The Marriage Deal
Page 24
“I can tell,” she muttered, lifting a hand and wincing at the outward sensitivity. Her hair was matted too; she didn’t even want to contemplate what she must look like.
“There was some swelling in your brain, but it’s gone down. The doctor has been pleased with your progress. You’ve had periods of wakefulness, but not for long.”
“I don’t remember anything,” she frowned.
“Some confusion is to be expected,” he said. “The doctor suspects it will take three or four weeks before you are more or less back to normal. The leg will take longest, but this hospital offers an excellent rehabilitation programme.”
“Which hospital?” She honed in on that. “Where am I?”
“In Italy. Rome.”
The words flashed inside her. “What?”
“I have a villa not far from here. It made sense.”
“How…when?”
“Two days ago.” His eyes dropped to Jack and she felt a welling of concern, and a rush of fear all at once.
“My God.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Why?”
“The facilities here are world-class. It seemed prudent.”
She swallowed.
“And as I have a son to care for, I didn’t want to be too far from you. For the duration of your recovery.”
Everything about that sounded reasonable but lit greater fires of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. “So he’s been staying with you?”
Fiero nodded, his eyes flashing with something dark and incomprehensible. She turned away, looking down at Jack, the lump in her throat so big it hurt. “Are you okay, baby?”
Jack nodded. “Fiero got a pool.”
“Fiero has a pool.” Elodie’s smile was tight as she made the gentle correction. “Does he?” She could imagine what else Fiero had. When she’d woken up that morning three years earlier to find him gone – disappeared completely into thin air – she’d googled him, and seen exactly who she’d invited back to her tiny little flat, who she’d welcomed to her bed.
One of the richest men in the world, a man with yachts and planes and hotels and mansions all over the world. Most importantly though, a man with a wife.
Her anger surged like a blade, but she didn’t know how to wield it. She couldn’t object. Who else was there to look after Jack?
“Do you even know how to care for a child?” She asked, the words clearly dubious.
“Does it look like it?”
She wasn’t up to this kind of mental sparing. “He’s well-dressed, but is he eating? Bathing? Being read to?”
“Relax, Elodie.”
She startled to hear her name on his lips. It brought back far too many memories of the musical way he’d whispered it against her flesh, bringing her to climax with his lips alone.
“I have hired a nanny to help. Jack will be fine.”
The reassurance did nothing to ease her concerns. “I don’t want to stay here.” She looked around. The movement hurt. “Not for longer than is absolutely necessary.” Fear wrapped around her. “I want to go home.”
A muscle throbbed in his jaw, as though he were gritting his teeth. He didn’t answer her plaintive demand. “Come on, Jack. We should allow your mother to rest.”
But she didn’t want to rest. It felt like all she’d been doing for days. And yet, she was unbelievably exhausted, struggling to keep her eyes open.
“Will you bring him back later?”
“Tomorrow.” Fiero reached for the little boy who didn’t object in the slightest. Her heart stammered, mostly because she realised she was completely at Fiero’s whim. Despair filled her lungs.
“Please do.” The words were quivery with the threat of tears. She didn’t care.
“You have my word.” His eyes though were ice, and she felt the full force of all the things he wasn’t saying, the strength of his fury was emanating from him like an ice-cold tsunami. An answering tremble ran the length of her spine.
* * *
Four sets of eyes followed Jack’s progress around the swimming pool, under the watchful care of his nanny Emilia. The little boy splashed his hands, so droplets of water lifted in the sky, catching flashes of sunlight and shining them around the terrace.
One face in particular watched intently. Yaya, in the shade of a huge olive tree sat in a recliner. Despite the heat of the day, a blanket covered her slim legs. Her face was lined by every one of her ninety two years, but there was a smile on her lips none of them had seen before.
Fiero saw it, and guilt throbbed inside of him – guilt at what he hadn’t been able to give her sooner, guilt at the baby he’d lost who had meant so much to her, to all of them – the next generation of Montebellos. And now there was Jack, but Jack was two years old and Yaya had missed as much of his life as the rest of them. But it was worse for her, worse because her time was so valuable, so precious.
“You are a better man than I,” Massimo – Max – the oldest of the three brothers growled. “I would have left her in England and had that be the end of it.”
Fiero dragged his eyes from Yaya, watching as his son began to kick his legs, propelling his body forward. Emilia was ever-watchful and cautious by nature, so that behind her smile he saw her intense concentration and was gratified by it.
“You don’t think perhaps she deserves to lose him?” Luca, the middle brother of three, chimed in.
“She is his mother,” Fiero spoke simply.
“So? She saw fit to keep him from you. From us.” The words were hard, loaded with an anger Fiero understood.
“I know that.” Fiero compressed his lips. “There can be no forgiveness. No forgetting. But until she has recovered, she is here in Italy. I owe that much to Jack.”
“And you take him to see her every day?” Luca stubbed his toe on the marble tiles with obvious disbelief.
“No.” Fiero rejected the idea instantly. “Emilia does, most of the time. I don’t wish to see her more than I need to.” His gut tightened forcibly at the very idea.
“I can’t say I blame you. I hope I never have to meet the woman.”
Fiero angled his face towards Max. “She is my son’s mother.” The words were wrenched from him. “I’d say it’s inevitable.”
“You can’t seriously mean to bring her here? To keep her in your life?”
“No.” Fiero rejected that from deep within his gut. “Of course not. How can I? She bore me a child – a son – and kept him from me.” He swallowed past the sharp edge of betrayal. In the three weeks since bringing Jack home, since bringing Elodie to Italy, he had grappled with this again and again, and nothing had erased the sharp sense of disbelief. He’d already missed so much.
He’d tried to imagine any circumstance that could justify this – any reason Elodie could have had for keeping Jack a secret. But what could there be? What reason on earth could excuse a woman for keeping a father out of his child’s life? They’d had one night together, three years ago, but that night had been… there were no words. Perhaps it had been the emotional mine-field he was navigating – the imminent death of Gianfelice and his own disastrous personal life – but Elodie had been like a beacon in the midst of all of that. He’d known it couldn’t be more than one night and yet that night had meant something to him. She had meant something to him. He’d thought their connection was mutual. He’d thought… hell. It didn’t matter what he’d thought. He’d been wrong. If she’d felt for him how he’d felt for her then it would have been impossible to keep their child away from him.
His son had lived a small lifetime and he’d missed everything. His birth, his first steps, foods, laughs, all of his baby-life had been stolen and Fiero would never get to re-live those experiences. His family had missed everything. They’d all been robbed, and he would never fathom her reasons for that.
“Has she told you why?” Luca’s question was quiet – it was just like Luca to hone in on this point, pushing past the more emotional considerations.
It sobered Fiero. “No.” He stood up
, restless suddenly, moving to a patch of sunshine a few feet away. “Does it matter?” The question landed with a thud. The brothers looked from one to the other, an answering expression of hard determination on their faces.
Max spoke first. “So what next?”
That Fiero could answer with certainty. “She gets better.”
“That could take a long time,” Max pointed out.
“True. But until she is well, I cannot act as I would wish.” Fiero’s eyes, a dark brown, glittered with the force of his resentment. “She is hurt and weak. It wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
Luca lifted his brows. “What do you plan to do?”
“What do you think?” He spun away from his brothers, giving the full force of his attention to the little boy who was swimming, blissfully unaware of the emotional undercurrents surrounding him. Fiero’s eyes glittered with the ruthless determination the Montebellos were renowned for. “I’m going to take my son back.”
In the middle of that summer’s afternoon, a dark cloud drifted out of nowhere and covered the sun, casting them in shadow. Fiero didn’t notice. All of his mind was occupied by what was to come – and the necessity of doing this once, and doing it right.
Other Books in THE MONTEBELLOS
All books are stand-alone, full-length romance novels.
REGRET ME NOT
JUST THIS ONE SUMMER
LOVING THE ENEMY
NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
IT STARTED WITH A LIE
BEAUTIFULLY BROKEN
THE SHEIKH’S BABY SURPRISE - Preorder Now
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