There was a flurry of movement then the barrel chested man who I’d already surmised was his father came towards the car and pulled me into a bear hug before heading for the back and Luca. I was trapped like a deer in headlights.
It all seemed so surreal. I put one heavy foot in front of the other as I followed behind him to where Luca and his mother were going into the house because she was saying it was too cold out for the children.
Unlike me, she had given free rein to her tears and was babbling on in between plastering the kids’ faces with kisses. She finally noticed me and looked from me to her son. “How, when?”
“We’ll save that for later ma, for now we need to get the kids settled.”
“Of course son, just tell me one thing, did you know?”
“No ma, I just found them.” Now he sounded like he was about to cry, and the look his mother threw me did not bode well for holiday cheer.
I followed behind the three of them like a fifth wheel, his father carrying my son and he our daughter. The front hall was bigger than the little house I was renting. I started to shake as I thought of all that could go wrong.
Now when it was too late everything that could go wrong played through my head. This family obviously had money, what if they tried to take my babies? What of they cut me out of my children’s lives? What if they blamed me for not telling their son about his children?
A million horrible scenarios went through my mind as we went up the winding staircase and down another long hallway to a door at the end. “I’m sorry dear what was your name?”
“Bella.” I answered his father.
“Well Bella, this is where my daughter’s children stay when they spend the night.” The room was a kid’s paradise. It was two rooms separated by a doorway. In one room were nothing but toys with some kind of scene painted on the wall, while the other room had bunk beds and a little princess bed with canopy and enough stuff toys to fill a toyshop.
His mother still hadn’t said anything to me as she fussed over the kids. “Open that drawer over there Matthew and get me some pajamas.” She ordered her husband as she undressed first Luna and then Luca. I stood in the doorway feeling like I didn’t belong.
It was obvious no one was saying anything because of the kids. “Pretty.” Luna the talkative one raised a hand to…I guess her grandmother’s cheek and patted. “Momma.” She called for my attention.
“Yes I’m here sweetheart.” Luca Jr.’s grandfather was busy trying to get him into the pajamas but my big boy wasn’t having it. “I can do it.” They all laughed and encouraged him while he showed off his big boy skills.
Luna jumped off her grandmother’s lap and made a beeline for the wall of toys. “No Luna…” I reached out to stop her but his mother’s soft whisper behind me stopped me.
“Luna, you named her after her father.”
“Yes ma and my son’s name is Luca.”
“But I don’t understand…”
“Not now ma, we’ll tell you everything as soon as we get the kids settled.”
It was another half an hour before the kids wound down but I wasn’t ready to leave them alone up there so he took his parents back downstairs while I sat up there to make sure the kids didn’t wake up scared.
After an hour had gone by, I couldn’t put it off any longer, so I left the safety of the room to go face whatever was awaiting me.
I found them in the den where the fire was going in another massive stone fireplace with garlands and holly and ivy strung along the length of it. There was another Christmas tree in the corner of this room with red and gold balls and tinsel, and the whole thing looked like a postcard.
They all looked up when I stopped in the doorway unsure of myself. “Come in Isabella.” It was the first time he’d called me by name and it felt strange hearing it come from his lips.
I walked into the room and took the chair closest to the fire since I felt cold even though the room was warm. He gave me a strange look and I wondered what he was thinking. I kind of got it when his eyes widened and he got up from his chair.
“Ma, dad we’ll be right back.” He crossed the room and took my hand pulling me up from the chair and leading me from the room. I was almost tempted to beg them not to let him take me. What was he thinking? Did he think I betrayed him?
“I Remember.” I swallowed hard at his words and looked down at the floor. “We were in that little sitting room off the lobby in that shitty hotel. Why didn’t you stop me? I know I was drunk but what was your excuse?”
“I…” What was I supposed to say? That I fell under his spell? That everything seemed lined up in the stars for what happened that night to transpire. “I’ve asked myself that same question a thousand times.”
“You were a virgin, there was blood…I remember breaking through that thin membrane and taking your innocence.”
Good grief he really did remember everything. There was nothing to say to that so I kept my lips sealed, as he seemed to work it all out in his head. He moved around the room, which looked like a study and I just stood there waiting for whatever came next.
I’d lost control of the whole situation long ago and now I was here at his mercy and for the first time since finding out I was pregnant, I felt totally lost. I couldn’t get a handle on him, on what he was thinking or planning in his head. For him that night was new, I’ve lived with it for four years. What must that be like for him?
“I’m trying to piece this all together but you have to admit it’s like something out of a movie. You didn’t know who I was that night?” He said that as if it was hard to believe. “No I didn’t.” Saying it out loud even in this day and age sounded so crass. Good girls don’t sleep with strangers. Sleep! What a crock. If only that’s all we’d done that night. Then we wouldn’t be here now, dealing with this.
“What were you doing there that night?” Now he sounded almost accusing as if I’d set him up. “The roads were icy, I skidded on a patch of ice and…” His whole body shook and he turned away from me as if in pain.
“Go on.” I cleared my throat and told him the rest of the story. “And when you found out you were pregnant?”
“I had no way of finding you, all I had was your first name.”
“Yes, I remember how you got that.” The look he gave me then was nothing less than searing.
“Yeah, well, as I was saying, I didn’t know anything more about you, and there was nowhere to look even if I’d wanted to.”
“If you’d wanted to? Does that mean that you wouldn’t have looked for me, had you known?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that. I mean we had a one night stand, a one night stand you ended by calling me by someone else’s name. How was I to know you’d want to be found?”
“Sorry about that. I’m sure you know by now that I wasn’t exactly myself that night.” He moved to look out the window at the falling snow. “This is all so strange. I don’t know if I should thank you for having them, or hate you for keeping them away from me all this time.” He turned to look back at me.
“Look I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was three months along. I was too sick and scared to worry about finding you when I didn’t have the first clue where to start…”
“You could’ve found a way. You had my first name all you had to do was go back to that place and give them that…”
“And tell them what? Oh I know, hello, my name is Isabella Clifton, I’ve never stayed in your establishment but I stopped in one snowy night the night before Christmas and ended up in this man’s room. I don’t know his last name, but the first was Luca. Is there anyway you can tell me how to reach him?” I was breathing harsh by the end of that last sentence, and my famous anger had finally come out of hiding.
“Lower your damn voice.” Oh wow, he did controlled anger thing very well. I had the good sense not to test him and kept my mouth shut. “You could’ve found a way. Do you know how this makes me feel?”
“How what makes you feel? You
had a one-night stand with a woman you didn’t know, were you expecting two kids in the bargain? And what about your wife? Would she have appreciated me showing up on your doorstep kids in hand? It took you less than a second to figure out they were yours how long do you think it would’ve taken her?”
“My wife is dead.” The words were a tortured whisper that stopped me short. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“How could you have? That’s what I was doing there that night. I was getting out of town. I’d just buried my wife and three week old son.”
I dropped into the nearest chair as his words hit me. So that’s why he was blind drunk that night, why he’d called me by her name. I was just a fill in, a way to ease his pain. Somehow knowing that didn’t make me feel any better. It was better when I could dream that I’d meant something to him. That like me, he just couldn’t help himself that night.
“What a mess.” Okay that’s where I draw the line. “My kids are not a mess. Why don’t I just go get them and you can take us back where you found us and the mess will be gone?”
“Are you fucking nuts? I’m not talking about my kids. I’m talking about the situation. My kids aren’t going anywhere. And they’re sure as hell not going back to that dump you call a home.”
I was on my feet ready to do battle. “My kids aren’t staying here, and that dump is all I can afford for the time being. I’m working hard to get us a nicer place.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about that any longer because I’ll be taking care of them from now on.”
“You’re not taking my babies away from me.”
“That’s up to you, but in a few days I’m on a plane back to New York and my children will be coming with me.”
“New… are you insane?” I felt raw panic in my gut because I knew he meant every word. “Where are you going?” He stopped me, as I was halfway out the door.
“I’m getting my kids and getting out of here.”
“Try it.” I ran for the stairs and heard his heavy tread behind me. His parents came running out of the den but I didn’t stop to look, just kept going.
How was I gonna get out of here? My car was in an empty parking lot an hour and a half away. Mom, I’ll call mom. Before I could do that he caught up with me at the door to the nursery and pulled me back.
“Leave them.” I was already winded but he was barely breathing hard. “Let me go, we’re not staying here, this whole thing was a mistake. I should never have let you bring us here.”
“As if you had a fucking choice.” My eyes widened at the way he grabbed my shoulders so forcefully.
“Alright, you two settle down. Son, unhand her, let’s all go back downstairs and try to sort this out.” His dad tried getting between us but Luca wasn’t letting go.
“There’s nothing to sort out dad, my children are not leaving here.”
“I lied, they’re not…”
“Don’t.” He pointed a menacing finger in my face and I buttoned my lips. “Now this is what we’re going to do.” He was speaking to his parents but he never took his eyes off mine.
“Dad, is uncle Thomas still in town?”
“Why yes, but I don’t see…”
“Call him up, there’s going to be a wedding.”
“Luca I don’t think…”
“I know what I’m doing ma. Dad, make the call.” He’d definitely lost his mind.
10
Luca
I’ve lost my damn mind but I was going on plain adrenaline here and nothing else made sense. I hadn’t planned on getting married ever again to anyone, not after last time. I never wanted to feel that pain again. But if she thinks I’ll her leave here with my kids she was out of her fucking mind. Maybe she was crazy, how the hell would I know? But crazy or not this is one fight she was destined to lose.
I was raised around wealth and power my whole life. And though my parents did everything in their power to make sure my siblings and I never became assholes, there was no changing blood. My family has been in good standing in the country since my great-great-great whoever came over on the Mayflower.
I come from a long line of very powerful men and women who have an inbred sense of what’s right and wrong, coupled with an alpha complex to rival Hercules.
Had this girl, this Isabella known anything about me she would’ve chosen someone else to spend that night with. She’d let me take her virginity. Every time I think of that one thing it stumps me. Why would she give me her most precious possession? A man she didn’t know? It was the one thing I couldn’t get over. The one thing keeping me from believing she’d played me no matter what she said.
When I’d awakened in that room and saw the blood on the sheet I thought I’d hurt myself, then when I figured out that I had been with a woman, I figured she’d got her period in the middle of whatever the hell we’d done the night before.
Following hot on the heels of that was the unbearable guilt. I’d just buried my wife, the love of my life, and already I’d climbed into bed with someone else. The fact that I couldn’t remember a damn thing about that night only compounded the issue.
For a man like me, always in control, it wasn’t easy, none of it. I’d closed that side of my life off, had buried myself in work and making even more money than was already in my considerable trust fund. It was always a source of pride with me that I stood on my own two feet. Even though it was hard for my parents to take a step back and let me do things my way, they’d let me and been all the prouder for it.
Now this stranger, this woman who’d borne not one but two of my children expected me to walk away from the most important things in my life.
It didn’t matter that I’d only just met them, didn’t matter how they came to be, they were mine. I would never leave my children out there in the world without my love and protection.
I was sure that when it all kicked in I’ll have a lot to think about, but right now at this moment, there was only one thing on my mind, my children. The thought of getting married again, especially to a complete stranger, wasn’t exactly high on my bucket list of shit to do. But she’s the mother of my children and there was no way I was leaving here without my little boy and girl.
The only way I saw clear to do that without a legal battle, which I was sure to win, was to keep all three of them. I’ll figure out what to do with her later.
Dad had left the room to do as I’d asked and while I was lost in my head ma had been talking to her, Bella. I looked at her now, really looked. She was beautiful in that classic Hollywood nineteen-fifties era kind of way. That wholesome look without the harsh androgynous thing most women seemed to favor these days.
She was rounded in all the right places. And that face, even bare of excess makeup she had a natural beauty that drew the eye. Is that why I’d taken her to my bed that night? Did I, even in a drunken stupor take notice of her exquisiteness, the fact that she didn’t look like everyone else?
Even after bearing my children, she still had the kind of body most men would kill for. Funny thing is before this I probably wouldn’t have given her a second glance. Too programmed to follow societal norms. But the flashes of memory told me that she was the whole package, the real deal.
I could remember the fucking feel of her ass in my hands. The way she’d moved over and under me. Fuck! I didn’t want this. She was the reason I’d been celibate all these years, not my wife, not the woman I’d sworn to love. It was her fucking memory that had haunted me for four years. Her existence that had kept me from forming any type of attachment with anyone because if I even thought of making love to someone else, the memory of that night was always there, blocking, standing in the way.
And now that I’ve come face to face with the reality, the only question left was what now? How was this all going to play out in the end?
“So you see why this is such a shock for him, for all of us.” I checked back into the here and now to hear ma explaining my behavior.
“She gets it ma, no
need to explain. The whole situation is a shock to everyone, but the only thing that matters are those two little people in that room. There’s no doubt that I am their father and as such I can do no less than what I am about to. You let’s go.” I heard the doorbell and figured it was uncle Thomas.
She didn’t move fast enough so I grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind me, ignoring her orders to be let go. Ma was still putting in her plug for waiting, but I turned a deaf ear. She’s been after me for three years to move on with my life, this is moving on.
Bella, Isabella tugged against her hand and I stopped long enough to glare down at her. “You have two choices in this scenario, you marry me and stay with our kids, or I take you to court and take them. Choose.” It was harsh because I could see that she was a good mom, and this was as much my fault as hers, but she had to face reality. Looks like we both got the shock of our lives tonight.
She opened her mouth to argue but I cut her off. “Before you say anything, no judge will choose you over me as the best choice to raise our kids. It may not be fair, and I might be the biggest asshole in the world to you right now, but there’s nothing I won’t do to get back the three years I lost.”
“I did not purposely keep them from you. Why are you doing this?” The better question was why wasn’t she jumping at the chance to improve her situation? It was obvious I had money, and was in a much better place than her financially, so…”
“You said you weren’t married.” Why should the idea of her being with someone else make me angry? I get it; it was the idea of some other man being in my children’s lives when I’d been denied that honor, that’s all it was.
“I’m not married.”
“So what’s your problem?”
“Are you serious? We don’t know each other.”
“We knew each other well enough to fuck all night, to produce two kids that needs us both. I’m willing to do my part how about you?”
“That’s not fair. Of course I want what’s best for our children, but what if you and I hate each other? Just because we were compatible in that way doesn’t mean…”
A Family For Christmas Page 6