A Ring to Claim His Legacy

by Rachael Thomas

Imogen dragged herself from memories that wouldn’t help her now as Marco opened the door and got out, the sounds of the streets rushing in at her. She was tired, upset. She wasn’t in the mood for mysteries, but if what he’d said was true and this was about his family’s past, their child’s family, then she owed it to her little girl, and Marco, to give him this time.

  Weariness seeped into her as the seesaw of emotions of the last few hours began to take its toll. She slipped along the seat of the taxi and got out, taking Marco’s hand as he offered it to her. Instantly she wished she hadn’t as the heat of his touch raced up her arm and charged round her body, reminding her of just how she’d spent last night and the early hours of this morning.

  How had everything turned so wrong? This morning she’d been happy, so very happy, and had even begun to believe there was a future for them, then in a matter of minutes all that had changed, getting worse with each passing hour.

  ‘This is what I want to show you,’ Marco said as they stood on the pavement outside an Italian coffee shop that looked as if it had been there for decades.

  ‘This?’ she queried and looked up at the tall, narrow brick building before looking again at the sign above the wooden windows: Silviano’s Coffee Shop.

  * * *

  Marco watched Imogen as she looked at the building and then read the sign above the window. The late-afternoon sun was shining in her hair, reminding him of that last day on the beach as they’d walked back to the villa after the snorkelling trip. The sun had highlighted her beauty to perfection that afternoon and it was doing the same now. He’d treasure that image for the rest of his life.

  The thought that he might lose her rushed at him like a spring tide. He couldn’t lose her now. He just couldn’t. But if he didn’t get this right, didn’t show her all his family had done and why it was so important to carry on the family name, then that was exactly what he might do. The prospect pushed him on.

  ‘Silviano’s,’ he said proudly. ‘Started by my grandparents after they’d immigrated to New York from Sicily.’

  Imogen gasped softly, looked from him to the coffee shop and back to him again. ‘This is the actual shop? It’s still part of the company?’

  ‘Yes, and very much part of my life. Shall we?’ He gestured towards the door, knowing that if he could get her inside he had a fighting chance of proving who he really was and more importantly telling her why he didn’t want her to leave. But confessing to an emotion he’d locked out of his life for so long was not an easy thing to contemplate. He didn’t even know if he could say those words she needed to hear because if he ever said them he had to mean it, had to have been able to put his past behind him. He just wasn’t sure yet if he was ready for either of those scenarios.

  ‘Okay,’ she said softly, and he hoped he was beginning to break past the defensive wall that had rushed up after that scene in the hospital with his father. ‘Just for a while.’

  He opened the brown wooden door and stepped in, the aroma of coffee greeting him. Italian music drifted subtly in the background. The lady behind the counter, which was laden with pastries and delicacies, greeted him in Italian as she did each week when he called in. His visits allowed him to feel close to his grandfather, the only person other than his mother who had given him unconditional love as a child. The man he’d always thought of as his father had never seemed capable of love, but here, with his grandfather, that had always existed. It was why he’d fought to keep the place open. Because it had meant something to his grandfather and that was important.

  ‘What would you like to drink? Espresso?’ He pulled out a chair and waited as Imogen sat down. She looked up at him as he stood behind her and in his mind it was last night again. They had been standing in front of his windows as he’d slowly undressed her, revealing her sexy body, which never failed to rouse his ardour. He could still taste her skin on his lips as if he’d only just trailed kisses down her shoulders.

  ‘I’ll just have an Americano, with milk.’ She turned from him and looked around at the array of photos on the wall, as if looking into his eyes was too much for her. Again, he played his father’s words in his mind, again wondering if she did love him and, if so, how could his father see it and be so sure when he himself hadn’t had a clue?

  Marco placed the order then sat at his regular table. ‘That’s my grandfather and grandmother there.’ He pointed to the black and white image of his grandparents standing outside the coffee shop which hung on the wall above the table. ‘And that is my parents on their wedding day.’

  ‘Did they run this place too?’ she asked as their coffees arrived.

  ‘No, my father didn’t want to continue what my grandfather had started and opened hotels in New York instead. I took it one step further and made the Silviano company a global concern, but unlike my father, who’d allowed this place to almost close, I wanted to keep it open, keep it going. It’s part of my family history and now part of our daughter’s.’

  She smiled at him and lightness filled him. This was what he’d hoped for, that showing her he was a man who honoured and respected family might mean she would at least stay a while longer. Give him more of a chance to prove they did have something worth saving and that he did want to be a father to his child—boy or girl.

  ‘What about your father, your natural father?’ Imogen asked the question tentatively.

  ‘That’s him up there.’ He pointed at a much smaller black and white photo and tried to quell his annoyance at what his mother had kept from him all these years. Why, he still didn’t know, but over the last few days the importance he’d put on that had begun to fade. He drew his focus back on what he needed to do, needed to say. ‘I wish I’d known who he really was.’

  ‘Your mother must have had good reasons not to tell you.’ Imogen’s words only reinforced what he’d just thought and once again he knew with certainty that it didn’t matter any more. ‘And it certainly seems they are in love now.’

  Love. There was that word again.

  Questions raced in his mind as he asked himself again if he loved her, if he was able to give her what she wanted. He still couldn’t answer that, but he knew that if he stood any chance of keeping Imogen here, keeping her in his life then love was something he would have to talk about, although he was far from ready to admit he loved anyone. He’d long ago learnt that opening himself up to such emotions only hurt. Locking his feelings away, making himself hard to reach had become a natural defensive action. One he wasn’t sure he would ever be able to stop doing.

  ‘I had never had my father marked out as a man who loved,’ Marco began as he tried to divert the conversation away from himself, away from the two of them, at least until she knew all he had to tell her. He swigged back his espresso in one go, signalling for another. ‘My father certainly never allowed me to feel loved.’

  Imogen touched his hand and he looked at her, the honesty in her eyes almost too much. ‘He must have loved you, Marco. He brought you up as his son.’

  ‘Only because he didn’t have a son of his own. I could never live up to his expectations and I don’t believe I will ever be able to do so.’

  ‘Why do you shut people out, Marco? Why do you deny yourself love?’

  He looked at her, seeing the softness in her eyes as she held her head at an angle, looking as innocently beguiling as she did sexy. ‘I’m not the only one shutting myself away, am I, Imogen? Isn’t that what you were doing when we were on the island? Locking your heart away?’

  Ever since she’d spoken of Gavin when they’d been on the top of the Empire State Building, he’d known that was why she’d walked away from him, away from the magical week they had enjoyed so easily on the island, and probably why she’d been so reluctant to find him and tell him about the pregnancy. He could still hear that reluctance now if he replayed Imogen’s conversation he’d overheard with Julie the day his life had changed for ever.
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  ‘Gavin hurt me. He threw my love back at me like some discarded object, preferring to seek it elsewhere. Hurt like that is hard to forget.’ The passion in her voice left him in no doubt she’d loved her ex-fiancé and jealousy raged through him.

  ‘Whereas my hurt, my inability to love or be loved is much more long standing?’ He couldn’t keep the sharpness from his voice and once again threw back his espresso in one gulp, needing the caffeine hit it was giving him. Why the hell couldn’t he just tell her how he felt about her?

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she said, and looked into her cup as if it held the answers to all their problems. ‘Didn’t you ever feel love, Marco? What about when you were a boy?’

  ‘When I was younger I spent most of my time here, with my grandparents. Knowing what I do now, I guess that’s because they wanted to give me what was missing, what my father didn’t or couldn’t give me.’

  As he said that he realised there had been love in his life, he’d just been so consumed by the desire to please his father, gain his approval, he’d shut himself away a bit more each time he’d failed, locking out the good as well as the bad. Then when first his grandmother and then his grandfather had passed away the light of love had gone out in his life, and he’d become detached from his family, unreachable.

  ‘How old were you then?’ She tentatively asked the question, her eyes searching his as if looking for the answer to this and so much more.

  ‘Twelve years old.’ He pressed his jaw tight as he remembered the day he’d realised the two people that meant the most to him, the two people who’d loved him unconditionally, had gone from his life.

  ‘And now you don’t think anyone can love you?’ That question spun around his mind and he looked at Imogen. Was his father right? Did she love him?

  ‘And you don’t trust yourself to love anyone?’ Her voice was firmer as she spoke again, negating the need for him to answer. She was forcing him to understand, forcing him to accept his past.

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw, feeling the new growth of stubble, and looked at Imogen. She’d got it so right that it made any kind of response impossible for a moment. She was right. He didn’t trust himself to love and he’d already hurt Imogen really badly. He didn’t deserve her love. Once again, his father’s words played in his mind.

  Love her or let her go.

  He couldn’t love her, but he cared for her. He cared enough to not want to hurt her any more than he had done already. He cared enough to let her go.

  He nodded. ‘I did tell you on the island that love would never be part of my life and I know that’s what you want. But I can’t give it to you, Imogen. I can care for you and the baby, give you both every material thing you could want, but I can’t promise I can ever allow love back into my life.’

  * * *

  Ice rushed through Imogen, despite the heat of the summer and the coffee. She was frozen to the core. Every last bit of love she’d been trying to suppress had turned solid. Marco didn’t want her love, didn’t want to love her. He didn’t even want to try. He was as good as telling her to walk away now.

  She stood up and pushed back her chair. ‘Thank you for showing me the photos, for allowing me to see some of our daughter’s family history.’

  Marco glanced at his watch then up at her. Had he been marking time whilst he’d told her all she needed to know? At first she’d hoped he was going to tell her that he hadn’t had love in his life, that until he’d met her he hadn’t fallen in love. She stupidly thought he was going to tell her she’d changed that. How silly was she to believe that she could change anything, change him?

  ‘You said family was important to you.’ He stood up as if he was already ringing time on their conversation. He wasn’t going to tell her anything else and he certainly wasn’t going to try and dissuade her from leaving.

  ‘It is. And I’m going back to my family, Marco. Back to the people who love me.’

  His brows flicked up briefly then he pushed in his chair. It was over. He was letting her walk away and Imogen’s heart broke completely. Marco didn’t want her, didn’t love her. ‘I will, of course, always support you and the baby.’

  The baby he didn’t want. The daughter he didn’t need. If she kept that in the forefront of her mind instead of focusing on the love he didn’t want from her, the love he couldn’t give her in return, then she would remain determined and strong. She’d be driven by anger instead of regret and that was going to be the only way to get through this.

  ‘In that case—’ she stood tall as she spoke and looked him in the eyes, fuelled now by the sudden strength which had rushed through her ‘—there is nothing left to say, Marco—except goodbye.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SLEEP HAD BEEN fitful for Marco the night after Imogen had left. He’d returned later that evening to his apartment to find her few belongings gone. He was sure he’d done the right thing for Imogen by letting her go. It was his father’s words which had convinced him, but the little sleep he had had that night had been steeped in dreams of Imogen. Dreams of her laughing on the island when they’d been so carefree. Her face full of desire as she’d turned to face him that night in his apartment, before allowing the gold silk of her dress to cascade down her, enabling him to see his child in her tummy for the first time.

  As dawn had broken over the city he’d known for sure he’d done the wrong thing. He should never have let the woman he loved walk out of his life. His father’s words might have sounded harsh, but Marco had finally accepted he’d been trying to tell him to let go of the past, to look to the future—with Imogen—and, most important of all, to allow himself to love her.

  As his overnight flight had touched down in Heathrow this morning he’d even wanted to ring his father and thank him for opening his eyes and his heart to something so precious. But there hadn’t been time for that. He had to see her as soon as he could. Imogen would almost certainly have flown home the same night as she’d walked out of the café. All he’d focused on was hiring a car and getting to Oxford. Getting to Imogen.

  Now as he rang the bell on the modest house set in a small village outside Oxford his heart was thudding. What if she wouldn’t see him? What if he was too late to tell her he loved her?

  The aged wooden door opened. ‘May I see Imogen, please?’ This must be her father. There was a family resemblance that was very strong and it made him ever more desperate to see her, to put things right, once and for all.

  ‘You must be Marco.’ Suspicion filled every word.

  ‘I am. I really need to see her,’ he said as the man stood like a sentry on the threshold, preventing him from seeing the woman he loved. ‘I should never have let her walk away. Dio mio, I was a fool.’

  ‘At least you can admit that much,’ her father said, still standing his ground.

  ‘Can I see her?’ Did the man want him to beg? He wasn’t used to having to cajole people round to his way of thinking. Here he was on the brink of admitting to love, the one thing he’d shut out of his life, and he had to get past an over-protective father.

  What would he do if it was his daughter, his little girl? Would he stand back and let the man who’d almost certainly broken her heart back into her life? Would he like hell! A furious rush of protective emotions surged over him. He’d never let anyone hurt his little girl. Least of all a man like him—or the blind and stubborn man he’d been.

  Again, that wave of doubt rushed over him. The thought that he didn’t deserve love, couldn’t give love, tried to forge forwards. But not this time. This time he wasn’t going to allow it. This time, once and for all, he was going to stamp it out. He didn’t want to be the same man his father was and more importantly he wanted Imogen to know that. He had to tell her he loved her, even if it was too late; he had to tell her.

  ‘Mr Fraser, I appreciate I’ve upset Imogen—’

  ‘That’s an
understatement.’ Her father cut across his words and he knew he deserved every bit of contempt that was in the other man’s voice.

  He ran his fingers through his hair, becoming exasperated with the conversation, and turned away to look at his hired car parked in the country lane. As he turned back, the door opened wider and a small woman looked at him. There was no doubt this was Imogen’s mother.

  ‘Can I please see Imogen?’

  ‘She’s not here yet,’ her mother volunteered in the same soft voice Imogen had, making his heart constrict just to hear it.

  ‘Yet? What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s flying home tonight. She will be on the last flight in from New York to Heathrow this evening.’

  Relief surged through Marco. ‘I will meet the flight,’ he said, adding quickly when he saw the warning frown on her father’s face, ‘And bring her home.’ With barely a word of thanks he rushed back to the car. This evening couldn’t come soon enough.

  * * *

  One night in an economy hotel in New York and over eight hours in the confines of Standard Class, on the first flight she’d been able to get back to Heathrow, had left Imogen bone-weary, tired and emotionally numb. All she wanted was to sleep in her childhood room, with her favourite teddies still on the bed. She smiled weakly at the thought as she grabbed her case and made her way with the throng of passengers through to Arrivals.

  Squeals of delight caught her attention as one man dropped his case and ran into the arms of a woman, swinging her round and kissing her. That was true love and one day she hoped she would find it. Moving around him, still smiling, she continued past the many people waiting with signs. Then she saw him.

  Marco.

  Standing right in front of her.

  He’d discarded his suit for jeans and a shirt. He looked amazing and her heart thudded, her breath wouldn’t come easily, and she slowed to a stop, letting go of her case. She stood there, her gaze locked with his, not daring to walk towards him, not daring to believe he was really there. The distance between them seemed too great, too insurmountable and far too dangerous for her broken heart.