I won’t be bullied, not by you or your father. I have just lost my only sister—”
“And I, a brother. That should not make us enemies.”
“It seems not to make us friends, either, all your talk on the phone about my being family notwithstanding.”
“There is family, and then there is family, Caroline. You would be making a mistake to interpret my words as being anything more than an attempt to offer you comfort and sympathy at a time when you need both. My loyalty, first, last and always, lies primarily with my blood relatives.”
Goaded beyond caution, she shot back, “So does mine. Whether or not you like it, the twins are related as closely by blood to me as they are to you Raineros, and I promise you, I’m not about to take a back seat on your say-so. Far from it, Paolo. I intend to take a very active role in my niece’s and nephew’s future.”
His jaw tightened ominously. Fixing her in a glance so lethal that she shivered, he said softly, “Then I was mistaken. We are indeed fated to be enemies—and you should be aware that I make a formidable foe, my dear. Ask anyone who’s ever crossed me, and they’ll tell you I take no prisoners.”
Chapter Three
IN CONTRAST to the bright day outside, the Rainero family crypt was dim, and terribly, terribly cold. The kind of cold that seeped into a person’s bones. A dead cold. Even if the sun had been able to penetrate the thick stone of the outer walls, its heat would have been rendered ineffectual. Not even raging fire could touch the vault’s smooth, thick marble floor and interior walls. They were impervious.
For Callie, this final part of the funeral proceedings was the most difficult to bear. The church in Rome had been filled with people, with human warmth and emotion. The swell of the organ, the scent of incense, the flowers, the ritual of prayer and hymns—they’d spoken of hope, of eternity. But here, on Isola di Gemma, with only the immediate family and a priest present, the finality of death hit home with a vengeance.
The small gathering of mourners formed a semicircle. Beside her, somber in a black suit and tie, Paolo stood with his head bent and his hands clasped at his waist.
Next to him, his mother wept silently, the tears running unchecked down her face. Her hands cupped the shoulders of the grandchildren in front of her, keeping them close, letting them know they were not alone.
Salvatore Rainero completed the group, his face unreadable, but Callie knew, if it had been left to him, she would not have been included in this final ceremony. Ever since her arrival at the Raineros’s Rome apartment, he had remained civil, but distant.
Nor had he been the only one. The children had greeted her with faces shuttered with pain and eyes downcast.
“Hello,” she’d murmured, her heart breaking for them. “Do you remember me?”
“You’re our aunt from America,” Gina replied politely, “and Mommy’s sister.”
“That’s right. She brought you to visit me when you were three, and then again when you turned five.” She knelt down and drew them into a hug, “Oh, my darlings, I’m so dreadfully sorry about what’s happened. I never thought that the next time we were together…”
Her voice broke and she fought to hold back the tears. “You still have your nonna and nonno, and your Uncle Paolo, but I want you to know that you have me, too, and I love you very much.”
They stood stiff as boards, tolerating her embrace because they were too wellmannered to push her away. But she felt their indifference anyway, and it hurt. It hurt badly.
In marked contrast, their grandmother had held out her arms and welcomed Callie with soft murmurs of sympathy. Lidia’s kindness, when she had her own burden of grief to bear, had filled Callie with guilt.
Small wonder Paolo was so protective of his mother. She was a woman who gave first to others, and thought of herself last. That she would shortly face losing her grandchildren to a virtual stranger would be a devastating blow.
Not that Callie had any intention of denying either grandparent access to the twins, nor Paolo, either, come to that. Her reasons for claiming the children weren’t based on malice or vengeance. They had to do with promises made over eight years before, when the children were newborn. But the Raineros would soon discover what Callie had realized long ago: that even with the best intentions, maintaining close ties with someone who lived half a world away was difficult at best.
Of course, in her case, there’d been more to it than a matter of miles. At nineteen, the only way she’d been able to cope with her situation had been to put geographical distance between herself and her children.
When Vanessa and Ermanno had first suggested adopting the twins, it had seemed the best solution. Best for the children, at least, because what had Callie to offer them but a heart full of love and not much else?
Her sister and brother-in-law, on the other hand, could give them the kind of life every child deserved: a stable, comfortable home, the best education money could buy, and most important, two parents. Wasn’t having both a mother and a father every child’s birthright?
At fifteen weeks pregnant, and beside herself with worry and grief, Callie had thought so. But as time passed, she had grown increasingly less sure. They were her babies. She had conceived them and carried them in her womb almost to term.
With the sweat pouring down her face and no loving husband at her side to cheer her on, she gave birth to them. Heard their first tremulous cries. And when they were placed in her arms, they’d filled the huge empty hole in her heart left by the man who would never know he’d sired the two most beautiful, perfect children in the world.
Give them up? Not as long as she had breath in her body! But in the end, and even though it had nearly killed her, she’d made the sacrifice. For their sakes. Because they deserved better than what she could give them. Because she was only just nineteen and hadn’t the wherewithal to support one child, let alone two. Because in allowing Vanessa and Ermanno to adopt them, they’d be with family and she’d know they’d always be cherished and loved. Because, because, because…
Who could have foreseen how tragedy would intervene and give her a second chance to take her rightful place in her children’s lives? And it was her right, wasn’t it? She was their birth mother.
Her gaze slid again to where they leaned against their grandmother, their little faces pinched with cold. Gina had cried herself to sleep last night and rebuffed Callie’s attempts to comfort her. She’d wanted her nonna. Natural enough, Callie had reasoned, but that didn’t soften the blow of rejection.
Clemente’s sadness was more contained. He said little, but the loss showed in his eyes—a mute uncertainty where, two weeks before, there had surely been absolute faith in a parent’s indestructibility. In his child’s world, the elderly might sometimes die, but mothers and fathers never did.
A sudden sob welled up in Callie’s throat. So much loss and sorrow for all of them, but especially the children. How could she justify tearing them away from everyone dear? How could she expect them to uproot themselves from the familiar, and settle in a foreign place, with a woman they barely knew?
And yet, how could she walk away from them again, when Vanessa had told her that, in their wills, she and Ermanno had named Callie the twins’ sole guardian. Ignore her dead sister’s
