Her Sicilian Baby Revelation. Michelle Smart
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stare through the reflection of the mirror and they burst into peals of laughter.
The sisters had long ago learned that the best way to keep the anger and pain of their mother’s actions at bay was to laugh and treat it all as one big joke. If they didn’t laugh there was a good chance they would never stop crying.
‘I suppose you should be grateful she remembered,’ Orla pointed out dryly.
‘I’m brimming with gratitude.’
She sniggered before confiding, ‘I’m dreading meeting Dante’s mother.’ Orla’s conception had been the catalyst for Dante’s parents’ divorce twenty-seven years ago.
‘Don’t be. I told you, she has no animosity towards you.’
‘But she sounds terrifying.’
‘She’s hilarious. When Dante told her she was going to be a grandmother the first thing she said was that she didn’t want to be known as Nonna.’
‘What will she be called?’ Another two clasps were hooked in quick succession.
Aislin cackled wickedly. ‘Nonna!’
‘Is she here yet?’ ‘Here’ being the magnificent luxury hotel nestled on a cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea that Dante had hired the entirety of for the weekend.
‘She’s going straight to the cathedral with Giuseppe.’ Giuseppe was Dante’s latest stepfather, Immacolata’s sixth husband. ‘Now stop whittling.’
Before Orla could make a cutting retort, there was a knock on the door. A moment later a member of the hotel’s staff walked into the suite carrying a huge bouquet of flowers in a vase.
‘Compliments of the owner,’ he said in careful English.
‘How lovely.’ Aislin clapped her hands in delight. ‘Please, put them on the windowsill and, please, thank Mr Valente for me.’
Valente?
For no reason she could imagine, the hairs on the nape of Orla’s neck lifted and her gaze flew to the door that concealed her napping child.
When they were alone again, Aislin met Orla’s eyes again in the reflection of the mirror. ‘Have you met the owner of the hotel yet?’
Now the hairs on her arms lifted too.
‘Should I have?’ she asked nonchalantly, even as she ground her bare feet into the soft, thick carpet and ice raced up her spine.
Orla had arrived the day before but Finn had been exhausted from the journey, so they’d dined in the suite together rather than join the other early arrivals for the evening meal. By the time Aislin had joined them, both she and Finn had been fast asleep. Her sister had crawled into the bed with her, just as she’d done throughout their childhood. It had been a bittersweet moment for Orla, waking to find her sister asleep beside her. Her baby sister would never share her bed again.
Aislin shrugged but there was a shrewdness in the reflecting stare that sent the ice already in Orla’s spine spreading through her limbs. ‘Tonino’s one of Dante’s ushers—they’re old friends. Their fathers were friends too.’
Orla’s fingers tightened reflexively. Her chest tightened. The room began to swim around her…
‘Ouch!’
Aislin’s squeal pulled her sharply back into focus and Orla suddenly became aware that her nails were digging into her sister’s back. She whipped her hand away…and pulled the clasp she’d had hold of away with it.
Tonino Valente stood by the huge entrance doors and waited for the last guests to file into the baroque cathedral.
The groom, Dante, was at the altar mopping his brow with a handkerchief.
He could laugh to see his old friend acting like this, but propriety forced him to bite his cheeks and smother it.
Who would have thought Dante Moncada, the biggest player of them all, would be standing at the altar sweating with nerves as he awaited his bride? Out of their gang, which decades before had ridden round Palermo on scooters desperately trying to look cool and impress the girls, Dante had always been the one who’d vowed never to settle down. Tonino had been the only one to assume he would one day marry and yet here he was, the last bachelor of their gang left on the shelf.
He’d almost married once. He’d even gone as far as to book this same cathedral before fate had stepped in in the form of an Irish temptress and turned his life inside out with one locking of eyes.
Strangely, Dante was himself marrying an Irishwoman. Tonino had only met her the once, fleetingly, a stunning redhead who had transformed his old friend into a smitten lovesick fool.
What was it with Irishwomen, he ruminated, that they could turn a Sicilian man’s head so completely?
His own Irishwoman… Well, that had been an extremely short romance. But intense. Incredibly intense. And then she’d left without saying goodbye. Not a word. Just packed her bags and left. When he’d called, he’d found himself unable to get through—she’d blocked his number.
Her cruelty in the manner she’d ended things had been breathtaking.
He could hardly believe that four years on he still thought about her.
A commotion outside the entrance had him striding outside to help a young couple struggling to manoeuvre a wheelchair-cum-pushchair that had a small child in it up the cathedral steps.
‘You’re with the bride?’ he asked in Sicilian then repeated in English once they were inside and out of the late-afternoon heat. The ushers had all been warned the bride’s nephew had mobility issues. A special place at the front of the cathedral had been set aside for him so he could have an unrestricted view of the ceremony. An usher would be required to wait with the child until the bridal party arrived and his mother, the chief bridesmaid, could take over. Tonino guessed the job had become his.
‘We are,’ the young woman confirmed proudly, her Irish accent strong. ‘I’m Aislin’s cousin Carmel, and this is my husband Danny. This young man here is Finn.’
‘He’s Aislin’s nephew?’ he clarified, just in case there was another wheelchair-bound small boy coming.
‘Yes. Aislin and the others left the hotel right behind us so will be here any minute.’
Figuring he should introduce himself so as not to scare the child, he got down on his haunches and looked at him.
Dressed in a miniature suit that matched the groom’s, the boy couldn’t be much older than a toddler. He had a shock of thick black hair and equally dark eyes…
There was something about his eyes that made the words Tonino was about to say stick in his throat.
After a drawn-out beat, he conjured a smile. ‘Hello, Finn. I’m Tonino. I’m going to take you to the front of the cathedral to wait for your mummy.’
He was rewarded with a wide smile that displayed a row of tiny white teeth.
Straightening, Tonino took the handles of what was clearly a specially made wheelchair and pushed the child down the wide aisle to his designated space. Finn immediately spotted Dante at the altar and flung his arms out as if reaching for him.
Dante grinned and hurried over to crouch on his haunches before him just as Tonino had done. Finn’s skinny arms wrapped around his uncle’s neck. ‘Carry,’ Finn demanded in a strong Irish accent.
‘Soon,’ Dante promised. ‘I need to marry Aunty Aislin first.’
‘Then carry?’
‘You bet. Now be a good boy and wait for your mummy. Tonino will look after you until she gets here.’ Dante kissed his nephew’s cheek and ruffled