Italian Tycoon, Secret Son

CHAPTER ELEVEN

WHEN they reached home Renzo vanished into his office, saying that he must catch up on work. Mandy would have liked to talk to him about what had happened, but clearly he didn’t want that. She spent the evening chatting with Sue before looking in to say goodnight to him. He smiled briefly and returned to work.

‘This afternoon I thought things were getting better,’ she confided to Sue as they climbed the stairs. ‘But we take one step forward and two steps back.’

‘And if it doesn’t come right?’ Sue ventured. ‘What happens then?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said with a sigh.

But she did know. And the thought of the decision that she might be facing filled her with sadness.

It was the height of summer. The heat could become intolerable during the day, and scarcely less so at night, so that both the windows and the shutters were left open. On a moonlit night the bedroom never became entirely dark.

Having seen Danny settled in his cot, Mandy stretched out on the bed, wearing a nightdress that was barely a whisper and with only a sheet to cover her. Even so, she was still too hot and slept fitfully.

She awoke suddenly, wondering what was different. The room was silent, yet she knew something strange had happened, piercing her sleep. Then she turned her head and saw Renzo.

He was sitting by the cot, gazing down into it, totally still. She waited for him to glance her way, but he didn’t. His attention was all for the child and she might not have existed. When he finally moved, it was only to lean down further, peering intently. Mandy could just make out his face with its faint smile that widened suddenly, as though something new and delightful had caught his attention. When his head turned a little she could see that his eyes were gleaming, not only with pleasure, but with something that was almost triumph.

A man marvelling at newly discovered treasure might gaze at it with that reverent wonder-half joy, half disbelief. Mandy lay still, her heart beating so loudly that she feared he might hear it, but he was totally absorbed in his son.

Now she understood what he had meant about seeing without being seen. It was a pleasure to study him without his knowledge. He was bare-chested, and in this light the scars were invisible, leaving only the lithe, strongly built man she remembered from a time that sometimes seemed like another world.

A sound from the cot showed that Danny had awoken. At once Renzo pressed a finger to his lips and pointed to the bed. Danny began to make grumbling noises, which caused Renzo to shush him frantically.

‘Silenzio!’ he whispered. ‘Don’t wake Mamma.’

But the sounds increased.

‘I think you’d better wake Mamma,’ Mandy told him.

Renzo jumped, then gave her a quick look that was almost guilty. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘I was. You must have entered very quietly not to have disturbed me. How long have you been there?’

‘I’m not sure, perhaps an hour. I came in because I hoped you were awake. I didn’t knock in case I awoke him too, but you were both asleep. I suppose I should have gone away-’

‘You know better than that,’ she said at once. ‘You don’t need permission to visit your own son.’

‘I meant to waken you, but I got to looking at him lying there, and then I couldn’t stop.’

She sat up in the bed. ‘It was lovely. You were doing so well.’

‘Was I? I’ve never talked to a baby before. I don’t understand their language.’

‘You pick it up as you go along,’ she said, pushing back the sheet. ‘Then, gradually you get to understand each other. When he says this-’ she gave a grunt ‘-it means he wants to be changed. I’ll show you how to do it.’

‘Show…me?’ he said, with the gulping horror of fathers since the dawn of time.

‘Well, you’re obviously training to be the perfect father. What better moment for a lesson?’

But, at the sight of his appalled face, she relented. ‘It’s all right. I’ll let you off this time.’

She went into her little bathroom and did what was necessary. He came to the door to watch, but only from a safe distance.

‘Coward,’ she jeered, chuckling.

‘Definitely.’

When she’d finished, she laid Danny in his father’s arms.

‘Hold him for me while I get washed,’ she said, returning to the bathroom.

She took her time washing, turned out the bathroom light and slipped back into the bedroom unnoticed. She had her reward in the sight of Danny sitting on Renzo’s lap, supported by his arm, looking up with an appraising expression.

‘He’s not sure what he makes of you,’ she said, laughing softly.

‘What about what I make of him?’ Renzo demanded.

‘That doesn’t bother him nearly as much. He knows the opinion that matters is his. He’ll inform you when he’s ready.’

He grinned. ‘Got it all sussed, huh?’

‘You’d better believe it. He’s going to go through life afraid of nobody.’

Renzo studied his son’s face, and nodded. ‘Yes, I think that’s what he’s trying to tell me. What are you doing now?’

Mandy had gone to a bedside cupboard and taken out a small bottle and a cup.

‘He likes a little drink of orange juice when he wakes at night,’ she explained, pouring juice into the cup and setting it down. ‘I keep this in the fridge by day, and take it out when I come to bed. By the time he’s ready for it, the chill has gone.’

She sat down on the bed and reached out to take Danny from him. The child went willingly, but kept his eyes on Renzo, evidently regarding him as a curiosity. They had been acquainted for several days now, yet Mandy had the strange sense that each was seeing the other for the first time.

‘Now, perhaps Poppa will hand us the cup,’ she said.

Renzo entered into the spirit, pointing to himself and repeating, ‘Poppa.’

Danny frowned.

‘Poppa,’ Renzo said again.

At last Danny made his decision. ‘Fish,’ he announced.

‘Hey, that’s my word,’ Mandy protested. ‘I’m your fish. You said so.’

‘Fish,’ Danny repeated firmly.

‘But I’m an Italian fish,’ Renzo declared. ‘Pesce.’

‘Fish.’

‘Pesce.’

‘Argue it out some other time,’ Mandy said hastily. ‘Now, if Signor Pesce will give you the cup.’

Signor Pesce duly obliged, holding it out to Danny, who reached out for it, floundering but determined.

‘I’d better take it,’ Mandy said, laughing.

With a little help, Danny managed to get both hands on the cup and aim it roughly at his mouth to take a long satisfying drink. Then he gazed defiantly at his mother, as if to say, See!

‘Oh, yes, you’re very clever,’ she told him. ‘You don’t have to tell me. I know you are. And now you’re going to prove it by going back to sleep.’

His defiance didn’t waver, but his eyes began to close.

‘I guess you won that one,’ Renzo said softly.

‘It’s not hard. He’s worked out that the more he sleeps, the better mayhem he can create tomorrow. Come on, my darling.’

She laid Danny back in his cot. He was already asleep.

‘He looks so innocent,’ Renzo said in wonder.

‘It’s a trick. That’s how he fools you. You don’t find out he’s actually a villain until it’s too late and he’s got a grip on your heart. Ask Bruno.’

He laughed softly. ‘I know. Nonno always said I practised a Who, me? look. He said the more innocent I seemed the more alarmed he became.’

‘I know exactly what he means,’ she said tenderly.

After a moment he said, ‘Thank you for today. Nonno doesn’t have much left to hope for in his life, and you gave him something that made him happy.’

‘No, it was you who did that.’

‘Don’t flatter me. You’ve had the hard part, I know-bearing Danny and raising him alone. How did you ever do it?’

‘I did it for you,’ she said simply. ‘You were always there with me. I was never alone.’

‘Never alone,’ he said slowly. ‘How could I be with you, and not know?’

‘Perhaps you did know, in your heart,’ she said slowly.

He nodded thoughtfully but said no more. Danny stirred, and he glanced back at him.

‘You said he was born in October.’

She gave him the exact date.

‘Was it very hard?’

‘It took a long time. First babies often do. Once they thought something was going wrong and I was terrified in case I lost him. But Sue was there, holding my hand, and it was all right in the end. I couldn’t have borne to lose him. It would have been like losing you all over again.’

‘I should have been there,’ he whispered. ‘Mio dio, it should have been me holding your hand.’

‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘You should have been the first one to see him and hold him. You should have been there when he cut his first tooth at seven months. Wait, I’ll show you.’

She put on the bedside light and got up, reaching into a drawer and pulled out a book which she opened for him, showing it to be a photo album.

‘Sue brought it with her,’ she said.

Renzo was staring at the picture on the first page.

‘But-that’s me,’ he said, thunderstruck. ‘How could you possibly have my photograph?’

‘Low cunning,’ she said. ‘Never fails. When we were in the mountains I could take pictures with my cellphone. I took several of you, without you knowing. When the rescue party found me in the hut they found my things, as well, and the cellphone was there. After I returned to England, I had the pictures developed. That was the best, but there were some other nice ones.’

Renzo turned the page and saw himself as he’d been then, in climbing gear, laughing, game for action, king of the world.

‘I wonder who he was,’ he mused. ‘I don’t know him. He looks a paltry fellow, the sort who’d swing off balconies and think he was being clever.’

‘Oh, he had his good moments,’ she said in a considering voice. ‘I can’t remember them right now, but he must have had something.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, grinning.

But then his grin faded as he turned the page and saw a picture of Mandy, taken in the hospital, holding the day-old Danny. Watching his face she saw an expression of unutterable sadness that only deepened as he went through the book and saw more pictures.

There was Danny at his christening, sleeping soundly in his mother’s arms, then sitting up in his high chair, clearly older and bigger, beaming mischievously. And, just behind him, was the enlarged picture of his father.

More pictures, all telling the same story, of a child growing quickly in strength, health and intelligence. And every time Renzo’s photograph could be seen, never far from his son, as if watching over him.

‘You kept me alive for him,’ he whispered.

‘I tried to. It helped me too. I had someone to talk to.’

He wondered if she knew how the unconscious inflection in her voice had betrayed the depths of her loneliness. But she wouldn’t know, he guessed. There had never been anyone less given to self-pity than her.

‘Why didn’t you show me this earlier?’ he asked.

‘I’ve always wanted to. It wasn’t the right moment before. But tonight…it was.’

Tonight he’d begun to open his heart to his child and she was alive with hope.

He was turning the pages, lingering over a picture of Danny with a warm smile.

‘They say babies start being shy of strangers after a few months,’ Mandy said, ‘but he never was. His attitude was always bring ’em on.’

‘So much I missed,’ he mused. ‘Lost for ever.’

‘But there’s much more still to come,’ she reminded him. ‘A lifetime. You don’t have to miss that.’

‘A lifetime.’ He looked at her across the cot. ‘Do you really think you could put up with me for a lifetime?’

‘Try me.’

‘You were always brave, but you’d need all the courage in the world to take me on.’

‘It would take far more courage to live without you,’ she told him softly. ‘That’s what I can’t face.’

He came to sit beside her on the bed and spoke fervently. ‘Do you remember when I said I loved you back then?’

‘Every word.’

‘I never thought I’d get the chance to say it again. I was wild with hope and despair. You were the one, the only woman I wanted, the only woman who’d ever made me feel I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life, and there was so little of that life left. So much to say and do, and it was too late.

‘I wanted for ever with you then, and I want for ever with you now. Marry me. Stay with me always.’ He took her in his arms. ‘Say yes. Say it quickly.’

‘Yes,’ she told him joyfully. ‘Yes, oh, yes.’

Their kiss was long and deep, an exchange of promises too powerful to need words. Renzo pressed her gently back onto the bed, kissing her face, her neck, moving tenderly down until he came to the flimsy nightdress.

‘Why are you so overdressed?’ he murmured.

He helped draw it over her head, removed the shorts that were all he wore and pulled her back into his arms as though the urgency that swept through him was too fierce for more delay.

It wasn’t the first time they’d made love since their reunion, but this was different. Now they had rediscovered each other in a way that hadn’t been true before, and each kiss, each caress, each incitement was imbued with new meaning.

He kissed her breasts softly, teasing, coaxing until they burned under his touch, making her arch against him in delight. She was demanding and offering in the same moment, clasping her fingers in his hair and pressing her body against his in an urgent plea for more.

‘You mean it?’ he murmured. ‘You’ll stay with me always?’

‘Always,’ she said, speaking with difficulty through her mounting excitement.

‘Never leave me.’

‘Never…’ she vowed, ‘never…never…’

Renzo moved over to unite himself with her, knowing that he’d become complete as never before, revelling in that knowledge. He belonged in her bed and her heart, where he would always be welcome.

As he watched her face, soft and tender on the pillow, gazing up at him with trust and love, he understood at last that a new life had begun for him. Now he could claim her with assurance, relying on a love that had already been tested in the fire.

They had first found each other when the future seemed a blank wall. Now it had opened up to bright vistas, gleaming with happiness too long deferred. Further off lay uncertainty, and perhaps beyond that there might be more sadness. But they would be together, and while that was true nothing could ever make them despair.

While they loved, their son slept peacefully in the cot beside them.

They were awoken in the early hours by a knocking on the door and Teresa’s voice calling them.

‘The hospital called,’ she said. ‘They think Bruno is dying.’

‘Sweet heavens, no!’ Renzo exclaimed.

Mandy was already up, dressing Danny, then hurrying down the stairs to where the car was waiting.

On the journey Renzo grasped her hand and sat with his head bent. She knew what he was praying. ‘A little longer-just a little longer-’

The nurse was waiting for them, holding open the door.

‘He’s still alive, but only just.’

Bruno lay on the bed, his eyes closed, his breathing faint. Renzo leaned down and kissed his cheek.

‘I’m here, Nonno,’ he said, seating himself beside the bed while Mandy sat beside him, with Danny in her arms.

‘What do you mean by giving everyone a scare?’ Renzo asked in a rallying tone. ‘It’s nonsense to say that you’re dying. You’re going to get better, and then we’ll have a wonderful time, all of us. We’re all here to see you.’

There was an almost pleading note in his voice and Mandy’s heart broke for him. This moment meant so much and he’d missed the chance by a fraction.

‘Nonno, please open your eyes,’ Renzo begged.

There was no change in his breathing and Bruno’s eyes didn’t open.

‘Nonno, please,’ Renzo said raggedly.

For a moment they thought that nothing would happen, but then, very slowly, the old man’s eyes opened and he managed to turn his head very slightly towards Renzo.

But Danny must still be beyond his sight, Mandy thought, suddenly knowing what she must do. She stood up, holding Danny up high in her arms so that the man on the bed could see him. Renzo understood at once and rose from his chair, moving back to let her get closer, and standing just behind her so that Bruno could see them together.

‘You were right, Nonno,’ Renzo said. ‘It’s going to be just as you hoped. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ Bruno’s voice was almost inaudible, but he was smiling. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. ‘Now I…can go.’

Then he closed his eyes.

Mandy moved away to let them be together. Renzo kissed his grandfather once more, but it was all over and Bruno didn’t move again.

Renzo sat on the bed for a long time, his head bent.