D'Alessandro's Child

by Catherine Spencer

  “No! It’s too…formal. We’re having dinner, not attending the governor’s ball.”

  But the more she looked, the more she weakened, and Fran knew it. “Let’s see how it looks on you before we decide.”

  Why fight the inevitable, especially since nothing else had caught her fancy? “All right, but I’m telling you now, it’s a waste of time.”

  It wasn’t, though. It was a dream come true. The silk lining shimmied over her body like a caress. The silver-blue beading echoed the color of her eyes. The lightly-boned bodice meant she could dispense with a bra and wouldn’t have to worry about straps showing. The slit in the skirt tempted a little, without revealing too much. In short, the dress was perfect.

  “You’ll knock his socks off,” Fran decreed, when Camille appeared for inspection. “Get out your credit card and prepare to blow your budget, girlfriend. We’ve found the killer dress for the occasion.”

  Although he managed to keep his socks on when she opened the door to Michael at thirty-two minutes past eight that evening, he did look as if someone had knocked the wind out of him. “Holy cow!” he wheezed, his gaze skating past the daring neckline to the slit in her skirt. “That is some outfit!”

  “Should I take that to mean you approve?”

  He blinked and ventured another hurried glance at the way the fabric barely managed to drape her breasts. “Oh yeah! I just wish I did you credit as your date, is all! As it is, you’re stuck with what you see.”

  What she saw was so delectable, her mouth watered. He wore a silver-gray jacket over a white dress shirt whose French cuffs were held closed by discreet silver links. His dark gray tie gleamed with the subtle sheen of fine Italian silk. The knife-edge crease in his black dress pants bisected the top of hand-made black leather shoes. In her book, he easily topped the list of best-dressed men-about-town, and there wasn’t a thing about him she wanted to change.

  Curbing her enthusiasm for fear it might send him running for the hills, she said primly, “You look very nice.”

  He gave a wry laugh. “Kind of you to say so. Now that we’ve got all that out of the way, let’s go.”

  “Would you like to come in for a drink, first?”

  “No, thanks.” He reared back as if she’d made an indecent proposition. “I managed to get us in at the Quail Lodge which I’m told is a good half hour’s drive from here, and whoever took the booking made it pretty clear they won’t hold our table if we’re late.”

  “I’m surprised you were able to get a reservation at all,” she said, but it was a lie. He could charm apples off trees without even trying, and there wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t succumb to the sexy timbre of his voice sliding down the phone.

  “How’s Jeremy?” he asked, once they’d cleared the town limits and were headed east. “Still thrilled with his car?”

  “More than you can begin to know. He’d take it to bed with him, if I’d let him. You’re his hero.”

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Somebody should be, and your ex obviously doesn’t want the job.”

  “Just as well. He’s hardly the kind of role model I want for my son.”

  “I still wonder why fatherhood wasn’t enough to keep the guy on the straight and narrow.”

  “I hoped it would, but the novelty of having a son soon wore off and he became worse than ever. It was as if he saw the baby as a daily reminder of his personal failure to father a child of his own. He began finding excuses to work late every night, then started disappearing for days at a stretch.”

  “Sounds like a real hands-on kind of dad, all right!”

  “It was the old pattern repeating itself. When he did finally come home, his behavior was so unpredictable, I never knew what to expect. The awful thing was, Jeremy picked up on the tension and cried the whole time his father was around, which just made matters worse. Todd was resentful, I was exhausted and at my wit’s end with worry, and my poor baby was miserable.”

  “Small wonder!” Michael let out an exclamation of disgust and took a corner so sharply, the tires squealed in protest. Alarmed, Camille braced her hand against the dashboard.

  Realizing he’d frightened her, he eased his foot off the accelerator and said calmly, “Relax, Camille. I haven’t killed a dinner date yet. I’ll get us there and back in one piece, I promise.”

  “I’m sure you will, but there’s no great hurry, you know. We’re making very good time.”

  “I realize that. I just got so riled up with what you were telling me, I let my attention wander. Not a good idea, I know, especially in unfamiliar territory, but it won’t happen again.”

  He inhaled deeply and pointedly changed the subject. “Pretty countryside,” he said, surveying the passing scenery. “Too bad it’s getting dark already. I wouldn’t mind coming back during the day and seeing more of it.”

  “I’ll be happy to act as tour guide, if you do.”

  A second of silence spun by before he said, “Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll have the time.”

  What shocked her the most about his answer was not the reminder that he wouldn’t be around much longer, but that the news should leave her so utterly desolate.

  What was the matter with her? She’d always known he’d go, sooner or later. She’d encouraged their relationship precisely because she knew it would be short term: a fling, a brief encounter, no strings attached—and any number of other tired clichés on which she’d hung her decision to become involved with him.

  But hearing him give voice to the inevitable cut through her smug delusions and laid bare the truth hidden underneath. She did not want to lose him, not now, not ever!

  “I see,” she said, dismay casting such a long shadow over the evening that she didn’t know how she’d survive it. “You’ll be leaving shortly, then?”

  She had to ask. Not knowing—living with the fear that she’d wake up one morning and discover the reason she hadn’t heard from him in days was that he’d left without saying goodbye—was more than she could face.

  “I’ll be leaving, yes. How soon I really can’t say. I have a few…loose ends to tie up before I go and no idea how long that will take.” His gaze lingered on her intently a moment before swinging back to the road, and although his words had been neutral enough, she thought she saw longing in his eyes, and a strange ambivalence.

  It was all the encouragement needed for a tidal wave of hope to rush through her. Those loose ends he was referring to meant him and her. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name. All his talk about friendship was a front, just as his offhand dismissal of what had happened the other night had been. If he really didn’t care about her, he’d never have bothered to contact her again. He wasn’t ready to admit his real feelings, that was all, because he was a man, and men were more cautious than women when it came to love.

  Love, Camille? When did “love” enter the picture?

  “Camille? Am I right?”

  He was applying the brakes. Almost bringing the car to a stop. Pinning her in his gaze, his expression inquiring. Hedgerows on either side cloaked the quiet back road in darkness, made it a private, intimate place. Her heart fluttered up into her throat. “…Right?”

  “We turn at this intersection?”

  “Oh,” she said faintly, pressing a hand to her chest as her heart fell back where it belonged. “Oh, yes, right…I mean, left. You turn left.”

  His soft, sexy laughter flowed over her. “I’ve known dinner dates to fall asleep on the way home, but you’re the first to pass out on me before you’ve been fed. I must be losing my touch.”

  Not you, Michael! You couldn’t if you tried. “I wasn’t sleeping,” she said. “Just daydreaming.”

  Not long after, they reached the lodge, as famous for its chateau style of architecture and acres of gardens as it was for its food. He’d secured a table in a quiet corner next to a window on the lower, fireplace level of the dining room.

  “I’m glad I found out about this place,” he sai
d, once the wine-tasting ritual was out of the way and their oyster Rockefeller appetizer had been served. “I wanted to bring you someplace special tonight, and I’d say this fills the bill.”

  A man didn’t bring a woman to a special place to give her the brush-off. He didn’t need sterling and bone china and crystal set on table linen starched to a fare-thee-well to prove he was her friend. He didn’t order champagne to toast the end of an affair. Steeling herself not to read too much into his every word and gesture, she said, “It is lovely, isn’t it?”

  He fixed her in another sober, heart-melting stare. “Not quite as lovely as you, Camille. The way you look tonight is something I’ll remember long after I leave here.”

  As quickly as her hopes had soared, they sank again. Premonition, cool as midnight in February, stole over her. “I don’t want to talk about your leaving,” she said, shivering. “I want to learn more about you—about the kind of life you’ve lived. Who are you, Michael, when you’re not playing tourist? What kind of hopes and dreams shaped you into the man you are today? Where do you see yourself, a year from now, and if you could have just one wish, what would it be?”

  It had taken him a full five days to come to grips with what he knew he must, in all conscience, do. Their relationship had run off the main track and was headed down a dangerous side road built on a shifting foundation of deceit. Regardless of the cost to him, he had to put a stop to it. He’d see her one last time, tell her the truth, and that would be it.

  Once he’d made up his mind, he promised himself two things: he wouldn’t lay a hand on her, no matter what the provocation, and he wouldn’t let anything get in the way of his coming clean.

  The first was easy. There’d be no dancing, no getting cozy beside a roaring fire, no playing footsies under the table, and definitely no fooling around in the car on the way back or accepting an invitation to come in for a nightcap.

  The second he’d known would be difficult. He could hardly blurt out of the blue, “By the way, I’ve been meaning to tell you I’m your son’s natural father.”

  But her spate of questions had handed him the perfect lead-in. All he had to do was answer her, and the truth would come out. Only a fool would turn away from such a heaven-sent chance to make a clean breast of everything.

  He was a fool! Raising his glass in a silent toast, he said, “Not until you finish telling me your story.”

  She gave a little shrug, just enough to draw his eye to the low-cut front of her dress and the lovely honey-gold skin it revealed. “There’s nothing else to tell.”

  “Sure there is,” he said, gulping down a healthy swig of the champagne. He should have ordered something with more bite—something raw and bitter that would burn down a man’s throat and bolster his courage—instead of a wine synonymous with the prelude to seduction. “When did you reach the end of your rope with Todd? Was it something specific or just battle fatigue in general?”

  She shrugged again. Damn! “A bit of both, I suppose. His behavior was destroying him and everyone around him, and he didn’t care enough to want to change. Perhaps if it had still been just the two of us, I might have tried harder to keep the marriage alive, but clearly it was no kind of environment for a child, so I took Jeremy and moved out and filed for divorce.”

  “You mean, the place you’re living in now isn’t the one—?”

  She shuddered, which was almost as distracting as if she’d shrugged. The top of her dress, what little there was of it, slithered over her breasts like a jealous lover. “No! I wanted a completely fresh start, away from all the bad memories.”

  Even though he cleared his throat, he still sounded like a choirboy in the midst of exchanging his soprano for a tenor. “And he didn’t fight you on it?”

  “He was glad to see the back of us.”

  Gad, Mike D’Alessandro wasn’t the only fool walking around! “The man must be a moron. Couldn’t he see what he was giving up?”

  She leaned forward so that even more of her cleavage showed. “He had other priorities, Michael. People with addictive personalities are driven in ways you and I can’t begin to understand. All that matters to them is catering to their obsession—whether it be power or money or mountain climbing. In Todd’s case, it happened to be alcohol and eventually cocaine.”

  “I can understand being driven,” he said, forcing himself to concentrate on what she was saying, instead of what she was almost wearing. “We’ve all got things—people, principles—that matter to us enough that we’ll do just about anything to honor them. But I can’t imagine anyone being willing to sacrifice a child.”

  What the hell was he saying? Hadn’t Kay jettisoned their marriage and their son because dancing in a chorus line and playing bit parts in a third rate Hollywood movie had mattered more?

  “But that’s how addicts are,” Camille said earnestly. “They can’t help themselves. Half the time, I don’t think Todd was even aware of the effects his actions had on me or the baby.”

  “Uh-huh.” He ran his finger inside the collar of his shirt and unbuttoned his jacket. Anything to take his mind off what he wanted, which was to touch her. She was so fine, so elegant.

  “You’re staring,” she said, a smile lurking at the corners of her mouth. “Do I have spinach caught in my teeth?”

  Awareness caught him off guard, triggering a soft implosion that almost had him groaning aloud. He shouldn’t be looking at her; shouldn’t be admiring her smooth complexion, the scalloped curve of her upper lip, the dimple in her chin.

  Hers were not the features he should be committing to memory. He hadn’t assumed a false identity and all the lies which went with it to make an ass of himself over a woman who, once she knew his true history, would plant her dainty foot in the seat of his pants and boot him out the door.

  He’d done it for the too brief pleasure of sharing a few stolen days of his son’s life. Those were the memories he should be hoarding against a future which of late had lost so much luster that he could barely bring himself to think about it.

  “Let’s order our main course,” he said, grabbing the leather-bound menu and disappearing behind it before he did or said something really asinine. “You’ve been here before. What do you recommend?”

  “The rack of lamb, the crab cakes…. Is something wrong, Michael? You seem upset.”

  “Yes, something’s wrong!” he practically barked, slapping the menu closed. “The man you married made your life a living hell, not to mention your child’s, yet you keep defending him.”

  “I’m not defending him,” she said, her eyes wide with dismay.

  “You sure aren’t condemning him!”

  “I divorced him, Michael. What else should I have done, hired a hit man and had him shot?”

  “Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

  Before he realized what she intended, she slid her hand across the table and folded her fingers around his. “He gave me my baby. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.”

  The remark cut him to the quick. Wrong, sweetheart! he wanted to bellow. I’m the one who did the giving! Instead, he marshaled his vanishing control and avenged himself the only way he knew how. “Exactly how did he do that, Camille?”

  She pulled her hand away and stared at him, surprised, he suspected, as much by the bitterness in his tone as by a question whose answer should have been evident to a congenital idiot. “How do you think, Michael?”

  “Well, let’s see.” He leaned back in his chair and counted off his reply on his fingers. “One, he went to a registered adoption agency. Two, you were both subjected to several interviews with medical and psychological experts who put you under intense scrutiny to make sure you’d measure up as parents. Three, having passed all those tests with flying colors, you appeared before a judge or some other legal bigwig who approved your taking a baby, subject to a six month probationary period during which time a social worker dropped by without warning to see how things were going. How am I doing so far?”

>   She couldn’t look at him. She glanced down at her hands, clasped tightly in her lap. Her lashes, their shadow stretched to ridiculous length by the candlelight, flared across the high arc of her cheekbones. Her mouth trembled. And he, damned fool that he was, wanted nothing so much as to take her in his arms and apologize for haranguing her.

  If only she were just some woman he’d met socially…!

  He left the thought unfinished, ticked off to discover that his body was already ten steps ahead of his brain. Just as well the waiter loomed up out of nowhere, somber as a black-clad angel, his head bald as a billiard ball decked out in a halo of white fluff. “Are you ready to order, sir?”

  Michael shot an inquiring glance at Camille. She seemed on the verge of tears. “We’ll both have the filet mignon,” he decided, latching onto the first thing that came into his head. “Medium rare. And a bottle of your best Shiraz.”

  “Very good, sir.” The waiter disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of silence, thick as the air before a thunderstorm.

  Realizing he was drumming furiously on the table with the pads of his fingers, Michael clenched his fist and said, “Steak okay with you, Camille?”

  She shook her head.

  “You want me to cancel and order something else?”

  She cast about the room, looking for all the world like a trapped doe. Finding no help on the inside, she fastened her gaze on the floodlit gardens outside. “Why are you doing this, Michael?”

  “Doing what?”

  He knew exactly what. And the pitying look she leveled at him told him she knew he was just playing for time. “Why are you cross-examining me as if I’ve committed a crime? Why do you care how we came to adopt Jeremy?”

  “Maybe because I care about you.”

  “I’d like to think so, but the way you’re acting….”

  “I just find it strange that Todd’s problems didn’t raise a red flag with whoever looked into your family background. I don’t pretend to be an expert on adoption rulings in California, but I know that in Canada, pretty stringent guidelines are laid down to protect children from the kind of home situation Jeremy fell into.”