Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire

by Susan Stephens

  * * *

  She missed Marco more than words could say. It was as if she had been complete and now she had a vital part of her missing. Marco was damaged and she couldn’t help him until he was ready to help himself. She hated to admit it but she was about ready to admit defeat.

  Never. Defeat wasn’t in her nature. She smiled ruefully and chomped on her lip as she pictured him lounging back in his warm, state-of-the-art office, while she was here, freezing her butt off in a neighbour’s overgrown orchard that she was trying to rescue.

  Marco could make her life so much easier than this.

  Maybe he could—if she was prepared to sell out, which she wasn’t. And that was even supposing Marco would want to stick around after their baby was born. She had no idea what he wanted to do. There might be a custody battle once it had been had proved to his satisfaction that he was the father of her child. He should know that there was no one else. He had enough investigators on the case. She’d ‘made’ his man on her first day back in England. There couldn’t be many burly men who would reach for packets of hair dye and scrunchies when caught staring at her in the supermarket.

  Leaning back against the tree trunk, she stared up through its contorted branches. Birds wheeled overhead in a hostile, grey sky, which made her think back to the warmth and sunshine in Tuscany. She was as wary of commitment as Marco, and it was going to be a long, lonely Christmas with just the bump—the very active bump—for company. She hoped that she would see Marco again, but it wouldn’t be until some time in the New Year when she gave birth.

  * * *

  He scanned the latest report from his people in the UK again. There were no new developments, and nothing for him to worry about, they said. That wasn’t good enough for him. Today he felt the need to hear that reassurance from Cassandra’s lips. As an ex-member of staff she was still his responsibility.

  He called her up, but there was no reply. Was she was ignoring his calls?

  Was he going to hang around to find out?

  With his pilot on leave for the holidays he flew the jet to London himself. He felt better just being in charge—until he landed and tried to cross the airport concourse, when all hell broke loose. The paparazzi were waiting for him and the one question they all wanted an answer to was whether he would be going straight to the hospital. He scanned his phone. He’d missed how many calls? There were seven from Cassandra and three from his staff. He knew what this meant. The one thing he could not control was the birth of this child. Nature would determine the time, not him, and that was a humbling realisation for a man who controlled every aspect of his life without exception.

  This wasn’t the end of his journey of discovery when it came to the birth of a child but just the start. He was about to learn that giving birth didn’t come neatly packaged or with a reliable timetable to suit him. Neither did it come with the automatic ‘all areas’ pass he was accustomed to being granted. Not one of the nurses in the Christmassy, glitzed-up hospital where, he was reliably informed, Cassandra was about to give birth would tell him when or where this would take place. His best guess was to take the elevator up to the maternity suite and take it from there.

  All these practical things he could look at logically, but the feelings inside him could not be neatly organised or even accounted for. He was in turmoil. He was frightened for her. He was so far out of his comfort zone he had no answers, only questions, and producing his passport as proof of identity meant nothing here. He was made to stand back, stand aside, and he began to feel increasingly unsettled as his power was stripped away. He wanted to see Cassandra. He had to see her. She was expecting him. How was he supposed to help her if they wouldn’t let him see her?

  ‘From what I’ve seen, Ms Rich is quite capable of helping herself,’ a fierce-looking midwife wearing flashing antlers in honour of the holiday season told him when he was his usual assertive self. ‘She doesn’t need any additional stress now,’ she added, planting herself staunchly between him and the labour room door.

  ‘I’m not here to give Cassandra stress,’ he insisted, nearly going crazy with the delay as his mind tried to penetrate beyond the firmly closed door to find out what was happening.

  The hospital had numerous ways to hold him in check, he now discovered. His passport had to be taken away and verified, and even then he was made to wait until his relationship to Ms Rich could be established with certainty. From the donning of a mask, gown and over-shoes to his entry into a temperature-controlled room where Cassandra was working towards the moment of birth with a stoicism that everyone but him found remarkable, he was out of his comfort zone, tossed headlong into a situation that was completely new—and, he admitted silently, alarming to him. He pushed that aside now he was with Cassandra. His heart gripped tight with all sorts of emotion, concern for her being uppermost amongst them. She looked so young—too young to be going through this—but when she saw him she reached out to him.

  ‘Marco...you came.’ Her eyes lit up as she held out her hand.

  It was that look that stopped him. It held love, trust and gratitude, none of which he deserved, and he couldn’t—mustn’t—encourage it. Love deeply, and it was always stripped away and denied. Hadn’t he learned that by now?

  ‘Marco?’

  She sounded concerned, but then a nurse hustled him out of the way. ‘You can sit over here,’ the nurse told him. ‘Or stand, unless you think you might faint.’

  He glared at the nurse. Cassandra defused the situation.

  ‘Could he hold my hand?’ she asked in that way she had that made everyone warm to her and want to do things for her.

  ‘Would you like to?’ one of the nurses asked him dubiously, as if this could be in doubt.

  He noticed the glances exchanged by the staff. They knew his press. They didn’t think much of him. Why would they when they only had his lurid backstory as depicted by the world’s paparazzi to go on? They thought even less of him now a woman of his acquaintance was in labour.

  ‘Of course I’d like to—I must,’ he insisted.

  He was at Cassandra’s side in a stride. Pain he understood. The need for reassurance he understood. He could also comprehend that a new and frightening experience was better shared. It was the look in Cassandra’s eyes that baffled him. How could she still feel this way about him when he could give her nothing back?

  ‘What can I do of a practical nature?’ he asked the same fierce-looking midwife, now masked and gowned like him. He felt useless, just standing by the bed.

  ‘Be there for her. That’s all you have to do. If she asks you to leave, you go. If we ask you to leave, you go faster. Understood?’

  He ground his jaw and agreed.

  The quiet efficiency of the staff impressed him. An aura of purposeful calm prevailed, and it was not allowed to be disturbed. Cassandra was the centre of everyone’s attention, as she should be, and she was everything he might have expected of her. She made barely a sound as she clung to his hand, then his wrist, and finally his arm with a ferocity of which he would not have believed her capable. He was drawn in. She drew him in so that he was part of her experience—a very small part, admittedly, but a necessary one, her unflinching stare told him.

  And then a baby cried.

  Lustily, he noted with relief.

  ‘Your son,’ the midwife said, bypassing him to put the child in Cassandra’s arms.

  Cassandra had a son.

  Her face was spellbound as she stared down at the tiny, wrinkled bundle in her arms.

  ‘Oh, Marco...’

  She couldn’t bear to rip her enraptured gaze away from her baby’s face. She was mapping every feature in the way that only a mother could, he guessed from his scant knowledge of what a mother might do. His brain was still frantically trying to patch together all the new information. The expression on Cassandra’s face was new t
o him. This situation was new to him. Love, raw and new, confronted him. There was no escaping it. He was consumed by it. He had no response ready, and he doubted that one could be prepared in advance.

  ‘What do you think of him?’ Cassandra asked him, her gaze still fixed on her baby.

  ‘He seems healthy,’ he observed, trying not to look too closely. ‘Sturdy,’ he amended as one tiny arm flailed as if the child would like to catch him with a blow.

  ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ Cass exclaimed softly. ‘I bet you looked exactly like this when you were born, Marco.’ Glancing up at him, Cass smiled and her expression warmed him. ‘Don’t you want to hold him?’

  ‘I’m not sure I should,’ he said, suddenly nervous when confronted by such a tiny life.

  ‘Of course you should,’ the midwife told him. Taking the infant from Cassandra’s arms, she placed him in his.

  As his brutish arms closed around the small warm bundle, he sucked in a shocked breath. The tiny child was somehow familiar, as if he were seeing someone he knew well after a really long absence. It was a defining moment, a shock, a wake-up call, and also a dilemma he had never expected to confront. He hadn’t expected to feel anything, let alone this detonation of emotion inside his heart. His heart didn’t just beat faster, it took off—it swelled, it exploded.

  He cried.

  ‘Marco?’

  Cassandra’s voice was concerned—for him.

  Rigid control allowed him to pull himself together and hand the child back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he bit out awkwardly. No words could explain.

  ‘He’s your son, Marco,’ she said, staring again into the tiny face. ‘There’s no mistaking it, is there?’

  ‘No mistaking it,’ the same midwife agreed in his place, beaming fondly as she stared down at the baby.

  ‘We don’t know that yet.’ He was reeling from reality, from his son—gut instinct told him this tiny, vulnerable child was his son, and that made him fearful. Could he protect the child as he had failed to protect his mother? Could he love his son, as the man he had called father had failed to love him? Overwhelmed by love, he was in danger of being destroyed by the fear of losing it again.

  It was as if the air had frozen solid when he spoke. Everyone in the room remained motionless, as if they couldn’t compute what he’d said, let alone his reason for saying it now, at what had to be the most inappropriate moment possible. He felt as if time and space had slowed to take full account of his crass remark as everyone turned around to stare at him.

  ‘We can’t be sure that he’s mine,’ he said, reverting to the emotion-free tone he always used in business. He added a shrug for good measure. ‘Only science can do that.’

  It was as if, having dug the hole, he had to go on digging. The midwife looked as if she’d like to push him into it and then fill it in with cement.

  ‘Oh, Marco,’ Cassandra murmured. Handing the baby over to the midwife to put in the cot that had been made ready nearby, she reached out to him as she had done when he’d first entered the room. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ she whispered, so that only he could hear.

  He stiffened and stared down at her as if she were a stranger. ‘I should go now.’

  ‘Must you?’ Her eyes implored him to stay.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I must. I didn’t realise how long this would take. I have appointments—’

  ‘Yes, I see,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I took so long.’

  She was apologising to him? He was deeply ashamed. He had to get out of there or he would ruin her life. He needed time—space—the opportunity to counsel himself, so he could accept the truth—that he was afraid of love, terrified of it—terrified of losing it, terrified of losing Cassandra. He had kept his feelings bottled up since he was a child, and now they were threatening to drown him, just when Cassandra was at her most vulnerable—when she needed him most.

  ‘I’ll arrange the DNA test as soon as I can.’

  ‘You’ll...’ Cassandra’s mouth dropped open.

  ‘Haven’t you said enough?’ the midwife hissed, glancing pointedly at the door.

  He hadn’t moved. Cassandra had gone white with shock, but then her shock turned to fury and, pulling herself up in the bed, she flung at him in anger, ‘Get your court order first! Then you can have your DNA test!’

  As a nurse rushed across the room to calm her, the midwife ushered him to the door. ‘Get out,’ she murmured coldly.

  She was right. He was a monster. He’d always known it. He was a monster who didn’t deserve to love or be loved.

  He stood motionless outside the door, barely aware of the concerned murmurings inside the room. He couldn’t be sure whose life he was ruining—maybe all of them. He couldn’t bear to overhear Cassandra making excuses for him. But now he’d said this terrible thing he had to get it over and done with. He placed a call and asked the question. The Christmas holidays had produced a backlog in the lab, but for Marco di Fivizzano, anything was possible. And, yes, the answer would be with him within hours.

  They would be the longest hours of his life.

  Turning up the collar of his jacket, he walked out of the building, only to find an army of paparazzi waiting for him. He pushed his way through them, hardly knowing where he was going. He wanted to be with Cassandra and the baby, but he knew that he didn’t deserve to stay.

  ‘No comment,’ he flared when the photographers chased him down the street.

  ‘Is it a boy?’

  ‘Will you make him your heir?’

  ‘Will you marry your gardener?’

  ‘What did you buy her for Christmas, Marco—or have you already given her your best?’

  Normally, he would stand and fight, but he had no fight left in him, and to a chorus of cruel laughter he kept on walking. It was just past four in the afternoon and already winter dark. He walked on past his car with no idea of where he was heading. Realising they’d get no response from him, the following pack dropped away. The streets were full of last-minute shoppers carrying unwieldy packages, and while he could slip through the scrum with relative ease, the reporters with all their equipment soon got left behind. He turned his mind to practicalities. That seemed to help. He would have security put in place for Cassandra and the baby. Pulling out his phone, he made the arrangements and walked on. Store windows were ablaze with Christmas cheer, but he felt numb—until a young girl and her boyfriend danced out of a large department store and the boy flung his scarf around the girl’s neck.

  ‘Here, take mine,’ the boy insisted as they laughed happily into each other’s eyes. ‘I don’t want you getting cold.’

  ‘What about you?’ the girl demanded, tightening her hold on the scarf.

  The boy brought her close. ‘I don’t need it. I’ve got my love to keep me warm.’

  He couldn’t believe he’d been gripped by such a cheesy display, and for a moment he couldn’t understand why, but then he remembered, and tears stung his eyes as he retraced his steps back to the store. Ducking inside the brilliantly lit warmth, he bought the warmest and most colourful scarf he could find. ‘Yes. Gift-wrap it, please.’ On the surface it didn’t seem much, but the scarf was a vital link to him between the past and what had happened today, and some sane—or maybe it was insane—part of his brain wanted desperately for it to mean something to Cassandra. She was his life.

  Cassandra was his only preoccupation as he left the store. He couldn’t believe he’d walked out of that hospital ward, leaving Cassandra and her baby in the care of strangers. As he strode along he had to tell himself that she was in good hands. That fierce midwife wouldn’t let anyone get past her. But leaving them still wasn’t right. Dealing with the enormity of birth and the creation of life had proved him to be emotionally inadequate. Wasn’t it time to do something about that? For over twenty years he had pushed the past away, but n
ow he had the scarf and a link to the past that made sense to him. He could only hope that it would make sense to Cassandra.

  It was slippery underfoot and bitterly cold. Snow was feathering down, and the wintry conditions reminded him of the night when his eight-year-old self had been thrown out into the street with his mother. He had been freezing cold, and she had stopped to take off her scarf so she could tie it around his neck. So she had cared for him. He tightened his hold on the package from the store, and then he remembered staring back at the house where the man who had turned out not to be his father—the man he had loved with all his heart—had turned his back on him without even saying goodbye.

  Was that what he’d just done to Cassandra? The thought appalled him. Far from avoiding the past, he had invited it back and had given it a home in his cold, unfeeling heart.

  He stopped walking and found himself on a bridge. Looking down at the oily water, he watched its steady progress to the sea and accepted that life moved on, and he must move with it. Tucking his hands beneath his arms for warmth, he headed back to his car.

  * * *

  No one stayed in hospital for long after the birth of a child unless there were complications, and Cass’s experience of birth had been straightforward. Her little boy was healthy, and it seemed no time at all before Cass was in a cab on her way home with a newborn baby in her arms. Her child. Her son. Her Luca. She had given him an Italian name for the father he so closely resembled—particularly when he frowned like this—though in Luca’s case it was probably wind rather than general alienation from the world and everything beautiful and gentle and remarkable in that world.

  She felt so sorry for Marco—sorry that he wouldn’t allow himself to feel anything, not even love for his son. Yet Marco could feel emotion. She’d seen proof of that in the delivery room when he’d cried when he’d held Luca for the first time. But Marco had very quickly retreated behind his barricades, becoming once again a cold, distant man that not even his infant son had the power to reach.

  As the cab slowed outside her door, Cass wondered what Marco was doing now. He should be here to enjoy this moment. Taking their son home was such a special time. He must have been even more badly hurt than she knew to rob himself of this opportunity and then to take such trouble to hide his feelings. Even moments after holding his son in his arms, Marco had somehow managed to switch off. She felt so desperately sorry for him. Marco had no idea what he was missing, she thought as she gazed down into Luca’s face. Her heart was ready to burst with love. She could only think that Marco had given his heart as a child, only to have it trampled on and destroyed for good. Maybe that was why he had never settled down, Cass reflected as she paid the fare.