Читать книгу Love Islands: Swept Away - Дженнифер Хейворд, Natalie Anderson - Страница 11
ОглавлениеMAISIE O’CONNELL FLIPPED the Closed sign to Open and enjoyed the tingle of excitement that never failed to come with that little action.
It had been a long, hard slog, but Maisie’s was finally ticking over very nicely, was making a steady profit, in fact. Putting her beloved restaurant in the hands of a professional chef while she’d taken the intensive course in gourmet Italian cooking had paid off. The added feature in one of Dublin’s top newspapers had given Maisie’s the extra boost that had seen her bookings go from half full to booked solid a month in advance.
Picking up the glass-topped menu stand, she pushed open the door and positioned it for maximum effect on the pavement.
As she turned to go back in, a stretch limo with blacked-out windows rolled by and stopped two doors down from where she’d paused. Maisie eyed the car. Although it wasn’t strange for luxury cars to pass through the quiet little village of Ranelagh, seeing as they were close to Dublin city centre, the presence of this car caused a different sort of tingle. Telling herself she was being too fanciful, she swiped a dishcloth over the surface of the menu stand and went back in. She checked on her kitchen and waitstaff of twelve, made sure preparations were under way for their first booking at midday, then went into her office.
She had roughly half an hour to get to grips with the restaurant’s accounts before she had to be back in the kitchen. As she sat down, her gaze fell on the picture propped up on her desk. The pulse of love that fired to her heart made her breath catch. Reaching out, she traced the contours of her son’s face, her own face breaking into a smile at the toothy, wide-eyed happiness reflected in his eyes.
Gianlucca. The reason for her existence. The reason the hard decisions she’d made five years ago had been worth every moment of heartache. Turning her back on the career she’d trained so hard for had not been easy. Certainly her parents had piled on enough guilt to make walking away feel like the betrayal they’d accused her of committing. Her own guilt for confirming their fears that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree was bone-deep and would probably always be. She hadn’t planned on getting pregnant as her mother had at twenty-four but she refused to let the guilt prevent her from loving or caring for her child.
She’d known from a very young age that her parents, had they been given a choice, would’ve remained childless. As hard as it’d been, she’d tried to accept that not everyone was built to nurture a child. Her parents certainly had found raising her a challenge, one they hadn’t deemed as worthy as the academic careers they’d pursued relentlessly. She’d always known she came an indifferent second to her parents’ academic ambitions.
But she’d wanted Gianlucca the moment she’d found out he was growing inside her.
There had been nothing she wanted more than providing the very best for her son.
She had given him the very best.
The tiny niggle of ever-present guilt threatened to push its way through, but she smashed it down. She’d done everything she could when she’d found out she was pregnant. Even going against her parents’ intense disapproval to make that daunting trip back to Sicily. She’d tried.
Yes, but did you try hard enough?
She dropped her hand from the picture and resolutely opened the account books. Indulging in might have beens wouldn’t get the chequebook balanced or the staff paid. She was content enough. More important, her son was happy.
Her gaze drifted back to the almost-four-year-old face that was already taking the shape of the man he would one day be. To the deep hazel-gold eyes that looked so much like his father’s. Eyes that could sometimes make her believe he could see straight into her soul, just as the older pair had done to her that long afternoon and longer night in Palermo five years ago.
Romeo.
A portentous name if there ever was one. While her life hadn’t ended in fatal tragedy like the famous story, meeting Romeo had significantly altered it, her son being the only bright thing that had emerged from encountering that dangerously sexy, but deeply enigmatic Italian with eyes that had reflected enough conflict to last him several lifetimes.
Enough.
She switched on her computer and had just activated the payroll system when a knock sounded on her door.
‘Come in.’
Lacey, her young reservations manager, poked her head around the door, her eyes wide and brimming with interest. ‘There’s someone here to see you,’ she stage-whispered.
Maisie suppressed a smile. Her young employee had a flair for the dramatic and saw conspiracies and high drama in the simplest situations.
‘If it’s someone else looking for a job, please tell them I’m not hiring anyone. Not till the summer season really kicks off...’ She stopped speaking as Lacey shook her head frantically.
‘I don’t think he’s looking for a job. Actually, no offence, Maisie, but he looks like he could buy this place a hundred times over.’ Her eyes widened and she blushed, then bit her lip. ‘Sorry, but he looks really, really rich, and really, really, intense.’ Lacey’s eyes boggled some more. ‘And he came in a limo,’ she whispered again, looking over her shoulder into the restaurant.
The tingling Maisie had experienced earlier returned full force. ‘Did he give you a name?’
‘No, he just asked if you were in and ordered me to come and get you.’ Lacey glanced furtively over her shoulder again, as if expecting their visitor to materialise behind her. ‘He’s very...full-on.’
Recalling her own line of thoughts moments ago and the intensity of Romeo’s personality, she shivered. Shaking it off, Maisie stood up and brushed her hands down the practical black skirt and pink shirt she’d chosen to wear today.
She’d left all that dangerous intensity back in Palermo. Or it had left her, seeing as she’d woken up alone the morning after, with only rumpled sheets and the trace of her lover’s scent on the pillow as evidence that she hadn’t imagined the whole encounter.
She was in Ranelagh, the serene village she’d chosen to build a life for herself and her son in, not the sultry decadence of Palermo and its dangerous residents.
No danger or intensity whatsoever welcome here.
‘Okay, Lacey. I’ll take care of it.’ Lacey’s head bobbed before she disappeared from the doorway.
Sucking in a breath and telling herself she was being silly to feel so apprehensive, Maisie stepped out from behind her desk. In her short but successful stint as a criminal lawyer, she’d faced her share of unsavoury and even dangerous characters.
Whatever unknown quantity faced her out there in her beloved restaurant, she could face it.
Maisie knew just how wrong she was even before the tall, broad-shouldered figure clad from head to toe in black turned around from his brooding inspection of his surroundings.
Outwardly, her body froze a few steps into the restaurant. But inside, her heart kicked into her stomach. Hard.
‘Romeo.’
She realised she’d said the name rattling through her brain aloud when he turned slowly and pinned her with those brooding hazel-gold eyes. That impossibly rugged jaw she’d thought she’d blown out of all proportion tightened as his gaze raked her from head to toe and back again. His prominent, cut-glass cheekbones were more pronounced than she remembered and his hair was longer, wavier than it had been five years ago. But the man who stood a dozen paces away was no less dynamic, no less captivating than the man who’d sat across from her in the café that memorable day.
If anything, he commanded a more overpowering presence. Perhaps it was because they were so far away from the place they’d first met, or because her mind was turning itself inside out to decipher exactly why he was here. All the same she found herself bunching a fist against her heart as if that would stop its fierce pounding.
‘I’m not certain whether to celebrate this moment or to condemn it,’ he rasped in a tense, dark voice.
‘How did you... How did you find me?’
One eyebrow spiked upwards. ‘That is what you wish to know? How did I find you? Were you attempting to stay hidden, perhaps?’ he enquired silkily.
‘What?’ Her brain grew fuzzier, her heart racing even faster at the ice in his tone. ‘I’m not hiding. Why would I want to hide from anyone?’
He approached slowly, his eyes not leaving her face, nor his hands the deep pockets of his overcoat. Even though it was early June, the weather remained cool enough to require a coat, and he wore his as a dark lord wore a cape, with a flourish that demanded attention. ‘We haven’t seen each other in five years and your first request is to know how I found you. Pardon me if I find that curious.’
‘What would you have me say?’ She licked lips gone dry as he took another step closer until she had to crane her neck to see his eyes.
Mesmeric, hypnotising eyes.
So like his son’s.
The blood drained from her face and thinking became difficult. She’d imagined this scene countless times. Had imagined how she would say the words. How he would take it. How she would protect her son from even the slightest hint of rejection, the way she’d done when her parents had transmitted that same indifference they’d shown Maisie all her life to her beloved son.
But words wouldn’t form in her brain. So she stared at him, her thoughts twisting and turning.
‘Hello, perhaps? Or, how have you been, Romeo?’
She caught his chillingly mocking tone and stiffened.
‘Why would I? I seem to recall waking up to find myself alone in a hotel suite rented by an anonymous stranger. You didn’t bother to say goodbye then, so why should I bother to say hello now?’ she replied.
His nostrils flared then and a memory struck through her jumbled thoughts. They’d been caught up in one of the few short bursts of conversation in his suite. She’d unwittingly let slip the fraught state of her relationship with her parents, how lonely and inconvenient she felt to them, as if she were an unwanted visitor sharing a house with them.
His nostrils had flared then, too, as he’d admonished her to be grateful she had parents at all—strangers or otherwise. That observation had rendered her silent and a little ashamed, not because she’d hated being chastised, but because she’d seen the naked agony in his eyes when he’d said that. As if the subject of parents was one that terrorised him.
Maisie pushed the memory away and struggled to stay calm when he finally released her from his stare and looked around.
‘What do you do here when you’re not dabbling in being a restaurateur?’ he asked.
She bristled. ‘I’m not dabbling. I own this restaurant. It’s my career.’
‘Really? I thought you were a high-powered lawyer.’
She frowned. Had she told him that in Palermo? Back then she’d been newly qualified and working on exciting cases. Back then her parents had finally, grudgingly, accepted her career choice. She would even go as far as to consider that for the first time in her life she’d achieved something they were proud of, even if they hadn’t quite been able to show it in the warm, loving way she’d seen her friends’ parents exhibit.
Of course, they hadn’t been thrilled that she’d announced soon after that she was taking a whole month off to travel Europe.
Despite her having the full support of her bosses to take the time off, her parents had advised her against the trip. Their utter conviction that stepping off the career ladder, even briefly, would ruin her life had finally confirmed how much they rued bringing a child, bringing her, into their lives.
And once she’d returned and told them she was pregnant...
Her heart caught at their bitter disappointment when she’d finally revealed her news. Roberta O’Connell hadn’t needed to spell out that she thought Maisie had ruined her life for ever. It’d been clear to see. And knowing that by definition they thought having her had been a mistake had been an ache she hadn’t been able to dispel.
Maisie shook her head to dispel the memory. ‘No, not any longer. I gave up practising four years ago,’ she answered Romeo.
He frowned. ‘Why would you give up the job you trained so hard for?’
So she had told him more than she thought. Because how else would he know? And why was he questioning her like this, probing her for answers he already knew? Was he trying to trip her up somehow?
She swallowed. ‘My priorities changed,’ she replied crisply and stepped back. ‘Now if you were just passing through and stopped to catch up, I really must get on. My first customers will be here shortly and I need to make sure the kitchen’s ready to start the day.’
‘You think I came all this way simply to catch up?’ He looked around again, as if searching for something. Or someone.
Apprehension flowed like excess adrenaline through her blood, making her dizzy for a moment.
Romeo couldn’t know about Gianlucca. Because she’d searched for him to no avail. No one else knew who the father of her child was. The only people who she would’ve confessed Romeo’s identity to—her parents—hadn’t wanted to know after she’d confessed to the one-night stand. Which was just as well because Maisie wouldn’t have liked to confess that she hadn’t known the surname of the man who’d impregnated her.
Maisie had a hard time accepting the fact that the only time her mother had initiated a heart-to-heart conversation had been to tell her to abandon her child’s welfare to childminders and nannies. That her son, once he was born, should be left to others to raise, so Maisie could focus fully and solely on her career. There’d even been an offer of a fully paid boarding school once he was a toddler! Despite her knowing her parents’ views on hands-on parenting, it’d still been harrowing to hear her mother’s words, to know that had her parents had the choice when she was born, they’d have abandoned her to the same fate.
‘I really don’t know what you’re doing here. But like I said, I need to be getting on—’
She gasped when he caught her upper arms in a firm, implacable hold.
‘Where is he, Maisie? Where is my son?’ he demanded, his voice a cold, deadly blade.
Several things happened at once. The door to the kitchen burst open and Lacey rushed through, just as the front door swung inward and a party of four walked in. The scene stopped in almost comical freeze-frame. No one moved except for Romeo, whose eyes narrowed as they went from the door to Lacey and then to Maisie’s face.
When shock continued to hold her tongue prisoner, Romeo’s lips compressed. Glancing at Lacey’s name badge, he jerked his head imperiously. ‘Lacey, you’re in charge of reservations, yes?’
Lacey nodded, her wide-eyed look returning full force.
‘Then see to the customers, per favore. Your boss and I will be in her office.’
Romeo marched her into the small room and shut the door behind him with a precise movement that suggested he was suppressing the need to slam it. Maisie was conquering equally intense emotions.
She put the width of her desk between them, then glared at him.
‘I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t walk in here and start bossing my employees about—’
‘Deflecting won’t help this situation. You know why I’m here. So let’s dispense with trivialities. Tell me where he is.’ That last remark was said with icy brevity that hammered a warning straight to her blood.
‘Why?’ she fired back, potent fear beginning to crawl up her spine.
Astonishment lit through his golden eyes. ‘Why? Are you completely insane? Because I want to see him.’
‘Again, why?’ A cloud descended on his face and Maisie held up her hand when he opened his mouth, no doubt to once again question her sanity. ‘Let’s stop for a moment and think about this rationally. We had a one-night stand.’ She couldn’t help the high colour that rushed into her face at the so very telling term. ‘After which you walked away without so much as a thank-you-ma’am note. You used me, then disappeared into the night. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. Fast-forward five years later, you walk in the door and demand to see my son.’ Maisie raised her hand and ticked off her fingers. ‘I don’t know your background. I don’t know whether that aura of danger about you is just for show or the real thing. Hell, I don’t even know your last name. And you think I should just expose you to my child?’
Several emotions flitted across his face—astonishment, anger, a touch of vulnerability that set her nape tingling, then grudging respect before settling into implacable determination.
He stared at her for a time, before he exhaled sharply. ‘If the child is mine—’
She laughed in disbelief. ‘Let me get this straight. You came here without even being sure that the child you’re so desperate to see is yours?’
He folded his arms across his massive chest, the movement bunching his shoulders into even wider relief. Maisie became acutely aware of the room shrinking, and the very air being sucked up by his overwhelming presence. ‘Since I’ve never met him, I cannot be one hundred per cent sure that he’s mine, hence the request to see him. A man in my position has to verify allegations of fatherhood.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Allegations? Plural? Are you saying this isn’t the first time you’ve left a woman in a hotel room and found out there have been consequences to your actions?’ Maisie wasn’t sure why that stung so much. Had she imagined herself somehow unique? That a man who looked like him, kissed and made love as he had, would have limited the experience to her and only her? ‘And what do you mean, a man in your position?’
Her barrage of questions caused his eyes to narrow further. ‘You don’t know who I am?’
‘Would I be asking if I did?’ she threw back. ‘If you want any semblance of cooperation from me, I demand to know your full name.’
His jaw flexed. ‘My name is Romeo Brunetti.’ The way he said it, the way he waited, as if the pronouncement should be accompanied by a round of trumpets and the clash of cymbals, set her spine tingling. When she didn’t speak, a curious light entered his eyes. ‘That means nothing to you?’
She shrugged. ‘Should it?’
He continued to stare at her for another minute, before he shook his head and started to pace the small space in front of her desk. ‘Not at all. So now we have our long-overdue introductions out of the way.’
Maisie cleared her throat. ‘Mr Brunetti, I—’ She froze as he let out a stunned breath.
Her gaze flew to his face to find his gaze transfixed on the photo on her desk. ‘Is this... Is this him?’ he asked in a tight, ragged whisper.
When she nodded, he reached forward in a jerky movement, then stopped. Apprehension slid over his face. He fisted and then flexed his hand, before he slowly plucked up the frame. In another person, she would’ve been certain he was borderline terrified of a mere picture.
Terrified or dreading?
The reminder of the cold indifference her parents had felt about their grandson, about her, made her itch to snatch the photo from him, protect her son’s image the way she fought every day to keep him from the rejection she’d been forced to live with her whole life.
She glanced at the picture clutched in Romeo’s large hand.
It had been taken at Ranelagh Gardens on the first day of spring. Dressed in a smart shirt, jeans and bright blue woollen jumper, Gianlucca had looked a perfect picture of health and happiness, and Maisie hadn’t been able to resist capturing his image.
She watched now as Romeo brought the picture up close to his face, his features drawn tight, his breathing slow and controlled. After almost a minute of staring at the photo without a hint of emotion, he raised his hand and brushed his fingers over Gianlucca’s cheek, almost in direct imitation of what Maisie herself had done a mere half hour ago.
‘Mio figlio,’ he murmured.
‘I don’t know what that means,’ Maisie replied in a matching whisper.
He blinked and sucked in a deep, chest-filling breath. ‘My son. It means my son.’ He looked up, his gaze deeply accusing. ‘He’s my son. And you kept him from me,’ he snarled, his voice still not quite as steady as it’d been moments ago.
Maisie stumbled backwards, bumping into the chair behind her. ‘I did nothing of the kind. And if you stopped to think about it for a moment, you’d realise how ridiculous that allegation is.’
He shoved a hand through his thick dark hair, dislodging any semblance of order it’d been in. He began to pace again, the photo clutched in his large hand. ‘How old is he?’ he demanded when he paused for a moment.
‘He’s four in three weeks.’
He resumed pacing in tight circles. ‘Four years... Dio mio, four years I’ve been in the dark,’ he muttered to himself, slashing his hand through his hair again.
‘How exactly were you enlightened?’ It was a question he hadn’t yet addressed.
He froze, as if her question had thrown him. ‘We’ll get to that in a moment. First, please tell me his name and where he is.’
The urgency in his voice bled through to Maisie. She wanted to refuse. Wanted to rewind time and have this meeting not happen. Not because being given the chance to reveal her son’s existence to his father wasn’t what she wanted.
From the moment she’d found out she was pregnant, she’d known she would give her child every opportunity to know his father. She’d gone to Palermo during her first trimester with that exact reason in mind and had given up after two weeks with no success in tracing Romeo.
No, the reason Maisie wanted to rewind time and take a different course was because she knew, deep in her bones, that Romeo’s presence wasn’t just about wanting to get to know his son. There was a quiet hint of danger about him that set her fear radar alight. And he hadn’t yet shown her that the prospect of a son filled him with joy. All he’d done so far was put an alpha claim on a child he didn’t know.
A child she would lay her life down to protect.
‘Why are you really here?’
His brows clamped together. ‘I believe we’ve tackled that particular question.’
She shook her head. Something was seriously, desperately wrong. Something to do with her precious son.
‘No, we haven’t. And I absolutely refuse to tell you anything about him until you tell me what’s going on.’
