The sooner Belle left Italy the better. But that meant she’d never see Leon again. How would she stand it?
You have to handle it, Belle.
Before they reached the library, she put the picture in her shoulder bag and pulled out her car keys. The minute he turned into the parking space next to her rental, she opened the door and got out, before he could help her. It only took a moment before she was ensconced in her own vehicle and ready to drive off.
As his tall, powerful frame approached, she opened the window. “Thank you for everything, Leon. I’ll never forget your kindness or the photograph.”
“I’ll never forget you,” he said in his deep voice. “Good luck in your future position at TCCPI. Have a safe trip home.”
Home. The word didn’t have the same meaning anymore. “Goodbye.” She started the engine and drove out to the main street. As soon as she reached the pension, she would phone to change her flight plans.
Through the rearview mirror she could see Leon standing there watching her, a bold, dynamic throwback from an earlier time in Italian history.
When she turned the corner and he was no longer in sight, a troubling thought came to her. He’d given her no grief about leaving Italy immediately. Her heart jumped all over the place because he’d made their parting far too easy. In truth, she knew the dark, mysterious son of the count could move heaven and earth if he felt like it.
* * *
Once Belle’s rental car had disappeared, Leon pulled out his cell phone and gave Ruggio instructions to go to the pension and keep a close eye on her. If she went anywhere, he was to follow her.
After making a call to Simona to find out how his little girl was doing, and let his housekeeper know he might not be home until late, he headed for the bank to talk to his father. Leon found him in his suite on a business call. His parent waved him inside.
While Leon waited, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the sideboard and paced the floor with it. Whether his father knew about Belle’s existence or not, what Leon had to tell him was going to come as a shock.
“It’s good to see you,” his father exclaimed after hanging up the phone. “Have you dropped in to tell me you’re willing to consider ending your mourning period and start looking at another woman I have in mind for you?”
“No, Papà.”
By marrying Benedetta, Leon had foiled his father’s plan for him to marry a woman of rank he’d carefully picked out for him. The hurt hadn’t been intentional, but Leon had always cared for Benedetta and refused to honor his father’s wishes in the matter of his marriage. No argument the count raised had made any difference to Leon.
In that regard he wasn’t so different from his widowed parent, who’d married a second time while Leon and Dante had begged him not to. But their pleading fell on deaf ears, and there’d been tension with their father ever since he’d brought Luciana into their home.
“I’m here to discuss something of a very delicate nature.” Leon locked the door to his suite so no one could interrupt them. “Since I know you just passed your annual medical exam without any major problems, I feel you can handle this.”
The count’s dark brows met in a distinct frown. “You’re beginning to make me nervous, Leonardo.”
“Not as nervous as I am.” He stared at his father. “This has to do with Luciana.”
“Do you think she’s hiding something from me since her medical exam?”
Leon heard the worry in his father’s voice, revealing how much he cared about her. “I thought you told me she’s as fine as you are. I’m talking about a secret she might have kept from you before you married her.” Leon never was one to beat about the bush.
His last comment brought his father to his feet. Their gazes clung. “You know?”
The coffee cup almost fell out of Leon’s hand. That one question told him his father had known about Luciana’s baby all these years. He put the cup back on the sideboard. “If we’re talking about a child she had out of wedlock, then yes.”
Sullisto’s gray eyes bordered on charcoal and were dimmed by moisture. “How did you find out?” he asked in a shaken voice.
Leon took a fortifying breath. “Before I answer that question, just tell me one thing. Did she want to give it up, or did she have to? I need to know the absolute truth before I say another word.”
A look of sorrow crossed over his father’s face. “She had to.”
“Was she raped?”
The question hung like a live wire between them.
The older man took a deep breath. “No.”
“Do you know the name of the father?”
A nerve throbbed in his cheek. “Yes. But I wasn’t the father, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t thinking it,” Leon replied with total honesty. “I know you’re an honorable man.”
“Thank you for that.” The count cleared his throat. “To answer your first question, Luciana wanted her little girl more than life itself. A day doesn’t go by that she’s not missing her, wanting to be with her. She doesn’t talk about it all the time, but even after all these years, I see the sadness and witness her tears when she doesn’t know I’m aware.”
Hearing those words brought such relief to him for Belle’s sake, it broke the cords binding Leon’s chest. “How could she have given her up?”
“You have to hear the whole story, figlio mio.”
“I’m listening.”
His father paced the floor. “Luciana’s father had many enemies and believed his wife was murdered. Afraid his daughter was in danger, he sent Luciana to a special college in New York at eighteen, under an assumed name, while he had his wife’s death investigated.
“While she was away, she met a student. They fell in love and soon she found out she was expecting. Her situation became desperate because she knew her father would never agree to a marriage between them.”
“But she was pregnant! Was he that tyrannical?”
“That’s a harsh word, Leonardo. Let’s just say he was a rigid man. Luciana and her lover decided to be married by a justice of the peace in a town an hour away from New York City, where she was in school. But on the day before the wedding could take place, he was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The driver was never apprehended.”
Leon grimaced. “Luciana must have thought she was in a nightmare.”
“Exactly. Because of what had happened to her mother, she was afraid she’d been hunted down and her lover murdered.”
Aghast, Leon said, “When did she tell you all this?”
“When I asked her to marry me. You see, despite all the rumors about
