Every day, on her way to interviews, Aurora passed Nico’s grand hotel. And every day, after yet another slew of rejections, she grew more and more tempted simply to land unannounced at his door and demand to see him. To hand over the problem to Nico to deal with.
It was his baby after all.
Yet she could not bear the thought of his disappointment, or the way he would reluctantly carry out his duty.
She would find accommodation and work and she would be in a better position when she told him the truth.
Her family’s reaction had hurt Aurora deeply, and if the people who loved her could cast her aside it left her with little hope for Nico’s reaction to the news.
But then hope arrived, in the shape of a family of two young children, a stressed mother, and a father who travelled extensively for work. They lived in the Prati district, which was close to Parioli, where Nico resided.
‘I need someone for nanny duties and some light cleaning,’ Louanna explained. ‘Our last nanny left us with no notice...’
‘I won’t let you down.’
It was a gorgeous old house, and Aurora had her own summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. Louanna was kind, and told her she had all the essentials Aurora’s baby would need.
But then she added, ‘You will have three little ones to care for...’
Aurora knew she would care for ten if it meant she had a home and could provide for her baby. For the first time since she had found out she was pregnant, she felt in control.
But then Louanna’s husband returned, and the whole mood in the house changed.
‘A pregnant nanny?’ he said rudely to his wife. ‘What the hell...?’
‘Shh...’ said Louanna as she closed the study door on them. ‘Aurora is wonderful and she’s a great help to me with Nadia and Antonio.’
As Christmas approached, and Rome grew cold and wet, being in the house was like living in tornado season, Aurora mused. She was watching the news at the moment, holed up in the little summerhouse at the bottom of the beautiful garden, but she kept casting anxious glances towards the house.
Soon the husband would travel again, and peace would prevail, but it was like watching dark clouds gather whenever he came home.
Aurora thought perhaps she had heartburn. Certainly the doctor had suggested that she did, but the burning high in her stomach seemed to coincide with the husband’s arrival home and amplified when she saw bruises on Louanna’s fragile arms.
‘What happened?’ Aurora asked.
‘I bumped into the door.’
‘And the door was shaped like fingers?’ Aurora checked, in her usual forthright fashion. ‘Louanna, you have to leave him.’
‘Where will I go?’ Louanna begged. ‘Where will you go, Aurora? Your baby is due in two weeks.’
‘Don’t stay for me,’ Aurora said.
Yet her heart was twisting in fear at the thought of being out on the streets so close to her due date.
‘He is a good man...’ Louanna was defensive. ‘He just has a lot of stress at work.’
Nico had a lot of stress at work, Aurora thought, and he would never have carried on like that. She had never hidden her smile or her sass from him.
Call Nico, her mind said.
But then she caught sight of her reflection, her ripe body and troubled eyes, and she knew she did not want to land on him like this.
Not like this.
But soon the tornado had left again, and with the husband away on business the last few days of her pregnancy were among the nicest she had known.
She went to church with Louanna and the children, to watch the nativity play that Nadia was in, and it brought tears to Aurora’s eyes. Louanna took the kindest care of her, and Aurora felt so spoiled when she woke to breakfast in bed one morning.
But the storm clouds were gathering again, for tomorrow Louanna’s husband would be home.
That night Louanna made the supper. The children were sweet, and seemed to understand that Aurora was tired, and asked over and over again about her baby.
‘I hope it’s a girl,’ Nadia said as Aurora lay on the sofa, scrolling through baby names on Louanna’s laptop.
‘I hope it’s a boy,’ said Antonio.
‘What do you want, Aurora?’ Louanna asked.
‘I want this baby out of me,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll take what comes, but I am ready for my baby to be born.’
‘Have you chosen a name yet?’
‘No,’ Aurora admitted. ‘I still have no clue. Maybe Nico...’ She wasn’t going to call her baby that, but it was such a relief to say his name out loud. ‘Nicole, if it’s a girl, but I love the name Nico.’
Nico.
Nico.
Nico.
She would say it at the end of every breath if she could.
Oh, when would these feelings end? she asked of herself, and foolishly looked him up on the computer.
Nico’s world had clearly carried on very nicely without her. The woman with him just last month was blonde and pretty and petite. Then there was a beautiful redhead, who seemed to be getting him through the Christmas festivities.
Nico.
Louanna put the children to bed, and when she came down she gave Aurora a gentle talking-to.
‘Do you know who the father is?’
She had asked before and Aurora had been evasive.
‘Yes.’ She was too tired to lie, but she would not name him. ‘And I believe he would support me and would insist that we marry.’ She looked over to Louanna. ‘But I would rather be alone than live in an unhappy marriage.’
Louanna started to cry.
They spoke for a long while, and then Aurora headed down to her little summerhouse.
Deep in the night she lay restless and unable to sleep. She tossed and turned, and then got up and paced when it dawned on her that the ache in her back was not perhaps just from being heavily pregnant.
Aurora headed into the main house and made a drink. She looked out at the cold, pink morning sky and admitted to herself the very real reason she had not contacted Nico.
He might marry her, but he would never love her.
She would be his Silibri wife.
His mountain wife.
Living in the hills and tucked away.
Made love to when he returned to survey his grand hotel and then put on hold when he returned to Rome.
Or Florence.
Or England or France.
She wasn’t sophisticated enough to hold his arm and smile serenely as he conversed. Neither was she calm enough to stand holding the baby and wave him off with a smile. Nor was she discreet enough to turn a blind eye to his philandering ways.
And there would be philandering ways, Aurora was quite sure of that.
She had no experience, save for Nico. No tricks to keep him amused. Just her.
And being almost nine months pregnant, and already rejected as his bride, wasn’t a brilliant combination to inspire confidence.
Aurora would not be able to stand being a small part of his life—to live in the background. She was pure Sicilian and lava ran in her veins. She burnt at the thought of Nico with someone else—and, no, she would not stand back in dignified silence.
She moaned in horror at the thought of it.
‘Aurora?’ Louanna stood at the kitchen door. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No...’
She was scared and she was pregnant and she loved Nico so much that it hurt.
It hurt.
‘I can’t do this,’ she admitted.
‘You are doing this, Aurora,’ Louanna said. ‘Your baby is on its way.’
Aurora had changed her mind. ‘I’m not ready.’
But the baby was.
She was in labour—without the man she had loved all her life by he
r side.
That was the hard truth, wrung from her soul as she bore down and gritted her teeth and knew she would rather be alone that accept his crumbs.
No matter if those crumbs might be solid gold and would provide for her baby and keep her in style.
‘I hate him!’ she shouted as she gripped her thighs in the delivery suite and bore down.
‘Stop shouting and push,’ the doctor said.
But Aurora ignored medical advice and carried on with her rant. ‘He wants his freedom—he can have it!’ she declared loudly. ‘I’ll survive better without him.’
Aurora did not pick up on the midwife’s smile, but she got her support.
‘Yes, you will! Come on, Aurora—use that anger to push!’
She was furious, and it felt so good to be angry as she pushed her baby out. ‘I’ve got this,’ she declared.
‘You have, Aurora,’ the midwife said. ‘Come on—another big push.’
She was raging, and fury gave her strength, and she pushed with all her might...
And then fury left as love came rushing in—the purest love as she glimpsed her son.
He was long, and he had a lot of thick black hair, and huge navy eyes, and a dent in his chin as if an angel had stamped it there. His huge mouth let out husky and indignant cries.
She reached out for him with a love so fierce it pierced her soul. For the baby was the perfect blend of her and Nico. She laughed as she kissed him, for after one look not a person in her family or in the village would need to ask who his father was.
‘He’s beautiful!’ she cried. ‘He’s perfect. My baby!’
Her baby—and also a real tiny person, who cried and seemed soothed when she held him. His eyes seemed to recognise her, for he held her gaze and fell quiet.
She had never fathomed that love for her son would be so immediate and so intense.
He was worth all the pain and fear and Aurora knew she could take care of him.
* * *
Louanna and the children came to visit her on the ward.
‘Oh, Aurora...’ Louanna said as she held the tiny little boy. ‘He is perfection. Have you thought of a name?’
‘Gabriel,’ Aurora said. ‘God-given strength.’
‘Have you told your family?’
‘Not yet.’ They could wait.
‘What about—?’
‘I just want to get used to being a mother,’ Aurora cut in. ‘I want some time with my baby and to know what I’m doing. I want my confidence back.’
And Gabriel brought extra blessings! A little post-partum haemorrhage on the day Aurora was due to go home meant a trip to the operating theatre and staying in hospital for a few extra days.
Which meant that Christmas was over and Louanna’s husband had gone by the time she brought her baby home.
It was a golden time.
The first two weeks passed by in a blur and she lived on Gabe’s schedule.
He was such a sweet, quiet baby, and even when the husband came home Aurora did not notice as she was holed up in the summerhouse, getting to know her tiny baby.
When snow filled the garden and painted everything white, he went to South Africa for a couple of months.
Louanna was happy.
Aurora could not believe her luck to have found this gorgeous family that was allowing her to provide a home for her baby.
When Gabe—as he had become known—was eight weeks old, she walked little Nadia to school in the slushy snow, pushing the pram as Antonio skipped by its side, and then waving off the little girl.
‘Today,’ she said to Antonio as they walked home, ‘we will make lasagne.’
‘Can I roll the pasta?’
‘You can,’ Aurora said. ‘But you have to roll it thin and not get bored like last time.’
Cooking always helped Aurora to think. And soon Gabe was asleep in his little bassinette and Antonio was helping to mix the dough.
She felt as if a fog was lifting. Not that she had returned to her old self, because along with Gabe a new Aurora had been born.
And on her next day off she would call Nico!
It came to her like a flash, and was followed by another rapid thought.
No, she would call Nico tomorrow. And if he wanted to meet her she would be free the next day to meet him—with Gabe.
She would not be asking Louanna to watch her son. Nico could get used to the idea, just as she had had to.
‘You look happy,’ Louanna commented.
‘I am,’ Aurora said, and then looked up to see her employer’s pinched face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course I am.’ Louanna smiled. ‘My husband just called—he’s coming home a few days early.’
‘Oh, when?’ Aurora’s voice was as strained as Louanna’s smile.
‘Tonight.’
‘Then it’s just as well I’ve made plenty to eat,’ Aurora said.
He came through the door all smiles, and Aurora decided she must have imagined his dark moods, for he was pleasant to everyone.
Perhaps pregnancy had made her tired and more sensitive, Aurora thought as she put little Nadia and Antonio to bed and then came downstairs, to where Louanna was serving up the lasagne that Aurora had prepared.
‘Eat with us,’ he insisted.
‘No, really.’ Aurora smiled. ‘I’m going to take my supper down to the summerhouse and settle Gabe. Have a nice evening.’
She wasn’t avoiding him. The truth was that Aurora wanted to work out what she would say when she spoke to Nico.
‘Nico,’ she practised aloud, ‘there’s something I have not told you...’ Or, ‘Nico, this will come as a surprise...’
She fell asleep, still undecided how to break it to him, and woke to Gabe’s cries at two a.m.
‘Hey...’ she said as she gave him his bottle.
Aurora loved these middle-of-the-night feeds—the contented noises her baby made; the way his fat little hands held hers as she fed him. There was no time more precious to be holding her son as when the world was so peaceful and quiet.
Except tonight the world was not so peaceful and quiet—there was a light on in the main house. Louanna and her husband must be up.
Aurora’s heartburn returned as she lowered little Gabe into his bassinette and he slipped back to sleep.
She should just go to bed, Aurora told herself. It was no business of hers.
But as she listened Aurora changed her mind, and wondered if she should call the police.
Which would have been the sensible choice.
Except Aurora was bolshie and passionate, and she did not know how to look away...
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Rome
THE GLORIOUS SIGHT of the city at night, from the vantage point of his helicopter, did not lift Nico’s spirits and there was no sense of relief to be home.
With wealth, Nico decided, came too much cream.
Here in Rome the chefs had been drilled as to his preference for plain food, but it hadn’t translated so well at the Silibri site. There the chefs had seemed determined to impress, but they had failed. Oh, the food had been spectacular, but for the first time Nico had heartburn.
Or was it more a sense of unease as he disembarked from his helicopter and saw his regular driver waiting for him?
‘I thought you were on leave?’ Nico said.
His driver and his housekeeper were married, and Nico had expected a stand-in driver to greet him.
‘My leave starts tomorrow,’
Nico glanced at the time. ‘It already is tomorrow.’
‘Perhaps, but better a familiar face to greet you than a stranger. How was the trip?’ his driver asked.
‘Fine,’ Nico responded. ‘It went well.’
By all accounts it had been amazing. The new hotel was sumptuou
s, and naturally he had his choice of suite there, so when he visited Silibri there would be no awkward stays with neighbours. He had visited the cemetery and knew his father was finally at peace. The hotel was thriving, with the rich and famous and even royalty reserving their spaces. It was wonderful to see the village come alive again.
Yet there was no Aurora.
And without her, without even the slightest chance of bumping into her, Silibri had felt more than ever like a ghost town.
He wished his driver all the best for his vacation and then let himself into his immaculate house. He left his case in the hall and went straight upstairs.
He stripped and showered. Got into bed. Though tired, he was restless. It was months since he and Aurora had last spoken, yet their last meeting still replayed in his head as if it were yesterday.
Why the hell couldn’t he move on?
Aurora had. As he had wanted her to do for so long.
He needed distraction, so he climbed out of bed to select a book. He was more than aware that he had lost focus of late.
And then he frowned when he saw a book he didn’t recognise on the shelf by his bed.
He laughed as he flicked through it—but then the laugh caught in his throat, because he had never shared his laughter with her.
Not really...
He turned off the light and lay there, thinking of a home that was far away, and the home he now lay in, and the world he had made for himself in Rome.
His driver had been right.
Better a familiar face to greet you than a stranger.
Aurora had always been the familiar face when he went to Silibri. Aurora had been the one he had tried to avoid yet nevertheless had found himself seeking out, and she had always made things better.
But now when he went to Silibri it was as if she had been erased.
Bruno hardly mentioned her, and her mother spoke only about Aurora’s fancy new career that rendered her too busy to come back just yet. ‘Maybe soon...’
And then Nico’s eyes opened in the dark.
Hadn’t he heard those same frustrating words growing up? Known the code of silence when Pino’s daughter had suddenly left school and gone to take care of her aunt in Palermo.
She had returned a few months later, pale and gaunt and with the saddest eyes.
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