Satin Lies

by Tricia Jones

  “You have let her call me uncle,” he said in an icy tone. “You have argued about every decision I have made for her since you arrived here, as if I had no right. Did you ever plan to tell me, or was it because you were pushed into a corner?” His face had drained of color except for the slash of heat across his cheeks. “Well?”

  Faye stepped back at the sharp demand. “You won’t believe me,” she said, shaking her head, “but I did want to tell you. I tried earlier this evening when—”

  “Spare me, Faye. I no longer wish to hear your lies.” He pushed long fingers through his hair, muttered a ripe curse in the language of his birth. When he looked up his eyes were angry slits. “Such deceit, cara. Do you hate me so much?”

  Faye couldn’t speak, her throat had swollen shut. She could only watch as he stormed back into the building. Her whole body began to shake, her muscles trembled uncontrollably. How could he think she hated him? When she loved him with all her heart. That the very reason she had kept silent about their child was because she loved him so much and wanted him to have the life he craved, not the demands of one thrust upon him. Not one he would consider paralleled his father’s. Trapped in a marriage with a woman he didn’t love.

  She shuddered in a breath, tried to quieten her shaking limbs. There should have been some sort of relief about it being out in the open, some lifting of the awful burden she’d carried all these years. But there was just this emptiness in her chest, in her heart.

  Enrico would demand Melita be told the truth, and the thought of how that would affect her beloved child made the nausea intensify. Part of her knew Melita would be overjoyed to learn Enrico was her father, but then children didn’t always react as you thought they would.

  Faye squeezed her eyes shut. Somehow she had to prepare Melita, make sure her child knew how precious and loved she was, make certain she felt safe and secure.

  That was her priority right now. Her child.

  She trembled in another breath and opened her eyes. She had to go back inside and face Enrico.

  The specialist was talking hurriedly on the phone when she entered his office. Enrico stood in front of the desk, his shrewd gaze piercing her like arrows as he said, “It appears Melita’s medical records have been mislaid and cannot be traced until tomorrow morning.” And his expression told her that heads would roll for it. “So, cara, your little confession was perhaps premature, unnecessary even.”

  Faye stole a glance at the specialist who continued to bark orders down the phone. “You’re wrong.” She forced herself to face that chilling gaze. “It was very necessary. I know you don’t believe it but I’ve wanted to tell you since we came here. I’m glad you know. It’s right that you know.”

  His eyebrows rose in a contemptuous sweep. “And it has taken you a mere eight years to come to that conclusion.”

  They both looked toward the specialist as he replaced the receiver. “I can only apologize,” he said with a tentative shrug. “But I assure you the records will be transferred first thing in the morning.”

  “Good,” Enrico snapped. “Although it appears my information was incorrect. There was no premature birth.”

  The specialist looked nervously from Enrico to Faye and back again. “I see.”

  “As you have assured me that the child has suffered no ill effects from the incident, I will now take her home.”

  Assured me, I will take her home…how soon he had taken control, Faye thought miserably. For now she would allow him that. Because he was right, she had denied him his daughter, his own flesh and blood. She had lied to him, the cruelest of lies. All she could do now was allow him a little leeway to assert his right as Melita’s father. Just a little.

  But fear twisted her insides as she acknowledged everything would be different now.

  For Enrico Lavini would never be content with a token involvement in his daughter’s life.

  Chapter Eight

  Melita didn’t seem to suffer any ill effects from her momentous adventure and insisted on going sailing as Uncle Rico had promised. If he had any doubts the child was his they would surely have been quashed by the display of such ferocious tenacity, an absolute inability to accept that something wasn’t possible or couldn’t be done. Indeed, she was her father’s daughter. She all but stamped her feet when Faye insisted that they were staying on dry land for a few days to make sure she was fully recovered.

  Of course, it was actually Enrico who insisted, just as it was Enrico who insisted that his daughter be told the truth about her parentage that very morning.

  Melita slunk around the breakfast table on the poolside veranda and sidled up to Enrico. “Why can’t we, Uncle Rico? You promised.”

  He placed an arm around his daughter’s waist and drew her to him, trying to bank down his irritation at her unwitting use of his incorrect title. A fierce and terrifying protectiveness shot through him as he held his child. La mia figlia bella, he thought, as his gaze swept over her. His beautiful daughter. With her mother’s exquisite complexion, the same delicate bone structure, and while the hair and eyes were unmistakably Lavini, her charm and poise were pure Faye.

  He tugged her playfully into his side. “I do not believe any promises were made, carina.” His voice was gentle and calm as he softly chastised his daughter. “But perhaps we will do something later that might be even better than sailing.”

  Melita snaked her arms around his neck. “Ooh, what?”

  “We shall see.” With a little tug he brought her down onto his lap. As she settled he stole a glance across the table at Faye. Her face was pale and drawn, probably due to lack of sleep. Had she, like him, spent the night in restless turmoil? Most likely. For there was fear in her eyes now as she sat across from him, nervously chewing on her full bottom lip.

  As his arms banded protectively around his child he took a deep breath, and prepared to change all their lives once again.

  “There is something we have to tell you, your mama and me.” He signaled to Faye, waiting as she slowly came around the table to sit beside him.

  They both looked at Melita, at the slightly horrified expression that crumpled her pretty features. “We’re not going home, are we, Mummy?” She tightened her arms around Enrico’s neck, pressed her cheek to his. “Oh, I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here with Uncle Rico and Carla and all the horses.”

  Faye leaned forward and rubbed her hand reassuringly down her child’s arm. “Ssh, nobody said we’re going home. But as Un… Rico said, we have something to tell you.”

  Melita looked up at Enrico. “What?”

  With his daughter tight on his lap, he shifted. “Well, a long time ago before you were born, Mama and…err…well, we…” He shifted again, swallowed. He thought about testing the water by asking Melita if she’d like to live at the villa forever, preparing the way by asking if she’d like to stay with the horses. But that was the coward’s way out. Not his style. Although right now he’d welcome it.

  He’d never felt more terrified in his life.

  “The thing is, little one, Teo, well, Teo wasn’t your real father.” He watched as her tiny brows drew together in puzzlement, and strangely he had the strongest urge to grip Faye’s hand. But he didn’t. “I am your real father, carina, and I want you to know that you are very precious to me.”

  Melita looked up at him, a cautious look in her eyes. “You’re my daddy?” She looked at Faye, who gave a faltering smile and assenting nod, then straight back at Enrico. “Really?”

  He nodded too, tightening his arms around her. “Really.” His gaze flew over her face. “And I love you very much.”

  With serious intent she studied him for long moments during which his heart stopped a couple of times. “But why didn’t you live with me and Mummy? Why did Teo be my daddy?”

  Faye watched emotion wrench Enrico’s face. This was all her fault and she’d let him take the brunt of the explanations to their daughter. It was only fair she step in and take her share of questioning f
rom their fiercely intelligent, inquisitive child.

  “Daddy didn’t live with us because he didn’t know you were his little girl.” Faye paused. This was the first time since Melita’s birth she’d acknowledged out loud that Enrico was her child’s father, and the pleasure of it whispered through her. But guilt at having kept father and daughter apart soon annihilated the joy. “It was very complicated and Teo didn’t want you not to have a daddy, so he pretended to be one.”

  “But why? Why couldn’t Daddy live with us?”

  Oh, God.

  Enrico stepped in. “Because sometimes grown-ups do silly things and people get very hurt and upset. Then they do other silly things and it becomes even more difficult to make things right.”

  Melita considered that, her young face animated with expression as she sorted everything through. It went from puzzlement to elation and back to bewilderment again. Her satin-smooth forehead crinkled. “But you won’t go away again, will you, Daddy? Not ever.” It was more a command than a question. A non-negotiable edict. Like father, like daughter, Faye thought, and would have laughed if she hadn’t been wracked with anxiety.

  Enrico’s face was a study in tenderness, wonder and adoration softening the hard edges of his features as he smiled down at the daughter who clung to him. Another tiny arrow in Faye’s heart. For seven years she’d had her daughter to herself, had been the centre of her child’s universe.

  But now…

  Melita’s brow furrowed deeper. “You won’t, will you, Daddy?” she demanded.

  He laughed, then rubbed his cheek against his daughter’s, hugging her close. “No, my precious child, I will never go away again. Not ever. And neither will you. You are going to live here with me. For always.”

  “And Mummy too?”

  Enrico hesitated before picking up his daughter’s hand to plant a tender kiss on her knuckles. “We will see.”

  Faye didn’t hear the rest of the father-daughter exchange because her head was spinning as blood rushed through her veins. We will see? Just last night he’d proposed marriage, and now we will see?

  But then his marriage of convenience had been the suggestion of a benevolent uncle, now he was making proclamations as a father. The implications of that soared through Faye’s hectic thoughts. It was payback time. He was going to make her suffer for what she had done, what she had stolen from him.

  There was no marriage on offer now. He wanted what was rightfully his, without the trappings of a wife for whom he felt nothing but contempt.

  Which meant one thing.

  He planned to take her daughter from her. He was going to get the best lawyers the Lavini wealth could buy and file a claim for full custody. He was going to make sure she suffered as he had.

  She wanted to scream her refusal into his hateful face as he turned to look at her with an expression of cold arrogance.

  You’ll have a fight on your hands, Enrico Lavini, her narrowed eyes silently warned. Because if he thought for one moment he would…oh dear Lord, no…she couldn’t begin to imagine the agony of being separated from her child.

  “You do, don’t you, Mummy?”

  Faye looked to where Melita tugged on her arm. “What?”

  “We’re going to the beach to swim and have our lunch in a really nice hotel that Daddy’s friend owns. You do want to come, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course.”

  Just try and stop her. She intended to cling to her daughter with the same boa constricting strength with which her daughter presently clung to Enrico. If he thought for one moment she would simply hand her child over to him without one hell of a battle, he obviously didn’t know the extent of a mother’s wrath.

  On the fringes of her awareness Faye heard Enrico say something about telling Carla they were going out for the day, then she watched Melita skipping happily beside him as he made his way back to the villa.

  She felt numb, drained. Like everything that just happened, hadn’t really happened. If she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, perhaps she would snap out of this awful dream. But when she tried it, nothing happened. Faye felt an emptiness settle in her chest. An awful despair.

  She’d known he’d be angry, of course she’d known. Had expected the fury, the anger. She had expected blame and harsh accusation. But she hadn’t expected this. Enrico would never be that cruel. Never.

  Yet, it seemed the extent of his pain had brought out a part of him she’d never seen before. How on earth was she supposed to fight him? If he’d made up his mind he wanted full custody of his child, he would pull out every stop to make sure he got it.

  Well, he could do whatever he liked. He was not taking her daughter away.

  Propelled forward by a fierce, protective rage, Faye searched him out. She found him in his office, searching through papers.

  Swallowing back the fear gnawing at her throat, she stormed to his desk. “You’re not taking my daughter away from me.” She slammed her palms on his desk. “Know that I’ll fight you with everything I have. Everything!”

  Like a man without a care in the world, Enrico looked up. Why was it he always looked even more formidable in his office? Dressed in tailored jeans and navy tee shirt he still looked the epitome of a successful and somewhat fearsome businessman, surrounded by state-of-the-art technology that he handled with the confidence and ability of an expert.

  “Slightly theatrical, even for you, cara.” He threw some papers into a tray on the side of the desk. “I have no intention of taking our daughter anywhere.”

  “You told her she was going to live here with you. For always, you said.”

  “Si, I believe I did.” He lifted a file from the desk drawer, opened it and examined the contents.

  His maddening calm and dismissive tone made Faye’s temper escalate. “Put that down and talk to me!”

  Pointedly, he took several moments to study the file before closing it and throwing it into the tray with the other papers. “Very well.” He folded his arms and looked at her with cold grey eyes. “Talk.”

  For one mad moment she thought about pleading with him, begging him not to fight her for custody of Melita. She would tell him she would do anything else he wanted, as long as he didn’t do that. But something in that steely, uncompromising gaze warned her it would be a futile exercise. Besides, you didn’t give a man like Enrico Lavini a glimpse of weakness. He’d pounce on it like a predator.

  “You can’t expect me to let her stay here with you,” Faye reasoned. “She’s my child. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair.”

  “Fair?” His eyes blazed with a savagery that made Faye remove her hands from his desk at the same time he rose to his feet. “You are on exceedingly dangerous ground, and if we are speaking of fair then undoubtedly you must concede that ground to me.” His body hummed with barely strapped hostility as he came around the desk and stood in front of her. “And what did you expect, Faye? That I would let my child go? Having been denied her for so long, did you expect me to let her walk out of my life without a fight? You robbed me of my daughter, you lied to me about her birthday, you let me believe she was my dead brother’s child.” His eyebrows pulled together in a fearsome scowl. “You allowed her to go on calling me uncle when all the time you knew differently.”

  Now Faye did take a step back. It was difficult to breathe with him towering over her, looking for all the world like he’d enjoy nothing more than taking her apart limb by limb.

  But she forced herself to hold his gaze, despite the terror that hollowed her legs. “You can’t take her from me. It isn’t right to keep a child from her mother.”

  “Or her father.” He snapped it out with the full force of his venom. “But it seems you had no compunction on that score.” A muscle jumped angrily along his jaw. “I want my paternity legally acknowledged. I want my daughter to have what your lies have denied her.”

  Faye had expected no less. “I understand, and I have no argument with that, but—”

  “She is my first-born
child, in effect my heir. I want her safe and protected, in a secure environment where I can ensure she has everything she needs.”

  “She needs her mother.” Faye’s voice broke. “I’ll fight you so hard, Rico. I’ll fight you with everything I have.”

  “Which is nothing.”

  Faye stared at him, searching for a flicker of compassion in that hard expression. When she found no evidence of such, she slowly shook her head. “You’ve become the very thing you feared. You’ve become the same kind of vindictive, callous man your father is.”

  The skin across his forehead stretched tight, but he said nothing.

  “You just want to make me suffer in the cruelest way possible.” Faye went on, as he moved back to his desk. “I can’t believe that you’re doing this.”

  He lifted a document from his desk and handed it to her. “You may want your lawyer to check this before you sign. But I think you will agree the terms are more than generous.”

  “What terms?” Faye glared down at the contract she held with trembling fingers. “What do you mean generous?” Even as she formulated the words, the sickening possibility became clear. He was paying her off? Buying her daughter?

  She threw the document at his chest as if the paper was contaminated with the deadliest virus. “How dare you!” If he’d been closer she may well have taken a swing at him. “What sort of man are you?”

  “My terms are disagreeable to you?” His reasonable tone was accompanied by a lift of his arrogant brow. “Well, I am sure we can reach some sort of compromise.”

  Through her anger and fear, Faye pounced on the splinter of hope. “That’s all I want, some sort of compromise. I won’t stop you from seeing her, Rico. We can visit whenever you—”

  “There will be no visits.” He gathered up the document she had thrown at him. “The compromise I suggest will involve an increase in the payment to you.”

  The flicker of hope she’d entertained vanished with his words. “You’re a monster,” she choked out. “You’re a despicable monster. You think I can be paid off? You think I’ll sell you my daughter?”