‘That’s why you had Guido moved to the top floor?’ A frown creased her brow.
‘Tony watched the house at night.’
A smile that was utterly out of place shone for a second as she saw things differently. ‘That’s why he never gave you a lift?’
‘Unless I was with Guido.’ Elijah nodded. ‘The fact that they stopped to buy a present at the airport…’
That long-ago bedroom conversation came back to her mind, his sheer bewilderment at their actions, which had revealed the depths of the pain he must feel.
‘I couldn’t fathom that, Ainslie. I vomited at the airport—I had to face the same as them—I could not have thought to buy a gift. I didn’t go to Italy to break up with Portia. I had already taken care of that. I went to Italy to check things out. I broke into their home, looked through their things—that New Year party we went to was about chatting up an old friend who had a contact that worked in their bank, I couldn’t do it over the phone—I had to go there to view their accounts. And, yes, they were poor, but there was nothing to indicate they intended to travel—nothing in their home that confirmed my doubts—so I let it go. I told myself I was being stupid. I arrived back in London and I rang the private detective I had hired to watch over you and Guido—he had nothing on them either, so I called him off. I was about to call Tony off too—and that was when the private detective asked to meet with me—he said it was nothing to do with the Castellas, but he had some photos that I might want to see.’
‘Angus and I?’
He nodded. ‘Angus came to see me this afternoon—amongst other things he told me that the police had contacted him. Forensics had come back on the car, and it appeared someone had tampered with the fuel tank. It looked like a professional job—someone who knew what they were doing. Given the ferocity of the fire, it was lucky it was picked up. They got rid of Maria and Rico and they tried to get rid of you.’
‘Why?’ The most pointless of questions, because there could never be a right answer. ‘For money?’
‘It wasn’t just about money—though that would have been their first motive. It was about hatred, about revenge…All I know is that they couldn’t even wait—they wiped their nephew’s parents off the face of the earth just to get their hands on his money and just to get back at Maria for being a part of me.’ He stared down at her bemused face as she struggled to comprehend such atrocities, struggled to accept the world in which he’d grown up—this—Elijah berated himself over and over—the woman he had refused to trust. ‘That is what hate does to you.’
‘And that’s why you’re going to have to somehow learn to forgive them…’ She smiled at his incredulous face, but he closed his mouth when she spoke on. ‘For Guido’s sake—or he’s going to grow up filled with hatred too. Elijah—why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How?’ he asked. ‘How could I tell you my suspicions and expect you to stay? All I could do was protect you—at first it was for Guido—and then…’ Even now he couldn’t fully tell her of the fear that had gripped him, of the paranoia that had convinced him everything he loved was in danger of being taken. ‘I needed you to stay, but I wanted you to leave.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘I tried to.’
She closed her eyes in regret—because he had.
‘We were fighting for the same thing from different corners,’ Elijah said softly. ‘You could only see good, whereas I…’
‘It would have been nice to meet in the middle.’
‘I am going to speak with Ms Anderson.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I have to do what is best for Guido and she is right—my lifestyle is not suited to a small child, not suited to any child…’
And she couldn’t bear it—couldn’t bear the thought of little Guido being a number in the system. Surely whatever love Elijah could offer was better than that? And then she halted. Because it wasn’t—wasn’t good enough for Guido the same way it wasn’t good enough for her.
‘You have to do what you think is right.’ Her voice was strained. ‘You will see him, though?’ Ainslie checked. ‘You will ring and keep in touch…?’
‘I’ll see him every day!’ Elijah frowned. ‘Are you feeling all right? Is your head hurting?’ And then he got it. ‘He’s mine,’ Elijah said simply. ‘I don’t have to prove that to Ms Anderson and I don’t have to prove it to myself—now I know it in my heart. I am going to move here. I don’t want to unsettle him again. He needs to have the people and the things he loves around him for a while. Enid is good for him, and Tony is looking to retire, so maybe he would work for me too—as a driver this time…’
‘What about your work?’ Ainslie asked. ‘What about the travel and the parties and the women…?’
‘Everything in moderation,’ Elijah answered. ‘Especially the women.’ His eyes held hers. ‘I’m hoping to scale them right back, actually—down to one!’
‘It’s not that straightforward.’
‘I don’t want to be without you,’ Elijah interrupted. ‘Never, ever again.’
‘Because of Guido?’
‘Because of you.’
Which was the right answer. But still she pulled her hands away—because even if it was extreme, the hate that had led them to this point was an extension of themselves. He was so mistrusting, so unsure. She remembered again the hell he’d put her through—remembered again every hurt.
‘I never slept with Angus.’
‘I know that.’
‘But you didn’t know that,’ Ainslie countered. ‘Which means that you don’t know me.’
‘I do now.’
‘Which is too late.’ It was the hardest thing to do, to turn her back on a future she so badly wanted—but as much as she loved him, she loved herself more. ‘Now I’ve passed all the tests suddenly you decide that I’m good enough? Well, guess what? I always was.’
‘What was I supposed to think?’
‘You didn’t think; you just assumed—saw a photo…’
‘I’m not talking about the photos!’ Irritated, annoyed, the old Elijah was back, his bedside manner fading as he stood up and paced the room. ‘I walk out of that hospital and on to the underground, holding my nephew, and I pray to God, to the universe, to anyone listening, for help—for something to happen, to show me the way. And I open my eyes and there you are.’ He jabbed a finger accusingly.
‘Everything okay?’ A nurse popped her head in and frowned.
‘Everything’s fine,’ Elijah snapped, and Ainslie nodded.
But the second they were alone, she rounded on him, furious, furious, that he thought he could talk to her like that—furious that she was lying in a hospital bed and being told off. She told him so!
‘I was nearly stabbed this afternoon!’
‘I was stabbed this afternoon!’ Elijah countered.
‘I’ve been mugged, attacked…’
‘Scoffing down afternoon tea?’ Elijah hurled just in case she was expecting sympathy. ‘Booking massages and personal shoppers?’
‘You can’t talk to me like that.’
‘So I’m supposed to just walk out?’ He glared. ‘Let you turn your back on the best thing that will ever happen to you? Because I’m telling you now—’ his voice rose as she opened her mouth to argue ‘—no one will ever love you as much as I do.’
And he meant it.
Because only Elijah could shout it the first time he said it.
‘I loved you even when I thought the worst—hell, Ainslie, I spent this morning wondering if I was mad because I was ready to forgive you for sleeping with a married man. I told myself that despite everything I believe in, every standard I’d set for the woman who would be my wife, that if it really was just one last time it would be better to forgive you than to lose you.’
It had never entered her head that his love might be greater than hers—that Elijah might forgive something she never, ever could.
‘It was so much easier to doubt you than to believe in you.’
�
�Why?’ She just didn’t get it—honestly couldn’t fathom why he had chosen, at every turn, to think the worst.
Till he told her.
Walking over, he sat on the bed and word for word he said it again—only softly this time, holding her hands instead of jabbing a finger. ‘I walk out of that hospital and on to the underground, holding my nephew, and I pray to God, to the universe, to anyone listening, for help—for something to happen, to show me the way. And I open my eyes and there you are. You!’ he added. ‘The only person who didn’t walk on, the only person who stopped. Who came back with me to a house I was dreading entering, who took care of my nephew. And who fell in love with me.’
She nodded—not embarrassed, not blushing—just nodded at the simple truth. Tears streamed down her cheeks as he struggled to explain what had taken place in that beautiful head of his.
‘It was easier to think of you as a mistress, a gold-digger…’
‘Easier?’ Ainslie frowned. ‘How could that be easier?’
‘Prayers don’t just get answered. You don’t give out your wishes and expect an instant response. You don’t just open your eyes and the woman you’ve always wanted is there. Miracles don’t just happen.’
‘But they do,’ Ainslie countered.
Love—the miracle that occurred over the globe, thousands upon thousands of times every day. Random people the world over were looking up to find their soul mate looking back at them—the person, whether they realised it or not, who was the very one they were meant to be with.
‘Especially at Christmas!’ Ainslie said, as if it were obvious. ‘Everyone knows that.’
Lifting up her hand and capturing his proud cheek, she looked back with love at the man who had rescued her too that night, who had rescued her again today, and who would, she knew beyond a doubt, rescue her any time she needed it.
‘And I guess someone decided that we both deserved a miracle.’
EPILOGUE
HE LOOKED divine.
If she lived to be a hundred then the next seventy-two years, Ainslie realised, clutching her flowers, were going to be spent catching her breath.
Catching her breath at a man who really did stand a head above the rest.
Resplendent in a suit, and somehow holding onto the hand of a very spoilt and thoroughly over-excited Guido, who insisted on being the centre of attention, Elijah was the centre of hers. Even when Guido pulled out his corsage and stamped on it as heads turned to the arriving bride. Even when Guido spat in frustration when the best uncle in the world took the arm of the bride and walked up the aisle.
Ainslie followed behind.
‘Do you really think it appropriate that she’s wearing white?’ he whispered into her ear later, the giver-away of the bride dancing with the bridesmaid.
‘Absolutely.’ Ainslie nodded dreamily, lifting her head from the haven of his chest to see Enid smiling shyly at Tony.
‘What was that?’ In a room of couples dancing, he stopped.
‘A kick.’
‘He kicked!’ His hand moved to her velvet-clad belly—held the swell of their baby in his hot palm. He grinned. ‘He kicked again! He’ll play for Italia!’
‘So might she!’ Ainslie said pointedly.
‘Good.’ Elijah shrugged. ‘Ms Anderson can coach her.’
And even on a thimble of champagne to toast the bride, and a gallon of sparkling water and orange juice, he made her drunk with laughter. Reprobate, irrepressible, yet somehow incredibly tender—Elijah: the miracle that just kept giving.
‘Guido is going to be so jealous when the baby comes…’ Elijah sighed into her hair.
‘He’s already jealous.’ Ainslie grinned, watching as he pummelled the floor with his fists as Ainslie’s mother, who was over for Christmas, tried to soothe him. ‘Fancy us two having the nerve to dance and forget to ask him!’
‘He’s getting better, though?’ Elijah checked, and she nodded.
It had been hard, because despite his tender age Guido had missed his parents—still missed them, Ainslie was sure—but they were doing their best to fill that gap.
‘He’s getting there.’
And so were they.
Their decision to stay in London had been hard, but the right one. His home was the one constant they could offer Guido when everything else in his little world had shifted. All their worlds had shifted—as the adoption had gone through, as Elijah had scaled back his work, as new relatives had visited from Australia. As Ijah slowly became Dad and, one recent day, Ainslie for the first time became Mum.
Yet they helped him remember—the digital photo frame Ainslie had so lovingly purchased often a source of comfort for the little boy who did actually miss his parents. Slowly Guido’s house had become their home—and never more so than now. The tree was back in the lounge, a wreath was on the door just as it had been last year, parcels were hidden in the wardrobe, and the house was filled with all the laughter and tears that came with any family at Christmas—especially when the mother-in-law comes to stay!
‘I love you!’ Ainslie said, just in case he needed reminding.
‘How could you not?’
It was Elijah who couldn’t accept the compliment—Elijah who made a brave joke and a stab at humour. Elijah who woke her at night sometimes just to check that she was there, that this woman who had dashed into his life wasn’t going to disappear in a puff of smoke, just as everyone he had ever loved before her had. ‘You know I love you…’
He stared into her heart and beyond it, took her with that look to places they would one day visit, to two lifetimes that were now one and would share together each day.
‘I do know,’ Ainslie answered, because she did. ‘But tell me again why?’
‘Because,’ Elijah said, struggling for a moment before succinctly delivering her the perfect answer. ‘Just because…’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2401-2
HIRED: THE ITALIAN’S CONVENIENT MISTRESS
First North American Publication 2008.
Copyright © 2008 by Carol Marinelli.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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