bambino.’
Elene couldn’t lie. ‘It’s all right. Aimee’s not sick. I know someone who works there who will help me out.’ He’d have no choice. ‘But if you can heat the milk I’d be very grateful.’ Thank goodness Italian was her second language. How she’d manage otherwise didn’t bear thinking about.
‘My sister has a baby too.’
Aimee’s not really mine. Make that not only mine. Because Aimee was hers in a complex kind of way. There was paperwork to prove it. Elene managed to keep the words behind closed lips. Having to explain was too complicated and time-consuming—and irrelevant. ‘Aimee’s had to put up with a lot of flying. She’s been a champ.’
Finally settling into a taxi, she clicked the seatbelt into place, relieved there was a child’s seat since she hadn’t brought one with them, being too bulky and heavy with their other luggage. ‘Don’t go to sleep now, baby girl. Drink your milk instead. We’re nearly there.’ With every turn the taxi took her heart rate quickened. Should’ve stayed at home. Too late now. Or was it? Mattia had no idea she was in Italy, let alone about to knock on his door and burst his over-inflated bubble. She could still run away and forget all about keeping her promise to her best friend.
Aimee’s little chest fell on a sigh as she scoffed the milk.
Elene’s heart squeezed. ‘Love you, baby girl. We’re doing the right thing coming here.’ What if Mattia—?
Don’t go there. Take this one step at a time. This was what Danielle wanted, and what she’d promised to do for her. But she didn’t plan on getting her heart broken. She was thinking about Aimee here, not Mattia’s sexiness, which she’d not managed to forget as she should’ve.
So fight hard for Aimee, for both of you.
It could be a costly battle. Her family had money, but Mattia’s was loaded to the point of being obscene. The smart thing would have been to stay in Wellington and pretend she hadn’t made the promise of her lifetime. The smart thing, also amoral. Being abandoned by her biological father before she’d been born had skewed her thinking until she’d finally met him as a teenager. That was when she’d totally accepted as her father the man who’d raised her after marrying her mother and knew how lucky she’d been. Everyone needed, was entitled to, the unconditional love of good parents. ‘Everyone, baby girl.’
The taxi stopped outside Sorrento’s hospital all too soon. After settling Aimee into her stroller, Elene moved towards the lift that would take them up to Mattia’s office, tugging their bag behind her. Despite the spring heat, her skin lifted in cold bumps. The time had come. Her hand tightened around the stroller handle. ‘Please say I’m doing the right thing. It’s what your mother wanted but I can’t deny the fear of losing you to him blocking my throat.’ She had to trust all the kind things Danielle said about him.
The lift must have been boosted by a rocket launcher. Ping, floor three. Then the doors slid open so fast she was spilling out into a corridor bustling with medical staff, orderlies pushing beds and patients on crutches. Sucking in her stomach, lifting her chin, she stepped into the office with the sign declaring ‘Dottore Mattia Ricco’ and up to the woman behind the desk and said, ‘My name is Elene Lowe. I am here to see Dr Ricco.’
‘You don’t have an appointment,’ responded the woman in a don’t-fool-with-me voice.
‘I don’t, but I can wait until he is finished for the day.’ Any time soon, surely? The clock outside the door had read eighteen-oh-five.
‘The doctor doesn’t see people without an appointment. He’s a very busy man.’
‘Please tell him I am here and let him decide if he’ll see me.’ Because if he refused she had his home address on her phone, and right about now she’d do whatever it took to find a bed for Aimee.
The woman glanced at the closed door to the side. ‘I can’t do that.’
Just then Aimee let out a shriek and began pummelling her thighs, pushing her little body against the stroller restraints.
‘I think my baby needs changing.’
‘There are public toilets on this floor.’
Elene’s eyes suddenly stung. It was all too much. ‘Please.’
‘Sorry.’
Typical of Mattia to have a heartless lioness guarding his patch. Not that she had any right to complain, but there was no accounting for exhaustion and worry. ‘I am going in to see the doctor now, and taking my child with me.’
The woman rose. ‘You can’t. He’s unavailable right this moment.’
Of course. He’d be with a patient. She lifted Aimee out of the stroller. ‘Then I’ll sit here and wait. I am not going anywhere until I’ve talked to Mattia.’ She wasn’t risking him leaving while she was in a bathroom.
‘I’ll call Security.’
‘That won’t be necessary, Sonia,’ came an annoyed command from behind Elene. ‘I will see to this lady. You can go home. It is late for you to be here.’
‘But—’
‘No buts, Sonia. Please do as I say.’ Mattia might be talking to his secretary but his gaze was fixed on Elene when she twisted around to face him. Those almost black eyes were wide with surprise. ‘Elene.’
So he hadn’t recognised her from behind. Nor her voice. Or he had and hoped he was wrong. ‘Mattia,’ she acknowledged. Let the show begin. Better yet, could it wait twenty-four hours? She might be more prepared.
‘This is an unexpected pleasure.’
‘I’m sure pleasure is the last thing you’re feeling.’ They had rarely got on well enough to have more than a professional relationship, and when he’d dumped her best friend in preparation to swan out of Wellington onto his next adventure they’d drawn battle lines.
‘Still blunt, I see.’
‘Only way to go,’ she snapped, before remembering she was supposed to get on with him or there’d be no hope for her or Aimee. ‘Sorry. It’s been a long and arduous couple of days and my tongue’s getting the better of me.’
His gaze alighted on her mouth, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly. She was hallucinating. Could he be remembering that awkward moment back in Wellington? But why would he? It wasn’t as though he’d have been celibate in the intervening year after leaving Danielle. He asked, ‘You’ve come all this way to see me?’
The disbelief was so tangible she could almost see it hanging in the air between them. She could certainly feel it. Not that she blamed him. Turn the situation around and she’d be reacting exactly the same. ‘Can we talk in private?’ Her arm tightened involuntarily around Aimee. Here we go. The stress expanded, spread through her like wildfire in a pine tree plantation.
The dark gaze that had been focused on her lowered to her precious bundle, and Mattia rocked on his feet. His wide mouth flattened, and all that arrogance she remembered rose to the fore.
‘We should take this somewhere else,’ she managed through a dry mouth.
Mattia
