Secret Love-Child (Mills & Boon By Request): Kept for Her Baby / The Costanzo Baby Secret / Her Secret, His Love-Child

by Kate Walker

  “What I want,” he said carefully, “is to put the past behind us. That’s not quite the same thing as pretending it never happened. Our history—what we’ve done, where we’ve been, who we’ve known—makes us who we are today, Maeve.”

  “What if we find we don’t like who we are?”

  “Then we make changes and try to put right the things that went wrong. We don’t lop off an arm or leg because it hurts, and we can’t just cut out a chunk of our past if we happen not to like it.”

  “Then why did you bring me here?”

  He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her. Her face remained flushed from lovemaking, but the light in her beautiful blue eyes was bruised with pain. “Because I see you struggling to regain your focus, and I hoped a new scene, new faces, might help. And because I’m a selfish bastard who wanted you all to myself for a couple of days.”

  “I wanted that, as well.” She sighed tremulously. “I wish we could stay here. I wish we never had to go back to Pantelleria.”

  “Can you tell me what it is about the place that disturbs you so?”

  “I feel too…confined. My entire life has narrowed to what lies within the walls of the villa, and it’s suffocating me.”

  It hadn’t always been like that, but for her own sake, it had to be that way now. There wasn’t a soul on the island who hadn’t heard about the accident and the circumstances surrounding it. It had been all anyone had talked about for weeks. Left to roam about at will as she once had, she’d be recognized and, if there was a greater risk than his telling her all that had come to pass, it was having her hear it from someone else.

  “There’s something about the place that haunts me,” she went on, with a tiny, helpless shudder. “It’s as if something dark and fearful is lurking in the corner, waiting to jump out and destroy me. I wish, if you know what it is, that you’d just tell me.”

  “It might be that we argued and said some hurtful things to each other, the last time we were together before the accident.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Outside commitments. My obligations as a businessman and a husband, yours as my wife. Loyalties, priorities, casting blame, and misunderstandings in general.” He shrugged. “It’s not something I’m very proud to look back on.”

  She regarded him in sudden hope. “Is that how the car crash came about—we argued, I got upset and drove off, and you’re afraid I’ll blame you for letting me go when I was in no fit state to drive?”

  He wished he’d kept his mouth shut because, at this rate, she’d stumble on the truth before much longer, and he wasn’t sure he’d know how to handle the fallout. “No. I wasn’t on the island the day that happened. I was in Milan.”

  “Oh,” she said thoughtfully. “Then who was driving?”

  Dio, the one question he’d hoped to avoid! “A summer visitor who’d rented a nearby villa for a few weeks. I can’t tell you much more than that.”

  “But—”

  Loath to continue a subject painfully fraught with conjecture, he took her hand and urged it down his belly to cradle him, knowing her touch was all it would take to make him hard again. “But nothing, amore mio!” he muttered against her mouth, tormenting her in deliberate seduction exactly as she was tormenting him, because it was the only way he could think of to silence her questions. “Why are we talking about other people, when a second honeymoon should be only about a man and his bride?”

  She responded as he’d hoped she would. “I don’t know,” she gasped, her eyes glazing with pleasure as he found the erogenous spot between her legs.

  He stroked her until she came, and when at last he took her completely, burying himself deep in her soft, welcoming depths, it was with something approaching desperation, as if by doing so he might bury his own doubts, as well as hers.

  Because she wasn’t the only one afraid that the truth might smash their newfound happiness into oblivion.

  She must have drifted to sleep in his arms because when next she opened her eyes, darkness had fallen and Dario was gone, but a patch of light from the open bathroom door and the sound of running water told her where she might find him.

  With a boldness that would have shocked her a week ago, she went to join him. A towel slung around his hips, he stood before one of the two hand-painted wash bowls, scraping a razor over his soap-lathered jaw. Drops of water glinted in his thick hair and sparkled on his shoulders.

  “Ciao, sleepyhead,” he crooned, inspecting her naked body with such unabashed appreciation that she blushed from head to toe. “Venire qui e darmi un bacio. Come and give me a kiss.”

  “Not a chance,” she squealed, ducking away as he advanced on her with the clear intention of smearing shaving soap all over as much of her as he could reach.

  He was quicker though, and cornered her in the big double shower stall. In the ensuing scuffle, his towel slipped its anchor and fell off. Feigning dismay at the sight of his virile proportions, she shielded her eyes. “Oh, dear! I didn’t mean to have that kind of effect on you.”

  Laughing, he pinned her against the tiled wall and turned on the cold water, full force. “Sure you did, la mia principessa nuda, and now you’ll have to pay the price.”

  “Stop!” she shrieked, goose bumps the size of raisins puckering her skin under the chilly blast. “There has to be a more humane way to resolve the issue that’s…um, arisen between us.”

  “In fact there is, and believe me I’d resort to it in a flash if I hadn’t made a dinner reservation that leaves us only half an hour to dress and get to the restaurant.” He slapped her playfully on the bottom. “So hop to it, honey, as they say in your country, and we’ll resume this discussion later.”

  The dinner dress she’d brought with her was one she’d come across by accident, stashed at the back of her closet behind all the others, many of them still too large for her. Long and black, with a narrow skirt and silver embroidery along the neckline and at the hem, it was chic and elegant without being overly formal. A gauzy wrap spattered with tiny silver stars, silver sandals and matching clutch purse, and white-gold hoop earrings completed the ensemble, and from Dario’s low, drawn-out whistle when he saw her, she’d chosen well.

  He took her to a wonderful restaurant in the very heart of the Medina. Hundreds of years old, it oozed pure exotic atmosphere with its flowing draperies, brass oil lamps, and pointed arches fronted by gilt lattices reminiscent of the kind seen in old Hollywood spy movies.

  Taking off their shoes, they sat on rush matting on a raised platform and dined on fresh Mediterranean lobster and succulent lamb flavored with coriander and saffron, accompanied by traditional couscous and a fine local wine. This last surprised Maeve, not just because of its quality, but that it was available at all.

  “Alcohol’s allowed because Islamic law isn’t adhered to quite as rigidly in Tunisia as in other Muslim countries,” Dario explained, when she commented. “Most restaurants serve wine, at least in the city, probably a leftover custom from French colonial times. How’s your lamb, by the way?”

  “Can’t you tell?” She closed her eyes in pure enjoyment. She’d been too hot to eat much during the day and was starving. “It’s delectable, and so is the lobster.”

  “Make sure you leave room for dessert. They have firstrate honey cakes stuffed with dates on the menu, as well as honey and almonds in layers of pastry like Greek baklava, except they call it baklawa here. With your sweet tooth, you’ll probably want to try some of both.”

  “You seem to know the place pretty well. Do I take it this isn’t your first visit?”

  “I’ve been here a time or two, yes,” he admitted. “Back in my wild bachelor days, before I met you.”

  “Hmm.” She pursed her lips and looked teasingly at him from the corner of her eye. “I don’t think I want to know about that.”

  “There’s nothing much to tell. Being here now with you is far more memorable.”

  “For me, too. I’m enjoying myself so muc
h, Dario.”

  He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips. “Then we’ll come back another time, stay longer and ride camels in the Sahara.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I’ve never even been on a horse.”

  “You’ve probably never tried belly dancing, either, but there’s a first time for everything,” he said, pointing to where a team of young women appeared from behind a curtain.

  They began to weave their sinuous way across the floor, watched by men lounging against the walls and smoking hookah pipes. The music, provided by a quartet clad in bedouin robes, consisted of a sort of zither, a simple recorder, a small hand drum and a tambourine. Even to Maeve’s untutored ear, the repetitive melody and persistent rhythm bore an unmistakably Arabic flavor.

  The dancers wore wide, filmy pajama bottoms and bralike tops draped with gold-beaded fringes that shimmied with every undulation. In view of the amount of skin exposed between the two, how the bottoms stayed up and tops stayed on was nothing short of amazing.

  Noting her absorbed interest in the spectacle, Dario said with an evil grin, “Would you like me to ask if they’ll give you a lesson, my dear? I’m sure they’d be happy to oblige.”

  “Okay—if you’ll try a hookah pipe.”

  “Sorry, I don’t smoke.”

  “Then I don’t shimmy,” she said, and settled in the curve of his arm, content to watch the show, nibble baklawa, and sip Tunisian brandy made from figs and Turkish-style coffee served in tiny cups.

  They left the restaurant slightly before eleven o’clock. Tunis after sundown was something of a surprise, she discovered. Instead of rushing around as they had during the day, people sat peacefully wherever they happened to find themselves, whether it be a park bench or their own doorstep, talking quietly as they recovered from the intense heat of the day.

  Once back at the hotel, Maeve leaned against the wall of their suite’s little terrace and gazed out at the nighttime view. Directly ahead, the dark mass of the sea rolled somnolently ashore. To her right, floodlit domes and minarets made up the city skyline. “This has been the experience of a lifetime, Dario,” she told him, her senses alive with all she’d seen and heard and tasted. “I feel as if I’m living a scene from One Thousand and One Nights.”

  Standing behind her, he lowered the zipper on her dress slightly and pressed a hot, openmouthed kiss on her exposed shoulder. The tactile impact reverberated all the way to the soles of her feet.

  “And this particular night isn’t yet over. As I recall, we have unfinished business to attend to,” he murmured. “Slip into something more comfortable, mio dolce, while I order us a bottle of champagne.”

  But she didn’t need champagne to set the mood, any more than she needed the peignoir she’d so carefully included in her suitcase. The wine grew warm, the negligee spent the night on the floor in a heap of white lace, and Dario loved her with an inventiveness and passion that stole her breath away.

  He explored every inch of her, cherishing her toes, her instep, the soft, sensitive skin at the back of her knees. He kissed her breasts, swirled his tongue at her navel, buried his mouth between her legs.

  He made her tremble and shudder. And when she thought she’d slide into madness from the sheer exquisite ache of wanting, he’d sidle against her, then retreat before she could imprison him within the folds of her eager flesh.

  When finally he took possession of her, she contracted around him in endless spasms of ecstasy that racked her body and left it glistening with sweat. But when at last he climaxed and took her with him yet again, it was glorious: a wild, delirious ride to the ends of the earth and back again.

  Limp and spent, she collapsed in his arms, knowing that no matter what the future held, this was a night she would never forget.

  She slept like a child, utterly relaxed, her body warm and soft, her breathing smooth and even. Her hair curled damply on her forehead. Her lashes lay thick against her cheek. Her hand curled trustingly on his chest.

  Had he somehow effected a miracle? Dario wondered. Could a weekend of hot sex and romance mend a marriage that had grown progressively shakier with each passing month and culminated in a row that had almost cost her her life?

  Unwilling to get down to specifics, he’d been deliberately vague when she’d asked what their last argument had been about, before the accident. But far from fading over time, the details remained sharp in his mind, stained with guilt and ugly suspicion.

  It had started the first weekend in August when he came home from an unusually long business trip to Australia. The previous summer, after he’d brought Maeve to Italy as his bride, he’d explained that his work involved a lot of travel and they’d agreed it made sense for her to remain in the penthouse in Milan during his absences. His family was close by, and so was her obstetrician. After Sebastiano was born at the end of January, however, she began spending increasing time on Pantelleria, whether or not Dario was out of town.

  “It’s more relaxed here,” she explained, when he asked her about it. “I’m under less social pressure and have more time to enjoy my baby. You’re so busy during the week that we hardly see each other, anyway, but if you fly down on Friday evening and stay until Monday morning, we can at least be together then.”

  What she didn’t say, but which he knew to be true, was that she wanted to escape his mother, who doted on her new grandson, but made no secret of her aversion to Maeve. “She’s a spineless nobody who entrapped our son, and not the daughter-in-law I hoped for,” he’d overheard Celeste remark to his father, during one of her periodic visits to corporate headquarters.

  “You weren’t the daughter-in-law my mother envisaged, either,” his father had replied, “but she finally accepted you, and I suggest you learn from her example. Dario’s his own man, just as I was. He’s made his choice, and from everything I see, done not too badly for himself.”

  But in May and the onset of hotter weather, the entire Costanzo clan moved to their summer homes on Pantelleria. Like him, his father and brother-in-law spent the week in Milan and joined their families on the weekend, leaving the women to keep each other company the rest of the time. And that’s when the rot really set in. Giuliana and Maeve had connected from the first and grown close as sisters. But his mother and Maeve were a whole other story, as Dario learned on his return from Australia.

  Celeste wasted no time airing her grievances and cornered him in the garden his first day back. “She’s inexperienced and should be grateful for my help,” she complained, referring to a confrontation that had taken place a few days earlier to do with what she perceived to be Maeve’s inept mothering skills. “I know what’s best for my grandson.”

  “You need to take a step back and stop interfering,” Dario informed her flatly. “And stop trying to undermine Maeve’s self-confidence, as well, while you’re at it.”

  “I’d have thought you’d appreciate my keeping an eye on her when you’re not here,” she retaliated. “All things considered.”

  He wasn’t about to give her satisfaction by asking what all things considered amounted to. “She doesn’t need anyone keeping an eye on her in my absence. I trust her judgment implicitly.”

  “A little too much, if you ask me,” his mother said ambiguously, and when he responded by starting to walk away, stopped him short by bringing up the subject of Yves Gauthier, a man new to the island of whom Dario had previously been only vaguely aware.

  “He’s Canadian, just like her,” Celeste continued scornfully, “and calls himself an artist, although not one any of us has ever heard of. He’s leased the Belvisi place for the summer, but it’s no secret that while you were away, he was seen more often at your home than his own. From all appearances, he and your wife have become, shall we say for want of a better description, very close friends.”

  Still refusing to rise to the intended bait, Dario said, “Not surprising. They share a common background.”

  His mother sniffed disparagingly. “‘Common
’ being the operative word.”

  “I’d have thought that by now you’d learned your lesson and knew better than to go around stirring up trouble where none exists,” he told her sharply. “It didn’t work when you tried it with Giuliana and Lorenzo, and it won’t work now. Maeve is my wife and the mother of my son, and that’s never going to change.”

  She lifted her shoulders in her signature elegant shrug. “If that’s really what you want, then at least let me say this. It’s just as well you’re planning to take a break from the office and spend a week or two here because, whether or not you believe me, Yves Gauthier needs to be reminded of his proper place, and it is not making himself at home on your territory.”

  Dario had laughed, and accused her of letting her imagination run away with her, but the seed of doubt had been planted. He began to notice how frequently Maeve brought up Gauthier’s name in conversation, and how the Canadian had insinuated himself into their tight social circle.

  Dario had never been jealous of another man in his life. The women he’d dated in the past had never given him cause to be. That, as a husband, he found himself at the mercy of such demeaning weakness now both shamed and infuriated him.

  Determined not to let it gain the upper hand, he did his best to stamp it out, but it got the better of him just three days into his supposed vacation time, when he and his parents were recalled to the head office for an emergency meeting of the board of directors. Giuliana and Lorenzo, the other two involved, were visiting friends in Paris and flew directly from there to Milan.

  “But you only just got home,” Maeve complained, when she heard. “Can’t they manage without you, for once?”

  “Not this time,” he said. “We’ve run into a major snag with an overseas operation that could cost us millions.”

  “But we never get any alone time anymore.”