âYou and my son will come to live with me, in Italy. A chauffeured car will pick us up in an hour and weâll be on my private jet and in Naples airport before you know it.â
Her mouth fell open in astonishment, then snapped shut again, this time in anger. âOh, I see! So thatâs what you were doing just now!â She hurled the words at him shakily. âSoftening me up! Organizing dinner by candlelight, plenty of wine, half seducing me so Iâd eagerly fall in with your plans!â
âVerity, Iââ
âAnd then, presumably, you thought Iâd not only be willing to look after Lio, but Iâd be a useful little bedmate tucked away in your house! A substitute mother by day and a lover at night! How dare you?â she raged.
âIt was not my intention to half seduce you.â His mouth curved wickedly, shooting her nerves into spasm. âIt is not my habit to do anything by halves,â he growled sexily.
HE PUT down the phone and for a long time he just stared at his shaking hands, too stunned to react in any way at all. As the news began to sink in, a choking emotion rushed into the void that had been his heart.
His vision was blurred by tears of joy and he brushed them away impatiently, leaping to his feet as if propelled by rocket fuel.
Lio! he thought in amazement, racing for his study door. My son!
He called out, his voice cracking and husky. Then louder, till his staff came running in alarm. And then he set the house alight with orders. He requested a Mercedes to replace his unsuitable Maserati, bookings for flights and hotel accommodation and for a bag to be packedâpronto.
Eyes burning feverishly, Vittore hurried in long, rapid strides down the broad, sweeping steps of the palazzo, wrenched open the door of the car and dived in as though flames licked at his heels and the dogs of Hell were almost upon him. But he was leaving his hell behind at last.
The cream leather enfolded his lithe body. Impatiently discarding his cashmere jacket, he waited till he heard the soft âclunkâ of the boot being closed and then hastily revved up, remembering just in time a wave of gratitude to his puzzled staff.
At last. He was on his way. Expertly negotiating the tight curves of the small piazza, with the glorious Amalfi coast disappearing behind him, he eagerly headed up the hill for Naples, for Londonâ¦
For his son!
He sucked in a lungful of air, barely able to contain himself. Lio, sweet Lio, was probably alive. Alive!
Joyous energy soared into every part of him, lengthening every muscle of his body. His breathing was all over the place: short, sharp, shallow. Every nerve danced and jerked, tuned to maximum alertness.
How could he survive the delay between now and arriving in London? How could he ever contain himself without exploding: shouting, laughing, weeping with relief�
âBambino mio,â he whispered softly, and the words made a vice of love and pain tighten around his heart. âMy child. My baby.â
Because soon, God willing, he would see his beloved son again, the baby he had adored with a wild and uncontrollable passion that had come upon him like a thunderclap when heâd first set eyes on his newborn child; a passion so unexpected and total that it had shaken him to his very soul and left him desperately and fatally vulnerable to all the pain that had followed.
He flung a raking hand through his neatly-groomed hair, causing a hank of it to fall, Byron-like, onto his forehead. For once he didnât care if he looked a mess, only that the love of his heart was waiting in England.
He dragged in his breath sharply, realising heâd stopped breathing. No wonder. Finding Lio again was all heâd dreamed of, night after empty night, for over a year.
Heâd filled the interminable months, weeks and hours with a ferocious schedule of work to blot out the agony that had carved harsh lines in his once equable face.
The tragedy had turned him into a recluse; a cold, grim machine instead of a living, breathing man who adored life, valued friends and relatives and cared for them deeply.
But heâd had nothing to give them. No love could emerge from behind the steel cage that had surrounded his wounded heart. Life had lost its joy, its meaning.
But nowâ¦! Emotion suddenly overtook him again, a hard and hurting lump swelling in his throat. His son was now seventeen months old. And could soon be safely in his arms again. It would be the miracle he had prayed for in the privacy of his room, night after desperate night.