believe this. I need time to think.’ He knew that decisions made in the heat of anger were never good ones and he needed them to be good ones.
‘There is nothing to think about.’
Santo cast his mind back to that night, a night he never allowed himself to think about because the good was irrevocably entwined with the really, really bad and it was impossible to unravel the two. ‘How did it happen? I used—’
‘Apparently there are some things even a Ferrara can’t control,’ she said coolly, ‘and this was one of them.’
He looked at her blankly. The whole night had merged for him. Pulling out details was impossible. It had been crazy, wild and—she was right—ill-advised. But what they’d shared hadn’t been the product of rational decision-making. It had been sheer animal lust, the like of which he’d never experienced before or since.
She’d been upset.
He’d put his hand on her shoulder.
She’d turned to him.
And that had been it—
Such a small spark to light such a raging fire.
And then, even before the heat had cooled, she’d had the call telling her that her brother had been killed. That single tragic phone call that had sliced through their loving like the blade of a guillotine. And after, the fallout. The recriminations and the speculation.
The young waiter appeared in the doorway, his eyes on Fia. ‘Is everything OK? I saw Luca awake, which is always nice because I managed to snatch a lovely cuddle, but I heard raised voices.’ He shot Santo a suspicious look, which Santo returned tenfold. The news that everyone appeared to be cuddling his son except him simply fuelled his already fiercely burning temper. An unfamiliar emotion streaked through him—the primal response of a man guarding his territory.
So his child was called Luca.
The fact that he’d learned the name from this man drove him to the edge of control.
What exactly was his relationship with Fia?
‘This is a private conversation. Get out,’ he said thickly and he heard Fia’s soft intake of breath.
‘It’s OK, Ben. Just go.’
Apparently Ben didn’t know what was good for him because he stood stubbornly in the doorway. ‘I’m not leaving until I know you’re all right.’ It was like a spaniel challenging a Rottweiler. He glared at Santo, who would have given him points for courage had he not been way past admiring the qualities of another man. Especially a man who was making puppy eyes at the woman who, only moments earlier, had been clutching his child.
‘I am giving you one more opportunity to leave and then I will remove you myself.’
‘Go, Ben!’ She sounded exasperated. ‘You’re just giving him another reason to throw his weight around.’
Ben gave her one last doubtful look and melted away into the darkness of the night, leaving the two of them alone.
Tension throbbed like a living force. The air was heavy with it. He could taste it on his tongue and feel the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders. And he knew she could feel it too.
His head was a mass of questions.
How had no one guessed? Had no one questioned the identity of the child’s father? He didn’t understand how she could have hidden such a thing.
‘You knew you were pregnant and yet you cut me out of your life.’
‘You were never in my life, Santo. And I was never in yours.’
‘We made a child together.’ His low growl came from somewhere deep inside him and he saw her recoil as if the reminder came as a physical blow.
‘You need to calm down. In just ten minutes you’ve frightened my child, virtually seduced his nanny, bawled me out and been unforgivably rude to someone I care about.’
‘I did not frighten our child.’ That accusation angered him more than any of the others. ‘You did that by creating this situation.’ And he still didn’t understand how she had kept her secret. His usually sharp mind refused to work. ‘This is your grandfather’s idea of revenge? Punishing the Ferraras by hiding the child?’
‘No!’ Her chest rose and fell, her breathing shallow. ‘He adores Luca.’
Santo raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘He adores a child who is half Ferrara? You expect me to believe that age has finally gifted a Baracchi with tolerance?’ He broke off, alerted by something in her eyes, some instinct that went bone-deep. And suddenly it fell into place. Finally he understood the truth and the reality was another blow to his already aching gut. ‘Cristo, he doesn’t know, does he?’ It was the only possible explanation and one that was confirmed by the look in her eyes.
‘Santo—’
‘Answer me.’ His voice didn’t sound like his own and he saw her take a step backwards. ‘You will tell me the truth. He doesn’t know, does he? You haven’t told him.’
‘How could I tell him?’ Underneath the desperation was a profound weariness, as if this issue were a heavy weight she’d been carrying for too long. ‘He hates everything about your family, and he hates you more than any man on the planet. Not just because your surname is Ferrara, but because—’ She didn’t finish the sentence and he let it hang there because to get involved in a discussion about her brother’s death would mean being sidetracked, and he refused to be sidetracked.
They had a child.
A child that was half Ferrara, half Baracchi. An unimaginable bloodline.
A child born out of one night that had ended in tragedy.
And the old man didn’t know.
He wondered how her grandfather could not have seen what he himself had seen instantly.
White-faced, she stared at him. Santo was so shell-shocked by the enormity of the secret she’d been carrying, he was reeling from it. How had she done it? She must have lain there every morning wondering whether today would be the day she’d be found out. Whether today would be the day a Ferrara would come and claim their own.
‘Madre de Dio, I cannot believe this. When the child is old enough to ask about his father, what did you intend to tell him? On second thought, don’t answer that,’ he said thickly, ‘I am not ready to hear the answer.’ He knew as well as anyone that life was no fairy story, but belief in the sanctity of family ran strong in his veins. Family was the raft that kept you afloat in stormy seas, the anchor that stopped you from drifting, the wind in the sail that propelled you forward. He was the product of his parents’ happy marriage and both his brother and sister had found love and created their own families. He’d assumed that the same would happen to him. Not once had he considered that he would have to fight for the right to be a father to his own child. Nor had he dreamt of his child being raised in a family like the Baracchis. He wouldn’t have wished it on anyone. It was a nightmare almost too painful to contemplate.
Her breathing was shallow. ‘Please,
