by Heidi Rice
‘Why are you here?’ the child demanded.
A smile creased my lips despite the tension in my own belly.
The boy was defending his mother.
‘Cai, you mustn’t speak to Mr Galanti so rudely.’ The cousin stepped in, placing her hands on the boy’s shoulders.
‘Mr Galanti is...’ the cousin began, and then stopped and swung her head round to Belle for guidance, who sat stiffly at the table, still struck dumb by my appearance.
Realisation dawned at the cousin’s hesitation. So Belle hadn’t told my son of our relationship.
Irritation gripped my insides. Was she still trying to keep him from me?
It was a struggle to keep my tone even and non-confrontational as I knelt down to introduce myself to the child.
‘My name is Alexi Galanti.’ I lifted my gaze to Belle who had finally got over her shock and was walking towards us.
The look on her face said it all—guilt, regret and panic.
The panic could only be from one fear—that I would introduce myself to the child as his father before he was ready.
My irritation increased. But I clamped down on it.
I should have taken charge of this situation a lot sooner.
‘I am a friend of your mother’s,’ I told the boy, repeating what we had told him all those weeks ago in Barcelona. Perhaps it was less of a lie now than it had been then.
Although, ‘friend’ was far too simple and straightforward a term for what Belle and I shared.
‘I would like to be your friend too,’ I added.
The boy’s eyes widened, but instead of replying to me he glanced at his mother. ‘Mummy, you said I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. Can I talk to him?’
I had to admire his bluntness and his brutal honesty, even as part of me died inside at the word ‘strangers’.
The reality of the situation hit home. This boy was my son, my own flesh and blood. His Galanti heritage was evident in every part of him—not just the dark, wavy hair, the shape of his face, the pure blue eyes so like my brother’s, but also in his directness, his boldness, his bravery, his determination to stand up for his mother. The way I had once tried to stand up for mine.
And because of Belle’s and my mistakes, our fears, our weaknesses, our selfishness, I could not claim him today.
Belle knelt beside the boy and banded an arm around his waist to tug him against her side. His arm wrapped around her neck, his attachment to her somehow making the regret and the longing grip my chest even harder.
In that moment, I made a promise to myself. No more running. No more hiding. For my sins, I could not claim my son today, but I would do everything in my power to make sure I could claim him soon. Very soon.
‘It’s okay, Cai,’ Belle said softly, her voice breaking with an emotion that I could feel echoing in my own chest. ‘You did the right thing to check with me first,’ she said and the boy beamed, basking in his mother’s praise. ‘But Alexi’s right, he isn’t a stranger...’ Her throat moved as she swallowed and I could see the sheen of moisture in her eyes. This was as hard for her as it was for me. My irritation eased a little bit. ‘He is my friend. And I think it would be lovely if he could become your friend as well.’
The surge of possessiveness surprised me.
I wasn’t the boy’s friend. I was his father. And I wasn’t Belle’s friend either. I was her lover.
I knew I would need to hold back my fierce determination to claim the boy until I had learned a lot more about being a parent.
But I would be damned if I would pretend not to be more than a friend to Belle, especially after last night.
Our gazes met over the boy’s head and the blush on her pale cheeks flared. Awareness bristled in the air between us.
‘Do you have a car, Mr Alexi?’ the little boy asked, forcing my attention back to him. The smile he sent me lit his whole face—and displayed a pair of captivating dimples. ‘I love cars.’
The child’s serious, cautious expression had disappeared. My heartbeat slowed as memories of Remy bombarded me. My son was a complete charmer, with the same sunny disposition my brother had always possessed... Sweet and uncomplicated, more than a little cocky and unfailingly optimistic. How foolish I had been to be so scared of getting to know him, when in many ways I knew him already... And had missed him terribly.
‘I own several cars,’ I said, an idea occurring to me. ‘Do you like racing cars?’ I asked, already well aware of the answer to that question after our brief meeting in Barcelona.
The boy nodded enthusiastically, his eyes widening. ‘Yes, I love racing cars the best of all.’
I decided to use his enthusiasm to my advantage. So many things about this child were familiar to me, but I was not familiar to him. I wanted that to change, and soon—so why not use every weapon in my arsenal to win the boy over?
‘I own some racing cars,’ I said and the little boy gasped—his excitement so innocent and unfettered it was all the more endearing.
‘Really?’ he said.
I nodded, his awestruck expression a sop to my battered ego.
‘Perhaps you and your mother would like to come to the Galanti test track today,’ I said. ‘And you can sit in our latest prototype?’
The boy began to jump up and down, his excitement no longer containable. ‘Can we, Mummy? Can we? Pleeeease?’
It was beneath me, but a part of me couldn’t help being pleased that at the very least I had managed to best Camaro’s offer of a month ago. I wasn’t in competition with Renzo for the boy’s affections, any more than I was for his mother’s affections, but still I could not deny the triumphant feeling in my chest.
‘Yes, of course,’ Belle said. ‘Jessie can go with you both. I have to stay here to...’ She paused, trying to come up with a plausible excuse not to accompany us, I had no doubt.
Lifting off my knee, I stood up and held out a hand to haul her up too.
‘Perhaps Jessie would like to take my...’ I began, but then paused as Belle’s fingers jerked in mine. I had been about to reveal my relationship to the child. ‘To take Cai,’ I corrected myself, ‘to get dressed, and we can talk?’
‘I’m not sure that’s necessary...’ She tugged her fingers loose, but her cousin interrupted.
‘Come on, Cai,’ she said, gripping the child’s hand. ‘Let’s get you dressed so you can see the new car. And your mummy and Mr Galanti can talk,’ she added pointedly.
The look that passed between the two women was not lost on me. Clearly Jessie wanted us to talk too. I decided I liked the woman a great deal.
‘Can we go right now?’ the child asked.
‘We can go as soon as you are dressed,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Mr Alexi,’ he said. ‘I like being your friend,’ he added, the innocent remark making my chest ache.
‘It’s just Alexi,’ I called after him as he dragged Belle’s cousin towards his bedroom in his rush to get changed.
As soon as Jessie and my son disappeared down the hallway, the room fell silent.
The delightful flush on Belle’s cheeks had spread to engulf her collarbone. I noticed the pink rash on her neck where I’d sucked the pulse point less than ten hours ago—and driven her wild.
The heat surged back into my pants.
‘I... We weren’t expecting you today, but if you want to take Cai for a trip to the track I have no objections,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Jessie can accompany you. I’ve still got a ton of things to do here.’
That all sounded very reasonable, but the pulse punching her neck gave her away. She was still running, and still kidding herself we could conquer this need with denial.
I placed my hand on her neck and ignored the flash of panic. She stiffened but didn’t draw away.
‘Surely we discovered last night the time for cowardice is ove
r, bella notte,’ I said, stroking my thumb across the pulse in her collar bone, feeling it flutter uncontrollably.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, but I could see she knew exactly what I meant. Her desire for me was the one thing she had never been able to hide.
‘Then let me demonstrate,’ I said as I lowered my head to hers. ‘I’m not here just to claim my son,’ I murmured. Her lips parted under mine with a gasp. The invitation was all the more beguiling because I was sure it was completely instinctive. ‘I’m here to claim you too.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Belle
I’M HERE TO claim you too.
The gruff words, so sure, so dominant and so possessive, shot through me as Alexi’s lips captured mine.
The dark, insistent need I had been trying to rationalise, minimise and explain all through my sleepless night leapt out of the shadows and sent glittering light cascading through my body.
My mouth opened instinctively to let him in, my fingers fisting in the soft cotton of his polo shirt as his tongue probed—demanding, relentless. He thrust deep into my mouth, exploring the recesses, tasting me again the way he had tasted me last night, but in the bright light of morning my response felt somehow more devastating, more out of control.
His hands cupped my cheeks as he angled my head for better access, his tongue delving deeper, not just claiming me but branding me.
My breathing sped up with my heart rate but my dazed mind—which was still reeling from the shock of having Alexi in my home unannounced, and seeing him engage with our son with surprising sensitivity—managed to engage.
Why was he really here? To become a father to his son, or to reopen the Pandora’s box I had tried to slam shut after last night?
I flattened my palms against his waist and managed to gather the strength to override the need and shove him back.
‘Stop!’ The words came out on a sob. He let me go instantly.
Perhaps he was as shocked by the incendiary nature of our physical connection as I was. But he didn’t look shocked, he looked indomitable, as I stumbled back, desperate to get away from the fire still burning in my blood.
‘We can’t... We can’t go there again.’ I dragged shaking fingers through my hair, scrambling around for the right words, the right tone—calm and assured rather than weak and needy. Not easy when my heart was racing faster than the Galanti X on the final lap at the Monaco Primo Grande. I gulped down several steadying breaths.
‘Why can’t we, if we both want to?’ he asked, his voice so assured, so reasonable, I suddenly wanted to slap him.
I shoved my fists into the pockets of my shorts to control the urge, but the switch from shock and need to anger finally helped to get my racing heartbeat past the finishing line.
‘Because this...’ I jerked my hand out of my pocket and flapped my palm between him and me. ‘This thing between us isn’t just about us any more.’ I ground the words out, the righteous indignation for my son helping to keep the destructive desire at bay at last. ‘There’s a child involved. And things are confusing enough for him already. You came here this morning without consulting with me.’ I’d tried to be forgiving about that, to understand. But his surprise appearance this morning was starting to look more and more like another of his power plays.
‘I told you he needed more time. I haven’t even had a chance to tell him who you are yet, to prepare him, and...’
‘Stop it.’ He grabbed my wrist and held it down, forcing my gaze to his. ‘Stop pretending this is about the boy when you know it’s not. You’ve had more than enough time to speak to him about me—four years, to be precise—but you have chosen not to. I’m not waiting any longer to get your permission to speak to my son.’
The sharp judgement in his voice, and the incontrovertible truth behind it, struck me like a blow, and the burning anger in my belly imploded, drowned by the black hole of guilt.
He let go of my wrist.
‘Do you think I don’t know how complicated this is?’ he demanded, his voice rough now—not with judgement but with something a great deal rawer than that. ‘Do you think I don’t know how confusing it is—for him as well as me?’
He dragged in several breaths and I could almost feel the pain in his lungs as he did so, because mine felt the same. ‘Do you think telling him I want to be his friend was easy for me, when what I want to do is tell him I’m his father?’ He whispered the words, and I realised he was keeping his voice down so Cai wouldn’t hear him. ‘Do you think I don’t know I have to earn the right to call myself that? And how hard that is going to be for me when I have no idea how to even talk to a four-year-old, let alone how to be a parent to one?’
A tear slipped over my lid—the tears I’d struggled to contain earlier when I’d watched him kneel in front of his son so he could look him in the eye, instinctively knowing how not to intimidate him. Even in that brief encounter Alexi had engaged with Cai so effortlessly—using their shared love of racing cars to start bonding with him. But I realised now, as I should have realised ten minutes ago, that none of that encounter had been effortless, at least not for Alexi.
I scrubbed the tear away, looking down at my bare feet. So ashamed.
I’d apologised to Alexi for the years of silence, for failing to tell him about his son, and I’d meant it—but how could I ever be forgiven? How could I even forgive myself until I put his needs and Cai’s needs ahead of my own?
‘Actually you did very well,’ I said, hitching in a breath and willing myself to hold the emotion at bay. Had a part of me even been a little jealous that Alexi had bonded with Cai so easily? I had denied my son his father for so long perhaps it was time I acknowledged one of my reasons for doing so had been my own insecurities as a mother. I’d had Cai when I had been nineteen years old. I’d been a confused, terrified child myself in many ways. I’d worked long and hard to build up my confidence. I was proud of what I’d achieved, but had a part of me been scared to test that, scared to share Cai with his father, because it might illuminate my inadequacies as a mother?
This wasn’t a competition, but I had made it one.
‘I suspect it helps that I own a Super League team,’ he said wryly, and my heart broke more—because, beneath the irony, I could hear the insecurity.
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ I said, forcing a smile to my lips. ‘But it was more than that. The way you spoke to him was very...’ I gulped, trying to shrink the boulder in my throat at his inquisitive expression. ‘It was really...’ I wanted to say sweet, but sweet wasn’t a word you could use to describe Alexi Galanti. Even as a father. It was too ordinary, too shallow, too trite. ‘It was really touching,’ I managed. ‘It was as if you already understood him. I think you might be a natural.’
He frowned then huffed out a bitter laugh. ‘I find that unlikely, given my own upbringing.’
The remark sounded flippant, but I knew it was not—he was talking about his fractured relationship with his own father. I realised what he had said to me last night, about his fear of fatherhood, wasn’t just wound up in his misplaced guilt over Remy’s death but also in all the cruel things his father had said and done to him during so much of his childhood and adolescence.
All those nasty jibes, the shouted threats and criticisms, the back-handed slaps and drunken punches that Remy and I had overheard... Alexi had always dismissed them, had always seemed immune, his confidence unbowed by his father’s abuse, but that treatment had taken its toll in ways of which I had been unaware until now.
‘You were never like him, Alexi,’ I said.
His frown deepened. The momentary flash of torment at the mention of his father was quickly masked but I knew the remark had hit home. Or at least I hoped it had, and I was glad. Because I could see now I hadn’t just robbed my son of a father over the last four years, I had stopped this man from discovering how much better he was than his own fa
ther.
‘I’m glad this first meeting went well,’ he said. ‘But I will need your help to ensure I don’t make mistakes.’
I nodded. ‘You have it.’
He nodded back. ‘I would like to be able to tell Cai who I really am as soon as possible,’ he continued. ‘But I am prepared to take your lead on that, as you know him best.’
It was a huge concession. I understood that, just as I now understood the significance of him not announcing the truth as soon as he had arrived this morning. He had trusted me, and now I needed to prove to him I wasn’t going to abuse that trust.
‘Thank you, let’s see how it goes. But Cai’s actually very adaptable,’ I admitted. ‘He’s already loving it here. And he...he’s always craved male attention,’ I added, thinking of how quickly he’d attached himself to Renzo and Pierre.
Why had I never noticed that before for what it was? Especially as I had yearned for a father myself through so much of my childhood.
‘He’s already thrilled to bits that I’m working for you...because apparently Galanti make “the bestest racing cars ever”,’ I added with a smile, quoting our son.
‘He’s a smart boy.’ Alexi’s eyes sparkled with amusement. ‘And handsome and exceptionally self-assured. He reminds me so much of Remy at that age, it is almost uncanny.’ He sobered, the frown reappearing between his brows. ‘You have my word, Belle, that I will do everything in my power not to hurt him.’
My heart galloped into my throat at the sincerity in his voice.
And two things occurred to me at once: that although he was unaware of it Alexi, who guarded his heart so fiercely, had already lost it to his son and how selfish and immature I had been to believe even for a minute, let alone five years, that Alexi would not be a good father to our child when he had been such a good brother to Remy.
‘I know,’ I said, realising the only way I could undo the damage I had caused by keeping my secret was to support and encourage Alexi as much as I could now.
