“Excuse me,” she began.
“No, Miss Caroline, I’ve just come back to bring you above ground. The doctor is here and wants to examine you. And the di Lucas are returned. I think . . . ” He hesitated a moment. “I think they want to see Mr Sullivan. And you,” he added hastily.
Oh, dear God. Those poor lovely people. Their kindness and generosity was being thrown back in their faces. They didn’t need this.
Her anger dissipating, she turned back to Nick and met his frowning face. They had to put their feelings aside and face the di Lucas together.
“Nick,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry, Caroline. I was totally out of line. It’s just . . . it’s been a day.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and shoved his hair back in frustration. Nick, the problem-solver, was going to have some rather large problems to solve in the next few days, let alone hours.
“I’ll help,” she offered, her hand outstretched.
He took it in his, warm and comforting. Secure.
As he and Caro wound their way back along the now lit passage, Caro could only wonder at her own emotions. She was turning into a loon. Snuggling into the man one minute, screeching at him like a banshee the next. And now . . . now, she just wanted to take that bleak look from his face. She wanted to make his job of breaking all this sorry mess to his relatives as painless as possible. She wanted to comfort him.
Go figure.
It took days, it really did. Days of pain, hurt, disbelief and, naturally, anger. Days they all wished they’d never have to face again.
Marianna returned into the fray and seemed as distant and uninvolved as ever. Caro was tired of trying to figure her out, tired of trying to make excuses for her and, eventually, the third evening after the dungeon affair, lost her temper.
“You selfish bitch!”
The stunned silence that followed the outburst had Caro swing her head from one group to the next.
“What? Seriously? None of you agree? This woman . . . ” She pointed her finger straight at Marianna’s head. “Has acted in the most selfish and self-centred way of all of them! Maybe Elena couldn’t be sure Mia wasn’t hers, but Marianna sure as hell knew and yet, what did this so-called innocent do? Nothing! That’s what!
“She let Toni be dragged into a marriage he didn’t want. Let Antonio and Valentina grow to love their granddaughter, all the while knowing it was a lie. And worse, she let her own little girl grow up not knowing her real father! For God’s sake, people, don’t you get it? This is just downright mean.”
And still Marianna stood, unmoving, as Caro unleashed her tirade.
The di Lucas were seated at a small table going through papers with Nick, and Mia and Toby were stretched out on one of the couches watching the TV, which was on low. Marianna had just wafted into the drawing room as if none of the debacle of the last few days – let alone years – was of any importance to her. Or was any of her fault – or her responsibility.
Mia turned her head and glanced at her mother. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her face pale. She’d taken the news badly, as one would expect, yet there were no comforting hugs from her own parent. The di Lucas had enveloped her in love and promises of continued acceptance, but Mia wasn’t stupid. She knew she was now in fact living in a home that didn’t in any way belong to her. She didn’t know all the ins and outs, and nor did she need to, yet. There was time aplenty for all those other more complicated explanations. For now, losing her dad, all over again, was the biggest hurt.
Nick turned his gaze to Marianna, too.
“Caroline’s right, in many ways,” he agreed, “but what I don’t understand is why, since Toni’s death, you haven’t gone to find Mia’s father. Is that not what you want? According to Elena, in one of her rants while being escorted to the police car, you and Flavio were lovers and inseparable that summer.
“Doesn’t he live on the farm up north? Why didn’t you go – and take Mia?” He got up from his chair and went to stand behind the couch, his hand resting tenderly on Mia’s shoulder. “Doesn’t Mia have the right to know?”
Nick’s other hand glanced briefly over Toby’s dark head and his mouth tightened.
“You deprived one young person of his right to know his father and now it seems you’re doing the same to your own child. What’s your angle?”
Strolling from the couch, he shoved his fisted hands deep into his pockets. Caro could feel the frustration and anger radiating from him. It was as if the sheer unfairness of it all had finally dawned on him. Unfair for all concerned, but mostly for the two youngsters on the couch. Marianna looked helplessly from one set of accusing eyes to the next.
“It was Mama, don’t you see? She wouldn’t let me move. Not after all the years here. This was her home. Our home. It wouldn’t have been fair.”
Caro had had enough. “For fuck’s sake! You’re an adult! Take care of your beautiful daughter for once in your shallow, self-serving life!” And with a cry, she turned and strode from the room.
She made her way to the attic and sank to the floor under the skylight, where she’d found Toni’s last journal. Elena was in prison and would be there for the rest of her life. There was no need for a trial, as she’d admitted everything and dragged in the names of all she’d hired to do her dirty work. The mechanic who’d tinkered with Toni’s car, the thugs who’d tried to run Toby over both in Rome and New York, and she dobbed Tommaso in as the one who’d tried his best to murder Caro with poisonous mushrooms. At least they hadn’t been meant for just Toby – Elena had assumed with Caro out of the way, Toby would be returned to Ireland and life, as she and the di Lucas knew it, would continue.
Caro hugged her knees tight and lay her head on them, forehead resting on the soft fabric of her old, worn jeans. Would the words “what a mess” ever not be in her life story? She had to think of her future, hers and Toby’s. He wanted to stay a bit longer, having arrived the morning after the underground dungeon-like experience.
She’d called her parents almost immediately she’d got back to the house and simply said, “Put Toby on a plane – I need him.”
As it happened, Nick stepped in and contacted Naomi and Vito, who collected him from the Fitzgerald home and had him in Rome by noon. Toby hadn’t left her side for several h
ours, his eyes growing rounder and more alarmed as she retold her adventure in as simple terms as possible.
Toby had been shocked. And hurt. And sad. But not just for himself. He’d gone and hugged both of his grandparents, who’d been teary-eyed and a bit wobbly. He’d made tea with Maria in the kitchen, helping her to make Irish scones, and fussed about them all in the way he knew best – feeding them.
He and Nick had seconded themselves in the den for a number of hours, and then Toby had gone to bed, exhausted. It was he, during that first afternoon, who begged for Mia to be brought to the house. She and Marianna were still with friends and Mia may not even have heard the news. Mia had now lost her blood grandfather too, and at the hand of her own grandmother.
It really was a drama to beat all melodramas.
Nick climbed the stairs to the attic sometime later, hoping he’d find Caroline there. It was dark, a single beam of light from the skylight illuminating her glossy hair as she lay her head on knees, which were pulled up to her chin. A habitual thinking position for her, it seemed.
“Hey you,” he said quietly, in case she’d dozed off. “Are you okay?”
Caroline opened her eyes and when he saw the sadness there, his chest gave a painful thump. God, he’d messed up so many times with her! He was determined that not another second would go by without her knowing how sorry he was and that he understood.
Finally, really understood.
He lowered himself to the ground beside her, uncaring that his designer trousers may be ruined by dust or snagged by a splinter. He reached out and drew her chilled body close to his. He wrapped an arm about her shoulders and held tight.
“You’re amazing, Caroline. Absolutely amazing.” She stirred in protest as he lay a kiss on the top of her head, her face now angled to catch his eyes with her own. “You’re brave, fearless and courageous. The rest of us just would have let Marianna continue to live here, not pushing, thinking she must be in pain, too. And maybe she is, but it’s of her own making. But you . . . ” He paused and took a deep breath. “You just called a spade a spade. You put Mia first, just as you always put Toby first. Bloody well done.
“Antonio and Valentina are so relieved. Marianna will go north with Mia, but with promises to let Mia return for as many visits as she likes. They’re both okay with that. I wouldn’t be surprised,” Nick said, settling Caroline’s body more comfortably into his own, “if Mia ends up coming by herself as time goes on – I believe it would be easier all round.”
“I shouldn’t have said what I did.” Caroline’s voice was subdued. “I don’t have the monopoly on hurt and sorrow.”
“Maybe you don’t, but what you said was honest and needed to be heard. Toby must be so proud of you. I know I am.”
“Really?” She pulled away from him a bit, to see his face and look directly into his eyes. “You aren’t embarrassed with all my carry-on? That wasn’t the impression I got in the underground prison.”
Nick shifted uncomfortably. “On reflection . . . ” He paused. “Jesus, that sounds so cold – I don’t mean that – I just mean that when my heart slowed from its fierce hammering and I knew you were okay, I just got so mad at what Elena did to everyone, including you, that I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. When I heard that shot . . . ” He swallowed, his throat full as he remembered that horrible moment when he thought he may have lost her. “Well, I thought you were dead.”
He closed his eyes briefly, his mouth a tight, flat line. He felt a gentle touch against his cheek. He opened his eyes to find Caroline turned towards him fully, her palm soft against his face.
“Would you have minded?” she whispered. “Would you have been sad?”
She stroked his face, tender and sweet, her fingers trailing across his jaw, down along his throat and back up, to brush his lips with the tips of her fingers.
His hands reached up to clasp her face and hold it steady as he looked unblinking into her blue depths.
“I hadn’t really known terror till that second,” he choked out. “I knew, without doubt, that my life would never again hold the kind of joy you bring to me if you’d died. It was crystal clear in that second that I love you with my whole heart. I would forever have been a broken shell of a man if you weren’t with me.” He leaned in and kissed her lips, a feather-light touch, a mere whisper. “You mean everything to me, Caroline, and I’ve known it in my gut for some time.
“I just assumed I’d get around to telling you, to asking you to be with me, to making us a couple. But now . . . ” His mouth kicked up at one side. “Now, I’m not taking the chance of waiting till we both know each other for longer, better, et cetera. Circumstances being as crazy as they are, now I’m asking.”
He held her eyes to his as if on an invisible thread. His lips touched hers again and he felt them tremble.
“Asking what?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Do you love me back? Will you be with me? Side by side? Together?”
He knew his own voice sounded raw – hell, his belly was raw – his throat felt like he’d swallowed his tongue and his heart was beating in his chest like a jackhammer. He waited, his eyes searching hers.
“Oh, Nick,” she said. “Yes and yes and yes. Oh, and yes!” She gave a huge smile, her eyes crinkling even as tears formed. “I do love you and I want to be with you, side by side, together.”
That was all he needed.
His mouth crushed hers in a kiss so full of feeling – desperation, relief, hunger and passion – that it was a wonder they didn’t ignite on the spot. He dragged her onto his lap, his mouth never leaving hers as his tongue found its way deep into her mouth. He needed her, every last breath of her, and he drank her in like a dying man in a desert.
When she returned his kiss as fervently, things escalated quickly. Without conscious thought, her shirt was over her head and one bare breast was being suckled hungrily while his greedy hand moulded and stroked the other. Who groaned and gasped, he couldn’t tell. He just knew that he needed this woman more than he’d ever needed anything.
She was on his lap, straddling him, offering herself to him, his name on her lips as she licked his throat, tasted his skin. Yes! God, she was magical. Every touch, every taste, every sound pushed him further towards ecstasy. Gasping, he pulled his mouth from her swollen nipple, the urge to grind into her almost overwhelming, but he reined it in.
“Wait,” he bit out.
“No,” she moaned back. “Now!” And she pressed her body even closer.
“Wait.” He took hold of her hands and brought them both to his lips to kiss them tenderly on her knuckles. “I want to take you to bed. I want you in my bed. Come on, up you get!”
He moved her off his lap and scrambled to his feet, hauling her upwards. He kissed her deeply, thoroughly and completely, before wrapping his arm around her and urging her towards the door.
Maybe one day he’d explain that it just hadn’t felt right, making love to her in Toni’s place. The place she’d found his journal, learned of the true depth of his love for her. Not from any form of jealousy, but he suspected she always needed that one place where she could feel close to Toni. He wouldn’t take that from her, not after everything she’d gone through, missed out on and been deprived of. This personal, private space in the madness of the di Luca household and all the wonderful, crazy madness to come – this, he could give her.
It was barely dawn when Caro turned over onto her side and bumped into the large frame of this sprawled-out man. Her man. Oh my!This view sure as hell didn’t get old. And she doubted it ever would.
He was sleeping on his belly, arms up and tucked under the pillow, his head half on the downy softness, half on his bared shoulder. Her heart did a little flip as this very image from the previous autumn popped into her head. She’d been tiptoeing from his room, sated, relaxed, embarrassed and any number of other feelings thrumming through her bones. But she’d paused to drink in the sight of this bronzed, toned man in all h
is bloody gorgeous glory.
And now, now he was hers. And she, most definitely, was his.
They’d talked last night, in between hot, passionate sex and gentle, teasing, laughing sex, and then talked some more. Would Toby be okay with things? she’d wondered. She wasn’t really worried, as she knew her son had grown to both like and respect Nick. He’d talk to Toby this morning, Nick had said, man to man, and Caro had laughed.
“Toby’ll prefer you to be straight and upfront – don’t treat him any differently than you always do, which means just be honest with him. That kid can smell a deceit at a hundred paces.”
They’d talked long-term plans. Nick wanted to get married straight away – married! And although Caro’s stomach had almost flipped over in its entirety – he’d said it so matter-of-factly, like it was a given – she’d demurred and said they should wait a bit. Her family were only just recovering from Dev and Frankie’s, after all. Where they’d live, between Rome and Dublin being the obvious answer, was also mentioned, but when and how weren’t discussed. Those details would soon be ironed out. Caro knew of his commitments and he knew of hers. There’d be a lot of flying. And somewhere down the line, one place or the other would take precedence.
“Would you like another child?” Nick asked, his eyes steady on hers.
“I would, I really would,” Caro had answered, and another bout of intensely energetic and divinely satisfying sex had ensued.
Caro smiled at the still-sleeping form beside her. I guess that meant he agreed, she thought, and placed a kiss on his shoulder before snuggling in close and shutting her eyes for another hour of sleep, deeply happy for the first time in a very long while.
“I’m probably never going to call you dad, you know,” Toby said, his head slightly averted as he and Nick took a walk through the gardens after breakfast.
Toby wanted to see the underground labyrinth where his mum had been kept and Nick had offered to go with him. Toby had been asked to sit for a while after the empty plates had been cleared, and Nick and his mum had told him that they were now officially a couple. He was told that, at some stage in the not too distant future – this from Nick – they’d like to get married, and how did he feel about that.
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