The Italian’s Baby Read online

  ‘Nonsense,’ he said with his easy laugh. ‘I’ll just show him where his best interests lie.’

  He visited Luca that same day, full of bonhomie, thanking him for his care of Becky while contriving to patronise him in a way that embarrassed her. Luca’s response was a quiet dignity.

  Then Frank looked around.

  ‘Carletti tells me you’ve been holding out for more than this little place is worth,’ he said.

  ‘Then your agent has misinformed you,’ Luca said quietly. ‘This place is worth everything to me, and I will not sell.’

  ‘All right, look, here’s the deal. Because you helped my daughter I’ll double my last offer. I can’t say fairer than that.’

  ‘Signor Solway, my home is not for sale.’

  ‘Why make such a fuss about this tatty little place? It’s barely half an acre.’

  ‘Then why trouble yourself with it?’

  ‘That doesn’t concern you. I’ve made a more than fair offer and I don’t like being trifled with.’

  Luca gave his slow smile. It drove Frank Solway mad.

  ‘Have I said something funny?’ he snapped.

  ‘Signor, I don’t think you understand the word no.’

  This was so completely right that Frank lost his temper and bawled indiscriminately until Becky said, ‘Dad! Have you forgotten what he did for me?’

  Frank scowled. He hated to be in the wrong, but neither could he back down. He stomped off without another word, yelling, ‘Becky!’ over his shoulder.

  ‘Go with him,’ Luca said gently when she didn’t move.

  ‘No, I’m staying with you.’

  ‘That will make it worse. Please go.’

  She yielded to his quiet insistence where her father’s blustering only filled her with disgust.

  The following day Frank said uneasily, ‘I may have gone a little too far with Luca yesterday.’

  ‘Much too far,’ Becky said. ‘I think you should apologise.’

  ‘No way. That would make me look weak. But you’re another matter. Why don’t you drop in on him and tell him I’m not such a bad fellow? Don’t make it sound like an apology but-well, keep on his right side.’

  She left the house with a light heart. Now she could spend the day with Luca without having to think of an excuse.

  He observed her approach from a distance, a quizzical expression on his face.

  ‘Does your father know you’re here? Don’t get into trouble for me.’

  ‘Are you telling me to go away?’ she demanded, hurt.

  ‘It might be better if you did.’

  ‘You sound as if you don’t care one way or the other.’

  ‘My back is broad, but yours isn’t. I don’t want you hurt.’

  ‘In other words you’re giving me the brush-off.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he growled. ‘Of course I don’t want you to go.’

  She ran into his arms, kissing him again and again.

  ‘I’m not going, my darling. I’m not going to leave you.’

  He kissed her long and deeply, and she responded with fierce, young passion. It was he who pulled away first, trembling with the effort it took to rein his desire back, but determined to do so.

  ‘I would die rather than harm you,’ he said in a shaking voice.

  ‘But, darling, you’re not harming me. Dad told me to come and see you.’

  He looked at her wryly. ‘And why would he do that?’

  She chuckled. ‘Can’t you guess? He wants me to soften you up for his next offer.’

  He grinned. ‘And are you going to?’

  ‘Of course not. But he’s told me to keep on your right side, and while he thinks that’s what I’m doing he won’t make a fuss about me coming here. Aren’t I clever?’

  ‘You’re a cunning little witch.’

  ‘I’m only putting Dad’s own theory into practice. He says when you think someone’s acting for you they’re always pursuing their own agenda. Well, you’re my agenda, so come here and let me get on your right side.’

  She took his hand and he went with her, unresisting, because neither then nor later could he deny her anything. It was to be the ruin of both of them.

  ‘Damn you, Luca! You duped me.’

  Luca Montese’s face showed no relenting. ‘Nonsense! You sleepwalked into this without checking.’

  ‘I thought I could trust you.’

  ‘More fool you. I warned you not to trust me, and goodness knows how many of my enemies warned you.’

  The man glaring across the desk was in a fury at the thought of the money he’d coveted and lost. His name was-well, no matter. He was the latest in a long line of men who had thought they could put one over on Luca Montese, and found that they were wrong.

  ‘We were supposed to be in this together,’ he snapped.

  ‘No. You thought you’d use me as a tool. I was to get the information, then you planned to make a deal behind my back. You should have been more suspicious. When you think a man’s acting for you he’s always pursuing his own agenda.’

  Then a strange thing happened.

  As Luca said the words a feeling of malaise came over him, so strong that he had to take a deep breath. It was as though the world had changed in a moment from a place where he was in control to a place where everything was strange and threatening.

  ‘Get out!’ he said curtly. ‘I’ll send you a cheque to cover your expenses.’

  The man left fast, relieved simply to recover his expenses, which was more than anyone had got out of Luca for years. He wondered if the monster was losing his touch.

  Left alone, Luca held himself still for a long time. The walls seemed to converge on him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

  When you think a man’s acting for you he’s always pursuing his own agenda.

  The words had come so naturally that he’d never doubted they were his own. Yet they had carried a sweetness so unbearable that it had almost destroyed him.

  He was choking. He got up and opened the window, but the terrifying memory wouldn’t go away.

  She had said it, and then she had pulled him down on the bed and loved him until his head was spinning. And he had loved her in return, making her a gift of everything that was in him, heart, body and soul, everything he was or hoped to be.

  And that had been his mistake.

  It was a mistake he’d never made again in the fifteen years since, when he had piled up money and power. He’d commanded his heart to harden until he could feel nothing, and he had been a success in that, as in everything else.

  Now something frightening was happening. More and more the past was calling, tempting him back to a time when he was alive to feeling. But if he worked hard he reckoned he could kill it.

  Only one person did not tread carefully when Luca was around, and that was Sonia, his personal assistant. Middle-aged, cool and efficient, she viewed her employer with eyes that were half motherly, half cynical. She was the only person he totally trusted, and with whom he could discuss his personal life.

  ‘Don’t waste time brooding,’ she advised him over a drink that evening. ‘You always said it was a weakness. You’ve got your divorce, so forget it, and marry again.’

  ‘Never!’ he snapped. ‘Another barren marriage for people to snicker at? No, thank you.’

  ‘Who says it’ll be barren? Just because you didn’t have a child by Drusilla doesn’t mean a thing. Some couples are like that. They can’t have a baby together, but each of them can have a baby by somebody else. Nobody knows why it happens, but it does.

  ‘This hairdresser is her “somebody else”. Now you have to find yours. It shouldn’t be hard. You’re an attractive man.’

  He grinned. ‘Not like you to pay me compliments. Normally, according to you, I’m an impossible so-and-so with an ego the size of St Peter’s dome and-I forget the others but I’m sure you remember them.’

  ‘Selfish, monstrous and intolerable,’ she supplied without hesitation. ‘I�
�ve called you all those things and I don’t take back one word.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘But it doesn’t stop you being attractive, and there are millions of women out there.’

  He was silent for so long that she wondered if she’d offended him.

  ‘It could work the other way too, couldn’t it?’ he said at last.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Suppose there weren’t millions of women? Suppose there was only one woman with whom I had any hope of having children?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of it working that way round.’

  ‘But it might,’ he persisted.

  ‘Then you’d have to find her, and it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

  ‘Not if you knew who she was.’

  Understanding dawned.

  ‘You’ve already made your mind up, haven’t you? Luca, you don’t believe this because it’s true, you believe it because you want to. It’s rather comforting to know that you can be as irrational as the rest of us.’ She regarded him curiously. ‘She must have been very special.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘She was special.’

  He was a man of action. A few phone calls and a representative of the best private-enquiry firm that money could buy was in his office next morning.

  ‘Rebecca Solway,’ he said, speaking curtly to hide the fact that his stomach was churning. ‘Her father was Frank Solway, owner of the Belleto estate in Tuscany.

  ‘Find her. I don’t care what it costs, but find her.’

  It was a successful evening. Philip Steyne, chairman of the bank, treated Rebecca with honour, and was clearly as impressed as Danvers had hoped he would be. When Rebecca left them for a moment Steyne said,

  ‘Congratulations, Jordan. She’ll do the bank credit. When can we expect the announcement?’

  ‘Any day, I hope. Nothing’s been said precisely, but of course she understands where we’re heading.’

  ‘Well, in good banking it pays to be precise,’ observed Steyne with a grin. ‘Don’t take too long.’

  When Rebecca returned he said, ‘Rebecca, let me have the benefit of your expertise. You’re a quarter Italian, right?’

  ‘Yes, my father’s mother came from Tuscany.’

  ‘And you speak the language?’

  She gave him her cleverest smile, a little bit teasing, but not too much. This was Danvers’ boss.

  ‘Which language do you mean? There’s la madre lingua, the official language that they use on radio and television, and in government. But there are also the regional dialects, which are languages in themselves. I speak la madre lingua, and Tuscan.’

  ‘I’m impressed. Actually Tuscan might be handy. This firm has its head office in Rome, but I believe it started in Tuscany, and it’s all over the world now.’

  ‘Firm?’

  ‘Raditore Inc. Property, finance, finger in every pie. Suddenly it’s buying a huge block of shares in the Allingham, and the bank’s interested in closer contact. I propose a dinner party at my house-you, Danvers, their top brass. Let’s see what there is to be gained from them.’

  Driving her home, Danvers was lyrical in his praise.

  ‘You really impressed the old man tonight, darling.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad I was a help to you.’

  She answered mechanically and he shot her a quick sideways look, thinking that this was the second time she’d been in a funny mood and he hoped it wasn’t going to become a habit.

  Again she didn’t invite him into her suite, which he found annoying. He would have found it convenient to discuss the forthcoming dinner party. Instead Rebecca bid him an implacable goodnight and shut her door.

  When he was out of sight she closed her eyes in relief, then stripped off hurriedly and got under the shower, wanting to wash the evening away. She was on edge tonight, just as she had been the night before. The mention of Tuscany had unsettled her, and the ghost had walked again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  A S SOON as Becky was certain, she hurried to tell Luca the news. He was thrilled.

  ‘A baby? Our own little bambino! Half you, half me.’

  ‘Your very own son and heir,’ she said, snuggling blissfully in his arms.

  How he laughed.

  ‘I’m just a common labourer. Labourers don’t have heirs. Besides, I want a girl-just like you. I want another Becky.’

  Her pregnancy brought out the best in him, and she discovered again that he was a marvellous man, loving, tender, considerate as few men knew how to be. Later, when joy was replaced by anguish, it was his tenderness that Rebecca remembered most wistfully. How gently he took care of her, how worried he always was about her health. Nothing was ever too much trouble for him to do for her.

  Her father was away a lot that summer, visiting his various interests, and there was little chance to tell him. When he did return it was only for a few days, filled with phone calls. Becky didn’t want to break the news until she was sure of having all his attention, so she waited until she knew he would be home for at least two weeks. By that time she was three months gone.

  ‘And you will tell him this time?’ Luca asked.

  ‘Of course. I only want everything to be right when I do.’

  ‘I want to be with you. I won’t have you face his anger alone.’

  ‘What anger? Dad will be thrilled,’ she predicted blithely. ‘He loves babies.’

  It was true. Like many bullies Frank Solway had a streak of sentimentality. He cooed over babies and the world said what a delightful man he was.

  ‘Honestly, darling,’ Becky said, ‘this will make everything all right.’

  How stupid could you be?

  Her father was almost out of his mind with rage.

  ‘You got yourself knocked up by that…?’ He finished on a stream of profanity.

  ‘Dad, I didn’t get “knocked up”. I got pregnant by a man I love. Please don’t try to make it sound like something dirty.’

  ‘It is dirty. How dare he lay a finger on you?’

  ‘Because I wanted him to. To put it plainly, I dragged him into bed, not the other way around.’

  ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say that again,’ he shouted.

  ‘It’s true! I love Luca and I’m going to marry him.’

  ‘You think I’m going to allow that? You think my daughter is going to marry that low-life? The sooner this is fixed the better.’

  ‘I’m going to have my baby.’

  ‘The hell you are!’

  She ran away that night. Frank followed her to Luca’s house and tried to buy her back. But the mention of money only made Luca roar with laughter. Later Becky was to realise what her father heard in that laughter. It was the roar of the young lion telling the old lion that he no longer ruled. Perhaps her father’s real hatred dated from that moment.

  He tried to enlist the help of the locals, but he was thwarted. Frank Solway was powerful but Luca was one of them, and nobody was ready to raise their hand against him.

  But Becky knew he wouldn’t give up, and in the end it was she who suggested they leave.

  ‘Just for a while, darling. Dad’ll feel better about it when he’s a grandfather.’

  He sighed. ‘I hate running away, but all this quarrelling is bad for you and the baby. We’ll go for the sake of some peace.’

  They fled south to stay with his friends in Naples. After two weeks he bought an old car, repaired it himself, and they set off again, heading south to Calabria. Two weeks there, then north again.

  They talked about marriage but never stayed anywhere long enough to complete the formalities, just in case Frank’s tentacles reached them. Wherever they went his skilled hands found him work. It was a good life.

  Becky had not known that such happiness was possible. She was over the first sickness of pregnancy, feeling well and strong, spending her life with the man she adored. Their love was the unquestioning, uncomplicated kind that inspired songs and stor
ies, with a happy-ever-after always promised at the end. She loved him, he loved her, and their baby would arrive soon. What more was there?

  The thought of Frank was always there in the background, but as week followed week with no sign of him he faded and became unreal, a ‘maybe’ rather than a genuine threat.

  She began to understand Luca better, and herself. It was Luca who revealed her body to her, its fierce responses, its eagerness for physical love. But it was also through him, and the life they lived, that she was able to stand outside herself, and look with critical eyes. What she saw did not please her.

  ‘I was horrid,’ she said to him once. ‘A real spoilt brat, taking everything for granted, letting Dad indulge me and never wondering where the money came from. But it actually came from men like the ones who stopped me that day. He practically stole from them. You can’t really blame them, can you?’

  ‘You can’t blame yourself, either,’ he insisted. ‘You were so young, how could it occur to you to ask questions about your father’s methods? But when your eyes were opened you didn’t try to look away. My Becky is too brave for that.’

  There was always a special note in his voice when he said ‘my Becky’, as though all the best in her was a personal gift to himself, to be treasured. It made her feel like the most important person in the world. And in the world they made together, that was true.

  She gradually came to understand that Luca was one person to her, and a different man to everyone else. The attackers who had fled him, filled with fear, had seen the side of him that others saw.

  He was a potentially frightening man who carried with him an aura of being always on the edge of ruthlessness, even violence. It took time for Becky to understand this, because he never showed that side of himself to her.

  They had their arguments, even outright rows, but he fought fair, never turning his ferocity on her, and always bringing the spat to a speedy end, often by simply giving in. It hurt him to be at odds with her.

  In their daily life he was tender, loving and gentle, setting her on a pedestal and asserting, by his actions, that she was different from all other human beings on earth.