one to blame but himself.
Scarlett had faced it all alone, and how in the world he was going to make it up to her, or even to Matthew, was anyone’s guess.
But he wanted to.
Oh, dear God, he wanted to—but there were several hurdles in the way.
The first one was to find out if Matthew was healthy. He certainly looked it; his limbs were strong and rounded with the plumpness of early childhood, his hair was glossy black, and his eyes clear and bright.
But Marco’s had been too, until their world had been turned upside down…
CHAPTER TEN
SCARLETT tucked her son’s night nappy out of sight under the elastic waist of his pyjamas and led him by the hand back out to the small living-room.
Alessandro was standing with his back to them, a photograph in his hands, and as he heard their footsteps he placed it back on the side table and faced them.
‘Matthew would like to say goodnight,’ Scarlett said, with a look he couldn’t quite decipher.
He looked down at the child, the ache in his chest so unbearable he felt like he was going to cry, like he had done so uncontrollably at Marco’s funeral.
‘Can I call you Daddy?’ Matthew asked, blinking up at him.
‘Of course,’ Alessandro said, squatting before him. ‘But in Italy where I come from children call their father Papa. Can you say that?’
‘Papa,’ Matthew said with a dimpled grin. ‘Is that right?’
Alessandro reached out and touched his child for the first time. He laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder, but then, wanting more skin-on-skin contact, he placed his hand on the curve of his tiny cheek. ‘That is perfect, my son,’ he said, his voice breaking slightly over the words.
‘Will you tuck me into bed and read me a story?’ the little boy asked—and then, glancing briefly at his mother as if to ask her permission, added as he turned back, ‘Mummy won’t mind. She’s always tired after work and she even skips a few pages. She thinks I don’t notice, but I do.’
Alessandro smiled even though it hurt. Marco had been the same. He’d only had to hear a story once to have it memorised word for word. ‘Sure, I would like to do that, very much,’ he said. ‘That is, if your mother does not mind.’
Scarlett met his gaze. ‘No,’ she said, trying but not quite managing to smile. ‘I don’t mind at all.’
A few minutes later Alessandro read a story about a wombat and an echidna, and how they managed to have a workable friendship in spite of their many differences.
He looked down after he had finished the second-last page, and saw the fan-like lashes of his son’s eyes flutter a couple of times then close over his eyes, a soft sigh of total relaxation deflating his tiny chest, covered by a thin cotton sheet. In his hand was a tiny matchbox car, a black Maserati, the sight of which had affected Alessandro almost more than anything else so far.
He looked at that tiny chest moving up and down, and wondered if Scarlett had any idea of what could be lurking inside there, waiting like a time bomb to leap out in the future and cast a dark shadow over all of their lives.
When he came back out Scarlett was sitting with a magazine in her hands, her reading glasses perched on her nose, giving her that studious, intellectual look he had always found so incredibly sexy.
She looked up and removed her glasses. ‘Is he asleep?’
‘Yes,’ he said, taking the sofa-chair opposite, a particularly uncomfortable one, he noticed. A spring of some sort was protruding into his left buttock, and he had to move a few times to avoid its insistent prong.
A silence threatened to halt all communication, but Alessandro had things to say and didn’t want to let any more time pass. ‘Is he well?’ he asked somewhat abruptly.
She blinked a couple of times. ‘Yes…mostly.’
He found himself leaning forward on the sofa, which activated the prodding spring once more. It made him realise how hard she had struggled to provide for their son. The irony of it was particularly heart-wrenching—she decorated penthouses worth millions, and yet she lived in a tiny cramped flat with furniture that looked like it had come out of a charity shop.
He cleared his throat, as if by doing so he could clear away his guilt, but it was pointless. It rose like a debris-ridden tide inside him, making his voice sound husky. ‘What do you mean by “mostly”?’ he asked.
‘Alessandro, he’s three years old.’ Her tone was matter-of-fact. ‘He’s had numerous colds and stomach bugs. He’s a little kid—they get sick all the time.’
‘How sick?’
She frowned at the intensity of his gaze. ‘Not enough to be hospitalised, although he came close once.’
He leaned forward even further. ‘What happened on that occasion?’
Scarlett found his penetrating stare almost too much to cope with; she had to really fight to hold his gaze. ‘He had a serious chest infection,’ she said. ‘He became wheezy, and it took a while for the antibiotics to kick in. The first lot the doctor prescribed gave Matthew an allergic reaction.’
‘But he was not hospitalised?’
‘No. I took a few days off work and treated him at home with an alternative antibiotic. He was fine in a week or so. It was a bad winter. Everyone went down with the same bug.’
‘Is he particularly susceptible to chest infections?’
She chewed her lip as she thought about the other mothers she knew at crèche and what she knew of their children. ‘No,’ she answered at last. ‘No more than the average child. Why are you asking such questions?’
He gave a little shrug, his expression giving nothing away. ‘I have missed out on three years of his life. I am just trying to fill in the gaps.’
Her grey-blue gaze hardened as it met his. ‘You could have been there from the first moment, but you chose to disbelieve me. I take it the doctor you saw confirmed my version of events?’
He let out a sigh that snagged at his throat like a mouthful of barbed wire. ‘Yes. It has now been confirmed. It is rare, but it does occasionally happen. I have had a spontaneous rejoin of my vas deferens.’
‘Do you need a DNA test to confirm Matthew as your son and not someone else’s?’
Alessandro was ashamed to admit he had thought of it—but as soon as he had seen that child he had known he was his. A DNA test would only confirm what he already knew—Matthew was his son, the living breathing image of himself and his younger brother Marco, with all its harrowing burdens and consequences.
‘No,’ he said, not meeting her gaze. ‘That will not be necessary. I have all the information I need.’ For now, he added silently. A DNA test would have to be performed at some stage, but not the one she was thinking of.
Scarlett
