Stranger from the Past & Proof of Their Sin

by Penny Jordan

  They moved purposefully through a classically decorated house. It was more richly appointed than her mother’s tasteful house where only company sat on the good furniture. People leaned and perched and nested everywhere, all talking a mile a minute, hands gesturing, all creating a din of cheerful Italian and bursts of laughter.

  Lauren would have dug in her heels from being dragged into the crowd, but he rushed her past the startled eyes of his family.

  She should have fought him on coming here today. She had thought she would be meeting his mother, not his entire family. She should have stayed at the house on the lake, should never have come to Italy. Why had she even called him when Ryan went missing? It had been a stupid, weak, desperate act.

  Warm, stomach-grumbling scents greeted her when they entered the kitchen where copper pots steamed and marble workspaces were covered in trays and bowls. A woman with coiffed hair, perfect makeup, and not so much as a water stain on her apron turned from sending out a maid with a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Her smile for Paolo was warm and filled with love.

  She checked slightly as she spotted Lauren.

  “Mama, you remember Lauren.” Paolo moved to embrace and kiss his mother. His wide shoulders eclipsed the confused astonishment on Carlotta Donatelli’s face. By the time he had stepped back, she had recovered herself into the gracious woman Lauren had met at Ryan’s funeral.

  “Oh, my dear.” Carlotta took up Lauren’s hands. “Do you even remember me? What a difficult time for everyone. How are Elenore and Chris?”

  “I haven’t spoken to them recently,” Lauren hedged, clearing her throat of a husk of culpability. “But, well, you saw them at the funeral. I don’t imagine they’ll ever recover.”

  The way I have. Lauren felt as though the baby in her belly glowed like a beacon of light, filling her with joy that must seem very inappropriate in these circumstances. The reality of being pregnant by this woman’s son, a woman so close to Ryan’s mother, hit Lauren. She began to really see how the underground tremor of their actions that one night would spread to topple and reshape the landscape around them. The Bradleys would be devastated all over again. This woman might side with them.

  What would that do to Paolo? To his feelings for their child? For her?

  Lauren dropped her gaze, growing more remorseful and devastated by the second. Her fingers went limp in Carlotta’s delicate grip. She tried telling herself the responsibility was split equally between them, but family was family. The Donatellis would point their fingers toward Lauren as the instigator. Whatever acrimony they directed at Paolo would only be deflected by him onto the woman who had caused him to be seen badly by his family.

  Strong hands gripped her shoulders and Paolo’s warm breath stirred the air near her cheek.

  “Can I leave Lauren with you while I greet the children, Mama? They’re waiting for me.”

  Lauren turned her head in alarm, but he wasn’t looking at his mother as she half expected. He was waiting for her gaze. He didn’t glare in blame or censure. He was conveying reassurance, letting her know she shouldn’t be nervous. At the same time, his expression was one of such unabashed possessiveness, Lauren’s heart flipped and her stomach swooped. Warmth flooded her and she was so aware of his hard hands on her that when he slowly released her, she felt a pang of loss.

  She must look like the worst widow on earth, blushing with sensual awareness and following Paolo’s departure with puppy eyes.

  If Carlotta judged her, she didn’t let on. Her gaze followed her son, only coming back to Lauren when he was gone. By then her deep brown eyes were sharp with a mother’s ability to sense without being told.

  Had Paolo’s significant stare been purely to plant a seed? Lauren wondered. She writhed inside, wanting that look to have been genuine, not a one-act play for his mother’s sake.

  With a reassuring smile, Carlotta said, “Can I ask you to put this bouquet in a vase while I stir these pots, Lauren? I rarely make the effort to cook anymore and now I remember why. I always get carried away and don’t spend enough time with my guests. But if you’ll keep me company, I won’t feel left out. Tell me about yourself. I’ve always regretted not attending your wedding, but my husband had just passed. How did you and Ryan meet?”

  Trembling inwardly, feeling on trial, Lauren went through the motions of trimming the ends of the flowers and arranging them in a vase while chatting with Carlotta. Paolo’s mother was the niece of an Italian count and daughter of a diplomat, Lauren learned in return. Carlotta’s excessively good breeding was in each of her eloquently-worded questions. None were so personal as to overstep, but she gently extracted what she wanted to know.

  What had brought Lauren to Italy? Looking up family. Where was she staying? In a rented house out of the city. How long had she known Paolo? As long as she’d known Ryan.

  If Carlotta had been anything but affably curious, Lauren might have been more cagey with her answers, but she found herself relaxing and wanting to confide as if they were longtime friends. It took all Lauren’s concentration to keep from opening up more about her reasons for being here with Paolo today.

  “I think his friendship with Ryan makes him feel responsible for me,” Lauren hazarded as an excuse for her presence, heart panging at how true that was. Sexual desire aside, duty had brought him to Charleston and was the reason he had proposed.

  She had to fight letting the corners of her mouth be tugged down by the thought.

  “Paolo was devastated by Ryan’s death. I’d never seen him like that except perhaps after my husband’s death,” Carlotta said with a pang.

  Lauren left her nose in a freesia for a moment, thinking of how tortured Paolo had been in Charleston. That night hadn’t been all sex. First Paolo had railed at God and war and his good friend while Lauren had silently wished she had been enough for Ryan so he would have been home with her and wouldn’t have sent Paolo pacing and cursing and shaking his fists at the fates.

  “He took Ryan’s death very personally,” she confided, needing to clear a catch from her throat. “He resents any kind of loss.”

  “You know him well.” Carlotta cut her a swift, measuring look.

  “I know his type,” Lauren responded wryly.

  Carlotta turned from stirring a rich, red sauce to cock her head at Lauren. “He and Ryan weren’t as alike as most believe. They were both headstrong, high-energy boys, I’ll admit, but Paolo was always testing himself, not us or our love. Elenore is my friend and I adore her, but Chris was hard on all of them. Paolo was driven by goals, but for Ryan, if his father said he couldn’t, Ryan had to prove he could. He was like that with Paolo at times, straining Paolo’s allegiance he was so stubbornly single-minded.”

  Like his determination to marry her when Lauren had said she was waiting for marriage. She hadn’t been trying to manipulate him. Even Mamie had urged her, Just have an affair, chou, but Lauren had been such a good girl, so determined to keep her mother’s love and approval, she had stuck by her price. Ryan had insisted on paying it rather than walk away. Because he was pigheaded? Or something else?

  A thought flitted into Lauren’s head. Had Ryan been trying to score a point against Paolo? Had he known Paolo was attracted to her and married her despite—perhaps even because of—Paolo’s disapproval? She shook it off. Paolo hadn’t known she and Ryan had stayed in touch after New York. She frowned.

  “All right?” Carlotta prompted gently.

  Lauren swallowed the scraped sensation at the back of her throat. “Just wondering why Ryan married me when he viewed settling down as giving up.”

  The words rang in the quiet room. Lauren took an appalled moment to absorb that she’d actually said them aloud. She couldn’t imagine what Carlotta thought of her.

  Carlotta only smiled tenderly beyond the window over the sink. “Paolo doesn’t see it that way. He knows bambinos are
an adventure in their own way. Look at him.” She nodded at the glass.

  Lauren felt a hitch of poignant anxiety as she moved to see Paolo holding up a swing so the occupant, Maria’s daughter, was nose to nose with him. The girl’s coloring and spirited grin gave the impression she could have been his daughter, not his niece. Whatever instructions she was imparting were making him nod very seriously until the conversation ended in a kiss on her forehead. He released her with a splay of his fingers, sending her sailing backward with a scream of delight. As she flew forward, he waited until the last second before he stepped back and lifted his hand above his head so she could aim for his fingertips with her toes.

  Without thinking, Lauren let her hand settle on her abdomen where his blood, his genetics, his bambino, grew. Paolo would be an amazing father, she could see it. He would love his child in all the ways she dimly remembered her father had loved her.

  If he ever acknowledged this baby as his.

  Her heart invaded her throat, pulsing with a helpless ache. She knew the baby was his and he had already admitted he would come to care for the child even if he never believed it was. That was enough, wasn’t it?

  No, Lauren’s heart cried.

  “Paolo often takes on responsibility without being asked. I think that’s what seeded his friendship with Ryan. He was trying to keep the American boy from killing himself with crazy stunts. I worry sometimes that he carries too much and doesn’t know when to ask for help.” Turning to face Lauren, Carlotta spoke with heart-stopping sobriety. “Much has been made of your staying with him in Charleston, but if you were there for him when he was hurting, I’m indebted to you.”

  She squeezed Lauren’s forearm as she moved past her to the stove.

  Lauren dropped her hand from her bellybutton, cringing as she feared how much she had revealed with her hand on her middle and the yearning in her eyes.

  She knows.

  * * *

  Paolo glanced across to Lauren as they rose in the elevator to his penthouse, half expecting she was asleep on her feet, she was so quiet. Her head was pressed into the wall behind her and her lashes were heavy, but she blinked so her eyes were still open.

  “Was the day too long for you?” he asked, realizing how late it was.

  “I’m a bit talked out,” she admitted, rolling her head toward him. A soft smile gave her a dreamy look that pulsed a measure of unexpected tenderness through him. “But your family is so fun. Maria apologized to me. Did you tell her to?”

  “No, but I’m pleased that she did.”

  “It wasn’t necessary. You might think she was meddling, but she only wants to protect you. I like her. I liked everyone.”

  “They liked you.” He had enjoyed watching her charm his gregarious family with her quiet, genuine interest. She didn’t always get the joke right away, but her Italian was good enough she got there eventually. The children had been fascinated by her stories of tapping maple syrup from the trees of her grandmother’s estate and the old folks had speculated on which notorious rake could be her grandfather. She had fit in beautifully, filling him with pride at having her as his companion.

  “You’re lucky to have so many people care about you. You know that, don’t you?” Her earnest eyes chided him against feeling any other way.

  He nod-shrugged and braced the door for her as they arrived, keeping to himself that there were times when he questioned his luck. His biting conversation with Maria when he’d carried her sleeping toddler upstairs still grated.

  I’m putting one and one together and coming up with three, she had leveled at him in an undertone, too sharp for anyone’s good.

  I’ve asked Lauren to marry me. I tell you that in confidence so you’ll give her the respect she deserves, Paolo had returned implacably while his urgency to marry Lauren had increased. Pretending she was a friend visiting from Canada was annoying when his intentions were not only honorable, but something he was completely committed to.

  Maria’s head had snapped around with a searching expression. Are you this time, caro? Confident?

  Paolo’s guts had turned to water. He hadn’t answered as indecision sat like a knot in his belly. He was aware of a growing desire that the baby be his. It scared him how badly he wanted that. Watching Lauren play board games with the children and take every opportunity to hold his cousin’s new baby had impressed on him that she was not only a woman who wanted to be a mother, but would take to the role naturally. The baby she carried was lucky and if the baby was his, he was lucky to have such a woman as mother to his offspring. Fear ate at him that he’d wind up devastated again while something deeper and fiercer demanded he claim her as his regardless.

  Maria’s watchfulness as he had processed all his emotions had been unbearable, reminding him she’d seen not just his humiliation of being cheated on in the past, but his heartache at losing out on being a father. He loathed bearing pity from his family. He was their rock, not the other way around.

  It doesn’t matter whose it is, he’d claimed to her. She’s the wife of my friend and needs a husband. It had sounded a little too chivalrous even to him.

  Maria had cautioned him not to act too hastily and he’d walked out on her accusing him of behaving impetuously out of grief.

  That’s not what this was. His feelings toward Ryan had become very contradictory. He harbored a lot of anger toward Ryan for the way he’d treated Lauren and, yes, Paolo couldn’t help turning some of that responsibility on himself, but there was more to it. Ancient instincts of familial protectiveness were clamoring in him. He wanted Lauren in his cave, well buffered from predators or falls or starvation. He wanted her cub under his guardianship. It truly didn’t matter to him whether the baby’s DNA contained his so long as he could keep both of them.

  He took a moment to absorb how comfortable he was with the notion of accepting another man’s child. Because he knew it was unlikely he’d do so?

  He worked his hands to dissipate the sweat that rose on his palms, disturbed by the path his mind was taking without any hard evidence. But it was tough to doubt Lauren when she was so lousy at subterfuge. More than a few lips had curled with conjecture when Lauren had declined wine, claiming, Paolo said I could drive the Lambo if I stayed sober.

  He’d called her a dreamer and they’d shared a sparkling moment of rapport as she grinned cheekily at him. Her amusing remark had been a decent attempt at throwing people off the scent, but he couldn’t escape the fact that since New York, she’d been speaking her mind very frankly to him.

  He watched her balance against the sofa to remove her shoes and felt like he was the one who needed to brace himself as his view of Lauren tilted and realigned. She was careful about showing her feelings because she was sensitive, not manipulative. She put ailing old ladies and the reputation of an unfaithful husband ahead of her own needs. She did what felt right, not what was easy. Telling him about the baby hadn’t been necessary. She could have left him to ride out the smudge on his reputation while rearing the baby alone. She had enough money—not his kind of money, but enough. She didn’t need him or any man.

  What if she’d chosen not to contact him? A frisson of fear took him in a delicate grip and squeezed.

  “Do you mind if I go straight to bed?” Lauren covered a yawn then spoke from behind her hand when she noticed Paolo staring at her as though he’d never seen her before. “Is everything all right?”

  “Your bag should be down here.” He shuddered slightly, as though pulling himself back from somewhere unpleasant.

  Perhaps the day had been long for him, as well. He seemed pale and strained. In shock almost. Disturbed, Lauren chattered mindlessly as she followed him. “Dinners with my family are like a court proceeding. Growing up I always envied people like you. All I wanted was to be part of a family who loved each other like that.”

  He pressed open a doo
r. “Now you can have it,” he said with quiet but thunderous impact.

  Lauren paused in the doorway, all but blind to the luxury of the guest suite and its decor of terra-cotta reds and mustard yellows. He had no idea how much she longed to be part of his family.

  To hide her yearning, she wrinkled her nose and grinned at him with forced lightness. “Afraid the good looks, money and power aren’t enough? You’re throwing in your uncle’s stories and your mother’s ravioli? I never eat like that.” She patted her middle as she moved into the room. “Where do you put it?”

  He didn’t say anything. She looked at him and his stare held a strange light that was nearly frightening in its intensity. She interpreted it as a demand for an answer.

  “Don’t think I’m not tempted.” Lauren looked at fingers that knotted themselves together. “But saying yes makes everything real. I’ll put that off as long as I can. It’s been hard enough telling you and bearing your reaction.” She couldn’t help the edge of rebuke in her tone.

  A flinch of compunction flashed across his face, leaving his brows knotted.

  “I dread telling Mom,” Lauren admitted. “Anyone else would be tickled to finally have a grandchild, but all she’ll see is the timing. I should have been thinking about her that night in Charleston, you know, not myself,” she said with a rasp of sarcasm. “She’ll threaten to disown me.”

  In Charleston. Paolo’s head went back as the words seemed to slap him. Lauren’s bitter heartache was so uncouched and real. Helpless protectiveness ran through him. He didn’t want to be the cause of a rift between her and her mother. He didn’t want their child to be. It struck him that never once over the past few days had he felt fear of his family’s reaction to her pregnancy.

  Lauren didn’t have that sense of acceptance. All her little asides about her mother culminated in a picture that showed Paolo how much having this baby was costing her. Involving him made her situation infinitely more complicated, her troubles greater, not easier to bear.

  Lauren had come to him for one reason only. He was the father of her baby and her personal ethics demanded she let him know that. Shame swamped him that he had rejected her word and resisted accepting his child for even one moment. At the same time, the reality of impending fatherhood suffused him in a mist of shocked numbness. He barely heard Lauren as she untied her scarf and continued speaking.