The Valtieri Baby

by Caroline Anderson

  So she left him there. He had enough food to tide him over, and as she’d told him so succinctly, anything he needed he could order in.

  And then she drove all the way back to her house, walked into the bedroom she’d shared with Gio for the past ten days, curled up in the middle of the cloud-soft bedding and cried her heart out.

  * * *

  She thought it would get easier, but it didn’t.

  She resisted the urge to phone him to make sure he was all right. He had two brothers and three sisters and his parents to do that. She didn’t need to get involved.

  Get involved? That made her laugh. She couldn’t get involved, she was already involved, right up to her neck and beyond.

  She tried to bury herself in work, but curiously other people’s happy-ever-after somehow didn’t seem to cut it.

  ‘You can’t afford to lose business,’ she told herself firmly, and rescheduled a couple of meetings for the next day, bringing them forward. She’d be ridiculously busy, but that was fine. Busy was good.

  Better than sitting in the corner of the leather sofa—his corner—and crying.

  She met with the bride she’d been with when Gio had been hurt, and of course it was all she could talk about.

  ‘I saw you on the news, with Gio Valtieri. I didn’t realise he was a friend of yours.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, he is. I’ve known his family all my life.’

  ‘They said...’

  She trailed off, and went a little pink. ‘Sorry. None of my business. How is he now?’

  ‘Getting better, I understand. I’m not sure, his family’s back now so they’re looking after him.’

  Or trying to, but she didn’t imagine he’d be making it easy. He never did. He’d be grumpy and withdrawn and hostile to any offers of help or show of concern. Another reason to leave him to get on with it.

  ‘Now, about this wedding,’ she said, and dragged her mind and the bride’s back into focus.

  * * *

  He’d gone back to the hospital at Luca’s insistence for a check-up the day after he got back. They X-rayed his foot again, took the adhesive strapping off—not something he enjoyed, especially the bit above his ankle where the hair was—and then left him with a removable ankle support.

  Then they took the stitches out of his hand and leg, made him move his fingers through a range of tasks, and signed him off.

  He was glad about that. He’d seen enough of the hospital the first time, and the first thing he did when he got back to his apartment was have a long, hot shower. Not a good idea, because it just brought back memories of making love to Anita in the shower at her house.

  Everything brought back memories, but the nights were the worst. So long, so lonely. He spent hours sitting outside on the balcony in the cold staring out at the distant hills and wondering how she was.

  And then Luca came, and looked him up and down and shook his head.

  ‘You look awful. Even worse than Anita.’

  He bit his tongue so he didn’t ask how she was. Not good, if Luca was to be believed.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m just tired.’

  ‘I can see that. You’ve got black bags under your eyes and you don’t look as if you’ve eaten anything in the last two weeks.’

  ‘One week and six days,’ he correctly expressionlessly, and Luca frowned.

  ‘Right, that’s it, I’m taking you home. Go and pack your things. You’re coming with me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. It’s not a question, Gio. Either you pack your things or I do.’

  ‘Do what you like. I’m not coming.’

  ‘Because Anita’s there?’

  He swallowed and looked away, and Luca gave a soft sigh and put his arms around him and hugged him.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, his voice softening. ‘Isabelle can feed you up, and you can take over some of the office work for Massimo so he can spend more time with Lydia and the children.’

  ‘I’m working.’

  ‘That’s not what your secretary said. She’s filing her nails. She said you’re supposed to be working on a case, but there’s been no sign of you.’

  ‘I’m working on it here.’

  ‘Are you?’

  He sighed and rammed a hand through his hair, the honesty that was bred in his bones not allowing him to lie. ‘No. Not really.’ He felt suddenly choked, and he sucked in a breath and looked up at the sky through the window.

  ‘Let me take you home,’ Luca said softly, and suddenly he couldn’t fight it anymore, because he was so empty, so lost, so lonely without her.

  He went into his bedroom, pulled out his bag and threw some clothes in it, grabbed his wash things and hesitated at the condoms.

  No. He didn’t need them. It was over.

  He zipped the bag shut, slung the strap over his shoulder and picked up his laptop case. ‘Well, come on, then, if you want to get out of here before the traffic starts.’

  * * *

  He was home.

  Helping Massimo out, she’d heard, doing some of the company’s legal work for the estate.

  She found herself sitting in the dark at night and staring at the lights of the palazzo. Was he there? Bound to be, staying with his parents in their wing of the ancient Medici villa that was home to all of them. She wondered, now that Massimo and Lydia had taken over the larger part, which of the lights was Gio’s room.

  ‘Stop it!’ she told herself when she was doing it for the fourth night in a row. ‘You’re being stupid. Get over him. You aren’t fifteen any more.’

  She moved to the chair, so her back was to the window, and there in front of her was the chess set that he’d carved for her all those years ago. She picked up one of the knights, the lovingly carved but rather angry horse so delicately detailed, and swallowed a lump in her throat. She ran her finger lightly down its Roman nose, over the flared nostrils, and remembered the times she’d won because he’d been distracted, and when she’d looked up, triumphant, there’d be that look in his eyes, the burning need, the passion simmering under the surface.

  She put the little horse down, and a tear fell onto the board beside it. She wiped it away with her finger, but another fell, and then another, and she gave up and went to bed in his sheets and cried her eyes out.

  And then she got up and stripped the bed at last, and threw the sheets in the washing machine and set it off before she could change her mind.

  She slept in her room that night, without the memories, without the scent of him still lingering faintly on the fine cotton sheets, and when she woke in the morning she had to run to the bathroom.

  Really? Really?

  She plonked down on the travertina tiles and stared blankly across the room.

  How?

  They’d been so careful, so meticulous about this. There was no way she could have got pregnant. But she’d been feeling rough for days now, and she’d blamed it on the awful emptiness inside. But maybe she wasn’t empty inside at all. Maybe...

  She got slowly, cautiously to her feet, went into the kitchen and put a slice of bread in the toaster. Plain bread, a bit of dull sandwich bread which was all she’d felt like eating for the last week.

  And just the smell of it toasting was enough to send her running to the bathroom again.

  * * *

  She waited until the nausea had subsided enough for her to eat the cold toast, and then she felt better. Slightly.

  It might be a bug, she told herself, even though she knew it wasn’t. She’d had bugs before, and this felt quite different. She got in the car, drove to a supermarket in the next town and bought a pregnancy test. Then she went into a café and ordered green tea, and when she couldn’t stall any longer she went into the cloakroom and unwrapped the test.

  Then she held her breath and waited.

  One line.

  Two.

  Pregnant.

  She laid her hand gently over her abdomen, and stared down. Gio’s baby, she thought with a great welling of love, a
nd then it dawned on her she was going to have to tell him, and she started to shake.

  Well, they were going to have to talk now, she thought, and felt a shiver of apprehension.

  He’d go crazy! He’d been so emphatic about it, and even though it wasn’t her fault, he was going to be furious. He’d think she’d done it on purpose, to trap him. She was sure of it. He was so cynical, so wary, so untrusting of relationships, and he’d never believe it had been a genuine accident.

  She could hardly believe it herself.

  Her fingers trembling, she put the test back into the packet, stuffed it into her handbag and walked out through the café and back to her car. She didn’t know what to do, which way to turn.

  She couldn’t tell her parents. They’d been unhappy enough about him staying with her, even though she’d somehow convinced them it was fine, and this would send them over the edge. They’d totally over-react, and she really wasn’t up to it. Her father would go after Gio with a shotgun, and her mother would cry, and it would be a nightmare. She’d have to tell them some time, of course, but not yet.

  Not now.

  Now, she just needed someone who knew them both, who loved them both and could help her work out what to do.

  Luca.

  Relief flooded her. Luca would know what to do.

  She started the engine and drove home, slowing as she passed the entrance to the Valtieri estate. Luca and Isabelle lived in the lodge just a short way up the drive, and she could see Luca’s car there.

  Just Luca’s. Not Isabelle’s. She was probably up at the palazzo with Lydia and the baby, and in the middle of the day there was no way Gio would be here. He’d be working in the office or out on the estate somewhere with Massimo.

  She went up the drive and pulled up beside Luca’s car, and he must have heard her because the front door opened and he came out.

  ‘Anita?’ he said softly, and that was enough.

  His gentle voice, the kindness and concern in his eyes, pushed her over the edge and she started to cry, great gulping sobs that had him gathering her up against his side and ushering her into the house.

  He led her to the kitchen, pushed her into a chair and put the kettle on, and then sat down opposite her and waited.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when she could speak again, and he just smiled and shrugged.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. You obviously needed that. Are you OK? Isabelle’s out—do you want me to call her?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, it was you I wanted—’

  She broke off, biting her lip. How could she go on? Where to start? She stared blindly at him, unable to form the words, and after a moment he sighed in realisation and gave her an understanding smile.

  ‘Oh, Anita,’ he said quietly. ‘How?’

  ‘The usual way?’ she said, trying to joke about it, but it really, really wasn’t funny. She shrugged. ‘I have no idea. We were so careful—’

  She bit her lip so hard it bled, but she didn’t really notice.

  Luca shrugged. ‘These things happen sometimes. Nothing’s fool-proof. I see it all the time. So—what now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m just so shocked. I don’t know what to do—where to turn, where to go from here. That’s what I wanted to ask you. What should I do, Luca?’

  He tilted his head on one side, his face serious.

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  Live happily ever after with your brother?

  She blinked away the welling tears. ‘It’s not what I want to do, it’s what I wish I could undo. I shouldn’t have made him to come to my house, shouldn’t have insisted on looking after him. I knew it was asking for trouble, but I didn’t know what else to do and I couldn’t leave him alone with nobody to care for him. How could I? And now—now I’m pregnant, and he’s going to hate me for it, and I just don’t know how to tell him.’

  ‘He won’t hate you.’

  ‘He will! He’ll think I’ve done it on purpose, just to trap him, and I can’t bear it. I love him so much, but he’s so set against having children, so adamant that he doesn’t want them, that he’ll be a bad father, that he doesn’t have what it takes to make a relationship work, but he’s never really tried, he just walks away, every time anyone gets close...’

  She tailed off, the tears welling again.

  ‘I can’t tell him I’m pregnant, Luca,’ she sobbed. ‘I just can’t, it’s the last thing he wants to hear and he’s just going to go crazy...’

  Luca sat back in his chair, his face grave.

  ‘Not telling him isn’t an option, Anita, I’m afraid,’ he said gently. ‘I’m sorry, but apart from the fact that it’s shortly going to become blindingly obvious, he’s standing right behind you.’

  She stared at him, shock draining the blood from her head so she felt sick and dizzy.

  ‘No!’ she gasped silently. Her hands flew up to cover her face, and she just wanted to run away, to hide somewhere and wait for it all to be over, but Luca was standing up and walking past her, laying a comforting, reassuring hand on her shoulder as he went, and then Gio was sitting down where Luca had been, and his face could have been carved from stone.

  ‘Is it true?’ he asked, his voice ragged. ‘You’re having my child?’

  She nodded, and pulled the test out of her handbag, passing it to him.

  He took it, staring at it blankly as if he’d never seen one in his life before, which he might very well not have done, she thought.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s a pregnancy test. One line is negative, two is positive.’

  Two lines. Positive. Gio stared down at the test, and closed his eyes as a sea of emotions washed over him. How? How had this happened? They’d been so careful, every time. Nothing was one hundred per cent safe, he knew that from bitter experience, but...

  ‘When is it due?’ he asked, but his voice didn’t sound like his and he swallowed hard, but there was a lump there he couldn’t seem to shift.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t worked it out. About seven and a half, eight months?’

  He counted on his fingers, not trusting his mind with the maths. ‘November? The beginning of November?’

  ‘Probably. I can’t be sure. I have no idea when it happened, but obviously in that fortnight.’

  He blew his breath out slowly. He was going to be a father. Of all the crazy, ridiculous, impossible things, he was going to be a father, before the end of the year. And Anita was going to be a mother.

  The mother of his child.

  Shock spiralled into fear, and he swallowed again.

  ‘We’ll get married,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ll let you fix the details. It doesn’t need to be huge, just quick—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? You don’t want a quick wedding?’

  ‘I don’t want a wedding,’ she said, shocking him again. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. A few weeks ago you explained to me in minute detail that you don’t do relationships, that you can’t, that they always fail, that you’ll be a rotten father and you’ll never countenance it, and then you tell me we’re getting married? I’m pregnant, Gio, not deranged. There’s no way I’m marrying you because of this.’

  He stared at her, another shocking possibility entering his head. ‘No. You aren’t planning—why did you talk to Luca?’

  ‘Not for that!’

  ‘Then—if you’re having the baby, if you want to keep it—Anita, we have to get married.’

  ‘No, Gio, we don’t,’ she said firmly, because the path ahead was suddenly clear and no longer so strange and terrifying. ‘I won’t marry a man who doesn’t love me, who can’t love me, who can’t promise me forever—and you’ve made it abundantly clear that you can’t. But I am going to have the child, quite definitely, and of course you can have access to it if you wish, and I hope you will, but your family will see it regularly, and so will my family, and I’ll bring the baby up to be proud of his father, even if his father can’t find it in his heart to love hi
m. And I will love him, to the end of my days.’

  She got to her feet, and he stood up, too, the scrape of his chair harsh in the sudden silence.

  ‘Anita, please.’

  ‘No. You made your feelings about being a parent crystal clear, Gio, and I won’t put you in a position where you feel trapped. What kind of a marriage would that be?’

  A good one, he wanted to shout, but he couldn’t know that. Every relationship he’d had had failed, and the fallout, on one occasion, had been catastrophic. What made him think this one would be any different?

  And so he let her go.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  HE was still standing there when Luca came back in a few moments later.

  He didn’t ask any questions, just walked up to him, put his arms round him and held him as the tears he’d bottled up for so long fell in a torrent.

  Then he dragged himself out of his brother’s arms, walked over to the window and stared out at the rolling hills. He didn’t see them. All he could see was a woman’s face racked with grief—grief he’d inadvertently caused. Grief that had nearly killed her.

  And now it was starting all over again.

  ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not really.’

  He sat down, not knowing what else to do, and Luca put a glass of whisky down on the table in front of him and watched him thoughtfully. He looked up and met the gentle, compassionate gaze, and sighed.

  ‘Come on, then, let’s have it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The lecture on irresponsibility.’

  ‘No lecture. Anita assured me there was no irresponsibility. I was just wondering what’s happened to hurt you so deeply in the past.’

  He looked away, picked up the whisky and took a gulp. ‘Nothing,’ he lied.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘Gio—you’re my little brother. I know you nearly as well as I know myself. And I know when you’re hurting.’

  He shook his head. ‘Luca, don’t. Just leave it, please, and if you can’t leave it, then take me back to Firenze and let me deal with this my way.’