Читать книгу Secret Heirs Collection - Кейт Хьюит, Коллектив авторов - Страница 54

FOR THREE DAYS Rose had an almost pleasant time. A wave of exhaustion had seemed to hit her after that first night, and she’d spent most of her time sleeping, taking long siestas during the hottest part of the day. Then Maria had taken her into the local village when she’d gone shopping the previous day, and Rose had loved looking around the market and the small artisan shops.

Zac had come and gone from the villa, sometimes using a helicopter, and hadn’t offered to share a meal with Rose again. She’d gotten used to eating alone on the terrace and told herself she didn’t mind. How could she mind? She was in one of the world’s most amazing locations and she was being waited on hand and foot, like a princess.

She’d braved the pool earlier, and lay beside it now after a long, leisurely swim. She was trying to engage with a book she’d taken from one of the bookshelves in the comfortable den.

That was the other thing about this house…it didn’t resemble the ascetic decoration of Zac’s apartment in New York. This was more like a home. Rose could imagine a family here…children chasing each other through the pathways and gardens…

She put down the book and closed her eyes, losing herself for a moment in the daydream, an unconscious smile making her mouth curl up…

Zac stood at a standstill in the shadows of a tree near the pool. Rose was reclining on a sun lounger in a bikini. As a connoisseur of women’s clothing, Zac knew this bikini was perfectly respectable—demure, even—but his eyes devoured her slim limbs and high breasts as if he’d never seen a semi-naked woman before.

His body got hard in an instant, and he scowled at his reaction. She wasn’t even trying to be sexy. She had a hand spread across her burgeoning belly and Zac felt the most compelling impulse to go over and place his hand there too, feel it for himself. Would it be firm? Could she feel the baby kicking yet?

In an effort to try and break out of his stasis he dragged his gaze up to her face and saw her smile. He had been feeling a measure of guilt for having left her to her own devices for the last three days. Ridiculous guilt. It wasn’t as if she was his lover and he was here to entertain her. She was here merely because he wanted her where he could keep an eye on her. And she was in the lap of luxury.

Maria, who was clearly a fan of Rose, seemed to think it was her duty to give him a blow-by-blow account of all her movements. So he knew she’d been sleeping a lot. And that she’d gone to the market and had enjoyed it, by all accounts.

And now here she was, with an enigmatic secret smile on her mouth.

Zac battled with the darkness lodging inside him as the insidious suspicion struck him that he was jealous of that smile, of whatever was causing it.

Frantically, he denied it to himself. Why wouldn’t she be smiling? he rationalised. She’d hit the jackpot, exactly as that headline had said. She had his baby in her belly and she would want for nothing ever again.

A surge of protectiveness rose up inside him for the child as he thought of Rose scheming with his grandmother. All of which renewed Zac’s intentions to make sure his child remained in his custody, kept well out of his grandmother’s reach and protected from whatever future machinations Rose had planned.

Except right now she looked less like a devious manipulator and more like that fey creature Zac had likened her to when he’d first seen her. Damn her.

As if hearing his thoughts, Rose turned her head and opened her eyes, that green gaze landing directly on him. The smile immediately slipped from her face and she sat up, cheeks colouring. ‘I didn’t hear you.’

Zac felt like a peeping Tom. He stepped out from the shadows and saw Rose reach for a short robe, which she quickly pulled around herself. It made him say provocatively, ‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.’

He saw her cheeks redden in earnest now. How was it that she could still project such innocence when the evidence of her treachery was there as plain as day, expanding her waistline? Which should not be turning him on—dammit. He put a screeching halt on his wandering thoughts.

Something about that sphinx-like smile she’d had on her face just now made him want to test her. He said, ‘I’m going out to the mine to check on progress. You could come if you like?’

He regretted the impulse as soon as he’d spoken out loud. It was no place for a woman—much less a pregnant woman. But she was looking at him now with wide eyes, and something in those green depths stopped him from taking the invitation back.

‘Really?’

This was the last response Zac had expected. Most women he knew would run a mile from anything that sounded remotely boring or work-related, but she actually looked excited. His conscience pricked again for leaving her alone.

Far too belatedly he tried to change her mind. ‘It’s really not that exciting. It’s grimy and dusty…’

‘I don’t mind…but I don’t want to be in your way.’

Feeling bemused now, but also wanting to see how far she would go before bailing, Zac said, ‘You won’t be.’

She stood up and said quickly, ‘I’ll just go and change.’

He called after her as she hurried off. ‘Put on something practical—like jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.’

It was only when she’d left and Zac was waiting for her that he realised there was a little hum of something that felt suspiciously like excitement in his blood. He tried to suppress it, telling himself it wasn’t because she was coming with him. He was just testing her. That was all. And he was intrigued to see how long she would keep the interested act up. No doubt she was just seizing an opportunity to court his favour.

But then she emerged minutes later, in soft faded jeans, sneakers and a light long-sleeved shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail and an anxious look on her face, asking, ‘Is this okay?’ And suddenly Zac wasn’t sure of anything at all. Except for the surge of heat in his body.

Gruffly he said, ‘It’s fine, we’ll go in the Jeep.’

Rose strapped herself into the passenger seat, feeling ridiculously buoyed up that Zac had asked her to come with him. Well, had grudgingly offered to take her. She hoped, as they drove out of the estate, that she hadn’t appeared like an eager puppy, starved of affection.

Zac drove the Jeep with the same insouciant confidence that pervaded everything he did. Fast, but not too fast. Smooth. The countryside rolled out around them, stunning.

Rose said, ‘I can’t believe there are mines here. It seems such a shame to churn up this scenery.’

Zac’s mouth tipped up slightly at one corner. ‘I think the local population figure some desecration of the scenery is worth the benefits of having a local industry.’

Never had Rose felt more aware of her education going only as far as graduating from high school. She flushed with embarrassment. ‘Well, of course. I didn’t mean—’

‘I know what you meant,’ Zac surprised her by saying. ‘I agree—it does seem slightly sacrilegious to mess with this view. This is one of the few mines that is still functioning—most of the seams have been depleted by now. It’s rare to find an untapped source of raw minerals.’

He glanced at her then, but Rose kept looking straight ahead, aware of the fact that there seemed to be a very delicate cessation in hostilities. She didn’t want to say anything to provoke his sharp tongue again.

Then he surprised her by asking, ‘How are you feeling…you know, with the pregnancy? We haven’t really spoken about that. Do you have morning sickness?’

Rose looked at him, and then quickly schooled her features in case he was offended by her obvious surprise at his question.

She put a hand to her belly. ‘I’ve been okay, actually. Luckily. I only experienced morning sickness in the first eight weeks, and then it seemed to pass. Every now and then if a strong smell hits me I might get nauseous…but nothing untoward. At my last doctor’s visit she said everything looked okay. But I should have a scan at around twenty weeks.’

Zac surprised her by saying, ‘I have a local gynaecologist on standby in case you need anything. And the hospital in Siena is only a short helicopter ride away.’

She was strangely touched to hear that he’d organised this. Until she realised that of course his concern was for his potential future heir, which seemed to matter to him as much as it did to his mother.

She still didn’t know what had caused the rift between them, and wondered if she ever would. Something she’d noticed in the small local village the previous day came back to her, but while Zac was being civil enough right now, she didn’t want to push it by asking him anything personal.

‘Well, thank you—that’s reassuring… But I’m sure I won’t need to use their facilities.’

The rest of the journey passed in surprisingly easy silence, and then Rose could see that the hills around them were gradually losing their greenery and becoming more stripped back. A huge stone entrance was looming, and Zac drove in through a gate, waving at the security guard who tipped his hat at him.

The quarry was grey, the earth hacked and cut into all around them. They drove down a precipitously winding path to a deep ravine, where openings into tunnels were visible. Rose shuddered lightly at the thought of going down a dark shaft deep into the earth.

Above ground it looked stark and desolate, but Rose was fascinated to think of the riches that were obviously mined from the earth. She followed Zac out of the Jeep and he led her over to a large Portakabin office, where he handed her a high-visibility sleeveless jacket and a hard hat, and then a mask to put over her mouth.

She looked at him, and he said, ‘It’s probably not really necessary, but I’m not taking any risks.’

Of course. The baby.

Rose dutifully put on the mask and followed him back out. He was talking to a foreman and looking out over the whole quarry, which looked like a riverbed run dry when it had really been gouged out of the earth by men and machines.

Zac introduced her to the man and she pulled down her mask momentarily to greet him—only for Zac to scowl and pull it back up. She glared at him, but was more unsettled by the brush of his fingers against her mouth. He seemed to be transfixed too, for a moment, before breaking their staring contest and leading her away from the office.

Her mouth tingled where he’d touched it and she cursed her reaction. What if he did actually kiss her again? That thought made her stumble on the path down into the quarry, but strong arms wrapped around her so fast she couldn’t breathe. She was pulled back into Zac’s body and the imprint of his lean muscles was like a brand, mocking her for her flight of fancy, because he wouldn’t touch her like that again.

She scrambled free, saying breathily, ‘I’m fine.’

She was glad of the mask now, feeling her face burn. Thankfully he let her go, and Rose watched where she put her feet from then on.

She did her best to ignore her reaction as they continued their tour of the quarry. Rose was inordinately touched when his foreman spoke in English, obviously so she could understand what he was saying. And everyone they saw greeted Zac with a deference more suited to a visiting dignitary.

When she lagged behind at one point, looking down one of the cavernous shafts with a kind of dread fascination, another man in a suit stopped to wait for her. He asked her some polite questions and then confided with obvious awe, ‘This region was dying a slow death until Signor Valenti came back and invested in the mine. We all knew there was a possibility of more seams, but he was the only one who cared enough to invest. It was a huge gamble, but it’s paid off and we have him to thank for it.’

The man was called away by someone before he could continue, and now Rose was more intrigued than ever. What on earth would have induced Zac to take a gamble on investing in a mine in deepest Tuscany when the industry had all but died out?

He was striding back towards her now, and Rose’s heart swooped. Even against this barren backdrop, with a hard hat on his head, he looked vital and disgustingly handsome.

‘I’m done here. We can go now.’

Rose looked at her watch and was surprised to see that a couple of hours had passed. She’d been more engrossed than she’d thought she might be; it was such an alien but interesting place.

They handed in their jackets and hats, and when they were back in the Jeep Rose said, ‘Thank you for bringing me. I enjoyed seeing it.’

Zac looked at her and arched a suspicious brow. Rose chose to ignore his obvious scepticism at her professed enjoyment and asked, ‘Is this where you’ve been going since we arrived?’

He looked back to the road, his jaw clenching minutely, before he said, ‘Here, and also in Siena. I’m opening a new hotel there in a few months.’

‘Wow,’ Rose said. ‘You’re really marking your territory.’

Zac made a noncommittal noise, and then his phone rang through the car’s hands-free system. He said to Rose, ‘Do you mind if I take this? It’s important.’

She waved a hand. ‘Not at all.’

He took the call and spoke entirely in rapid-fire Italian, of which Rose couldn’t understand a word. She found it curiously soothing, though, listening to Zac’s deep voice, ridiculously melodic in the foreign language. And as a wave of weariness washed over her she curled onto her side and let her eyes close… Just for a few minutes, she promised herself.

Rose woke to a gentle knocking sound. She sat up groggily and realised she was on top of her bed. Feeling disorientated, she said, ‘Come in?’ not entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming.

But Maria’s friendly face appeared around the door and she said in her careful English, ‘Signor Zac is on the terrace—dinner in ten minutes.’

Rose gabbled a thank you and Maria left. A wave of hot self-consciousness washed through her. She remembered closing her eyes in the Jeep, promising herself just a few minutes’ rest while Zac was on the phone, but she must have fallen into a deep sleep… How had she got to her bedroom and onto the bed?

The realisation that Zac must have carried her…he had to have… Oh, God! He probably thought she’d been pretending to be asleep to lure him into her bedroom.

She got up and hastily stripped off her clothes and put on fresh ones, choosing a soft knee-length sleeveless jersey dress in a dark blue colour, pairing it with a pair of low-heeled slingbacks. She washed her face to wake herself up, and put on a minimum amount of make-up, brushing her hair and giving a deep sigh of frustration when it insisted on following its own unruly lines.

Then she castigated herself. What was she doing, primping and preening for a man who barely tolerated her presence in his life anyway?

As she walked to the terrace it dawned on her to wonder why Zac was eating with her, and she also realised that the dress was clinging far too lovingly to her blooming curves, especially her breasts, which were tender and feeling about a size bigger already.

But she’d rounded the corner now, and Zac had seen her and was standing politely. She couldn’t fault his chivalry.

She forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep like that. It must have been like carting a sack of stones into the villa.’

Zac just looked at her, with something flickering in his eyes that sent an illicit zing of sensation deep into Rose’s solar plexus.

‘It was no trouble at all.’ Then he frowned. ‘But are you sure you’re feeling all right? Is it normal to sleep like that? I was almost tempted to call the doctor.’

Rose’s step faltered just as she reached her chair. He’d been worried? She shook her head. ‘No, it’s perfectly normal, according to my doctor. Fatigue in pregnancy can be quite debilitating, but I feel fine now.’

In fact her blood was fizzing, and she felt more alive than she’d felt in months. The doctor had also told her with a wink—knowing nothing of her personal life—that she might feel increased sexual urges once she’d got over the first trimester. Needless to say that had been the last thing on Rose’s mind at the time, but now she could appreciate the advice. For all the good it would do her…

Zac poured her a glass of sparkling water. He sat back and took a sip of his wine, watching her. Thankfully Maria came out with their first course, dissipating some of the tension.

While they ate the delicious starter—simple but delicious soup and bread—Rose told herself that she was being ridiculous to think she’d seen anything in Zac’s eyes when she’d arrived. It was just her rogue pregnancy hormones and stupid wishful thinking. Dangerous thinking.

In due course Maria came back and efficiently removed their starter plates and replaced them with a main meal of deliciously tender cutlets in a light sauce.

As the food restored a sense of equilibrium in Rose, she recalled Zac finding her by the pool earlier that day, and the way he’d been looking at her so intently. Again she’d had that sense that he was waiting for her to do something.

She felt embarrassed now to recall the daydream she’d been indulging in, of a family living in this beautiful house, its walls and paths alive with the sounds of laughter. She hated that he’d observed her in those private moments. Moments she’d never reveal to anyone… And just like that, her appetite fled. She put down her knife and fork.

Not missing a thing, Zac said, ‘You aren’t hungry?’

Rose held back the urge to be defensive. She’d only left a couple of bites on her plate, and forced herself to be civil. ‘Maria’s cooking is sublime…but I don’t think I’ve eaten so much or so consistently since before my mother died.’

‘How old were you when she died?’

Rose kept her face blank, feeling the familiar tug of grief that never left. ‘Fourteen. She battled cancer for four years…’

The truth was that their health insurance hadn’t been enough to guarantee her mother the best of care, and even though she’d been well taken care of there had been time spent on waiting lists that had meant her illness had taken hold and triumphed.

Which was why Rose had had such a panicked reaction to her father’s illness, imagining the same thing happening all over again…

Zac brought her back to the present. ‘And your father?’

Her insides tensed. She hated this ongoing deception. Truthfully, but vaguely, she answered, ‘He’s in upstate New York.’

‘And no brothers or sisters?’

Rose shook her head, avoiding his eye. ‘No, just me.’

‘That must have been rough after your mother died.’

She looked at him again, surprised, and said quietly, ‘It was. My parents were devoted to each other…it nearly destroyed my father…but he had me to think of.’

Her father had lost a part of his soul when his beloved wife had died, and Rose hadn’t begrudged him that.

Feeling raw, and realising they were straying far too close to danger areas, Rose desperately tried to think of something to divert Zac’s attention. She seized on what she’d noticed in the village the previous day. ‘When I went to the market with Maria yesterday I visited the local church.’

Zac sent her a dry look. ‘To repent for your sins?’

Rose fought the urge to scowl, or to rise to Zac’s bait, even as a part of her quickened at this chink of dark humour.

She ignored the comment, saying, ‘My mother was religious and I got used to going into churches with her, where she’d light candles for different friends’ various ailments and worries.’ She continued quickly, in case Zac was inclined to make any more barbed comments. ‘There’s a pretty graveyard by the church, so I went in to have a look, and I noticed that Valenti seems to be a very prominent name here… It was all over the graveyard, actually—easily the most common family name.’

Rose stopped talking when she saw Zac’s hand tighten on his wine glass. He was still looking at her, and she saw him pale slightly under his olive skin. Suddenly he stood up, his chair making a harsh sound on the stone terrace.

Completely perplexed by his reaction, Rose put down her napkin and said hesitantly, ‘Zac…?’

She got up and walked over to where he stood, facing out over the countryside. Dusk gathered around them, lengthening the shadows. Rose felt as if she’d intruded onto something intensely private.

She looked up at his strong profile. And then, before he even said anything, it clicked. This was why he looked so at ease here and spoke fluent Italian. He was from here. This was his land. She could see it now, stamped indelibly onto his proud features. That aquiline Italian profile. She said faintly, ‘They’re your relations… But how…?’

A muscle pulsed in Zac’s jaw, but eventually he said, ‘My father. He was Luca Valenti. Born and raised here in the village. He worked in the local mine until he emigrated to New York when he was twenty-five, looking for a better life.’

Rose frowned, not comprehending. ‘But your parents… I mean your mother…she is—’

He cut in, looking at her now, and said almost accusingly, ‘She is not who you think. Jocelyn Lyndon-Holt is my grandmother—not my mother.’

‘But how?’ Rose couldn’t get her head around it. She caught Zac’s dry look and said, ‘Well, obviously your mother must have been…’

‘Her daughter. Her only child. Simone Lyndon-Holt.’

Rose realised then that she’d never really given much thought to why Zac had taken the name Valenti; she’d gone to work at the Lyndon-Holt house shortly after he’d left and had vague memories of the press assuming at the time that he’d plucked it from obscurity. But it was his name—his actual real name.

‘But how did your mother meet your father if he was—?’

‘An immigrant?’ Zac supplied with a bitter tone.

Rose half shrugged and nodded. She was the daughter of immigrants, so she hadn’t meant it like that.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, clearly reluctant to speak of this. But Rose was too greedy for information to tell him he didn’t need to go on. This, she was just discovering, was her child’s heritage. Its real heritage.

‘My mother met my father when he was hired as a labourer to work on the grounds at the house. She was twenty-one and promised in marriage to a man from a family of similar standing. She was ripe for rebellion after a lifetime of being brought up in that mausoleum and, after meeting my father, she broke off her engagement.’

There was no mistaking the bitterness in Zac’s tone now, and his mouth was a thin line. Rose suspected that he wasn’t just talking about his mother’s experience and her heart squeezed.

‘By all accounts their affair was passionate, and my father encouraged my mother to elope with him—which she did. They got married in upstate New York, and by the time they came back she was pregnant with me.’

Rose was aware of her heart pounding with dread, wanting to know more but not wanting to know at the same time, because it wouldn’t be good. How else had Zac ended up with his grandparents posing as his parents?

‘When they returned to confront my grandparents—to present them with a fait accompli—my grandfather, who was still alive at that point, told my mother she was dead to them and that if she crossed the threshold again they would ensure my father would be run out of the country, exposed for not having a proper working visa. Needless to say they cut her off from her inheritance and all funds.’

Zac glanced at Rose for a moment before looking away again.

‘My father wanted to bring my mother back here, to Italy, but her pregnancy was difficult so they had to stay in New York to ensure her safety—and mine.’

Rose wondered if that was why Zac had made sure she had access to doctors and a hospital, and why he’d been concerned about her well-being earlier.

He was continuing. ‘Things got fraught. My father was under more and more pressure to earn money to support them. He was working four jobs at one point, and it was while he was on a construction job that he was involved in an accident.’

Rose sucked in a breath.

‘He was taken to hospital, but he had no ID with him and he was barely conscious. He slipped into a coma and it was a week before my mother was able to track him down. The shock made her go into early labour, and by the time I was born—a month prematurely—my father had died.’

Rose put her hand up to her mouth, as if that could stifle the shock she felt.

Zac’s voice was leached of all expression now. ‘My mother was destitute by then—cut off from her parents and qualified to do nothing except be a social butterfly. In her desperation she did the only thing she felt she could do. She took me to them and asked them to take care of me. They told her that they would only take me in and care for me under one condition: if she left and never returned.’

‘Oh, God… Zac…’

But he continued relentlessly. ‘All they cared about was having a male heir. My grandmother had only had one child—my mother—and my grandfather had never forgiven her for that, so they seized the opportunity to restore the balance when they could.

‘My mother left that day and a week later her body was washed up on the shores of the East River. My parents had kept her disappearance quiet, somehow, and her death barely got a mention in the papers. The scandal was simply absorbed into Manhattan society and hidden—like countless other scandals. I was accepted as their child…as if it was entirely normal for a couple in their late forties to emerge with a baby out of nowhere. As I grew up I heard talk of an older sister who had committed suicide, but I never knew who she really was.

‘Years later, on the morning I was due to get married, a woman came to visit me—she was an old friend of my parents…someone who had lived in the same building as them. She’d been pregnant at the same time as my mother… She told me everything, and also that my mother had gone to her after she’d left me with my grandparents, torn apart but knowing that she’d done the only thing she could to ensure my security and future. She’d made this friend of hers promise to keep an eye on my progress, and one day, when she felt the time was right, to tell me the real story. When I confronted my grandparents they didn’t even deny it.’

Zac stopped talking, and Rose asked quietly, ‘Why did you never go public with this?’

His jaw clenched, and then he said, ‘I told my grandparents that if they left me alone to get on with my life, cutting all ties, then I’d let them keep their rotting skeletons in the closet. It was enough at the time for me to take my father’s name as my own.’

Rose reeled. She longed to reach out and touch Zac, who seemed so remote, but she couldn’t. All she could say was, ‘I’m so sorry. Your parents didn’t deserve that, and neither did you.’

He looked at her, cynicism stamped into his features, twisting them. ‘Oh, I don’t know… I had a privileged upbringing, wanted for nothing. Every opportunity was afforded to me. There was even talk of me running for office in the distant future…it was all mapped out.’

His barbed sarcasm grated on Rose’s nerves, and she said in a low voice, ‘I know that it can’t have been easy—or else why would you have left as soon as you knew?’

Zac turned to face her fully and said with quiet devastation, ‘You don’t know anything of what it was like. The only reason I’ve divulged this to you is because I want you to understand what’s behind my determination to bring this child up as a Valenti. Nothing will stop me, Rose.’

After a long, intense moment he turned and walked back to the table, picked up his half-empty glass of wine and downed it in one swallow, and then left the terrace.

Rose hugged her arms around herself and thought, I do know what it’s like, actually. She’d lived in that house too, albeit in the staff quarters, and only while working. She could imagine all too well what that cold and sterile environment must have been like for a small child who carried the genes of his Italian immigrant father but didn’t even know it.

And clearly Zac saw her as just another part of the ongoing betrayal of his parents.

Rose looked out sightlessly over the moonlit countryside as her hand dropped instinctively to feel for her small reassuring bump. Emotion gripped her. How could she deny this child its true birthright now? After everything Zac had just told her? No wonder he had reacted the way he had to the news of a baby.

Rose had never felt more powerless than she did right at that moment, or more alone. She wanted desperately to be able to do the right thing…but how?