Without a backward glance, Lana turned toward the house. She shut and secured the patio doors behind her and, collecting her hand bag on the way, went outside to await the taxi she’d called to take her into Manukau. She hesitated over closing the front door, reluctant to cut herself off completely from the house, and by association from Raffaele. It would be time enough when her ride got here.
Where she would go to next she had no idea. But somehow she’d find the courage to start again. In the depths of her bag she’d found the money she had left from selling her rings. If she was careful she’d get through the next few days and hopefully find a job, anything, before she ran out of money completely. Tears washed her eyes anew and, as if in sympathy, the heavy skies opened—the downpour sudden and ferocious.
Would it never stop raining in her life?
The sound of a car engine coming down the driveway alerted her and, expecting to see her taxi, she lifted her head only to identify the rural post delivery van. Puzzled she waited on the edge of the portico as the postie dashed from the vehicle, getting drenched in the process even in the short distance. At his request she signed for the registered mail delivery. He hastily thrust the envelope in her hands before sprinting back to the still running van.
Her fingers already numb from the cold, Lana didn’t quite grasp the envelope fully before he’d let it go and it fell into the growing puddle of water the postie had left at his feet. With a cry of dismay she bent to pick it up. The water had already damaged the envelope and, if it wasn’t to continue to damage the contents, she’d have to remove it completely. She went back into the house and peeled away the ruined paper from the letter inside. A glimpse of the High Court insignia on the letter made her heart stop in her chest.
So soon?
She quickly skimmed the contents of the letter before deliberately placing it onto the hall table where Raffaele would be sure to see it on his return home. The parental order had been hurried through due to the extenuating circumstances surrounding Bella’s birth. Now he had everything he wanted.
A car pulled up outside the house and tooted its horn. Lana left her key on the hall table next to the letter and went back outside the house, pulling the front door closed with a finality that underlined just how impossibly alone she was now in her life.
The house was in complete darkness as Raffaele returned home. His very soul ached with the loss he’d endured today. Finally, Maria was at peace. The undertaker he’d met with had promised to ensure that all the necessary requirements would be met to see to her body’s burial in the plot beside Kyle Whittaker. Raffaele had expected some difficulty in being able to acquire the plot, but surprisingly it had still been available. It had been important to him that Maria be able to forever lie beside the man she’d loved. It didn’t make up for what they’d missed out on together, but it would have been her wish. It had been up to Raffaele to respect that, even if his blinkers had been finally removed from his eyes about the man he’d thought would one day be his brother-in-law.
The fact that he could even see how elaborate Kyle Whittaker’s web truly was, bore mute testament to the cracks Lana had made in his belief. Cracks that had slowly widened until he could no longer deny the reality. But despite all that he could understand what had driven the man to maintain what was in reality two wives in two cities. He’d wanted it all. The support and prestige of a consummate society wife, for it was clear that Lana had fulfilled that role for Kyle in abundance, and conversely the comfort of the mother of his child.
Because Maria had loved Kyle with every last breath in her body, Raffaele owed it to his sister to do what was right for her, no matter how much it shredded his soul to know he was saying goodbye to her for the last time.
His brother would arrive late tomorrow afternoon. Raffaele drew in a deep breath. He could cope until then. His grief could wait until it was shared with the only other person left in his world who would understand how he felt.
He wondered what Vincenzo would think of Bella. Raffaele was already eager to show their niece off to him, although the baby had been fractious and unsettled today. One of the nurses had suggested that perhaps she’d been missing Lana, but he’d wasted no time in letting the nurse know that Lana would not be returning.
He drew on the remnants of anger that lingered after her threat this morning, staving off his grief and allowing the anger to rise above it, to gain shape and form. He had all but been lulled into a false sense of security with Lana. He’d seen for himself how vulnerable she was, how wounded by her husband’s actions. That very vulnerability had drawn out his protective instincts. The instincts he’d honed after his father had died and when his entire family had depended solely on him for their next meal. It was only natural that he’d done the same again. It was what he excelled at, after all.
And then she’d shown her true colours. Her intention to keep the baby all along. For as long as he drew breath in his body he would fight that intention, he silently vowed. She would no longer come between his family and happiness.
Weariness assailed him. Too tired to bother to garage the car he parked at the front door and let himself inside. As he flipped the light switch he was immediately struck by the hollow emptiness of the house. She was gone. He’d briefly wondered today if she would obey his command, or if she’d force a confrontation. It was with a measure of relief he noted she’d chosen the former. He felt so raw right now he couldn’t have promised his reaction to her would have been civil, and yet something pricked at his conscience at the way he’d lashed out at her. He forced the sensation aside. He had no wish to examine his feelings now. It was best to focus only on the future. On what needed to be done.
His eye caught on the opened letter on the table and he stepped forward to pick it up, his eyes quickly scanning its contents. Relief bloomed in his chest at the message therein. His promise to Maria had been fulfilled. Bella was his.
The next morning, as dawn streaked the sky with pink fingers, Raffaele woke and reached across the bed, seeking the welcoming warmth he’d grown accustomed to. He shot to alertness as his fingers encountered nothing but the wide cool and vacant expanse of high-thread-count cotton. How could he have forgotten so easily?
He flopped back over onto his back, cupping his hands behind his head as he stared at the darkened ceiling above him. He would get over this emptiness inside of him, it was merely a matter of adjusting, he tried to convince himself as grey light filtered into the room, in fact it probably had nothing to do with the emptiness in his bed at all, but instead everything to do with Maria.
Raffaele pressed his eyelids shut tight against the wave of anguish that swelled within him. Resolutely he pushed it aside. He would cope with this as he had with every other heartache in his life—with hard work and single minded determination and focus. That focus now belonged to Bella absolutely.
He settled back deeper, his elbow brushing against the pillow where Lana had so recently laid her head. A ghostly waft of her fragrance teased the air around him, sending his body into full alert. There was no mistaking her effect on him, he acknowledged with a stoicism he was far from feeling, but it took more than physical need to make or sustain a relationship.
Relationship? Ha! Who was he kidding. He’d never had any intention of forming a relationship with Lana aside from whatever it took to avenge what he’d believed she’d done to his family. Even though he could now acknowledge that his words to her yesterday morning had been wrought from the pain of hearing of Maria’s passing, of the guilt that he’d failed to be at her side to see her across the gulf between life and death, he still stood by his decision.
And what of his own needs? a tiny voice slid through his mind. Needs? The physical could be easily assuaged, he argued back. And the emotional?
Raffaele tried to ignore the piercing pain of emptiness in his chest. He rolled to his side and inhaled, drawing the lingering remnants of Lana’s scent deep within him. The pain deepened. She was gone from his life, it was what h
e’d wanted—what he’d planned from the moment he’d first heard of the accident—yet he missed her with an ache that went beyond unfulfilled desire.
Somewhere in the past few days he’d lost the edge of his need for retribution. Even as hard as he’d tried to fan the flame of reprisal, Lana’s innate honesty had inveigled its way past his defences. At what point, he finally acknowledged, had he gone from hating her with every breath in his body to wanting her with every beat of his heart? The reality of his actions sluiced over his body in waves.
He’d driven her away. He’d spurned her as viciously and effectively as had her husband. He thought back on every thing Lana had said to him, and every thing she had done. She was as much a victim as his sister had been, as Bella was now.
Raffaele shot from the bed and tried once more to push aside the reality of his thoughts. He went automatically through the motions, showering, dressing, eating breakfast. Finally, he gave up pushing his cereal around the bowl with disinterest and drawn by the growing light of the sunlight caressing the pool, he went outside.
As far as his eye reached, he was master of this domain. It would be a fine place for Bella to grow up during the time his work didn’t keep them home in Italy.
Home. How long had it been since he’d thought of Italy as home? It shocked him to realise that since he’d bought this property the idea of living and working in Italy had been further from his mind than exporting olive oil to Mars. Yet what sort of home would it be without Lana inside it?
What the hell had he done? With his single minded bull headedness he’d driven away the one person he should have done everything in his power to nurture. He’d blindly ignored the facts, choosing instead to believe the version of events engineered by a man who’d been proven a fraudster. It had never occurred to Raffaele to wonder why Kyle hadn’t simply walked away from Lana or what his ulterior motives had been in staying with her—maintaining two households, two lives.
Raffaele had allowed himself to be spun instead into the web of lies Kyle had woven with such consummate skill. And then, when the accident had happened, it had been easier to apportion blame to Lana than to admit to himself he’d been wrong. Wrong to have introduced Maria to Kyle, wrong to have encouraged the relationship.
Wrong to have treated Lana so cruelly.
The fault was his, and his alone. As was the responsibility of rectification.
Thirteen
Raffaele faced off against Tom Munroe who looked none too pleased to see him waiting for him in his office.
“What have you done to her? She was beside herself when she rang me, insisted on doing everything on her own,” Tom growled fiercely.
Raffaele instinctively bristled. “I left her well compensated. It was what we had agreed on together.”
“Well compensated. Bah! You used her abominably. Worse even than Kyle. Do you have any idea of what she gave up to be with him? Any idea at all?”
“I cannot begin to imagine.” Raffaele sank into the red leather button back chair that faced Tom’s desk feeling little more than a guilty party facing a hanging judge. “Mr Munroe, I was wrong about Lana. It is not something I accept easily or willingly, but I am at least man enough to own up to my transgression. I want to put things right.”
“Man enough? Kyle thought he was man enough when he wooed her out from underneath her father’s watchful eye. The foolish man never believed that Trevor Logan would cut off his only child if she acted against his wishes. Little did he know.” Tom leaned forward on his desk. “Can you begin to imagine what it felt like for Lana—a girl who’d lost her mother when she was only six, a girl whose father was the axis of her world—to suddenly be cut off from the only support line she’d known in her entire life?
“And then you waltz in and do exactly the same. Give her false hope, a false sense of security. Frankly, I couldn’t be happier if I never saw you again.”
Raffaele drew in a deep breath, accepting each word as his due. He couldn’t fault the man for wanting to protect Lana. Given the chance, he would ensure she’d never need such protection again.
“Where is she?” he asked, his voice as neutral as he could make it given the frustration rising within him.
“Even if I knew, Rossellini, I wouldn’t tell you. You went too far.”
Raffaele stood. It was clear the older man neither could nor would give him any further information today. He extracted a business card from his slim card holder and placed it deliberately on the desk blotter in front of Tom Munroe.
“Please, call me if she gets in contact with you.”
“And give me one good reason why I should do that, Rossellini. You’ve been nothing but trouble from the first day we laid eyes on you.”
The older man met his non-verbal challenge with a steadfastness that made him grateful that Lana had a champion on her side. It was little enough in her world right now.
“A reason? I’ll give you the reason you demand. It is quite simple, Mr Munroe. You will tell me because I love her, and because I believe she loves me. I only need a chance to tell her.”
“And you think your declaration of love will be enough?” The man’s voice shook with incredulity.
“Enough? No. But it is a start, and we need a new start. One without Kyle Whittaker’s shadow or his influence colouring what we do.”
Tom reached out and picked up the card, reading it carefully before sliding it into the inner breast pocket of his jacket.
“I will think about it, Rossellini. But don’t hold your breath. Even if she does contact me again I cannot guarantee that she will want to see you.”
“I need to know where she is. To know she is safe,” Raffaele answered. “As for the rest, that will be Lana’s choice.”
Two weeks later, Raffaele was no closer to finding her than he’d been the day he’d seen Tom Munroe. Worse, as he’d discovered from the bank today, she’d never presented the cheque nor had she touched a cent of the funds he’d deposited in the bank account he’d set up for her.
He fought the bitter taste of anger that flooded his mouth. What on earth was she thinking? She’d needed that money to get back on her feet again. From his enquiries this week, he knew that her old associates, still smarting from the loss of their investments, had had nothing whatsoever to do with her since the day of the funeral. A few had the grace to look shamefaced when he’d called upon them to ask if they’d seen anything of her recently, but most had been quite explicit in their condemnation.
Lana was on her own, and it was all his fault.
The only light glimmering on his horizon at present was Bella’s slow and steady improvement. Fifteen days after her birth, she’d come out of the intensive care unit and her feeding tube had been removed. While she still struggled a little with her suck-swallow-breathe coordination her medical team were confident she’d be home in another week or so.
He was enraptured with her and held her every moment he could. His heart swelled with an indefinable sense of love and pride to feel her tiny form in his arms. To know Maria lived on in the tiny scrap of tenacious humanity.
Lana would be so proud to see how far Bella had come. Raffaele had admitted to himself that the nurses’ suggestion earlier on that Bella had been missing Lana had been correct. For several days the little girl had stagnated, before showing steady improvement once again.
Only one thing was left now to make his life perfect and that was to have Lana back by his side, in his bed, in his life.
Lana let herself into the tiny sleep-out accommodation she’d secured. Lord but her feet ached. She’d never known such exhaustion as she’d endured in the past month waiting tables in one of Orewa’s popular restaurants. The ocean front town, north of Auckland, thrived on both tourist and local visitors and there was no such thing as a quiet night. It was thanks to that very busyness that she’d been able to secure a position almost as quickly as she’d stepped off the bus.
Resolutely she pushed the memory aside. She’d promised herself s
he would only look forward. There was no point in looking back any longer. She was on her own. It was up to her to make things work. She’d been lucky that her new employer’s aunt had this cheap accommodation available. The amenities were very basic. One large bedroom–sitting room area, a postage stamp of a bathroom, a jug, a microwave and refrigerator. It was all she needed. She had one good meal a night at the restaurant and had learned to make do with little else.
It had been gratifying to get her first wages, supplemented by some healthy tips, even if paying her rent did eat into the money in a large chunk.
She worked hard from early evening through to whatever time the kitchen closed, sometimes not until the small hours of the morning, and she relished the tiredness that saw her fall into a dreamless sleep each night. Mornings saw her walking the few blocks to the length of the surf beach where she tossed stale bread to the seagulls before taking a leisurely jog along the shore line.
Yes, she had her routine. And even if she couldn’t categorically state she was happy, she was making her own way. What she’d do next she had no idea. With time at her disposal during the day she’d begun to think of possibly doing some kind of course and gaining a more useful qualification than society hostess and charity fundraiser. Whatever came next, it really didn’t matter. Each day as it comes, was her new motto.
Tonight there’d been quite a crowd, a lot of cameras flashing off all through the evening as people celebrated various functions. The activity had made her nervous and obviously it had shown in her performance. She counted her tips as she eased off her shoes and sat down on the edge of her bed, not as much as previous nights. She needed to learn to relax a bit more. Not everyone was out to get her. She’d all but faded into obscurity. The latest scandal was plastered over the society pages, which was exactly what she’d wanted.
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