The Italian's Rags-To-Riches Wife. Julia James
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wanted. He was—’
‘A bastard,’ said Laura. ‘Like me.’
Her jaw was set. She looked belligerent.
Cussed. Sullen. Ill-tempered.
The familiar adjectives scrolled in Allesandro’s mind. Then another one entered. Where it had come from, he had no idea. But suddenly it was there all the same.
Bleak, with an empty look in her eyes.
He thrust it aside. Laura Stowe wasn’t someone he wanted to feel sorry for.
At the hospital his instructions were terse.
‘Say anything to upset Tomaso and you will be sorry, I promise you.’
Laura only looked away. The last time she’d been in a hospital ward it had been to see her grandfather, the day he had finally died of heart failure, mere months after her grandmother’s death. As she followed Allesandro into the intensive care room, and saw the solitary figure surrounded by instruments and electronics, his body wired up to them and a drip in his arm, she swallowed hard.
The figure in the bed was so frail. As frail as her grandfather had been.
But this is my grandfather. The thought pierced her suddenly.
She shook her head. No—no, it wasn’t! She wouldn’t let him be. She wouldn’t let anything of this touch her. She would block it out of her mind, her life, her existence.
This is nothing to do with me! Nothing!
But as she walked in, the head lying on the white pillow turned towards her.
‘Laura—’
The voice was thin, but it had lifted on her name.
Silently, with clear effort, a frail hand was held out to her.
‘You came,’ he said. Dark eyes rested on her. In them Laura thought she saw something she had not expected to see.
Gratitude.
She walked forward. She didn’t take the hand, and Tomaso let it fall back on the bed. A little of the light went out of his eyes. It made Laura feel bad, but she did not want to touch him.
‘How—how are you?’ she said, her voice stiff and awkward.
There was a flicker in the dark eyes. ‘Better for seeing you. Thank you—thank you for staying. For allowing me—’
He took a breath. It sounded difficult and rasping.
‘Please, won’t you sit down?’
Heavily, she sank down into the chair by the bed. Tomaso’s gaze went past her to the figure standing in the doorway.
‘I’m staying,’ said Allesandro in Italian. ‘I don’t want her upsetting you.’
Tomaso’s expression changed. ‘I think I will be safe enough. Thank you for bringing her to me, Allesandro, but now—’
Reluctantly, Allesandro left. The heart monitor would give the alarm if the crash team were to be needed precipitately. Moodily, he went on pacing up and down the corridor.
Inside the intensive care room, Tomaso’s gaze returned to Laura. She bit her lip. Tension wracked her body. Her throat was as tight as a drum.
‘Laura—my child. I have something I must say to you. I ask you, most humbly, to allow me to say it.’ The rasp in his voice came again. ‘Then, if you still wish, leave and return to England. With my blessing. Should you want it,’ he added, and there was a wry ruefulness in his voice.
He paused a moment, as if he were gathering strength. From the corner of her eye Laura could see the oscilloscope pulse to the beating of his heart. Her own heart seemed to be thudding heavily inside her.
She wanted to go. Wanted to bolt, run, get out of here. March away on heavy, hard feet. March all the way back to England. To Wharton. Shut herself in the house and never come out. Never. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. Something kept her glued to the chair. It was probably tension. Nerves. What else could it be?
She felt Tomaso’s gaze on her—as if, she realised, he was steeling himself to say something more. As if he was wary of her reaction. Anxious, even. Then, with that weak rasp still in his voice, he spoke. His eyes rested on her, and his head turned towards her.
‘Lying here has given me time to think. To remember. And I have thought much and remembered much. I have remembered Stefano. Not as I last saw him—not as he was in those last years of his life—but long ago. When he was your age. Younger. Even younger.’
He took a breath, then went on. ‘But I don’t have very many memories of him. Nor as a boy. You see…’ his eyes wavered a moment ‘…I did not spend a great deal of time with him. I was busy making money. Stefano I left to his mother. She doted on him.’ His gaze wavered again. ‘I was too busy to spend much time with her, either. So she lavished on him all the devotion and attention that I was too busy to accept from her. Stefano was always wild, obsessed with his power boats.’
He was silent a moment, whether to gather his strength or to dwell on his dead son Laura didn’t know. She only knew that she was stretched tight, like a pulled wire. She wanted Tomaso not to have spoken. Not to have drawn an image of a boy, a young man, half-neglected, half-spoilt, taking what he wanted and ignoring the consequences.
And that included my mother! He took her and dumped her! And be damned to the consequences—including getting her pregnant!
Anger, familiar like an old hair shirt, rubbed against her.
Tomaso was speaking again. His voice had changed now.
‘A man wishes to be proud of his son. But how can I be proud that my son seduced and abandoned the mother of his child? Ignored her existence—and yours.’ The eyes rested on her, and she could see pain in them. And remorse.
‘It was crass of me. Stupid, insensitive—and selfish—of me to think you could have any wish to know your father’s family,’ he said heavily. ‘All your life you have lived knowing what my son did to your mother, and to you. And for me to think that in an instant everything could be forgiven and forgotten was stupid of me in the extreme. There is anger in you—a lifetime of anger—and I cannot ignore that. I must not.’
He took another breath. His eyes hung on hers.
‘Go home, if you wish. I have no right to you at all. None. I have been foolish and greedy. I wanted to do well by you, but I cannot wash away the past. I cannot undo what Stefano did to you, to your mother, and to her parents. I have not been a good father, Laura. I wished to make up for that by being a good grandfather to you, but…’
His voice trailed off.
Laura went on sitting there. She could hear small sounds—the click of an electrical unit, the sound of a bird, a car, some muffled voices in the corridor outside.
It was very quiet.
Then, suddenly, it burst from her.
‘How could he do it? How? How could he just ignore her like that? It wasn’t as if he even wrote back to say he didn’t believe the baby was his! He just totally ignored her! She wrote and wrote, and he never, ever got back in touch. She was just a nuisance! That’s all she was to him! And so was I. He didn’t even want to know.’
There was a horrible cracking noise in her throat.
‘He didn’t want me,’ she said.
Two spots of colour were burning in her cheeks. They did not flatter her. She got to her feet. It was an abrupt, jerky movement. She turned away, towards the door, taking a sharp, agonising breath. She took a step forward, not looking at the man who stood in the doorway. Not looking at anyone or anything.
‘But I want you, Laura.’
Her head whipped round.