The Sicilian's Surprise Love-Child

by Carol Marinelli

Her dignity.

  His silence.

  And he had missed her so. That throaty laugh, that raw passion for everything she did.

  How to tell her of the mess in his head?

  Where did he begin to explain to Aurora that if he were capable of love absolutely it would be with her?

  ‘Your schedule is very full,’ Aurora pointed out.

  She did not want to be alone with him; she did not want to fall into his arms, to yearn for his kiss. To sob out that she was pregnant and then witness his dark reaction.

  Aurora would tell him from a distance, she decided, then and there, because she felt like putty whenever he was near.

  But Nico did not give up.

  ‘Later tonight?’ Nico said. ‘I shall be done around ten.’

  ‘But I finish at eight,’ Aurora said, and tried to inject regret into her voice. ‘Perhaps we could schedule a meeting for the morning?’

  ‘I don’t want a work meeting.’

  No, he wanted sex. Aurora was very sure of that.

  Nico was staying in the Temple Suite tonight, and no doubt he did not want to spend the night alone.

  Damn you, Nico!

  She corrected herself: she was not putty—more, she was a puppet on Nico’s string. He thought he could bed her at will. And the real trouble was that he could.

  Perhaps she wouldn’t even have to tell him. She was feeling so hormonal right now that to be alone with Nico meant she would fall into his arms. He would just have to strip off her skirt and he would know. Or his hands would remove her bra and the heavy breasts that were now crushed against her chest would spring full into his hands...

  Now he saw anger in her face. It flashed in her eyes and it formed in two red dots on her cheeks. But her smile remained.

  ‘I want to speak to you Aurora,’ Nico said.

  But it would have to wait, for Vincenzo was making an approach.

  ‘Ah, Signor Caruso!’ Vincenzo said. ‘Benvenuto!’

  ‘Welcome?’ Nico checked. ‘What do you mean, welcome? It’s my damned hotel?’

  ‘What’s eating him?’ Vincenzo asked as Nico stalked off.

  Aurora knew she now had to tell a lie, and she watched Vincenzo’s face fall as she spoke. But that lie would keep her sane.

  It kept her sane even when Nico joined not the big-wigs’ group, but the local dignitaries as Aurora gave them her tour—fully thirty minutes behind Vincenzo’s schedule.

  First she took them outside to the main pool, where the ruins of a Roman bath had been carefully brought back to life.

  ‘Most of the suites,’ Aurora explained, ‘have their own private pool, but this is the central one. Though it is positioned so that it can’t be viewed from the main building.’

  ‘Why is that?’ a reporter asked.

  ‘For private functions,’ Aurora said. ‘It looks incredible when lit at night, and with the calibre of guests we expect to host we would not want to risk them being photographed.’

  ‘Can a couple book just this area just for themselves?’

  ‘Of course,’ Nico answered, when Aurora could not.

  She could feel the sun beating on her head, and Nico’s eyes on her, and the air felt so thick she could barely drag it in.

  Oh, how she wanted to discard the jacket and skirt! To peel off her clothes and take his hand as he led her into the cool, inviting water.

  ‘Let’s head inside,’ Aurora said, and deliberately avoided his eyes. ‘This was once the oratory, where the monks would gather to pray and meditate,’ she explained as they came in from the glittering pool into the huge, cool, dark building. ‘The new stone is from the same quarry as the original monastery, and this whole wall...’ she touched it lovingly ‘...is original. Now it’s going to be a place for meditation and spa treatments. A place to hide from the world and restore oneself in peace and tranquillity.’

  It was truly stunning. All those painstaking hours and millions of euros had been worth it, Nico knew.

  Even his father had known. During their last visit, on the last morning of his life, Geo had admitted that he would have sold it to developers.

  ‘But I like what you have done,’ he had told Nico. And today Nico held on to those words as Aurora walked them around.

  He could never palm this hotel off on his managers or sell it.

  Yes, he had said that on the day of his father’s funeral, and for a while he had thought he would, but as the grief had settled Nico knew he could never just hand it over.

  It was his life’s work.

  ‘Now...’ Aurora smiled as she led them up some stone stairs and across a long cloister. ‘I shall take you into my favourite suite.’

  ‘The Honeymoon Suite?’ one of the crowd joked.

  ‘No,’ Aurora replied.

  How could that be her favourite when she would never know a honeymoon? The truth was she avoided the Honeymoon Suite as best she could.

  ‘This is the Temple Suite,’ Aurora told her audience. ‘And I’m sure you will soon see why.’

  She pushed open the heavy wooden door and as they took one step inside they all gasped—except for Aurora and Nico.

  Even the sun had joined the party, and it seemed to split apart the stones of the old temple ruins in this most stunning view. It actually brought tears to Aurora’s eyes as she stood and looked out.

  ‘I had seen the temple ruins from every angle I thought possible,’ Aurora explained. ‘I grew up in Silibri and they were my playground. But some weeks ago I put on a hard hat and was shown the view from here. I admit I cried when I saw the temple from this height and distance. I believe this was the view that the monastery was built to capture. It is a slice of heaven, is it not?’

  And it was—except that Nico was watching Aurora, and the way her eyes shone with tears. He could feel her love for this incredible space.

  He wished—oh, how he wished—they were here alone.

  They would be tonight.

  She led them through the suite and onto the huge balcony and was grateful for the gentle breeze to cool her warm cheeks. Yes, she had trained herself not to blush around Nico, but it seemed she could not train herself out of desiring him. The easiest thing in the world, Aurora thought, would be to say yes to Nico.

  ‘Dinner on this balcony would be amazing,’ Nico said, as if reading her thoughts.

  ‘Absolutely, it would be,’ Aurora agreed.

  ‘I don’t think anyone would close the drapes on this.’

  Please don’t, her heart said in response to his words. Please don’t banter with me and take me back to that day in Rome. Please don’t seduce me in this room that I love so much when I know you will only break my heart later...my heart that is trying so hard to mend itself.

  As the crowd moved off, Nico held back and waited for her attention.

  ‘About ten?’ he checked.

  Aurora swallowed but gave no response.

  ‘You have the key?’

  No, she wanted to say, you have the key. The permanent key. And you turn it, and you open me, and then you close me again. And I cannot be placed on lockdown for even one day more.

  No, she was not yet ready to tell him about the baby.

  ‘I’d better get on,’ she told him.

  * * *

  It had been a rewarding though exhausting day.

  Aurora had slipped away in the evening, as Nico wined and dined his guests, though he himself barely ate a thing.

  Tonight—after this—he would sit on that balcony and he would wine and dine Aurora. And with the temple ruins as their backdrop, he would say what he had come to say.

  Nico escaped the celebrations just after ten.

  So certain of her love was he that at first it didn’t faze him that Aurora was not there.

  He ordered champagne and a spritzer. He o
rdered the freshest pasta, with a light basil and tomato sauce, and for dessert her favourite—Tiramisu. And he asked for the tray to be decorated with wild flowers, picked just before sunset.

  All the things he knew she loved.

  And he waited.

  And then he texted her.

  And then he drank the champagne as he called her cell phone but got no answer.

  The flowers and the food came, but the meal he had chosen with her in mind went cold beneath the cloches.

  Nico put on the television in his room with its most stunning view—just to check the news and be sure that wildfire had not ravaged the village again, nor had there been an accident on the winding roads. For surely Aurora would come if she could...

  He woke on the plush sofa to the sound of her laughter and a rare hangover.

  The sound of her low, throaty laugh had him looking around the vast suite—and then staring, bemused, at the television.

  Aurora looked amazing, with her hair freshly styled, wearing more make-up than usual, and in that gorgeous Persian Orange uniform.

  ‘The Temple Suite,’ she said to the interviewer, ‘is more than luxury. It is a place where you can retreat, where you can heal, where you can rest and ponder your life choices.’

  And it was then that he saw, tucked into the wilting wild flowers, a letter addressed to him. It was clear as he read it that Aurora had intended him to receive it last night.

  Nico,

  I have told Vincenzo that you want me to do the breakfast television interview. I’ve lied, but better that than be your plaything again.

  The concierge can arrange an intimate massage in your suite or, if you do not want Pino knowing your business, you can call Rubina’s and ask Madame to send someone to help you create another unsatisfactory memory of your time in Silibri.

  Sorry to disappoint, but my pride got in the way.

  Aurora x

  And then she laughed again.

  At least the Aurora on breakfast television did.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘WHAT IS THIS?’

  Back in Rome, Nico wasn’t certain he had read things right and was immediately on the phone.

  Aurora had resigned.

  Aurora Eloise Messina. Now aged twenty-five. With a passion for the hotel like no other and a hunger to succeed, had left.

  It made no sense.

  He knew full well that she was furious with him. And after the stunt she had pulled Nico had been furious too and had stayed well back.

  But his anger was fading now—so much so that whenever he re-read that note he almost smiled.

  ‘Why did she resign?’ he asked.

  ‘She was headhunted.’

  Vincenzo sounded taken aback that the rather absent owner of the business was immediately on the phone to him the moment the email went out.

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Aurora would not say. Apparently she was tired of her ideas being dismissed.’

  They had not been dismissed. Had she turned up for dinner that night then she would have known that.

  Nico called her. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Scusi?’ Aurora asked.

  She was sitting in her little pink bedroom as she awaited a taxi to take her to the station.

  Her parents had not taken the news of their daughter’s pregnancy well at all—especially as Aurora refused to name the father. A terrible row had ensued.

  Nico had been right: her parents did snoop, and they had gone through her phone and found the dating app she had downloaded in Rome.

  And now she had Nico on the phone.

  It was too much for her nerves today.

  ‘Why have you resigned without speaking first with me?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nico, I resigned and I have left. I don’t have to answer to you when you are no longer my boss.’

  ‘All right, then. Forget that I was once your boss and tell me. Why did you resign?’

  ‘So from what standpoint are we talking, Nico? As friends?’ Aurora’s voice was incredulous and angry, though she struggled to keep the hurt from it. ‘Because we are not friends, Nico. You yourself told me we could never be.’

  ‘Aurora—’

  ‘Or are we speaking as lovers?’ she interrupted. ‘But that can’t be because you have so many—surely you don’t expect them all to give you career updates?’

  ‘Aurora!’

  She would not let him in. ‘Or are we in a relationship, Nico? Oh, but that’s right—no. Because you don’t want one. You told me—’

  ‘And you told me you would never leave Silibri.’

  ‘I was sixteen years old when I said that. Tell me, Nico, is that the only reason you decided not to marry me?’

  Silence.

  As always, his silence killed her.

  She wanted to curl up on her bed and weep into the phone.

  Tell him. Tell him about the baby. Tell him that you have never felt so lonely nor so scared.

  No!

  And Aurora knew why she did not.

  ‘I have to go, Nico. The taxi will come soon.’

  It wasn’t a lie.

  She went downstairs. Her case stood at the front door and her parents sat at the table, looking at the photos the estate agent had taken of her nonna’s home.

  The home meant for her and Nico.

  ‘The part I don’t understand,’ Aurora said now, as she stood by the window, still awaiting her taxi, ‘is why you would have been happy for me to live there, with a husband who did not love me and did not want me, but you would rather sell that house than give your pregnant daughter a home for her child.’

  But they just wanted the problem to go away. By withdrawing their support her parents were assuming that Aurora would be forced to give her baby away.

  ‘Aurora is career-minded,’ her mother would declare in the village shop as she chatted to her friends. ‘And she’s making better money than Nico Caruso paid...’

  And then, a few months later, Aurora would return to the village, minus the family shame, and pick up where she’d left off.

  That was the unspoken plan in her parents’ heads, but deep down they knew Aurora.

  She would not be giving her baby away.

  ‘You’ve bought shame to this family, Aurora,’ her mother said. ‘How do we hold our heads high when you don’t even know who the father is?’

  Aurora gave a soft mirthless laugh, for though her mother spoke in anger, it was half true all the same: Aurora didn’t know who Nico was. Not really.

  An ex?

  That would mean they had actually been a couple at some point.

  A family friend?

  Sort of.

  Her boss.

  Not any more.

  ‘We trusted you to go to Rome,’ her mother said, her voice thick with tears. ‘We trusted you to behave.’

  ‘It wasn’t a school trip, Mamma.’

  ‘Less of your cheek,’ Bruno stood. ‘While you’re under my roof—’

  ‘But I’m not under your roof any more,’ Aurora said as the taxi finally pulled up outside. ‘You’ve asked me to leave, remember?’

  ‘Because you don’t even know the father’s name.’ Mamma’s lips pulled in disgust, as they had when Aurora had first revealed the news that she was expecting a baby.

  Tell them. Tell them who the father is. Tell them that you love Nico, your baby’s father, with all your heart.

  No!

  And again Aurora knew why.

  There would be shocked gasps, then shouts of anger, but eventually it would be all smiles and delight.

  Because Nico would do the right thing by their daughter.

  And Nico would.

  You could take the man out of Silibri, but you could not take Silibri out of the man. />
  Oh, Nico might snub some of the village codes, but the basic ones were ingrained.

  He would marry her for the sake of their child.

  Aurora knew that down to her bones.

  Beyond her bones, she felt it in her womb, and she felt it in the place low between her ribs—a little knot that tightened when she imagined their wedding.

  Only not the way she had once envisaged it.

  Now she saw the villagers’ smiles, and heard their cheers, and she could even see the large bouquet she carried to cover her surprise pregnancy—but only for the photos.

  Everyone would know about the baby and how delighted the villagers would be. Nico Caruso was putting down roots—back where he had always belonged. And she and Nico would wave and smile and kiss for the cameras, and that night they would lie in bed and have sex because—well, it would be their wedding night.

  She could almost feel his resentment as he thrust into her. For Aurora Eloise Caruso had got exactly what Aurora Eloise Messina had always wanted.

  Even if Nico never had.

  So, no!

  She would tell no one the truth.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AS THE TRAIN pulled into Stazione Roma Termini, the main train station in Rome, Aurora felt none of the excitement as she had the last time she’d arrived here.

  Then she had been with colleagues, looking forward to training at a luxury Rome hotel. Then she had felt as if her career was on course.

  Then she had been looking forward to seeing Nico.

  Now...

  Aurora did not know.

  Yet she had chosen to come to Rome.

  Was it in the hope of seeing him?

  No, for she dreaded that.

  Or had she come with the intention of telling Nico that he was to be a father?

  No.

  One day she would tell him, but she dreaded that too.

  It was more that her world felt safer when Nico was near.

  She had arranged accommodation at a very basic hostel, but she would be spending only her nights there. Every day was to be devoted to trying to find work.

  But it seemed most restaurants weren’t hiring. At least not a visibly pregnant waitress.

  And it was the same for cleaning work too.