“Always,” she said, even though a quiver of apprehension shivered over her. “Truth is the one thing that never lets us down.”
“Then I admit, in the beginning, I did make a conscious effort to win you over. I knew Marcia too well, and nothing about her past behavior convinced me that motherhood would change her for the better. But I wanted to be fair and give her the chance to prove me wrong. So I offered her the choice of coming here, or having me go there. She chose the former.”
“But sent me in her place.”
“Yes. Right then I knew she was cooking up something devious.”
“You didn’t trust me.”
He inclined his head. “I saw you as her accomplice, someone whose chief aim was to deflect my attention from the bizarre behavior of a woman who claimed to be devoted to her baby.”
“I was disturbed by that, too, Gabriel.”
“But you never admitted it to me. When I questioned her actions, you defended her. This fed my suspicions and led me to believe you knew more than you were telling me. So I decided I had to make you my ally. I was prepared to seduce you, if that was what it took. I just hadn’t expected it would…” He raised his hand, palm up, searching for the right words.
“Be so easy?” she supplied, recoiling.
For a split second, he remained motionless, his eyes blank with shock. Then, as though galvanized to action by the absurdity of her assumption, he reached out and grasped her by the shoulders. “Don’t even think such a thing!” he ordered, with something approaching his old air of authority. “What I’m trying to say is that I hadn’t expected it would backfire. Falling in love with the enemy wasn’t part of my plan. I knew better than that, and only a fool makes the same mistake twice. You were, after all, Marcia’s cousin, and blood is thicker than water.”
“But I was never your enemy, Gabriel, and if, in the beginning, my loyalty lay with her, I knew in the end that she’d used me in ways you couldn’t begin to devise. That she had a talent for cruelty beyond anything you could comprehend.”
“I’d realized, long before that, that you were nothing like her. Every day, I discovered in you attributes she’d never possessed—the kind a man looks for in a wife. I saw your tenderness and compassion with Nicola; your patience and diligence. I saw the way you related to Beryl, treating her not as a servant, there to do your every bidding, but as a friend. And I wished I didn’t have to involve you in what I knew was bound to be a dirty fight. But, Eve, my first duty had to be to that defenseless child, and in that respect you were right to think I’d have used you to sway a judge in my favor. I’d have used the pope himself, if I could have.”
“I know,” she said. “No one seeing you with Nicola could ever have questioned your devotion to her.”
“It was more than that, Eve. All other considerations apart, Nicola would have been so much better off with you as her mother. But I swear to you, she was not the reason I asked you to marry me. Win or lose the court battle, I’d still have loved you and wanted you for my wife.”
Loved, he said. And wanted. “And is that all in the past tense now?” she asked him. “Is there no future for us?”
The haggard look closed in on him again “In all truth, I haven’t dared look into the future,” he said, stepping back. “It haunts me to think of what it holds for that little girl, with parents such as she has.”
“Then I’m glad I’m here, even if the only benefit is to put your mind at rest.”
He swiped a weary hand down his face. “I would give a king’s ransom to find some peace. To be able to close my eyes at night and not be chased by demons.”
“I believe I can give you that peace.”
“How?” He nodded at her suitcase leaning drunkenly near the gate. “You have a bag of magic tricks in there?”
“Not exactly, but the next best thing, perhaps. I did some investigating of my own after I left here at the end of August, and learned that Jason is an only child whose parents live on Staten Island, a stone’s throw from Manhattan. I made it my business to let them know everything their son and daughter-in-law had been up to.”
He almost smiled. “Marcia must have been thrilled!”
“Marcia swears she’ll never speak to me again, which I consider to be a small price to pay for setting the record straight.
“And the grandparents?”
“Were genuinely horrified. They worship Nicola, and assured me they’ll be keeping a very close eye on her in future. I really believe, if they suspect any more shenanigans, they’ll step in and do exactly what you were prepared to do: apply to the courts for guardianship of a minor. There’ll be no more palming Nicola off to me or anyone else, the next time Marcia decides career comes before motherhood. And the best of it is, they’re young, Gabriel, in their late forties only. God willing, they’ll be around for a lot of years yet, and although they don’t have much in the way of money, they have a world of love to give their granddaughter.”
It was as if a weight lifted from his shoulders, then. He let out a great sigh of relief, and right before her eyes, his old energy reasserted itself. His face came alive, the grooves curving each side of his mouth disappeared, and even his skin seemed to glow with renewed vigor.
“Money will never be an issue,” he said, putting his arms around Eve and holding her tight. “Providing Nicola with the emotional support she deserves might have been denied me, but I’ve established a trust fund to look after her every financial need. If her grandparents can give her unlimited love and protection, she will be very well taken care of on every front.”
“And us?” She leaned back to look at him, still not sure where that left the two of them. “You might as well know I don’t have a return ticket to the States. One way or another, I’m going to be a part of your life forever. It’s up to you to decide how you’d like to arrange that.”
“Name your price,” he said, his mouth hovering so close to hers that she could taste the kiss waiting in the wings. “You are my heart, tesoro. Without you I am nothing.”
Was that her breath echoing raggedly in that quiet, twilit garden? “I want you to trust me,” she whispered, aching to hear him say the words for no other reason but that he loved her. “I want you to believe in us.”
“I already do.” He brought his lips to hers, and it was like a sudden explosion of rain in the desert. All the parts of her that had withered since she’d left him bloomed again, full and rich and bursting with new passion. “You are my heart,” he told her. “Without you, I am nothing. From this day forward, it’s you and I, and no one else in the mix.”
She drew back, the gift she carried deep inside begging to be revealed. “I’m afraid not,” she said. “It can never again be just the two of us.”
He stared at her, doubt clouding the clear blue of his eyes. “After all this, you’re telling me we’re finished before we’ve properly begun?”
“No, Gabriel, never that,” she said, and taking his hand, placed it low against her womb. “I can’t give Nicola back to you, my love, but I can give you another child, the one I carry here. Your child, Gabriel, conceived in love and honesty.”
“A baby?” His smile lit up the dark, making all the empty, dreary days worthwhile; all the long, lonely nights worth every second of grief they’d caused her. “Ours?”
“Definitely. Check with my doctor, if you don’t believe me. She predicts I’ll give birth around May 28. And she expects a healthy, full-term baby.”
“I don’t need a doctor’s report. Your word is good enough for me.”
She relaxed against him, the last of her fears swallowed up by the rising moon. “Are you up to dealing with more sleepless nights?”
The smile which had captivated her nearly four months earlier illuminated his beloved features again. “I’ve had plenty of practice being a father,” he said, lifting her clear off her feet and swinging her around exuberantly. “I come with my own set of built-in know-how.”
“Signor Brabanti?” Bery
l’s voice floated across the garden from the open door of the farmhouse. “I’m preparing the evening meal. Will your guest be staying?”
“She’s no guest, Beryl,” he replied, holding Eve close. “My fiancée and your favorite American lady has come home again. Make dinner for three, and bring out the champagne. We’re all going to celebrate.”
Beryl shaded her eyes and peered through the gloom. “Eve?” There were tears in her voice. “Thank God you’re home again, at last! Now we can all start living again. Come here and let me look at you.”
“Not so fast,” Gabriel muttered, drawing Eve back into his arms and stealing her heart all over again with a kiss which promised her forever. “If it’s true that everyone has a guardian angel sitting on his shoulder, my darling, you are surely mine. I love you with all my heart and soul.”
It was everything, and more, than she’d dared to hope for. With those few heartfelt words, he’d given her the world.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6350-9
THE BRABANTI BABY
First North American Publication 2005.
Copyright © 2004 by Spencer Books Limited.
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