Dante Claiming His Secret Love-Child(26)

"I'm sure he was," Dante said gently.

"Our father despised him." She gave a bitter laugh. "But then, he  despised me, too. My brother, because he was gay. Me, because I killed  my mother."

"Gaby. Honey-"

The waiter arrived with their lunch. They fell silent until he'd left.  Neither of them reached for a fork. At last Gabriella picked up her  story.

"She died in childbirth, and our father said it was my fault." Dante  clasped her hand; she gave his a tight squeeze. "I know how wrong that  is now, but when I was a little girl, I believed it. Anyway, just about  the time you and I-about the time we stopped seeing each other-"

"The time you found out you were carrying my baby," Dante said gruffly.

Another nod of her head. "Sim. My father wrote to me, a very  conciliatory letter asking me to return home. He was getting old, he  said, it was time to mend our relationship, he said … " She swallowed  dryly. "So, considering that … that I wanted to leave New York, I went  home. But he had lied to me. He was dying. He had no money-my father was  a very heavy gambler. He needed someone to take care of him." She  shrugged. "So I did."

"Ah, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. You needed someone to take care of you and instead-"

"I did not mind. There are things one must do in life." She lifted her  head and smiled, though now there were tears in her eyes. "And a good  thing came of it. I told my father I would only stay with him if he  permitted my brother to move back in. Arturo was ill by then." She  swallowed hard. "So Arturo and I were together again. It was wonderful.  We talked and laughed and shared memories-and then my father died." Her  voice broke. "And before very long, so did Arturo. And while I was still  mourning him, Andre Ferrantes came to the door to tell me the bank was  going to foreclose on Viera y Filho-my father had named the ranch at my  brother's birth, you see, long before he could have known Arturo would  be gay. And Ferrantes said-He said-"

Dante stood, pulled back her chair and kissed her. Then he drew her to  her feet, dropped some bills on the table and led her from the terrace  toward the door.

"How romantic," he heard a woman say.

And he thought, Wrong.

This, whatever was happening between them, was far more complicated than romance. It was … it was-

He clasped Gabriella's hand and hurried her from the park.

At home again, they checked on the baby.

He was sound asleep, his backside in the air.

Mrs. Janiseck left. So did Stacia. Dante took Gabriella out on the  terrace. They sat close together on a love seat, his arm curved around  her in the warm sun, surrounded by Izzy's flowers.

He told her all about his life. Things he'd never told anyone. His confused feelings for Cesare.

His love for his brothers. For his sisters. He told her how lost he'd  been at eighteen, how filled with rage because he had a father whose  idea of famiglia had little to do with the family sitting around a  dinner table and everything to do with some alien family whose existence  periodically brought reporters and photographers and cops to the door.                       
       
           



       

He told her how directionless he'd been, how his brothers had said  enlisting in one of the armed services would give his life structure-and  how he'd known, instinctively, he needed the opportunity to find that  structure in a different way.

He picked up her hand, kissed her fingertips and explained that he'd  found it in Alaska, risking his not-so-precious neck in the oil fields,  hiking alone whenever he could in the wilderness, camping out and  watching the northern lights, listening to the mournful howl of the  wolves until, at last, he'd seen his anger at life for the pettiness it  was.

"So I flew home," he said. "To New York. And my brothers were starting  to feel as directionless as I'd felt, now that Nick was out of the  Marines, Rafe out of the Army and Falco was out of whatever in hell they  had him doing in Special Forces."

And, he said, they spent hours talking. Planning. Ultimately pooled  their savings and their areas of expertise in finance, where they all  had done well in school and, in Falco's case, at the poker tables.

"Orsini Investments took off," he said. It still was doing well-an  understatement, really, making their investors happy despite the slowed  economy.

And finally he told her why he'd gone to Brazil, Cesare's bizarre request-and then the truth that he'd kept from facing.

He had gone there knowing he would not leave without searching for, and finding, her.

When he fell silent, Gabriella smiled, though her cheeks were damp with tears.

"Dante," she whispered, "Dante, meu querido … "

He drew her into his lap. They kissed. And touched. And when that was no  longer enough, he took her to his bedroom, undressed her as slowly as  if he were unwrapping a perfect gift.

An eternity later, with her lover still deep inside her as she lay sated  in his arms in the afterglow of their passion, Gabriella finally faced  the truth.

No matter what happened, she would always be in love with Dante Orsini.





CHAPTER TWELVE




IT WAS decades since Dante had played hooky.

He'd done it a lot in high school. Got into trouble for it, ended up on  suspension once but school was dull and the world was exciting and,  besides, even the principal had to admit he was too smart a kid to dump.

Or maybe the influence on the principal was fear of his old man.

Either way, he'd cut classes years back then and, yeah, at NYU, but  ditching university classes wasn't the same thing, especially when you  could ace the coursework without half trying.

But once he'd had his seemingly useless economics degree in hand and  headed for Alaska, those easy days ended. He'd not only shown up at his  job each day, he'd worked his ass off, too.

The idea had been to test himself. Get the wild streak that had driven  him north out of his system. And to make a lot of money. He'd done that,  too, though he'd never been quite sure why it had seemed so important  except to know it represented freedom. Total and complete independence,  even more so after he'd come home, invested what he'd saved along with  his brothers in the company they'd started.

So, eventually, he had it all.

Freedom. Independence. And a lot of money. More money than he'd ever  imagined, enough to buy pretty much anything the world had that he might  possibly want.

And yet, Dante thought as he drew Gabriella into his arms on the dance  floor of a tiny club in the East Village, and yet he had never truly  realized that what a man most wanted carried no price tag at all.

Not just a man.

Him.

How could life change so fast? Ten days ago, ask him what made him happy  and he'd have said, well, his work. His family. The call last night  telling him there was a '58 Ferrari Berlinetta coming on the market in  Palm Beach. And women, of course. An entire BlackBerry of them.

Redheads, blondes, brunettes, all beautiful, all fun, all exciting.

For a little while, anyway.

The music went from fast to slow and easy. Not that it mattered. From  the second they'd hit the dance floor, he'd held Gabriella close, his  arms tightly around her, her arms around his neck, her face buried  against his throat.

The truth was, nothing was as exciting as this. Gabriella, in his arms. In his life.

How could he ever have been foolish enough to have let her go?

She made him happy. And he made her happy. She'd gone from fragile and  looking as if she were made of glass that might shatter, as she had in  Brazil, to the woman she had been in the past. Smiling. Full of life.  More beautiful than seemed possible.

She was her own woman.

And she was his.

He awoke to her softly whispered "Good morning," fell asleep with her in  his arms. He was never without her. They talked about everything under  the sun, agreed on some things, agreed to disagree on others. They read  the papers over breakfast, drove out to Long Island and walked the beach  at Fire Island, empty and beautiful on a cool fall day.                       
       
           



       

At first Gabriella would remind him that they'd hired Stacia so she  could get in touch with her agent, have him line up some interviews …

"Could that be better than this?" he'd ask her softly, and her answer was always in her kiss.

Sometimes they didn't talk at all. They just were together. He'd never  before been with a woman and found the silence between them comfortable  and easy.

And then there was Daniel.

He still didn't know much about kids, but even he could tell that the  little guy was, well, one fine-looking baby. And, better still,  brilliant. Those ba-ba-ba's had grown to include ga-ga-ga's.

The kid would probably talk before he was a year old. Plus, the way he  reached for that mobile above his crib, watched it with such obvious  curiosity … Oh, yeah. Daniel was smart, and not only because he was his.