Rival Attractions & Innocent Secretary(56)

'We kissed, and you were made that day, Luca. It was the best day of my  life, and every night I fall asleep with that memory …  Yes, in hindsight I  should have told him, but we were young, and I loved him and wanted him  to do well, to be happy. I would have brought him so much pain … '

'Did my fa-?' Luca stopped himself. 'Did Rico know I was not his son?'

'He never said, and sometimes I wondered if he had guessed, if that was  why he was so angry with you, with me, but really he was angry with me  and treated me badly before I was ever unfaithful to him.'

'And Leo?' Luca swallowed. 'When did you tell him?'

'I didn't for a long time. He was a man when he returned, and I was  married with two children. He was married later too. I was friends with  his wife.' The pain of her secret silenced her for a moment. 'He ended  up being friends with Rico as well. No one knew the man Rico was in  private. It was one time, Luca, and a long time ago, not much to ruin so  many lives. When Carmella, his wife, died, Leo came over one night. He  was chatting to your father and going through albums, talking of his  wife, and there was a photo of you there when you got your degree. I  remember him looking up at me, his eyes asking me, and I looked away,  red and blushing-and from that moment he knew. He must have seen  something of himself as a young man in that photo of you.'                       
       
           



       

'Have you talked to him about it?' Luca asked.

'I spoke with him a few months ago, yet we could not properly talk. He  was treating Rico, his friend, but we knew we would talk one day soon.'

'And have you?'

'Soon,' Mia said. 'Still I have to break his heart by telling him all I  have suffered, how you, his son, have suffered over the years.'

'How do you know it will break his heart?' he wanted to know.

'Love does not just go away, Luca.'

'I know.' He stared out the window at the Mediterranean.

'You can push it away, you can deny it, you can make excuses, give  reasons, but once love has been born, once it has existed, it cannot  simply cease to be.'

There were so many questions, so much more he wanted to know from his  mother and from his real father, but he didn't need those answers right  now.

It was Emma he needed to see and regardless of whether or not it was too  late he had to tell her, which meant there was someone he had to speak  with first.

'You cannot leave now,' Mia pointed out as he packed his case. 'There is mass tonight, one more duty, Luca-for familia … '

'No, Ma.' He kissed his mother's cheek to show he was not angry. 'My duty is to Emma-she is familia now.'





CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


'CAN I pay Dad's account?'

'Of course.' The supervisor was unusually friendly as Emma came into the  office, just a little bit flushed in the cheeks and, well, just a  little nicer. 'You've sold another painting.'

It was actually the supervisor who handed her an envelope with a cheque  in it and there was a flurry in her stomach as Emma took it. That feel  of her baby moving still caught her by surprise, and she smiled, not  just at the kicks from her baby but that she had almost paid her  debts-and all by her own hand.

All was well.

She chanted those words over and over to herself and out loud to her baby too at times.

All was well.

Her father's house had finally sold and she'd found a little flat  nearby. Thanks to an excellent reference from Luca, she'd landed a  wonderful job for three days a week and once the baby arrived they were  happy for her to work a couple of days a week from home, which gave her  time to concentrate on her art.

She was getting there.

Not quite thriving, but not just surviving either.

She missed Luca-missed him in her days, in her nights, in her life, and she missed him for their baby too.

But there was nothing she could do about that, so she poured her grief  into her artwork and scared herself sometimes with her own mind-painting  dark, swirling stories of loss and grief and hope and life.

And she'd sold not one but three paintings!

She'd put one up in her father's room at the nursing home, which a  relative of another resident had liked, and things had taken off from  there.

Oh, they hadn't sold for vast sums, but they'd keep the baby in nappies and bottles, and Emma knew that they'd be okay.

All was well, she told her kicking stomach.

They really didn't need Luca.

Want, however, was an entirely different matter.

She walked down the long corridor towards her father and wasn't really  looking forward to it. He'd noticed her swelling stomach these past  couple of weeks and unfortunately a stroke and a touch of senility  weren't stopping him from asking awkward questions.

Emma pulled her coat around her and held a massive photo album over her  stomach, hoping a few pictures from the past would be enough to distract  him.

And then she saw him.

Saw six feet two with eyes of blue, sitting chatting on the bed and  laughing with her dad, and she absolutely, completely didn't know what  to do.

'Here's my baby girl!' Frank beamed as she made her way over.

She kissed her dad on the cheek and ignored Luca.

He watched as she put her father's pyjamas away and sorted out his  chocolate and put some money in a little dish for his newspaper-and he  saw the swell of her stomach and the strain on her features, and  finally, finally she faced him.

'Could we have a word?' Emma said. 'Outside.'

They walked out to the nursing-home gardens, along the winding paths, and finally she spoke.

'Don't … ' Her voice was shaky. 'Don't you dare drag him into this! He's old and he's confused.'

'He's our child's grandfather,' Luca pointed out. 'I'd say he's already in this … and he knows, by the way.'

'Knows what?'

'That you're pregnant,' Luca said, and watched her cheeks burn. 'Were you ever going to tell me?'                       
       
           



       

'I don't know,' she said honestly.

'You don't know?' he repeated incredulously.

So she turned to him and just said it, too tired, too confused and too angry for his mind games this time.

'You knew anyway,' Emma accused. 'You knew that morning you said you  loved me, and you knew it when you chose to let me go.' And it was agony  when he nodded. 'So don't play the wounded party now-you chose not to  be around, Luca. I bore you, remember?'

'Never,' Luca said, his face pale.

'And I'm not very interesting in bed.'

'That's not true either,' he said. How he hated hearing it, how he hated  what he had done to her-and yet now he had to face it. 'All I think  about is you. All I want is you-if you will give me this chance,' he  vowed.

'Why would I?' She had loved him so much and he hadn't wanted that love.  She could almost forgive him for herself, but she wouldn't be careless  with her baby's heart. 'Why would I risk it again? We'll do fine without  you.'

And she would, he knew that she would, but how he wanted her to do better than fine-with him by her side.

'I was scared I was like my father,' he admitted.

'Not good enough, Luca.' She turned her face away. 'I'm scared I'm like  my mother-but deep down I know I'll never walk away. You did.'

'He beat her.' Luca closed his eyes. 'Badly, over and over.'

'I know that,' Emma pointed out. 'And I know you never would do that to me or our baby, so why couldn't you trust that?'

'My grandfather, my uncle, they were the same too. Emma, I didn't want to hurt you.'

'But you did!' She was trying not to cry, trying not to get upset,  trying to stay calm for the baby, but it was hard. 'Over and over you  did. It doesn't have to be a fist to hurt, Luca.'

Her words sliced his heart-bitter, bitter was his regret.

'My grandmother slipped and fell.' Luca's voice was a hoarse whisper,  voicing dark thoughts that had never been said. 'That is what I was  told, that was what I believed-I heard my mother sob one night that Rico  was just like his father. "And look where my mother ended up" was  Rico's response.'

It wasn't just his father, Emma started to see that now, and it wasn't just the beating …

'He killed her.'

'Oh, Luca,' Emma whispered.

'And Rico's brother, Rinaldo.' His voice was hoarse, the filth of the  past all spewing out now. 'He beat Zia Maria too. Daniela remembers her  as glamorous, always wearing make-up-only, of course, it was to cover  the bruises.'

Emma closed her eyes, recalling the well made-up face of Rinaldo's second bride.

'Maria came to our door one night, scared and crying, yet my mother sent  her away-and she was dead the next morning. Kicked by a horse, my  father, the policeman, announced after he'd investigated.

'I grew up with this secret-a secret so well hidden that not even the  family doctor could see. My father was the trusted village policeman and  yet in his home he did terrible things-his brothers and father too. And  when I was younger, I promised I would never get so involved with a  woman that I would marry her, give her children … ' It was so hard to  explain and yet he persevered. 'I thought there was this … inevitability,  that the violence was in my blood, in my genes. That I had been passed  not just the family name … ' His eyes searched the gorgeous mound of her  stomach. 'And I thought that I had passed it on too-and that the baby  would have a better chance of a normal life with just you to look after  it.'