The Italian’s Baby

  The Italian’s Baby

  Lucy Gordon

  Luca is desperate to tell Becky the truth about what happened all those years ago. Becky can't believe her ears – the time they've wasted. The attraction is mutual and overwhelming and she can't resist him – the love is still there. Then she discovers that all Luca wanted from her was a baby – and, shockingly, she's already pregnant.

  Lucy Gordon

  The Italian’s Baby

  A book in the Ready for Baby series, 2003

  PROLOGUE

  S HE was seventeen, as pretty as a doll, and as lifeless, sitting in the window, staring out, unseeing, over the Italian countryside.

  She didn’t turn when the door opened and a nurse came in, with a middle-aged man. He had an air of joviality that sat oddly with his cold eyes.

  ‘How’s my best girl?’ he greeted the doll by the window.

  She neither replied nor looked at him.

  ‘I’ve got someone to see you, precious.’ He turned to a young man standing behind him and said curtly, ‘Make it quick.’

  He was twenty, little more than a boy. His hair was shaggy, he looked as though he hadn’t shaved for days, and his eyes were wild with pain and anger. He went quickly to the girl and dropped on his knees beside her, speaking in an imploring voice.

  ‘Becky, mia piccina-it is I, Luca. Look at me, I beg you. Forgive me for everything-they say our child is dead and that it is my fault-I never meant to hurt you-can you hear me?’

  She turned her head and seemed to look at him, but there was no recognition in her eyes. They were lifeless.

  ‘Listen to me,’ the boy implored. ‘I am sorry, piccina, I am so sorry. Becky, for pity’s sake, say that you understand.’

  She was silent. He reached up a hand to brush her light brown hair aside. She did not move.

  ‘I did not see our baby,’ he said huskily. ‘Was she pretty like you? Did you hold her? Speak to me. Tell me that you know me, that you love me still. I shall love you all my life. Only say that you forgive me for all the pain I have brought you. I meant only to make you happy. In God’s name, speak to me.’

  But she said nothing, merely stared out of the window. He dropped his head into her lap, and the only sound in the room was his sobs.

  CHAPTER ONE

  T HE words stood out starkly, black against the white paper.

  A boy. Born yesterday. 8lbs 6oz.

  A simple message that might have been the bringer of joy. But to Luca Montese it meant that his wife had given a son to another man, and none to him. It meant that the world would know of his humiliation, and that made him curse until there was nobody left to curse, except himself, for being a blind fool. His face was not pleasant at that moment. It was cruel and frightening.

  Fear of that face had made Drusilla leave him as soon as she knew she was pregnant, six months ago. He had arrived home to find her gone, leaving him a note. It had said that there was another man. She was pregnant. It was no use trying to find her. That was all.

  She had taken everything he had ever given her, down to the last diamond, the last stitch of couture clothing. He’d pursued her like an avenging fury, not in person but through a battery of expensive lawyers, nailing her down to a divorce settlement that left her nothing beyond what she had already taken.

  It galled him that the man was so poor and insignificant as to be virtually beyond the reach of his revenge. If he had been a rich entrepreneur, like himself, it would have been a pleasure to ruin him. But a hairdresser! That was the final insult.

  Now they had a big, lusty son. And Luca Montese was childless. The world would know that it was his fault that his marriage had been barren, and the world would laugh. The thought almost drove him to madness.

  Three floors below him was the heart of Rome’s financial district, a world he had made his own by shrewdness, cunning and sheer brute muscle. His employees were in awe of him, his rivals were afraid of him. That was how he liked it. But now they would laugh.

  He turned the paper between his fingers. His hands were heavy and strong, the hands of a workman, not an international financier.

  His face was the same; blunt-featured, with a heaviness about it that had little to do with the shape of features, and more to do with a glowering intensity in his eyes. That, and his tall, broad-shouldered body, attracted the kind of woman-and there were plenty of them-who gravitated towards power. Physical power. Financial power. All kinds. Since the break-up of his marriage he hadn’t lacked company.

  He treated them well, according to his lights, was generous with gifts but not with words or feelings, and broke with them abruptly when he realised they did not have what he was seeking.

  He could not have said what that was. He only knew that he’d found it once, long ago, with a girl who had shining eyes and a great heart.

  He barely remembered the boy he’d been then, full of impractical ideas about love lasting forever. Not cynical, not grasping, believing that love and life were both good: a foolishness that had been cruelly cured.

  He brought himself firmly back to the present. Dwelling on lost happiness was a weakness, and he always cut out weakness as ruthlessly as he did everything else. He strode out of the office and down to the underground parking lot, where his Rolls-Royce-this year’s model-was waiting.

  He had a chauffeur but he loved driving it himself. It was his personal trophy, the proof of how far he’d come since the days when he’d had to make do with an old jalopy that would have collapsed if he hadn’t repaired it himself.

  Even with his best efforts it was liable to break down at odd moments, and then she would laugh and chatter as she handed him spanners. Sometimes she would get under the car with him, and they would kiss and laugh like mad things.

  And perhaps it was a kind of madness, he thought as he headed the Rolls out of Rome to his villa in the country. Mad, because that heart-stopping joy could never last. And it hadn’t.

  He’d brushed the thought of her aside once, but now she seemed to be there beside him as he drove on in the darkness, tormenting him with memories of how enchanting she had been, with her sweet gentleness, her tenderness, her endless giving. He had been twenty, and she seventeen, and they’d thought it would last forever.

  Perhaps it might have done if-

  He shut off that thought too. Strong man though he was, the ‘what if?’ was unbearable.

  But her ghost wouldn’t be banished. It whispered sadly that their brief love had been perfect, even though it had ended in heartbreak. She reminded him of other things too, how she’d lain in his arms, whispering words of love and passion.

  ‘I’m yours, always-always-I shall never love any other man-’

  ‘I have nothing to offer you-’

  ‘If you give me your love, that’s all I ask.’

  ‘But I’m a poor man.’

  How she had laughed at that, ripples of young, confident laughter that had filled his soul. ‘We’re not poor-as long as we have each other…’

  And then it was over, and they no longer had each other.

  Suddenly there was a squeal of tyres and the wheel spun in his hand. He didn’t know what had happened, except that the car had stopped and he was shaking.

  He got out to clear his head, looking up and down the country road. It was empty in both directions.

  Like his life, he thought. Coming out of the empty darkness and leading ahead into empty darkness.

  It had been that way for fifteen years.

  The Allingham was the newest, most luxurious hotel to have gone up in London’s exclusive Mayfair. Its service was the best, its prices the highest.

  Rebecca Hanley had been appointed its first PR consultant partly because, as the chairman of the board had sa
id, ‘She looks as if she grew up with money to burn, and didn’t give a damn. And that’s useful when you’re trying to get people to burn money without giving a damn.’

  Which was astute of him, because Rebecca’s father had been a very rich man indeed. And these days she didn’t give a damn about anything.

  She lived in the Allingham, because it was simpler than having a home of her own. She used the hotel’s beauty salon and gymnasium, and the result was a figure that wasn’t an ounce overweight, and a face that was a mask of perfection.

  Tonight she was putting the final touches to her appearance when the phone rang. It was Danvers Jordan, the banker who was her current escort.

  They were to attend the engagement party of his younger brother, held in the Allingham. As Danvers’ companion and a representative of the hotel, she would be ‘on duty’ in two ways, and must look right, down to every detail.

  As she checked herself in three angled mirrors Rebecca knew that nobody could fault her looks. She had the slim, elegant body that could wear the tight black dress, and the endless legs demanded by the short skirt. The neckline was low-cut, but within relatively modest limits. Around her neck she wore one large diamond.

  Her hair had started life as light brown, but now it was a soft honey-blonde that struck a strange, distinctive note with her green eyes. Small diamonds in her ears added the final touch.

  On exactly the stroke of eight the knock came on her door and she sauntered gracefully across to let Danvers in.

  ‘You look glorious,’ he said, as he always did. ‘I shall be the proudest man there.’

  Proudest. Not happiest.

  The party was in a banqueting room, hung with drapes of white silk interspersed with masses of white roses. The engaged couple were little more than children, Rory twenty-four, Elspeth eighteen. Elspeth’s father was the president of the merchant bank for which Danvers worked, and which was part of the consortium that had financed the Allingham.

  She was like a kitten, Rebecca thought, sweet, innocent and intense about everything, especially being in love.

  ‘I didn’t think people talked about “forever and ever” any more,’ she said to Danvers when the evening was half over.

  ‘I suppose if you’re young enough and stupid enough it seems to make sense,’ he said wryly.

  ‘Do you really have to be young and stupid?’

  ‘Come on, darling! Grown-ups know that things happen, life goes wrong.’

  ‘That’s true,’ she said quietly.

  Elspeth came flying up to them, throwing her arms around Rebecca.

  ‘Oh, I’m so happy. And what about you two? It’s time you tied the knot. Why don’t we make the announcement now?’

  ‘No,’ Rebecca said quickly. Then, fearing that she had been too emphatic, she hastened to add, ‘This is your night. If I hijacked it I’d be in trouble with my boss.’

  ‘All right, but on my wedding day I’m going to toss you my bouquet.’

  She danced away and Rebecca heaved a secret sigh of relief.

  ‘Why did she call you Becky?’ Danvers asked.

  ‘It’s short for Rebecca.’

  ‘I’ve never heard anyone use it with you, and I’m glad. Rebecca’s more natural to you, gracious and sophisticated. You’re not a Becky sort of person.’

  ‘And what is “a Becky sort of person” Danvers?’

  ‘Well, a bit coltish and awkward. Somebody who’s just a kid and doesn’t know much about the world.’

  She put her glass down suddenly because her hand was shaking. But she knew he wouldn’t notice.

  ‘I haven’t always been gracious and sophisticated,’ she said.

  ‘That’s how I like to see you, though.’

  And, of course, Danvers wouldn’t be interested in any other version of her than the one that suited himself. She would probably marry him in the end, not for love, but for lack of any strong opposing force. She was thirty-two and the aimless drift that was her life couldn’t go on indefinitely.

  She rejected his suggestion of dinner, claiming tiredness. He saw her to her suite and made one last attempt to prolong the evening, drawing her close for a practiced kiss, but she stiffened.

  ‘I really am very tired. Goodnight, Danvers.’

  ‘All right. You get your beauty sleep and be perfect for tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘We’re having dinner with the chairman of the bank. You can’t have forgotten.’

  ‘Of course not. I’ll be there, at my best. Goodnight.’

  If he didn’t go soon she would scream.

  At last she had the blessed relief of solitude. She turned out the lights and went to stand in the window, looking out at the lights of London. They winked and glittered against the darkness, and in her morbid mood it seemed as if she was looking at her whole life from now on: an endless vista of shiny occasions-dinner with the chairman, a box at the opera, lunch in fashionable restaurants, entertaining in a luxurious house, the perfect wife and hostess.

  It had seemed enough before, but something about tonight had unsettled her. That young couple with their passionate belief in love had reminded her of too many things she no longer believed.

  ‘Becky’ had believed them, but Becky was dead. She had died in a confusion of pain, misery and disillusion.

  Yet tonight her ghost had walked through the costly feast, turning reproachful eyes on Rebecca, reminding her that once she had had a heart, and had given that heart freely to a wild-eyed young man who had adored her.

  ‘A kid, who doesn’t know much about the world,’ had been Danvers’ verdict on ‘Becky’, and he was more right than he knew. They had both been kids, herself and the twenty-year-old, Luca, thinking that their love was the final answer to all problems.

  Becky Solway had fallen in love with Italy at first sight, and especially the land around Tuscany, where her father had inherited the estate of Belleto from his Italian mother.

  ‘Dad, it’s heavenly!’ she said when she first saw it. ‘I want to stay here forever and ever.’

  He laughed. ‘All right, pet. Whatever you say.’

  He was like that, always willing to indulge her without actually considering what she was saying, much less what she was thinking or feeling.

  At fourteen all she saw was the indulgence. It had been just the two of them since her mother had died two years before. Frank Solway, successful manufacturer of electronic products, and his bright, pretty daughter.

  He had factories all over Europe, continually moving the work to wherever the labour was cheapest. During her school vacation they travelled together, visiting the outposts of his business empire, or stayed at Belleto. The rest of the time she finished her schooling in England. When she was sixteen she announced that she was finished with school.

  ‘I just want to live at Belleto from now on, Dad.’

  And, as always, he said, ‘All right, pet. Whatever you like.’

  He bought her a horse, and she spent happy days exploring the vineyards and olive groves that formed part of Belleto’s riches.

  She had a quick ear, and had learned not only Italian from her grandmother but also the local Tuscan dialect. Her father spoke languages badly and the servants who ran his house found him hard to understand, so he soon left the domestic affairs to her. After a while she was helping with the estate as well.

  All she knew of Frank was that he was a successful businessman. She never suspected a darker side, until one day it was forced on her.

  He had closed his last factory in England, opened another in Italy, then taken off for Spain, inspecting new premises. During his absence Becky went for a ride and found herself confronted by three grim-faced men.

  ‘You’re Solway’s daughter,’ said one of the men in English. ‘Frank Solway is your dad. Admit it.’

  ‘Why should I deny it? I’m not ashamed of my father.’

  ‘Well, you damned well should be,’ another man shouted. ‘We needed our jobs and he shut down the
English factory overnight because it’s cheaper over here. No compensation, no redundancy. He just vanished. Where is he?’

  ‘My father’s abroad at the moment. Please let me pass.’

  One of the men grabbed the bridle. ‘Tell us where he is,’ he snapped. ‘We didn’t come all this way to be fobbed off.’

  She was growing nervous, sensing that they would soon be out of control.

  ‘He’ll be next week,’ she said desperately. ‘I’ll tell him you called; I’m sure he’ll want to speak to you-’

  This brought a roar of ribald laughter.

  ‘We’re the last people he wants to speak to-he’s been hiding from us…won’t answer letters.’

  ‘But what can I do?’ she cried.

  ‘You can stay with us until he comes for you,’ the most unpleasant-looking man snapped, still holding the bridle.

  ‘I think not,’ said a hard voice.

  It came from a young man that nobody had noticed. He had appeared from between the trees and stood still for a moment to make sure they had registered his presence. It was an impressive presence, not so much for his height and breadth of shoulder as for the sheer ferocity on his face.

  ‘Stand back,’ he said, starting to move forward.

  ‘Get out of here,’ said the man holding the bridle.

  The stranger wasted no further words. Turning almost casually, he made a movement too fast to see, and the next moment the man was on the ground.

  ‘’Ere…’ said one of the others.

  But his words died unspoken as the stranger scowled at him.

  ‘Leave here, all of you,’ he said sternly. ‘Do not come back.’

  The other two hastened to help their companion to his feet. He was trying to staunch the blood from his nose and although the look he cast his assailant was furious he was too wise to take the matter further. He let himself be led away, but he turned at the last moment to glare back at Becky in a way that made the young man start forward. Then they all scuttled away.