His Final Bargain(16)

Eliza felt his frustration. It was imbedded in every word he had spoken.  It was in every nuance of his expression. He was in pain for his  daughter-physical and emotional pain. 'You're a wonderful father, Leo.  Your role is to love and provide for her. You're doing all that and  more.'

'She needs more than I can give her.' He dragged a hand over his face.  It pulled at his features, distorting them, making him seem older than  his years. 'She needs her mother. But that's another thing I can't fix. I  can't bring her mother back.'

'That's not your fault. You mustn't blame yourself.'

He gave her a weary look. 'Giulia was already broken when I met her. But I probably made it a thousand times worse.'

'How did you meet her?'

'In a bar.'

Eliza felt her face colour up. 'Not a great place to find lasting love … '

He gave her a look she couldn't quite decipher. 'No, but then people at a  crossroads in their lives often hang out in bars. I was no different  than Giulia. We'd both been disappointed in love. She'd been let down by  a long-term lover. In hindsight, I would have been much better  served-and her, for that matter-if I'd just listened to what had been  going on in her life. She needed a friend, not a new lover to replace  the one she'd lost.'                       
       
           



       

'What happened?'

His gaze dropped to the gravel at his feet as he kicked absently at a  loose pebble. 'We had a one-night stand.' His eyes met hers again. 'I  know you might find this hard to believe, but I don't make a habit of  them. I regretted it as soon as it was over. We had no real chemistry.  In some ways I think she only went through with it because she wanted to  prove something to herself-that she could sleep with another man after  being with her lover for so long.' He took a breath and slowly released  it. 'She called me a month later and told me she was pregnant.'

'You must have been furious.'

He shrugged one shoulder. 'I wasn't feeling anything much at that stage.  I guess that's why I offered to marry her. I truly didn't care either  way. As far as I was concerned, the only woman I wanted wasn't  available. What did it matter who I married?'

Eliza ignored the flash of pain his words evoked and frowned at him.  'Why was marriage so important to you? Most men your age are quite  content with having affairs. They wouldn't dream of settling down with  one person for the rest of their life, even when there is a child  involved, especially one that wasn't planned.'

'My father loved my mother,' he said. 'It ended badly, but he always  instilled in me that it was worth committing to one person. He didn't  believe in half measures. His philosophy was you were either in or you  were out. I admired that in him.

'I tried my best with Giulia. I gave her what I could but it wasn't  enough. At the end of the day we didn't love each other. No amount of  commitment on my part could compensate for her guilt over Alessandra's  blindness. She just couldn't handle it. She rejected her right from the  start. In her mind, it was as if someone had handed her the wrong baby  in the hospital. She couldn't seem to accept that this was what life was  going to be like from now on.'

'I'm sure there are a lot of parents who feel that way,' Eliza said.

He scored a pathway through his hair, as if even thinking about that  time in his life made his head ache. 'The thing was, Giulia didn't want  to have my baby. She wanted her ex's child.'

Eliza's frown showed her confusion as it pulled at her forehead. 'But  you said she deliberately set out to get pregnant, that she set you up.'

He gave her another weary look. 'It's true. But the thing is, I could  have been anyone that night. She wanted to hit out at the man who'd let  her down so badly. She wasn't thinking straight. On another night she  might not have done it, but of course once it was done it was too late  to undo it. She wasn't the type to have an abortion and, to be honest, I  didn't want her to. We were both responsible for what happened. I could  have walked away from her that night. But, in a way, I think I was  trying to prove something too.'

Eliza sank her teeth into her lip, thinking about how devastating all  this had been for him. His life had changed so swiftly and so  permanently. And she had been part of that devastation when she had  rejected his proposal. Was she always destined to ruin other people's  lives? To make them desperately unhappy and destroy the life they had  envisaged for themselves?

'I'm sorry … I can see now why you feel I'm partly to blame for how things  have turned out. But who's to say we would've had a great relationship  if I had been free to marry you?'

His dark eyes meshed with hers. 'Do you seriously doubt that we couldn't  have had a satisfying relationship after what we shared during those  three weeks?'

She turned away from his penetratingly hot gaze and folded her arms  across her middle, cupping her elbows with her crossed over hands.  'There's much more to a relationship than sex. There's companionship and  emotional honesty and closeness. The best sex in the world doesn't make  up for those things.'

'Is that what you have with your fiancé? Emotional closeness?'

'I should get back … ' Eliza glanced towards the villa. 'Alessandra will  be well and truly awake by now. Marella will be wondering what's  happened to me.'

She started back along the pathway but she didn't hear Leo following  her. She glanced back when she got to the fountain but he had  disappeared from sight. She gave an uneven sigh and, with a little slump  of her shoulders, made her way inside the villa.





CHAPTER SEVEN


ALESSANDRA HAD ONLY just woken when Eliza came back to the nursery.  'I've got a special surprise in store,' she said as she lifted her out  of the cot.                       
       
           



       

'What is it?' Alessandra asked, rubbing at one of her eyes.

Tatiana had explained to Eliza that eye-rubbing was something a lot of  vision-impaired children did. But while it gave temporary comfort  similar to sucking a thumb, as the child got older it was less socially  acceptable. Tatiana had advised that distracting the child from the  habit was the best way to manage it, so Eliza gently pulled her hand  away and circled her tiny palm with the finger play, Ring a Ring o'  Roses.

Alessandra giggled delightedly. 'Do it again.'

'Give me your other hand.'

The little girl held out her hand and Eliza repeated the rhyme, her  heart squeezing as she saw the unadulterated joy on the toddler's face.  'Again! Again!'

'Maybe later,' Eliza said. 'I have other plans for you, young lady. We're going for a walk.'

'I don't want to walk. Carry me.'

'No carrying today, little Munchkin,' Eliza said. 'You've got two lovely little legs. You need to learn to use them a bit more.'

She took the little tot's hand and led her out to the landing and then  down the stairs. She got Alessandra to feel the balustrade as she went  down and to plant her feet carefully on each step before taking another.  It was a slow process but well worth it as by the time they got down to  the ground floor she could tell Alessandra was a little more confident.

'Now we're going to go outside to the garden,' Eliza said. 'Have you been out there much?'

'Kathleen used to take me sometimes but then she got stinged by a bee. I cried because I thought it was going to sting me too.'

'Don't worry; I won't let you get stung.' Eliza gave the little child's  hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance. 'There's a lot of lovely things to  smell and feel out there. Flowers are some of the most beautiful things  in nature but the really cool thing is you don't have to see them to  appreciate them. Lots of them have really lovely perfumes, particularly  roses. I bet after a while you'll be able to tell them apart, just from  smelling them.'

Once they were out in the garden, Eliza led Alessandra down to one of  the rose gardens. She picked some blooms and held them to the child's  little nose, smiling as Alessandra sniffed and smiled in turn.  'Beyootiful!' she said.

'That's a deep red one,' Eliza said. 'It's got a really rich scent.  Here's a bright pink one. Its scent is a little less intense. What do  you think?'

Alessandra pushed her nose against the velvet bloom. 'Nice.'

'Feel the petals,' Eliza said. 'There aren't any thorns on this one. I checked.'

The little girl fingered the soft petals, discovering each fold, her  face full of concentration as if she was trying to picture what she was  feeling. 'Can I smell some more?'

'Of course.' Eliza picked a yellow one this time. 'This one reminds me  of the sunshine. It's bright and cheerful with a light, fresh  fragrance.'

'Mmm.' Alessandra breathed in the fragrance. 'But I like the first one best.'

'That was the red one.' Eliza put them in a row on the ground and got  Alessandra to sit on the grass beside her. 'Let's play a game. I'm going  to hand you a rose and you have to tell me which colour it is by the  smell. Do you think you can do that?'