And for Vito it was as though the rest of the world vanished. He focused in amazement on the baby who bore a remarkable resemblance to a framed photograph Vito’s mother had of her son at a similar age. Huge brown eyes from below a mop of black curls inspected him with sparkling curiosity. A chubby fist waved in the air and suddenly Vito froze, out of his comfort zone and hating it. He had never gone weak at the knees for puppies or babies, had put that lack of a softer side down to his grandfather’s rigid discipline. But now he was looking at his son and seeing a baby with his own features in miniature and he finally realised that the very thought of fatherhood unnerved him. His own father had been a hopeless parent. How much worse would he do with Angelo when he had no idea even where to start?
Holly paused beside the child seat to say awkwardly, ‘So...er...obviously this is Angelo. He’s a little bored at weekends because during the week I look after a pair of toddlers and it’s a lot livelier here.’
Vito tried to stand a little less stiffly but in truth he felt much as if someone had swung open the door of a lion’s cage and left him to take his chances. ‘Why did you call him Angelo?’
‘Because you’re Italian,’ Holly pointed out, wondering why he was questioning the obvious. ‘I looked up Italian names.’
Vito forced himself closer to the baby. His hands weren’t quite steady as he undid the belt strapping Angelo into his seat. As Vito lifted the baby, Angelo gave his father an anxious, startled appraisal.
‘You’re used to children,’ Holly assumed, rather taken aback by that deceptively confident first move.
‘No. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to a child before. There are none in the family and most of my friends are still single as well,’ Vito told her abstractedly, wondering what he was supposed to do with the little boy now that he was holding him.
‘Thank you for having him,’ Vito breathed in a driven undertone. ‘You could have made a different decision but you didn’t.’
Nothing about this first meeting was going in any direction that Holly had foreseen. And she was even less ready to hear her baby’s father thank her for not opting for a termination. Her eyes prickled with sudden emotion.
‘I wanted him from the first, never had any doubts there,’ she admitted gruffly. ‘He’s the only family I have...apart from my friend Pixie.’
As Angelo squirmed and wriggled, Vito lifted him higher and swung him round in aeroplane mode.
The baby’s eyes grew huge and he let out a frightened howl before breaking down into red-faced, gulping sobs.
‘Let me take him,’ Holly urged in dismay as Vito lowered the squalling baby. ‘He’s not used to the rough stuff. There are no men in his life, really, just Pixie and me...’
Vito settled Angelo back into Holly’s arms with more than a suggestion of haste and relief. ‘Sorry, I upset him.’
‘He needs time to get used to you,’ Holly explained. ‘I’ll put him on the floor to play with his toys.’
Vito was tempted to back off entirely but that struck him as cowardly and he held his ground to crouch down on the rug. Finally recalling that he had brought a gift, he removed it from his pocket and tipped it out of a box. ‘It’s only a little toy.’
Holly winced as she noted a piece of the toy break off and fall. It had detachable tiny parts and was totally unsuitable for a baby. ‘You can’t give that to him,’ she told Vito apologetically. ‘He puts everything in his mouth and he could choke on those tiny pieces.’
In haste, Vito removed the toy and its parts again and grimaced. ‘I didn’t think. I really don’t know anything about babies.’
Holly pulled over Angelo’s toy box and extracted a red plastic truck that was a favourite. ‘He likes this... Coffee?’ she asked.
‘Black, no sugar,’ Vito murmured flatly, recognising that getting to know his son and learning how to play with him appeared to be even more challenging than he had feared.
Holly made coffee, acknowledging that she was simply delighted that Vito had had enough interest to come and meet Angelo. She could see how awkward he felt with their child and knew that if she didn’t make Vito feel more comfortable he might not want to make another visit. Not that he had prepared very well for this first visit, she thought ruefully, wondering what he had thought a baby would do with a miniature brick action figure festooned in even tinier weapons.
When she returned with the coffee, Angelo was sucking on his little red truck and refusing to share the toy with his father. Holly got down on her knees beside them and, with his mother on hand, her son relaxed his grip on the truck and handed it to Vito. For an instant he looked as though he had no idea what to do with the toy and then some childhood memory of his own must have prompted him because he ran the toy across the rug making vroom-vroom noises and Angelo gave a little-boy shout of appreciation.
A little of Vito’s tension ebbed in receipt of that favourable response. It shook him to appreciate that he had actually craved that first welcoming smile from his son. He wanted the little boy to recognise him as his father, he wanted him to like him and love him, but it was intimidating to appreciate that he hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about achieving those things.
Holly parted her lips to say, ‘When you first came in you said there was something that you needed to explain to me...?’
Vito’s lean, strong profile clenched and he sprang upright. ‘Yes. That sex-party scandal that made headlines,’ he framed with palpable distaste. ‘That wasn’t me, it was my father, Ciccio.’
As she too stood up, Holly’s mouth dropped open in shock. ‘Your...father?’
‘I didn’t deny my involvement because I was trying to protect my mother from the humiliation of having her husband’s habits exposed so publicly,’ Vito explained grimly.
Holly dropped down on the edge of the sofa behind her. ‘Oh, my goodness.’
‘My mother could confirm the truth if you require further proof that I wasn’t involved. What did happen that night was that I received a phone call in the early hours of the morning telling me that my father had fallen ill and needed urgent medical attention,’ Vito told her, his delivery curt.
‘The person calling refused to identify herself, and that should’ve been my warning. My mother was in Paris and I had to take charge. I wondered why my father had taken ill at an apartment owned by the bank but the minute I walked into it I could see what I was dealing with, and that I had been contacted like a clean-up crew in the hope of keeping the wild party under the radar.’
Holly nodded slowly, not really knowing what to say.
‘My father had had a heart attack in the company of hookers and drugs,’ Vito volunteered grimly. ‘I had him collected by a private ambulance from the rear entrance and, having instructed a trusted aide to dispose of all evidence of the party, I intended to join my father at a clinic. Unfortunately the press were waiting outside when I left and I was mobbed. One of the hookers then sold her story, choosing to name me rather than my father even though I had never met her in my life. She probably lied because there was more of a story in my downfall than in that of a middle-aged married man with a taste for sleaze.’
‘So you took the blame for your parents’ sake?’ Holly whispered in wonderment.
‘My mother’s sake,’ Vito emphasised drily. ‘But my mother worked out the truth for herself and she is currently divorcing my father. She looked after him until he had regained his health and then told him that she wanted a separation.’
‘And how do you feel about that? I mean, their divorce means that your sacrifice was in vain.’
‘I’m relieved that they’ve split up. I don’t like my father very much...well, not at all, really,’ Vito admitted, his wide sensual mouth twisting. ‘He’s a greedy, dishonest man and my mother will have a better life without him.’
Utterly amazed by that flood of unrestrained candour from a male as reserved as Vito, Holly continued to scrutinise him with inquisitive blue eyes. ‘Why are you telling me all this now?’
‘You’re family now in all but name,’ Vito told her wryly. ‘And I couldn’t possibly allow you to continue to believe that I am not a fit person to be around my son.’
Holly fully understood that motivation and muttered, ‘I’m sorry I misjudged you. I was naive to believe everything I read on the internet about you. I told you before that I don’t know who my father is,’ Holly admitted, wrinkling her nose. ‘My mother gave me several different stories and I challenged her when I was sixteen to tell me the truth but she still wouldn’t answer me. I honestly don’t think she knows either. In those days she was fairly promiscuous. I’ve had no contact with her since then.’
‘You’ve never had a father...much like me. Ciccio took no interest in me when I was a child and when I was an adult he only approached me if he wanted something,’ he revealed, settling down with striking grace of movement into an armchair. ‘My grandfather was my father figure but he was seventy when I was born and he had a Victorian outlook on childcare and education. It was far from ideal.’