mouth compressed into a thin line of distaste. He sat back in his antique studded leather chair and viewed Luc through narrowed eyes, eyes that were weighing options for dealing with this crisis. ‘Surely, in hindsight, you realise she was an unsuitable wife for you,’ he stated unequivocally.
‘Don’t go there, Dad,’ Luc warned, hard ruthless steel in his own eyes. ‘You’ve lost one son. You’re very close to losing another.’
‘I did what I thought was best for you, Luciano,’ he said, attempting a tone of appeasement. ‘You were blindly infatuated—’
‘I’m here to give you one chance—’ Luc held up his index finger for pointed emphasis ‘—one chance to answer Skye’s accusation that you paid her off with a thousand dollars to have an abortion.’
‘That’s a lie!’ He exploded up from his chair, hurling his hands out in furious counter-challenge. ‘You see what a scheming little bitch she is, trying to turn you against me? I paid out one hundred thousand dollars, with more to come when it was needed!’
‘Then why doesn’t she have any money?’ Luc bored in. ‘Why is she living in borderline poverty?’
‘She must be hiding it.’
‘No, she’s not. Trust me on this. A thorough investigation has been done. There is…no money! In fact, she has no support whatsoever. Her stepfather did a flit while she was still pregnant. Her mother died of cancer when the baby was only eighteen months old. She was left with nothing but old furniture and she has survived—with my son—by building up a modest massage business.’
‘Massage,’ his father jeered, his eyes flashing a filthy interpretation of that profession.
Luc’s hands clenched. He barely held back the urge to smash his father’s face in. ‘Remedial massage,’ he bit out. ‘A natural offshoot from the physiotherapy course she was doing at university when I knew her—a course she didn’t—couldn’t—complete with neither the money nor support needed to go the distance. So the evidence—the evidence, Dad!—is all against your having paid her off with anything more than the thousand dollars Skye claims.’
His father bristled with offended dignity. ‘You doubt my word?’
‘I have every reason to doubt your word where Skye Sumner is concerned,’ Luc fired at him point-blank, not giving a millimetre.
His father’s chin lifted aggressively. ‘I can prove the money was given. And more to come.’
‘Then start proving it!’
‘The papers are at my solicitor’s office.’
‘Call your solicitor. Get him to bring the papers here. Show them to me…before you have the chance to cook up more lies behind my back.’
For several tense moments the air between them was charged with Maurizio Peretti’s fierce pride and Luc’s explosive mistrust—a mistrust that Maurizio finally realised could destroy everything between them. He reached for the telephone and began dialling.
Needing to put a cooling distance between himself and his father, Luc moved over to one of the tall, narrow, lancet windows which gave a limited view of the east garden. Limited views was not only a problem with the old-fashioned architecture of this house. The limited view his father had of Skye Sumner was deeply offensive to him, especially since she’d been innocent of the damning sins manufactured against her. He wasn’t sure he could ever forgive his father for that. If the solicitor couldn’t bring proof of some caring…
‘John, I’m sorry to break in on your evening but this is an emergency. I need the Skye Sumner file and I need it now.’
Silence while the other man spoke.
‘Yes,’ his father replied tersely. ‘I’m at home. Bring it here as soon as you can.’
End of conversation.
Luc didn’t turn around. He had nothing more to say to his father at this point and the tension inside him needed some calming. Seeing Skye in the flesh today, being in touchable distance of her… it wasn’t only his son he wanted. Had he ever stopped wanting her?
It had driven him mad, seeing her with Roberto in the photos, thinking of her giving his brother what he’d believed was all his, only his, the gift of herself in loving abandonment. Somehow he had to persuade her she could trust him with that gift again. Somehow…
‘A trust fund was set up for the child’s support and education,’ his father stated, the leather of his chair creaking as he resumed his seat behind the desk to wait for the solicitor’s arrival.
If that was true, there could not have been an instruction to abort the child. Not from his father. Yet Luc would not disbelieve Skye. So where had the instruction come from? Had one of his father’s underlings decided that cutting corners would be the best result for his boss?
‘All she had to do was apply in writing for funds to become available,’ his father went on tersely, hating being in a defensive position.
‘Then why didn’t she?’ Luc challenged, not bothering to even glance over his shoulder.
No answer to that.
Luc deduced the solicitor had told his father the file had not been re-opened since it had first been set up. It was the only answer that made sense of what he knew about Skye’s life. Certainly she was not aware of any trust fund.
There was a drumming of fingertips on the highly polished desk. Then came the first line of counterattack to the accusation of irredeemable guilt where caring for a grandchild was concerned.
‘I dealt with the stepfather. Everything was worked through him. You said he did a flit before she had the child. If what you say about her circumstances is true, he must have scammed the money and never told her about the trust fund.’
The stepfather…neatly removing all responsibility from himself. But not blame, Luc thought viciously. None of this would have happened without his father’s controlling hand behind it.
‘Then you made a huge mistake of judgement in trusting him, didn’t you?’ he mocked. ‘As well as not caring enough to check up on what was happening to my child.’
‘Luc…’ It was a brusque appeal, looking for some foothold on a meeting ground where he could twist around to regain some credibility.
‘Let’s wait for the file to arrive. That might…’ He half-turned to stare long and hard at the man who had interfered so intolerably with what should have been. ‘… might…’ he bit out warningly, ‘…go some little way to restoring a viable relationship between us.’
‘You’re my son. What was done was done for—’
‘Don’t say for me. You weren’t thinking of me. Nor Skye. Nor our child. You were thinking of what you wanted. When you stop thinking of what you want and start respecting what I want, perhaps we’ll have something to talk about.’
‘I’m giving you what you want. I called John to bring you the proof…’
‘Step One.’
His
