a good idea. I need some time to collect my thoughts first. Come to your grandpa.” He reached for the baby who refused to be comforted. “Let’s go warm a bottle, shall we?”
After finding her purse, Julie followed her father downstairs. Relieved to discover her mother was either in the kitchen or the bathroom, she slipped out the front door to the driveway.
At four in the afternoon the temperature had climbed into the nineties. Coupled with August’s moderate humidity, the interior of her car was hot to the touch. She started up the air-conditioning and headed for the luxury hotel near Sonoma Plaza.
En route she practiced what she was going to say to Pietra’s brother if she could find him. Nothing sounded right. By the time she’d reached her destination and had approached the front desk, she was a mass of nerves.
“I’m here to see Mr. Massimo Di Rocche. Would you ring his room, please?”
“Certainly. Your name?”
“Julie Marchant.”
After a full minute the clerk gave her the disappointing news that he hadn’t picked up. “Do you want to leave a message?”
“Yes. Ask him to call me on my cell phone the second he’s able.” She left her number before going into the bar for a soda. If she didn’t hear from him within twenty minutes, then she’d have to go back to the town house.
Not five minutes passed before her phone rang. It sent her into a panic. For Nicky’s sake, whatever she said to Pietra’s brother, she had to be careful. Diplomatic.
She clicked on. “H-hello?”
“Julie Marchant?”
The way he said her name sounded foreign, and for want of a better word, intimate. It sent a shockwave through her body.
“Yes. Thank you for calling me back.”
“I didn’t realize you’d phoned until I’d finished my shower.” After a silence, he said, “We share a loss no one else could possibly understand, do we not?”
The tangible sorrow in his deep voice echoed her own agony. It opened the floodgates. “Yes.” A sob escaped her throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. Since hearing the news, I’ve hardly been in control myself. Where are you exactly?”
Exactly? She swallowed hard. “In the bar of your hotel.”
“Come up to my suite where we can talk in private.” He gave her the number.
“Thank you. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She wiped the moisture off her face with a napkin. One last sip of cola for sustenance and she left the bar. The elevator let her off on his floor. Halfway down the hall she saw a man in a white polo shirt and tan khakis turn in her direction.
The clothes could have belonged to a thousand men, but the unconscious elegance of his stance, the way the material molded his broad shoulders and tall, lean body caused her mouth to go dry.
Even from the distance separating them, she could see he’d come from a scorching environment. His jet-black hair, combined with olive skin bronzed by the sun, took her breath.
Brows of the same black intensity framed his aquiline features. The proud nose and aggressive jaw sat well on such an unquestionably masculine face.
Her fascinated gaze fell helplessly to the lines of his wide, sensual mouth. Nicky’s mouth! The baby’s big size was no longer a mystery. He’d inherited his uncle’s build, too. Every boy should be so lucky.
“What conclusions have you drawn?” came the silky question.
HEAT stole into Julie’s cheeks to be caught staring like that. Of medium height, she had to tilt her head a ways. Their gazes collided. Midnight-black eyes stared back at her. Between their sadness and the shadows beneath them, she could see his pain.
“Forgive me. I was so busy picking out the similarities between you and Nicky, I didn’t realize I was being rude.”
“I confess to doing the same thing. Pietra sent me pictures of the baby. You two share the same golden hair. It’s much lighter than your brother’s.”
“Nicky’s will probably grow darker in time.”
“Yours is like the sunlight finding a hole in the darkest canopy of the jungle floor.”
She took an extra breath. “Is that a good thing?”
“Si, signorina. A very good thing when you’re slowly being devoured by a world of crawling green.”
The image made her shiver.
“Come in.”
“Thank you.” As she walked past him, her elbow brushed against his arm, sending a different kind of sensation through her body. Her emotions, like her grief, were out of control.
They entered a lounge with some love seats and a table. She was too anxious to sit.
“Mr. Di Rocche—”
“Surely you can call me Massimo. Nicky’s existence makes us relatives of a sort.”
“Massimo, then—” she said a little breathlessly, smoothing her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “I imagine you’re wondering why I came here instead of waiting to meet you this evening.”
A speculative look crossed his striking features, made even more prominent by suffering and fatigue. “Since you couldn’t have known where I was unless your father told you, I’m assuming he revealed the contents of the will. If you’re here on behalf of your family, begging me not to take Nicky away, I’m afraid it’s out of my hands.”
“I realize that.”
Shawn and Pietra had made their wishes known through legal means. It appeared Massimo intended to honor them to the letter. Already she could see he wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate interference when it came to his life, be it professional or personal.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “When I agreed to their wishes, I could never have contemplated this tragedy happening.”
“No one could.” Her voice shook.
“Tonight I’ll make it clear to your family that I plan to bring Nicky back to the States for periodic visits. And naturally you’re all welcome to visit him whenever you can.”
She wanted to ask him where would that be exactly. She’d love to inquire if he expected her family to cut through a sea of vines with a machete in order to reach him and Nicky. But she didn’t dare provoke him.
“That means a lot.” Unfortunately her mother’s worst fear would come to fruition when she heard the provisions of
