the little boy had to deal with. The first being where average normality was stamped into everything, from the neat suburban London street they lived in, with its rows of neat middle-class houses, to the neat, normal kind of families that resided in each. While several thousand miles away, in a different country and most certainly in a different world, was the other kind of life. One that was about as far away from normal and average as life could get for most people, never mind a confused little boy. For instead of suburban Naples, Vito lived out in the country. His home was a palace compared to this house, his standard of living steeped in the kind of luxury that would fill most ordinary people with awe.
When Santo visited Naples, his papà took time off from his busy job as head of the internationally renowned Giordani Investments to give his son his full attention. And if it wasn’t his papà, his beloved grandmother was more than ready to pour the same amount of love and attention upon him.
Catherine had no other family. And she worked full time all the time, whether Santo was away or not. He had to accept that he was collected from school by a child-minder and taken home with her to wait until Catherine could collect him.
But all of that—or none of that—was what the child found upsetting. Santo was not really old enough yet to understand just what it was that was disturbing him so much. It had taken several skirmishes and a lot of patience for Catherine to begin to read between the lines of his angry outbursts.
Then, tonight, the final truth had come out, in the shape of a name. A name that had sent icy chills sweeping down her spine when she’d heard it falling from her own child’s lips. And not just the name but the way Santo had said it—with pain and anguish.
She knew those emotions, had first-hand experience of what they could do to your belief in yourself, in your sense of self-worth. She also knew that if what Santo had told her was the truth then she didn’t blame him for refusing to have anything to do with his Italian family. For hadn’t she responded in the same way once herself?
‘Right. Talk,’ a grim voice commanded.
Catherine blinked, her mind taking a moment to realise what was going on. ‘Where’s Luisa?’ she demanded, beginning to stiffen up all over again at the sound of Vito’s voice.
‘I do not recall saying I was going to bring my mother to the phone,’ he responded coolly. ‘Santo is my son, I will remind you. If you are having problems with my son, then you will discuss those problems with me.’
‘He is our son,’ Catherine corrected—while busily trying to reassess a situation that had promised to be complicated and touchy enough discussing it with Luisa. The very idea of having to say what she did have to say to Vito, of all people, was probably going to be impossible.
‘So at last you acknowledge that.’
The barb hit right on its chosen mark and Catherine’s lips snapped together in an effort to stop herself from responding to it.
It was no use. The words slipped out of their own volition. ‘Try for sarcasm, Vito,’ she drawled deridingly. ‘It really helps the situation more than I can say.’
A sound caught her attention. Not a sigh, exactly, more a controlled release of air from his lungs, and then she heard the subtle creak of leather that was so familiar to her that she knew instantly which room he was now in.
His father’s old study—now Vito’s study, since Lucio Giordani had passed away eighteen months after Santo had been born.
And suddenly she was seeing that room as clearly as she had seen Vito himself only minutes before. Seeing its size and its shape and its old-fashioned elegance. The neutral-coloured walls, the richly polished floor, the carefully selected pieces of fine Renaissance furniture—including the desk Vito was sitting behind.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes,’ she replied, having to blink her mind back into focus again.
‘Then will you please tell me what problems Santino has before I lose my patience?’
This time she managed to control the urge to retaliate to his frankly provoking tone. ‘He’s been having problems at school.’ She decided that was as good a place to start as any. ‘It began weeks ago, just after his last visit with you over there.’
‘Which in your eyes makes it my fault, I presume?’
‘I didn’t say that,’ she denied, though she knew she was thinking it. ‘I was merely attempting to fill you in with what has been happening.’
‘Then I apologise,’ he said.
Liar, she thought, heaving in a deep breath in an attempt to iron out any hint of accusation from her tone—though that wasn’t easy, given the circumstances. ‘He’s been disruptive in class,’ she made herself go on. ‘Angry all the time, and insolent.’ She didn’t add that Santo had been the same with her because that wasn’t important and would only confuse the issue. ‘After one such skirmish his teacher threatened to bring his parents in to school to speak to them about his behaviour. He responded by informing the teacher that his father lived in Italy and wouldn’t come, because he was rich and too important to bother with a nuisance like him.’
Catherine heard Vito’s indrawn gasp in response, and knew he had understood the import of what she was trying to tell him here. ‘Why would he say something like that, Vito?’ she questioned curtly. ‘Unless he has been led to believe it is true? He’s too young to have come up with a mouthful like that all on his own, so someone has to have said it to him first for him to repeat it.’
‘And you think it was me?’ he exclaimed, making Catherine sigh in annoyance.
‘I don’t know who it was!’ she snapped. ‘Because he isn’t telling!’ But I can damn well guess, she tagged on silently. ‘Now, to cut a long story short,’ she concluded, ‘he is refusing to go to Naples with Luisa tomorrow. He tells me that you don’t really want him there, so why should he bother with you?’
‘So you called here tonight to tell my mother not to come and collect him,’ he assumed from all of that. ‘Great way to deal with the problem, Catherine,’ he gritted. ‘After all, Santo is only saying exactly what you have been wishing he would say for years now, so you can get me right out of your life!’
‘You are out of my life,’ she responded. ‘Our divorce becomes final at the end of this month.’
‘A divorce you instigated,’ he pointed out. ‘Have you considered whether it is that little event that is causing Santo’s problems?’ he suggested. ‘Or maybe there is more to it than that,’ he then added tightly, ‘and I need to look no further than the other end of this telephone line to discover the one who has been feeding my son lies about me!’
‘Are you suggesting that I have been telling him that you think he’s a nuisance?’ she gasped, so affronted by the implication that she shot back to her feet. ‘If so, think again, Vito,’ she sliced at him furiously. ‘Because it isn’t me who is planning to remarry as soon as I’m free of you! And it isn’t me who is about to undermine our son’s position in my life by sticking him with the archetypal step-mamma from hell!’
Oh, she hadn’t meant to say that! Catherine cursed her own unruly tongue as once again the silence came thundering down all around her.
Yet, even having
