The Italian's One-Night Baby(27)

Initially, powered on anger, fear and a desperate need to take a stance, Ellie had expected Rio to rush straight to Beppe’s home to confront her, but as time wore on into the afternoon she started to worry that he wouldn’t even try to get her back. In fact, maybe she had played right into his hands by leaving, maybe he had reached the conclusion that he didn’t want to be married any longer. For a male as rich and gorgeous as Rio the grass always had to look greener on the single side of the fence.

What had she done in walking out like that? What way was that to save a marriage?

She loved him, for goodness’ sake, even if it turned out that he was the biggest flirt imaginable!

Suddenly feeling distinctly nauseous for the first time in her pregnancy, and shaky and damp with nerves, Ellie went upstairs to lie down. She knew the stress was bad for her and her baby and she beat herself up more for the decision she had made. Since when had she been a drama queen? And walking out on the assumption that the man you were leaving would follow to beg you to return was almost suicidal if he didn’t love you. Tears prickled and stung behind Ellie’s lowered eyelids. What had persuaded her that she had to make such a theatrical challenge to Rio of all people? A fit of temporary insanity?

Rio walked through the bedroom door and surveyed his wife. She was fast asleep and his keen gaze could detect the faint redness round her eyes that suggested tears had been shed. His confidence rose. If his unemotional Ellie had been crying, that was a healthy sign. He sat down on the side of the bed and gently shook her shoulder.

Luminous green eyes flew open and settled on him in strained silence. Her lush lips parted and closed again as she regrouped and sat up to hug her knees. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked coolly.

‘You’re here,’ Rio said simply.

‘You can’t stay here,’ Ellie argued, thoroughly disconcerted by that declaration. ‘It’s Beppe’s house.’

‘It’s not. I bought it from him years ago when the upkeep was becoming too much for him. I begged him to stay on and look after it,’ he explained with a casual shrug. ‘It was a property investment for me—’

‘You’re such a liar!’ Ellie told him helplessly. ‘You did it because you love him!’

‘That too.’ Rio looked uncomfortable. ‘Can we get to the point of what that stupid note you left behind meant? One sentence? I get one sentence of explanation?’

Ellie stiffened, more challenged than she had expected because Rio wasn’t shouting or raging, giving her the fight she had subconsciously craved and yet feared with every atom of her being, lest it lead to the end of their relationship. She lowered her legs and slid off the other side of the bed. ‘After the way you spent your morning, I should think the note was self-explanatory...’

‘After the way I spent... Franca? You saw me with Franca?’ Rio thundered without warning as he finally made the connection. ‘Why the hell didn’t you rescue me?’

Taken aback, Ellie froze. ‘Rescue you?’

‘Sì... I’m sitting in a public place while a woman weeps and sobs and talks about the kind of stuff I really don’t want to know and I can’t decently escape!’ Rio recounted wrathfully. ‘You think I was enjoying that? Are you out of your mind?’

It began to sink in on Ellie that she could have made a huge error of judgement.

‘I can’t believe this is all about Franca!’ Rio exclaimed with rampant incredulity.

‘You were holding hands. I thought you were flirting with her—’

‘You need to learn what flirting entails, principessa. I assure you that there was no flirting whatsoever. Franca lost her eldest daughter to leukaemia only weeks ago and has only recently returned to work after compassionate leave.’

‘Oh, my goodness...’ Ellie whispered in shock. ‘That poor, poor woman.’

‘Yes, even Rio with the heart of a stone was not going to get up and walk away from that!’ Rio grated. ‘And that was only a part of the doom and gloom rehash of the previous nine years that took place. She said it did her good to get it off her conscience but it only made me realise that my sense of moral superiority over events back then was entirely unmerited.’

Ellie nodded. ‘Okay. You contributed to the breakup and her going off with your business partner. I assumed that some of it must’ve been your fault.’

Rio dealt her an exasperated look. ‘I didn’t. I blamed Franca and Jax, but then I didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes. Her fling with Jax only lasted about five minutes, and at her lowest ebb she ended up homeless.’

Feeling guiltier than ever for her wrong assumptions, Ellie backed down into a corner armchair and sighed. ‘That can’t have been easy for you to hear—’

Rio’s gaze was sombre. ‘No, even at the time I never wished harm on her, but then she lived with me and I didn’t even realise I was living with an alcoholic—’

Ellie’s brows lifted in wonderment.

Rio grimaced. ‘That tells you how much attention I gave Franca. My sole interest back then was really the business of making money. But to some extent that wasn’t all my fault. I was driven by the need to show Franca’s family that I could provide well for her. They had done everything they could to try to separate us—’

Ellie was now genuinely interested in what he was telling her and some of her stress had ebbed because she had recognised that her worst fears had been groundless. ‘But why?’

‘Primarily my background,’ Rio divulged stiffly.

‘That you grew up as an orphan?’ Ellie exclaimed. ‘But that’s so unfair!’

Rio braced himself to tell the truth and he paled and gritted his teeth. ‘It was more sordid than that. I was an abandoned baby, born addicted to heroin. I was left in a cardboard box in a dumpster and found by street cleaners,’ he admitted very stiffly. ‘The manufacturer’s name on the box was Rio. The nuns christened me Jerome after St Jerome but I was always known as Rio.’

Ellie was so appalled that she couldn’t speak. She glanced away to get herself back under control but her eyes shone with shocked tears. To think of Rio as a defenceless baby thrown out like so much rubbish absolutely broke her heart. ‘Why...a dumpster? Why not somewhere safer?’

‘I asked my mother when I met her. She said she didn’t want to get in trouble or be asked questions. It was nothing to do with my safety—it was all to do with her. I meant nothing to her. She was an addict and a whore,’ he confessed grimly. ‘Franca’s family were convinced that I had to have evil genes. Some people do think like that, Ellie, which is why I’ve always kept the circumstances of my birth a secret. It is not that I am ashamed but that I do not wish to be pitied or thought of as being a lesser person because of those circumstances.’

Fierce protectiveness slivered through Ellie as she looked back at him, all the love she had for him enveloping her. ‘I love you no matter what you came from. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything and I like Rio as a name. And only now understanding why it was so important for you to give our child a safer, happier start in life...well, it only makes me love you even more!’

Rio was transfixed. He had been prepared for Ellie to flinch and be repulsed by the sleazy facts of his birth and ancestry and then pretend that they didn’t matter even when it was obvious that they did. He certainly hadn’t expected her to tell him that she loved him without reservation.

‘Don’t you realise,’ she murmured gruffly, her throat thickening, so great was her emotion, ‘that you should be proud of what you’ve achieved from such a tough beginning in life? It genuinely makes me feel incredibly proud of you.’

Rio studied her, lustrous dark golden eyes with a suspicious shine, lean, darkly handsome face clenched hard. ‘You mean...all that?’

Ellie rose from her seat, empowered by his stillness, his uncharacteristic uncertainty. Never had she loved him more or understood him better. Franca and her family had taught him to be ashamed of his birth and background and she marvelled at their unwitting cruelty over something that he could not have influenced as she crossed the room and wrapped both arms tightly round him.

‘Hug time?’ Rio interpreted shakily, hoping she didn’t catch the break in his voice, because in his whole life he had never known such a relief as the moment when Ellie told him that she loved him no matter what. It was the unconditional love he had sought without ever knowing it and suddenly he didn’t feel alone and pitched against the world any longer.

‘Hug time,’ Ellie confirmed unevenly, winding round him like a vine. ‘I’m really sorry I misunderstood what I saw with you and Franca. I sort of went haywire. I knew she was your first love and I thought maybe—’

‘No.’ Rio shuddered at the thought. ‘She’s happily married to a radiographer at the hospital and has two other children. But she developed a guilt complex about me when she finally got into rehab and started to rebuild her life. She says part of the recovery therapy was the need to mend fences with those she had wronged while she was still drinking but she could never face getting in touch with me after what she had done.’