The Marciano Love-Child

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Scarlett brushed past him to stomp into the master bedroom where she proceeded to remove her things from the walk-in wardrobe in a haphazard fashion.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he asked.

  She spun around to face him, her arms full of clothes. ‘I’m not going to share a room with you,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to share anything with you. I wish I’d never married you.’

  ‘Put the clothes down, Scarlett,’ he commanded.

  Tears shone in her eyes. ‘You’re going to take him away from me, aren’t you?’ she asked, holding the clothes like a shield against her. ‘That’s your plan, isn’t it?’

  ‘You are talking rubbish, Scarlett. I have no such plan.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, struggling not to cry. ‘As soon as you realised he is yours, you’ve been systematically eroding my place in his life so when we divorce he’ll want to live with you instead of me.’

  ‘That is not true.’

  ‘I won’t let you do it, Alessandro,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you turn him against me.’

  He let out a breath and came towards her. ‘Cara, the last thing I want to do is take him away from you. You are his mother.’

  ‘But you said our marriage was temporary.’

  ‘I have said a lot of things I am deeply ashamed of saying,’ he said. ‘But how else was I to get you to do what I wanted you to do?’

  She swallowed as some of the clothes in her grasp slipped to the floor. ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying…’

  ‘I am saying that the only way I could see to get you to agree to marry me was to leave you no choice in the matter,’ he said. ‘I let you down four years ago. I turned my back on you and our son out of sheer ignorance and arrogance. I will never forgive myself for that. Every time I see that photograph of you standing outside that hospital with him in your arms, I feel like a saw is tearing at my insides.’

  ‘You…you do?’

  He nodded as he removed the rest of the clothes from her arms and laid them to one side. ‘I should have been there for you, cara. I cannot get that time back no matter how much I want to. If it had not been for my medical history, I would have asked you to marry me four years ago.’

  Her eyes went wide. ‘You…you would?’

  He touched her bottom lip with his thumb. ‘I had only realised a couple of days before you told me you were pregnant that I was in love with you. I was fighting it for weeks, as I knew it would bring up the difficult issue of children. You were so young to give up that dream. I did not think I could ask it of you.’

  ‘I would have given it up for you,’ she said softly. ‘I would have done anything to have stayed with you.’

  His thumbs blotted the steady pathway of tears making their way down her cheeks. ‘But it was already too late,’ he said. ‘You were carrying my son.’

  She choked back a little sob. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love you, Scarlett,’ he said. ‘I think perhaps I always did, even when I thought you had lied to me. That is why I reacted the way I did. If I had not cared for you, I would not have felt so betrayed.’

  She looked at him in amazement. ‘You still love me?’

  ‘Yes, cara, I do. But it has taken me a long time to realise it.’ ‘Alessandro, I am so happy, but so frightened at the same time,’ she confessed. ‘I thought I’d lost you for ever, and now I have you, but Matthew could be…’ She bit her lip and blinked back fresh tears.

  His eyes were shadowed with pain as they held hers. ‘We will have the results of the test in a day or two,’ he said. ‘I do not know how to prepare Matthew if it turns out he is affected or is a carrier. Either way, I feel as if I have let him down all over again.’

  Scarlett grasped at his hands and squeezed them tightly. ‘You mustn’t think like that,’ she said. ‘I love you, Alessandro. Matthew does too. Whatever the test shows is not going to change that.’

  His eyes misted slightly. ‘I do not deserve your love,’ he said. ‘I think I found it easier when you said you hated me. That at least I deserved.’

  ‘I can’t hate you any more,’ she said, wrapping her arms around him. ‘I’ve tried to, but I can’t. I loved you from the moment I tripped and fell into your arms.’

  He brought her closer, his chin going to the top of her head. ‘I wish I could protect you from whatever the future holds,’ he said. ‘I loved my brother so much. Losing him was like losing a part of myself. I have felt empty ever since.

  ‘It was not until I met Matthew that I realised how locked down I was emotionally. But when I was reading to Matthew the other night I recalled a conversation I had with Marco not long before he died. I think he knew he did not have long. He told me how much he had enjoyed the life he had had. At the time, I could not understand why or how he would say such a thing. From my perspective he had endured nothing but constant suffering, but he did not seem to see it that way. He said he had learned so much about the value of relationships, how the love and care he had received had made him a stronger person even though he was weak physically.’

  ‘He must have been a very brave and special person,’ Scarlett said softly.

  Alessandro nodded sadly. ‘Indeed he was, and he would have been delighted to have been Matthew’s uncle. I want Matthew to be well, cara, I want it with all my being, but I do not even know at this point if our little boy has a future. That is the worst agony for me—knowing that if he doesn’t it is my fault.’

  Scarlett hugged him tighter. ‘We will have whatever has been allotted for us, you, me and Matthew,’ she said. ‘There is nothing else we can do but live in love and hope.’ But even as she said the words fear leaked like a thick, choking tide into her bloodstream, making her feel weighed down with the terror of the unknown.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SCARLETT SAT with Alessandro in the waiting room of the doctor’s surgery, her fingers encased in the warmth of his. She looked down at their joined hands and felt a fluttery feeling go through her as she recalled the intimacy they had shared over the last few days as man and wife. Passion had flared as fiery as ever between them, heightened by the love they had both confessed.

  She still couldn’t quite believe he still loved her, and yet every time she caught him looking at her she saw it in his eyes. They were soft and warm, in spite of the shadows he did his best to hide from her.

  ‘Not long now,’ Alessandro said, giving her hand a little squeeze.

  ‘No…’ She released a jagged sigh as she returned the pressure of his fingers.

  Just then the doctor came out to the waiting room. ‘Mr and Mrs Marciano? Come this way please.’

  Scarlett exchanged a quick, worried glance with Alessandro as he helped her to her feet before following Dr Shaftsbury to his room.

  ‘I have some very good news for you both,’ Dr Shaftsbury announced with a smile. ‘Your son does not have cystic fibrosis.’

  ‘Is he…?’ Alessandro cleared his throat and began again, ‘Is he a carrier?’

  The doctor smiled. ‘No, he is not.’

  Scarlett burst into tears as she saw her relief reflected on Alessandro’s face. He clutched at her hand and held it so tightly she felt her wedding and engagement rings cut into her flesh, but she didn’t even wince.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ Alessandro was saying, shaking his head. ‘All this time I have dreaded passing it on…’

  ‘Matthew is one of the lucky ones,’ Allan Shaftsbury said. ‘As we discussed last week, there is a fifty-percent chance of your offspring becoming a carrier. That is an issue you will have to consider if you plan to have any more children.’

  ‘We are not planning on any more,’ Alessandro said.

  Scarlett shifted restlessly in her chair.

  Alessandro looked at her. ‘Scarlett?’

  She couldn’t hold his gaze.

  ‘Is there something you should have told me before now?’ he asked.

  She ran her tongue over her dry lips. ‘It’s too early to tell
, I might be late for a whole lot of reasons.’

  Alessandro reached for her hand. ‘How late are you?’ he asked.

  She lifted her eyes to his. ‘A week—eight days, actually…’

  Dr Shaftsbury leaned his arms on his desk. ‘If it turns out you are pregnant, you can have the foetus screened and make a decision as to whether or not to continue,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Scarlett said. ‘That’s not an option for me. I will love the baby no matter what.’

  Alessandro’s thumb began stroking Scarlett’s palm as he faced the specialist. ‘I agree with Scarlett, Dr Shaftsbury,’ he said. ‘Sometimes these things are meant to happen.’

  He got to his feet and shook the doctor’s hand. ‘Thank you again for your help.’

  ‘It has been a very great pleasure,’ the doctor answered with another smile.

  Scarlett waited until they were outside the surgery before she spoke. ‘Did you mean what you said in there?’ she asked. ‘About the baby?’

  He stood looking down at her for a long moment, his eyes so warm with love she felt her heart contract. ‘I meant it, cara,’ he said. ‘If we are indeed expecting a baby then it is what is meant to be. We will love it no matter what. You have taught me that lesson, if nothing else.’

  She smiled at him with love shining in her blue gaze. ‘I love you, Alessandro Marciano.’

  He pressed a tender kiss to her forehead. ‘I love you too, tesore mio. No matter what the future holds.’

  Eight months later

  Scarlett stood silently at the door of the lounge, watching as Alessandro looked down at his tiny daughter cradled in his arms, his expression so full of wonder and joy it brought tears to her eyes.

  The news that their little girl was a carrier had been accepted with great sadness, but also a sense of relief in that she was not going to suffer in the way Alessandro’s brother had done. Yes, there would be issues to face in the future, but for now they would enjoy the miracle of her infancy and childhood.

  Alessandro’s parents Sergio and Lucia had grown a little closer to each other as they had got to know Matthew when Scarlett and Alessandro had visited them in the summer. And the news of Scarlett’s pregnancy had clearly brought them much joy, as they had seen the happiness and fulfilment on Alessandro’s face each time he looked at his little family.

  They were flying over for the christening in a couple of weeks, and Roxanne and Dylan had agreed to be godparents; their recent engagement was something Scarlett had seen coming for several months.

  ‘Is she finally asleep?’ Scarlett asked Alessandro as she came into the room.

  Alessandro smiled as he met her gaze. ‘Yes, she is, but I am not ready to put her down. It will not hurt to hold her while she sleeps, will it?’

  She came to perch beside him on the sofa where he was seated, and gently caressed the black silk of his hair. ‘No, of course it won’t hurt her,’ she said softly. ‘You are her father, and she needs to get to know your touch.’

  ‘I am her father,’ Alessandro said, still looking down at the perfect features of little Mia—the name he had chosen not just because it was Italian but because it meant ‘mine’. ‘I never thought I would ever say those words to anyone, but now I have two beautiful children, thanks to you tripping into my arms that day in Milan and capturing my heart.’

  Scarlett pressed a soft-as-air kiss to the top of his head. ‘It was meant to happen, darling,’ she said. ‘And I for one am very glad it did.’

  ‘Me too,’ Alessandro said, reaching for her hand and giving it a loving squeeze, his hazel eyes full of adoration as he cradled his daughter protectively against the steady beat of his heart. ‘Me too…’

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-2035-9

  THE MARCIANO LOVE-CHILD

  First North American Publication 2008.

  Copyright © 2008 by Melanie Milburne.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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  Table of Contents

  >Cover

  >Copyright

  >Contents

  >CHAPTER ONE

  >CHAPTER TWO

  >CHAPTER THREE

  >CHAPTER FOUR

  >CHAPTER FIVE

  >CHAPTER SIX

  >CHAPTER SEVEN

  >CHAPTER EIGHT

  >CHAPTER NINE

  >CHAPTER TEN

  >CHAPTER ELEVEN

  >CHAPTER TWELVE

  >CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  >CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  >CHAPTER FIFTEEN