Riccardo's Secret Child

‘A calm, phlegmatic British approach to a problem, is that it? I am supposed to quietly accept years of premeditated deceit with a smile on my face and then get down to visiting rights. Is that it?’

‘Something like that,’ Julia admitted hopefully.

‘I might have been educated in your fine British system, but I am not a phlegmatic British man,’ Riccardo informed her icily. ‘When it comes to business I may don the clothes of the businessman and speak with the civilised tongue of your country and deal with the savagery of the concrete jungle with cold-headed judgement, but when it comes to my personal life I am a man of passion.’

Julia felt an involuntary shiver of awareness run through her body like an electric shock.

A man of passion. She had seen that for herself and how! When it comes to my personal life… The blood rushed to her head as she imagined the personal life he had in mind. His passion had overwhelmed Caroline. His powerful drive, instead of sweeping her along, had left her flailing. Had it been that way in bed too? Had his passion driven her into a state of numbed frigidity? She imagined that wild, un-tamed side of him making love, bringing all his suffocating masculinity to bear upon the object of his desire. The picture shocked her with its vividness and for a few seconds reduced her to a state of confusion.

She shook her head, feeling winded. ‘Passion won’t help us deal with this situation,’ Julia said carefully, treading on thin ice. ‘Nicola has never met you. She has no idea who you are and she’ll be terrified if you suddenly appear on the scene and try to take her over. She’s finding it hard enough to come to terms with losing her…’ she nearly fell into the trap of saying her parents and reined in the instinct at the last moment ‘…Martin and Caroline. She will need to be approached with gentleness.’

It took supreme will-power not to give vent to the violent host of objections Julia’s little speech produced inside him. He could understand her reason, but, like a wounded and raging bull, he simply wanted to strike out.

Had this calmly spoken girl ever felt anything like the hurt searing through his every muscle now? Had she ever felt what it was like to have your world upended through no fault of your own? Because that was how he felt.

This morning he had been in control of his vastly successful life. He had held his dynasty in the palm of his hand and was gratifyingly aware of the sensual magnetism with which he was blessed, and which could draw any woman he wanted to him.

Now he was being lectured to by this seemingly demure but frustratingly obstinate, mousy-haired woman on how to handle a situation the likes of which he had never expected to encounter. Now he was father to a child and a stranger to her as well.

‘I need something stiffer than a cup of coffee,’ he said abruptly. Julia thought that perhaps she did as well, especially considering that her own cup of coffee lay in splinters on the ground, something she had temporarily forgotten about. She wearily bent down and began gathering the shards of blue porcelain, tipping them into the bin, while he watched her, his face showing his own intense preoccupation with his thoughts.

She was so busy watching him from under her lashes, wondering whether she could second-guess what he would say next, that when the stray splinter of china rammed into her finger it took her a few seconds to register the pain, and only then because of the sight of the blood.

She stood up quickly, holding the injured finger and biting down on her lower lip to stifle the edge of pain. Pain was not a problem, but the blood threatened to bring on a fainting fit.

She hardly expected him to play the knight in shining armour to her damsel in distress, but perhaps it was just part of his nature to take over.

‘What have you done?’

‘What does it look like? I’ve cut my finger!’

He took hold of her hand, inspecting the gash left by the shard, and, with a gentleness that took her by surprise, slowly and efficiently pulled out the offending splinter. His hands were steady and assured. Julia felt the warmth of his hand around hers, the slight abrasiveness of his skin, and she stifled a tremor.

‘First-aid kit?’

‘It’s in the… I’ll just go and fetch it…’

Instead of releasing her hand, he walked with her to the small utility room, and when she indicated a cupboard to the left he reached up and extracted a cardboard box that was crammed to overflowing with medication of every variety, most of them suitable for young children. He still had her hand in his. Considering what they had just been through and the currents of hostility that had flowed between them, their physical closeness now was like a parody of intimacy.

‘This is your first-aid kit?’ he demanded, and Julia’s grey eyes clashed stormily with his.

‘Yes, it is. And before you start telling me that it’s not up to your high regulation standards, I’d just like to remind you that I didn’t ask for your help! I’m quite capable of seeing to a cut finger!’

‘You are as white as a sheet. Where are the plasters? All I can see are cough medicines.’

‘They’re in there somewhere.’ She rummaged through the box and extracted a sad-looking packet wherein lay a stack of plasters adorned with brightly coloured cartoon characters. ‘Nicola likes Winnie the Pooh,’ she told him tersely, extracting one of the plasters. ‘I’ll wash my finger before I put this on.’

There was no need. Before she could pluck it from his grasp, he took her finger to his mouth and sucked. The action was so shockingly intimate that Julia stared at him open-mouthed. His dark head was bent, but he raised his eyes to meet hers. Was he caressing her finger with his tongue? she thought dazedly. No, of course not. Her body appeared to be on fire. Another illusion, she thought, distracted.

‘Saliva is the best antiseptic,’ he said, finally removing her finger and holding it up to inspect it. ‘There, that looks a lot cleaner now. Give me the plaster.’

She handed him the plaster and, still ridiculously shaken, watched while he gently wrapped it around the slither of open skin. The sight of the blood must have destabilised her more than she had thought at first, Julia decided. She had always had a peculiarly strong aversion to blood. That was probably why her breathing was as laboured as if she had just completed a ten-mile marathon.

That was probably why she wasn’t even aware of her mother’s presence until she said, mildly but inquisitively, ‘Julia! What’s going on here? Have I interrupted something?’

‘No, of course not, Mum.’

Riccardo watched the play of emotion shadowing the fine-boned, pale face through narrowed eyes. Her mother had startled her, that was for sure, but more than that. She had sprung back guiltily. Afraid of what…?

‘You’ve been on a date? I thought you said you were going to the pub with some friends! You never told me you had a young man.’ Her voice was full of misdirected pleasure and Julia felt herself reddening.

She should have told her mother what she was going to do, that she was going to contact Nicola’s father, but she had kept it to herself, reasoning that she would confess when everything had been settled. If he had not turned up or else had walked away from the problem then there would have been no need for painful explanations to her mother afterwards.

‘Mum…’ Her eyes flickered resentfully towards Riccardo. ‘This is…’

‘Riccardo Fabbrini. Nicola’s father.’ The biting sting of anger resurfaced as he extended his hand towards the small, grey-haired woman standing in the doorway.

‘Nicola’s father.’ Jeannette Nash tentatively took his hand while her eyes flicked past him to search out her daughter. ‘I do apologise. I thought…’

‘Yes, Mum.’ Julia briskly stepped away from Riccardo and edged past her mother back into the sanctuary of the brightly lit kitchen. ‘I know what you thought. I didn’t want to tell you that I was contacting Mr Fabbrini, just in case…’ Her voice faltered and when she turned around it was to meet his steely gaze.

‘Just in case the meeting was unsuccessful,’ he expanded coldly on her behalf. ‘Just in case I was the sort of man who would walk out on his responsibilities. As your daughter has discovered, I am very far from being that sort of man.’

‘I wish you’d told me, Julia,’ her mother accused and Julia sighed. ‘What were the two of you doing in the utility?’

Julia had always known how deeply her mother had felt about Caroline’s deception and, in the absence of all those telling confidences about Riccardo’s personality, Jeannette had stifled her instinct to intervene with great difficulty. All she had seen was a brief, loveless marriage born in haste and rued at leisure. Something to be mourned but for which he should never have been punished by the absence of his own flesh and blood.

‘Cleaning up a cut finger,’ Riccardo answered. He shoved his hands inside his pockets and perched against the kitchen counter, his long legs casually crossed at the ankles.

‘Nicola isn’t awake, is she?’ Julia asked suddenly and her mother shook her head with a smile.

‘Sleeping like a log. I only woke up to use the bathroom and then I thought I’d come down here and fetch myself a glass of water. You know how difficult it is for me to sleep these days, my love.’ She turned to Riccardo and said, with forthright honesty, ‘This must be a very difficult situation for you. I’m so very sorry but, well, I’m glad that you’re here now.’

Riccardo found that he couldn’t resist the genuine sincerity in the faded blue eyes and he offered a half-smile, the first Julia had witnessed since she had first clapped eyes on him.

‘I’ll leave you two alone. I’m sure there’s a lot that you need to sort out between yourselves.’ She bustled over to a cupboard and poured herself a glass of water. ‘I shall see you again very soon, Mr Fabbrini.’

‘Riccardo. You can call me Riccardo.’ His mouth twisted. ‘After all, I am a member of the family now.

‘Several years too late,’ he said softly as her mother left the kitchen. ‘But here now, Miss Nash. Are you not thrilled to have accomplished what you set out to do?’ He flashed her a bitterly mirthless smile and pushed himself away from the counter.

How many more members of this cosy little unit from which he had been ruthlessly excluded? he wondered. Aunts and uncles in the background? Cousins maybe? A full life just lacking the ingredient of father?

Except, he thought with hard-edged cynicism, Nicola had had a father. This woman’s brother. The only father she had ever known. She’d called him Daddy and sat on his shoulders when they went to the park.

Riccardo’s shuttered gaze concealed his white-hot fury. For a few seconds back there, as he had dealt with her finger, he had felt a certain uninvited empathy with her. It hadn’t lasted. Nor would it return.

‘You said you wanted something stronger than coffee,’ Julia said, avoiding his rhetorical question. ‘I have some wine in the fridge, but that’s about it.’

‘As frugal in matters of alcohol as your sister-in-law was?’

‘I prefer to keep my head.’ Especially now, she thought as she opened the fridge and extracted a bottle of Sauvignon. She could feel his heavy-lidded dark eyes raking over her as she poured them both a glass of wine, his a large glass, which might do something to take the edge off that ferocious fury which she could feel him tightly keeping in check, hers a smaller glass, just enough to cope.

So in control, Riccardo thought, or at least determined to be. Which made her little slip-ups all the more intriguing. She hadn’t been in control when he had taken her finger into his mouth. Her body had become rigidly still and he had breathed in her unwilling response to him, to the warmth of his tongue rubbing against the soft flesh of her finger. And then when her mother had surprised them she had been startled. The obvious answer was that she felt guilty to have gone behind her mother’s back and contacted him, but there was something else.

He imagined what it would be like for her to see her carefully planned life brought to a standstill, just as his had been.

‘Why did you decide to contact me?’ he asked, sitting down at the table and pushing back the chair so that he could extend his long legs in front of him. His fingers caressed the rounded contours of the wine glass before he brought it to his lips, sipping some of the wine while he continued to direct his unsettling gaze on Julia’s face. ‘Would it not have been easier to have maintained the secret rather than risk kick-starting a situation you might end up having no control over?’ Here’s where the money angle comes in, he thought cynically.

Julia, sitting opposite him, elbows on the table like a child being interviewed, lowered her eyes. ‘I did what I thought I had to do,’ she said. ‘When Caroline was alive I respected her wishes…’

‘Because you agreed with her, because you saw nothing wrong in writing off my existence…’

‘Because it was what she wanted. Because I loved my brother and wanted what I thought was best for them both.’ Her jaw hardened and she challenged him to try and prolong the probing. ‘What we have to deal with is reality. What’s happening now.’

Riccardo forced himself to let it go. He was so unused to having to let anything go when his instinct told him to pursue that the withdrawal felt like bile in his mouth. ‘For which you no doubt have a plan.’

‘I don’t think you should tell Nicola who you are to start with…’ When his mouth opened in outrage she firmly stood her ground, refusing to back away. ‘I know this is hard for you to accept, but I don’t think she can cope with too much now. Get to know her and when she trusts you then perhaps you can tell her who you are, tell her that you are her blood father.’

‘As opposed to what your brother was, you mean?’ His lips curled and she met his eyes evenly.

‘That’s right. She’s always known that Martin wasn’t her real father. Neither he nor Caroline pretended to her otherwise.’

‘I will come and see her tomorrow. When she finishes school. What time does she get home? Do you bring her home with you? Does she attend the same school where you teach?’

More at home with being the one who answered the questions as opposed to posing them, Riccardo grudgingly acknowledged the shift in emphasis.

‘Yes, I teach at her school, but not in the junior section. I teach the older pupils, and I’ve been leaving school early so that she can come home with me. I do a lot of my work from home now, after school hours.’

Riccardo had a glimpse of her view of things and it irked him to realise that she was due some sympathy as well. Her life had been changed too, though, he reminded himself grimly, not quite to the same extent as his. He finished his wine and refused the offer of a refill. She, he noted, had toyed with hers, barely drinking any.

‘We’re normally back home by around four-thirty. If you like, you can drop by around five. She should have had her bath by then.’

Riccardo stood up. It had, he conceded, been the longest day of his life. He slung on his jacket while Julia hovered by the table, keeping herself at a distance, he noticed. He wanted to have another look at his daughter, drink in her sleeping face before he left, but no, there would be time enough tomorrow.

‘Does your mother live here with you both?’ he asked, as they walked towards the front door, Julia virtually sprinting to keep pace with his long strides.

‘She has her own place. She was here to babysit.’

‘And you? Where did you live?’ He paused by the door, frowning at her as he tried to complete the pieces to this jigsaw that had now become a part of his well-ordered life.

‘I rented a flat,’ Julia told him vaguely.

‘This arrangement must have dented your freedom,’ he said without the slightest indication of sympathy in his voice, and when she returned his look with a puzzled one of her own he shrugged. ‘Men. A five-year-old chaperon can’t have been welcome.’

‘It hasn’t been a problem,’ Julia told him stiffly. She yanked open the front door to find that the rain had softened to a steady, bone-chilling drizzle.

‘Because there’s no man.’ Riccardo watched as her face reddened and the defiant shake of her head couldn’t quite hide the fact that his offhand assumption had struck home. ‘Is that why your mama sounded so pleased when she thought you had brought home a date?’ He felt a curl of satisfaction as he watched her flounder. He had spent the past few hours floundering. Now it felt good to have the shoe on the other foot, even though the situations could not be compared.

‘You’re here because of your daughter,’ Julia informed him coldly. ‘My personal life has nothing to do with you.’ The jeering mockery in his eyes sent her reeling back to that secret place where all her insecurities lay hidden, but never in a million years would she let him see that.

‘Which suits me,’ he countered smoothly, the hard lines of his face accentuated by the play of shadows from the dim front porch light overhead. ‘Till tomorrow. And I am warning you, from now, I will not be open to debate on when I see my daughter. You may hold the upper hand at the moment, Miss Nash, but time has a nasty habit of changing things…’

CHAPTER THREE

‘HE SEEMS like a nice man, considering.’

‘Considering?’ Julia finished plaiting Nicola’s hair and tugged both ends so that the child swung around to look at her. Her eyes were almond-shaped and probably not quite as onyx-black as her father’s, but the thick lashes were the same. Nice man?

‘Who seems like a nice man?’

Julia and her mother exchanged a look. ‘Just someone who’s going to be coming around in a little while, honey.’

‘Oh. Can I watch cartoons on TV before tea?’

‘Not at the moment. In a while, maybe.’

‘Considering…’ her mother hissed, doing something comical with her eyebrows that would have made Julia burst out laughing if the subject matter at hand had not been quite so grim.

‘What’s for tea, Aunty Jules?’

‘Chicken.’

‘I hate chicken. Do I have to eat it?’ Nicola stuck her hands in the pockets of her dungarees and made a face.

‘Chicken nuggets.’

‘I do wish…’ her mother began and Julia flashed her a warning glare. ‘Well…and he’s very handsome.’

Julia, who had spent the day in a state of muted dread, almost found herself wishing that the doorbell would ring. She had been down this conversational route with her mother countless times before, daily, it seemed to her, since Caroline and Martin were no longer around to provide a buffer, and she wasn’t about to go down it again.

‘Not interested,’ Julia hissed, edging her mother away from curious infantile ears. Amazing, she had discovered, what they managed to pick up when you could swear that their concentration was focused firmly on something else. ‘I’m fine, Mum. I have my job. I’m perfectly happy. I certainly don’t need a man.’ And I most certainly don’t need a man like Riccardo Fabbrini, she added silently to herself.

‘But it would be nice to see you sorted out, Jules. It won’t be easy, you know…’ her mother’s eyes flitted tellingly to Nicola, who was absorbed in drawing a picture, her face a study in concentration ‘…bringing up Nicola all on your own.’

‘Mum. Please. Not now. Please? He’s going to be here any minute now.’

‘And look at you. Old jeans, checked shirt, flat shoes…’

Julia grinned. ‘You know me. Twenty-seven going on twelve. It’s a reaction to having to deal with nine-and ten-year-olds all day long.’

‘Well, darling, that’s as maybe, but…’

Fortunately, Julia was not required to hear the end of her mother’s predictable sermon on the joys of marital bliss and the sadness of an old woman’s heart when her only daughter appeared to be doing nothing about acquiring any of the said marital bliss.

She wiped her clammy hands on her jeans and slowly pulled open the front door.

Riccardo Fabbrini was every bit as daunting as she remembered. One night’s restless sleep had not managed to steel her against the reaction she instinctively felt as their eyes met and the force of his aggressive personality settled around her like a miasma.

This time he was not in a suit. Perhaps he had thought that a suit might have been a little offputting for a casual meeting with his five-year-old daughter.

His informal attire did nothing to deaden his impact, however. The cream jumper and dark green trousers only served to emphasise the striking olive tones of his colouring.

‘Is she here?’ he asked tersely and Julia nodded, standing well back as he walked into the hall, carrying in his hands two large boxes.

‘In the kitchen, with Mum.’ No preliminaries. He had come, she thought without much surprise, with his hostility firmly in place. It was stamped in the harsh coldness of his face as his black eyes had swept over her. A night’s sleep certainly had done nothing for his temper.

‘Your mother is here as well? To give you a bit of moral support, Miss Nash? What do you imagine I am going to do? Kidnap my daughter and spirit her away to foreign shores?’

‘For her sake, perhaps, you might want to maintain a semblance of courtesy.’

Riccardo nodded curtly. He had taken the day off work, had gone to Hamley’s and spent more hours than he would ever have imagined possible to spend in a toy store, looking for the perfect toy. A difficult task, considering he had not the slightest idea what five-year-old girls liked, and now here he was, already being outmanoeuvred by this chit of a woman with her bookish spectacles and neat outfit.

Overnight, his rage had quietened. But only marginally. He had, however, managed to recognise that he would have to play along with her rules for the moment. Whatever his paternal status, Julia Nash knew his child and he didn’t. It was as simple as that. The recognition, far from slaying his thirst for revenge, a revenge thwarted as his ex-wife was no longer around, only muted it slightly. The blood that ran through his veins was too grounded in passion to lightly release the past and calmly accept the future without demur.

The kitchen was warm and cosy. That was his first impression as he walked through the door behind Julia. A scene of perfect domesticity. At the kitchen table, Nicola sat with her head bowed over a piece of paper, and Jeannette Nash bustled by the kitchen counter, stirring custard in a saucepan. He felt like an intruder with his packages clutched in his hands.

Jeannette was the first to break the ice, much to Julia’s relief. She turned around and smiled, wooden spoon still in her hand.

‘Riccardo, how lovely to see you again. Nicola, darling, we have a visitor.’

Nicola looked up from what she was doing and Riccardo felt a wave of unsteadiness wash over him as he looked at the little girl at the table, her dark hair braided away from her face, her dark brown eyes staring back at him with mild curiosity.

‘Hello…’ This was such new terrain for him, a man normally in command of any situation life had ever been able to throw at him, that he instinctively looked towards Julia, who read the awkwardness in his eyes and felt her heart soften towards the powerful, aggressive man now hovering uncertainly in front of his daughter.

‘Nicola,’ she said quietly, ‘why don’t you show Riccardo what you’re drawing? He loves art and he’s never seen what a talented five-year-old girl can do.’ Loves art indeed, she thought wryly. Although, he did, didn’t he? The memory struggled out from the dim recesses of her brain, the memory of Caroline telling her that that was one of the first things that attracted her to him. They had met at an art show and he had been deeply and genuinely interested in the pieces, had been able to talk at length and knowledgeably about paintings. She had misread his interest for an insight into a sensitive nature. Time, she had said more than once, had put paid to that illusion.

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