be able to support us financially and not rely on my grandfather.’
‘That is the most convoluted justification for a nanny I’ve ever heard.’
‘You are very disparaging about nannies, but that is because you have aunts and cousins who all help each other with childcare. I don’t have that and so I found a warm, loving girl I trust. She’s been with us since Luca was born, and so has Ben because I wanted him to have a good male role model—’ She bit her lower lip. ‘I’m aware that my grandfather isn’t soft or tactile. He never hugs and I wanted Luca to be hugged. I wanted him surrounded by people who felt like I did. People who would give him affection. I didn’t have a family like yours, but I tried to create one for him.’
She’d created a family?
Santo thought about what he’d seen. About the amount of affection he’d witnessed in that short time with his son. ‘If that is true, then that is definitely a point in your favour, but it is no longer necessary. Luca doesn’t need a stand-in family. He can have the real thing.’
‘You’re not thinking straight.’ Her voice was remarkably strong. ‘My father married my mother because he made her pregnant. I was first-hand witness to the fact that approach doesn’t work. And now you are suggesting we do the same thing?’
‘Not the same thing.’ He heard the chill in his own voice. ‘Our marriage will be nothing like your parents’, I can assure you of that. They led separate lives and their children—you—were the casualties of their selfish, hubristic existence, not to mention the vicious Baracchi temper. Our marriage will not be like that.’
She rubbed her fingers over her brow and gave him a desperate look. ‘You are angry and I don’t blame you for that, but please, please think of Luca.’
‘I have thought of nothing but Luca since I walked into your kitchen last night.’
‘How can he possibly benefit from you and I being together? You are being hasty—’
‘Hasty?’ Just thinking about how much of his son’s life he’d missed made him want to punch his fist through something. ‘As far as I’m concerned we are long past “hasty”. Luca has an aunt and an uncle. Cousins to play with. He has a whole family he knows nothing about.’ Seeing the wistfulness in her eyes, he drove his point home. ‘As a Ferrara he will never feel lonely or unloved. He will never have to hide in an abandoned boathouse because his family is in crisis.’
‘You bastard—’ She whispered the words, her eyes two deep pools of pain, but Santo was impervious to any emotion but anger.
‘You hid my child from me. You robbed him of the right to a warm, loving family and you robbed me of something that can never be returned. Do I intend to dictate terms from now on? Yes, I do. And if that makes me a bastard I’ll happily live with that title. Think about it.’ He strode towards the door. ‘And while you’re thinking, I have work to do.’
‘You’re going to work?’
‘Of course. I have a company to run.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I … I need some time to decide what is best for Luca.’
Holding on to his temper, Santo yanked open the door. ‘Having a father and joining the Ferrara family is what is best for Luca and even twisted Baracchi thinking will struggle to distort that fact. You have until tonight to see sense. And I suggest you tell your grandfather the truth, or I’ll do it for you.’
THERE was nothing quite so cruel as the distortion of a dream.
How many times had she stared across the bay and envied the family life of the close-knit Ferraras? How many times had she wished she were part of that? It was no coincidence that in times of trauma she’d chosen to hide in their boathouse, as if simply by being there she might soak up some residual warmth.
She’d crawled through the open window, grazing her leg on the rough wood of the window frame, covering herself in dust as she’d landed. Fia hadn’t cared about any of that.
With the sea lapping at the door that conveniently faced away from the bay, she had no fear that someone would find her. Who would look for her here, in the enemy camp? So sure had she been of the seclusion of her hiding place that when she’d seen Santo standing on the rocks, watching her, she’d known a moment of pure terror. Too afraid even to breathe, she’d waited for him to blow her cover. Her family hated his. Even a mention of the Ferrara name was enough to sour the atmosphere in her house for days. The only thing the Baracchi family knew how to nurture was a grudge.
And so she’d waited for Santo Ferrara to blow her cover.
Not only had he not done that, but he’d left her alone, as if understanding her need for space.
To her eight-year-old eyes, he’d turned from a boy she’d envied into something close to a god. The boathouse became her regular hiding place and from there she could observe the Ferraras and see the differences between their family and her own. Suspicion turned to wistful envy. She’d envied the family picnics, their games on the beach. It was from them she’d learned that a quarrel could be affectionate, that a father could embrace a child, that a sister and brother could be close, that a family could be a unit.
Some of the girls at school had joked about discovering that they were secretly a princess. Fia’s childhood dream was to wake up one day and discover that she was secretly a Ferrara; that there had been some mix-up at the hospital and somehow she’d ended up in the wrong family. That one day they’d claim her.
Be careful what you wish for.
Her head throbbing from lack of sleep, her stomach churning from an encounter she’d found hideously stressful, Fia dragged her mind back to the present and tried to work out what to do next. She had until tonight to find a way to tell her grandfather that the man he hated above all other was Luca’s father.
Once she’d negotiated that hurdle she’d move on to the next one. How to respond to Santo’s ‘proposal’ of marriage.
The suggestion was utterly ridiculous.
What sane woman would agree to marry a man who felt the way Santo felt about her?
On the other hand she could hardly criticise him for fighting for his child when her whole life had been spent wishing that her parents had done that for her. How could she argue with his claim that her son deserved to be a Ferrara when she’d modelled her little family on them?
If she agreed to his terms then Luca would grow up a Ferrara. He’d have the life she’d craved as a child. He would be cocooned in a warm and loving family, wrapped up in love.
And for that privilege she would have to pay a very high price.
She would have to join the family too, only unlike her son she would never truly be part of it. She would be tolerated, rather than welcomed. She’d be on the outside.
And she’d spend every day of her life with a man who didn’t love her. Who was furious with the decision she’d made.
How
