by Miranda Lee
“I love you. And I love her, as much as if she were my daughter.”
Tally began to weep. There was no hiding her secret, not anymore.
“Dante,” she said brokenly, “Sam is your daughter!”
There was a long silence, broken only by the sound of Dante’s breathing and Tally’s sobs. When he finally spoke, his voice was without inflection.
“What do you mean, Sam is my daughter?”
“I should have told you. I wanted to tell you—”
She gasped as his hands bit into her shoulders. “Tell me what?”
“There was no other man. I made it up. Samantha is—she’s your child.”
Moments, an eternity, slipped by. Tally waited, trying to read Dante’s face, to see something of what would come next.
“Let me make sure I understand this. You didn’t sleep with someone else.”
“No.”
“You didn’t get pregnant by another man.”
“I know I should have told you, but—”
“You knew you were pregnant, and you left me anyway?”
“Dante. Please. Listen to what I’m saying. I knew you’d grown tired of me. How could I have told you I was having a baby?”
“My baby.” His voice was like a whip; he caught her wrists and pushed her back against the wall. “My baby!”
“It isn’t that simple!”
“On the contrary, Taylor. It’s brutally simple. You became pregnant with my child and didn’t tell me. You were going to raise her to think she had no father.”
Tally wrenched her hands free and slapped them over her ears. “Stop it!”
“You were going to raise Samantha—my daughter—as I was raised. Fatherless. Impoverished.”
“It wasn’t like that, damn it! I did what I thought was right.”
“For who? Surely not for Samantha. And not for me.”
“Remember when I said I wanted to talk to you? It was about this. About you and Sam. But I had to wait for the right time.”
He gave a hollow laugh. “Another lie. How many more will you tell before I know the entire truth?”
Tally stared up into her lover’s enraged eyes. He was right. It was time for the truth. All of it.
“No more lies,” she said, her voice trembling. “Here’s the truth. Sam is yours. There was never anyone else. And I left you—I left you because I knew I’d fallen in love with you.”
“Such a pretty story.”
“I swear it’s true! I still love you. I always will.”
“As soon as my daughter is fully recovered,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “we’ll fly back to New York.”
“Damn you, Dante! Listen to me!”
“You will move back into the guest suite. I’ll permit that because I don’t want my child to be traumatized by too many changes all at once.”
A cold knot of fear gripped Tally’s stomach. “What does that mean?”
Dante smiled thinly.
“It means,” he said silkily, “that Samantha is mine. That you stole her from me. That you are an unfit mother.” He paused. “And that I intend to gain custody—sole custody—of her.”
“No!” Tally’s voice rose in horror. “You can’t take her from me. No court will permit it!”
Dante ignored her, walked to the room where Sam lay sleeping and sat down in a chair beside the crib. So much for love. For putting your heart in someone’s hands. For being foolish enough to think life was ever anything but a cruel joke.
He took his cell phone from his pocket, called his attorney, cut through the man’s perfunctory greeting and told him he’d just learned he was the father of a two-year-old child.
The lawyer, who dealt with several wealthy clients, cut to the chase.
“How much does the woman want?”
“You misunderstand me,” Dante said. “I don’t want to deny my paternity of the child, I want to claim her. I want full custody. Will that be a problem?”
He listened, answered a couple of questions, then smiled.
There were times having money, power and the right connections paid off.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MOMENTS LATER, TALLY entered the room.
Dante, still seated beside the crib and the sleeping baby, looked at the nurse.
“Please take your dinner break now.”
He spoke politely, but that didn’t lessen his tone of command. The woman left without a backward glance. Tally looked at him, but he didn’t acknowledge her presence.
Anyone looking at him would assume he was angry.
She knew better. He was furious. And it frightened her. Dante was a powerful adversary in any situation. Now he would be formidable.
But he wouldn’t win. She would do whatever it took to keep her child and defeat him, and that meant facing up to him, starting now.
She moved the nurse’s abandoned chair to the other side of the crib and sat down. Her face softened as she looked at her little girl, so peacefully asleep.
Samantha was hers.
No court in the land would separate a mother from her child, not even to satisfy Dante Russo. None, she thought … and maybe because she wished she really believed it, she spoke the words aloud.
“You won’t win,” she said.
He looked at her, his eyes empty. “Of course I will.”
Her face paled. Good. He was happy to see it. She deserved what would come next. She had brought it on herself with her lies.
His attorney was already earning his million-dollar-a-year retainer, drawing up motions and citing precedents even though the hour was late and Christmas was only a couple of days away.
Dante had no doubt as to which of them would gain custody. Tally had apple pie and motherhood on her side, but he had the things that really mattered.
What a fool he’d been, imagining himself in love. He almost laughed. He, of all people, knew that the word had no meaning. His mother had claimed to love him, right up to the day she kissed him, told him to be a good boy, and vanished. His nonna had claimed to love him, too, and proved it by beating the crap out of him at every opportunity until he finally ran away.
Emotion was weakness. Self-discipline was strength. This woman had made him forget that, but he would not make the same mistake again.
The one thing he couldn’t understand was why she had kept her pregnancy from him. He was rich. She could have milked him for a lot of money. He knew men who’d had that happen to them. A woman got pregnant, deliberately pregnant, and dipped her manicured hands into a man’s bank account.
Anyone could see that Tally could have used the cash. The old house in Vermont, the business she’d attempted … An infusion of dollars would have changed her life.
All right. She had not been after his money. He had to admit that. And he had to admit that she seemed to be a good mother.
Why, then, had she lied? Why had she left him?
Because she loved him. That was what she’d said.
What a joke!
A woman who loved a man didn’t run from him. She didn’t give birth to his child and tell him the child was someone else’s. Dio, the anger and pain that had caused him. The nights he’d lain awake, held Tally in his arms, tried not to wonder if she were dreaming of him or of her other lover.
His mouth thinned.
It was some consolation, at least, knowing she had not belonged to anyone else. That she had been his. Only his. That no one else had made love to her, held her close, felt the whisper of her breath against his throat while she slept in his arms.
He’d blanked his mind to the rest. To what she’d looked like when she was pregnant. Now, knowing Sam was his, that was impossible to do.
Her breasts would have been full, the skin translucent over the delicate tracery of her veins. Her belly would have been round, lush with the life they’d created. She had denied him the wonder of those months. The feel of his child, kicking in her mother’s womb. The moment of his child’s entry into the world.
<
br /> All those signs, the proof of their love …
Except, it had never been love.
Never. Love was just a polite four-letter word men and women used in mixed company. Taylor’s lies were the issue here, not love.
He’d had the right to know the truth. She should have told him.
He looked up. Tally sat with her head bowed. “You should have told me,” he said coldly.
She raised her eyes to his.
“You’re right. I should have.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I didn’t. I’ve tried to explain, to say I’m sorry—”
“I’m not interested in apologies or explanations.”
She gave a sad little laugh. “No. You’re only interested in you. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t tell you I was pregnant. I was afraid you’d react exactly this way, as if our baby’s existence concerned only you.”
“You’re good at making excuses.”
“Not as good as you are at feeling nothing for anyone but yourself.” Her voice trembled. “I think you do care for Samantha, though. And that surprises me.”
“A compliment, cara. I can hardly bear it.”
“Dante. Don’t take her from me. I know you want to hurt me, but you’ll hurt her, too.”
“Hurt her?” His lips drew back from his teeth. “You have nothing. I have everything. I’ll give my daughter a life you can only imagine.”
“She’s my daughter, too. And what she needs is love. It’s what everyone needs. How can you not understand that?”
“Love,” he said, his mouth twisting, “is a word without meaning. Honesty. Responsibility. Those are words that matter. How can you not understand that?”
Then he folded his arms, fixed his eyes on the sleeping baby and ignored Tally completely.
DAWN HAD JUST TOUCHED the sky with a delicate pink blush when Samantha stirred.
“Mama?”
Tally, who’d fallen into a fitful sleep, sprang to her feet, but she was too late. Dante had already leaned into the crib and lifted the baby into his arms.
“Bella figlia,” he said huskily, “buon giorno.”
Sam grinned. “Da-Tay,” she babbled, and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Tally felt her throat tighten. All the time she’d been pregnant, the months and years after, she’d never pictured this. Dante and Samantha as father and daughter. She’d never dreamed of this softness, this sweetness in her lover.
The door opened. The physician who’d treated Sam stepped into the room.
“Well, look at this! It doesn’t take a trained eye to see that our patient’s made a full recovery.”
“Thank you, Doctor. For everything.”
“My pleasure, Mr. Russo. Just let me give your little girl the once-over and you can take her home.”
“To New York?”
“I’d wait a couple of days, just to be on the safe side.” He grinned. “Quite a hardship, having to spend Christmas in the Caribbean, huh, folks?”
Tally made a choked sound. Dante forced a smile.
“We’ll manage,” he said.
Tally hoped he was right.
COEXISTING in a three-level penthouse, as they’d initially done, was simple.
Coexisting in a one-level house built to take full advantage of the sun was not.
Rooms opened into rooms; doors were almost nonexistent. Tally moved her things into the third bedroom, but it was impossible to walk to the kitchen or Sam’s room without running into Dante.
“Excuse me,” she said, at the beginning.
After a while, she stopped saying it. What was there to apologize for? He was as much in her way as she was in his.
And how did he manage to get to Sam’s side so quickly? All the baby had to do was whimper and Dante, damn him, was there.
Tally told herself she’d at least have the pleasure of watching him suffer through the horrors of a full diaper but apparently he’d mastered Diaper 101 on his own. All right, she thought with petty satisfaction, at least he wouldn’t know how to mash a banana just the way Sam liked it—and she was right. He didn’t.
It didn’t matter.
Her sweet little traitor liked Dante’s method just fine. She liked everything he did, including taking her for hand-in-hand walks along the beach, the warm water lapping at her ankles.
When Tally attempted the same thing, Sam shrieked with horror.
Dante could charm any woman he set his eyes on, including two-year-old females.
But he couldn’t charm Tally. Not that he tried. He looked right through her. That was fine. She’d gone back to hating him. She’d never let her little girl be raised by such a cold-hearted tyrant, never mind the performance he was putting on with Sam, never mind the way his face lit each time the baby toddled toward him …
Never mind the numbing sense of sorrow in her own heart at glimpses of what might have been.
As midnight approached, with Sam sound asleep and the house silent, Tally was close to tears, but it wasn’t over Dante.
Never over him.
“Never,” Tally whispered, and wept as if her heart might break in half.
TALLY’S SOFT SOBS carried through the walls.
Lying on his bed, arms folded beneath his head, Dante stared up at the dark ceiling. Let her cry, he thought coldly. For all he gave a damn, she could cry enough salt tears to fill the sea.
After a long time, the sound of her weeping grew softer, then stopped. A muscle in his jaw flexed. Good. Now, at least, he might get some sleep.
Half an hour later, he sat up.
To hell with sleep. He was going crazy, trapped in a house that was rapidly becoming a prison. He pulled on a pair of shorts, opened the patio doors and strode over the beach until he reached the surf.
The moon, full and round, was bright enough to carve shadows into the sand. Dante’s mouth thinned. It was the kind of night you saw on picture postcards. The endless stretch of sand. The white ruffle of the surf. The dark sea stretching to the horizon under the elegantly cool eye of the moon.
Once, he’d considered buying a house in these islands. He’d even mentioned it to Taylor. The idea had come from out of nowhere … or maybe not. Maybe he’d thought of the beauty of this place because Taylor was so beautiful. Because, fool that he was, he’d imagined he was feeling something for her he’d never felt for another woman.
He’d stepped back from that precipice.
And here he was, three years later, with her in the very setting he’d imagined, except all he wanted was to get away from her and return to New York.
Dio, the irony of it!
Dante kicked at the sand as he walked slowly along the beach.
A beautiful island. A beautiful woman, but what good was her beauty if she had no heart? Not when it came to him.
And why should that mean a damn anyway, when he’d never thought the human heart was responsible for anything more than pumping blood through the body?
Wrong, he thought, tilting back his head and staring blindly at the moon. Dead wrong, and it had taken a two-year-old imp to teach him the lesson.
A painful lesson.
For the first time in his life, he’d begun to think about a different existence from any he’d ever known. A house in the country. A dog, a couple of cats, a station wagon. A little girl to run to the door when she heard his key in the lock and maybe a little boy, too …
And a wife, to step into his embrace.
Not just a wife. Tally. His Tally. Because that was how he thought of her, how he’d always thought of her, even three years ago …
What was that?
Dante cocked his head. Music? Chimes. No. Not chimes. Bells. Church bells. Of course. It must be midnight, and this was Christmas Eve.
He swallowed hard. So what? Christmas was for fools. A holiday that celebrated a miracle, except miracles were in painfully short supply in today’s world.
When was the last time he’d seen anything remotely like a mi
racle?
When was the last time he’d held Tally in his arms?
The sound of the bells came to him again, filled with poignancy and hope that floated on the soft sea breeze. Dante swallowed again but he couldn’t ease the constriction in his throat.
“Tally,” he whispered, and the name was sweeter than the music of the bells.
Tally was his miracle. She always had been.
And he’d turned his back on that miracle, ruined his one chance at love, at happiness, out of pride, arrogance, all the things she’d accused him of, rather than admit the truth.
He loved Tally. Now, three years ago, forever. He adored her.
And he knew exactly why she’d left him.
He had been about to end their affair, just as she’d said, and it hadn’t had a damned thing to do with boredom. The truth was the great Dante Russo had been terrified of putting his heart in a woman’s hands, of saying, Here I am, cara. A man, nothing more. A man who loves you and can only hope you love him in return because without you, I am nothing. My life is nothing….
Dante took a shuddering breath.
“Tally,” he whispered, and turned toward the house.
TALLY LAY HUDDLED in her bed, eyes hot and gritty with tears.
Ridiculous, wasn’t it? To weep over Dante? He wasn’t worth it. Not anymore.
He had shown his true colors today. He was the cold, brutal, arrogant tyrant she’d always called him …
Tally rolled onto her back and stared up at the dark ceiling. No. That wasn’t true. Dante had been wonderful today, quick and courageous and tender with Sam, and with her …
Until she’d told him what she should have told him a very long time ago.
She could be honest about this, at least. Dante wasn’t a tyrant, he was a man in pain. She had told him a lie that had cut to the bone. Now he was hurting. And a man like Dante Russo knew only one way to deal with pain.
He struck at its cause.
And she—she was the cause.
A sob caught in Tally’s throat and she rolled over and buried her face in the already-damp pillow.
If only she’d told him the truth that day in Vermont, when he’d first seen Sam. If only she’d said, “Dante, this is your child. I kept her from you and I kept myself from you, too, because—because I loved you. Because I knew I’d die if you turned away from me.”