Riccardo's Secret Child (5 page)

‘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…'

‘H
E 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.

But he was certainly doing his level best to maintain it as he walked hesitantly towards Nicola and looked at what she was drawing.

‘It's an elephant,' she said. ‘There's the trunk.'

‘Ah, yes. I see.' He moved a bit closer and bent down, nodding. ‘Yes. But it is a very fine elephant. Will it have any legs, do you think?'

‘Oh, yes.' She drew four sticks. ‘There. Legs.'

‘Excellent legs.'

Nicola looked pleased with the flattery and smiled, her curiosity a bit more alive now that the man had passed the crucial test of admiring her work.

‘Want to keep it?' she asked and he nodded again.

‘Perhaps you could write your name under it.' He could feel his skin prickling with nerves and felt another rush of dislike towards the people who had put him in this situation. Behind him, he knew that Julia was looking at him. Mentally ticking off various boxes in her head, he wondered acidly, labelled
Pass
and
Fail
?

‘I…I've brought you something. Well, two things actually. Presents.'

Nicola paused with her pencil raised in mid-air and her eyes slid away from Riccardo towards Julia, who smiled weakly. Riccardo gruffly shoved the wrapped parcels towards his daughter and then stood back with his hands stuffed into his pockets.

‘You can open them,' Julia said lightly, and Riccardo gritted his teeth together in frustration. To be viewed with suspicion by his own flesh and blood! To have to seek approval from a woman whose brother had crept into his marital bed and seduced his wife!

The woman in question had approached them, moving
to stand next to her niece so that the three of them formed an uneven triangle around the table. Riccardo refused to look at her, refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing his own uncertainty.

Nicola, oblivious to the tension crackling around her and blithely unaware that she was the focus of his intense concentration, began opening the parcels, her face softening into pleasure as she held up the stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear for them all to see, then the little stack of books, which she looked at one by one, turning each over in her hand until Riccardo muttered uncomfortably, ‘I wasn't too sure what you liked and what you did not.'

‘Thank you very much.' The almond-shaped eyes were now very curious indeed. ‘I love them. Aunty Jules can read one to me tonight,' she added politely, her eyes flicking for support from Julia as she became attuned to the undercurrents zinging through the room.

When Jeannette spoke the strange scenario was broken, thankfully, and then, with tea and pudding and the necessary bustling around the kitchen, something approaching normality was achieved.

Jeannette chatted happily to Riccardo, leaving Julia free to say as little as possible by way of direct address, although her eyes drifted back to him with unnerving regularity. She watched the way he sat in the chair, his long fingers curled around the cup of tea her mother had made for him, his lithe body inclined towards his daughter. The kitchen was warm and he had removed his jumper so that now he simply wore a green and white checked short-sleeved shirt that exposed powerful, swarthy forearms liberally sprinkled with dark hair. Everything about him redefined the word
male
. How gorgeous he and Caroline must have looked together, she thought. He was so tall and dark and forceful and she had been just the opposite, small and
blonde and exquisitely pretty. Just the sort of woman a man like Riccardo Fabbrini would be attracted to, Julia thought. Not a timid brown sparrow like herself.

She dragged her attention back to what was happening around her and only realised the time when her mother rose to leave.

‘Will I see you again?' Nicola asked shortly after Jeannette had left, pausing by the kitchen door with her small hand in Julia's, ready for her routine of bath and bed. ‘Are you and Aunty Jules going out together?'

The innocent question hung thickly in the air. Of course Nicola must have wondered what this strange man, whose resemblance to her she had either not noticed or else only subconsciously acknowledged, was doing in the house. And she had overheard her mother insinuating more than once how nice it would be if Julia could find herself a nice boyfriend and think about settling down before all the nice men were snapped up. Nicola had put two and two together and was now asking whether they came to four.

Julia quickly tried to work out how she could disabuse her niece of this notion without her denial leading to other questions, such as why a perfect stranger who was not going out with her had arrived armed with presents for a child he had never seen.

‘Yes, we are, as a matter of fact, little one,' Riccardo said smoothly, before Julia could intervene. He countered her shocked look at him with a bland smile that challenged her to refute him. ‘We are most certainly going out.' This time the smile sent a chill of apprehension racing down her spine. It was a smile loaded with intent.

‘It's time for your bath,' Julia told Nicola in a breathless voice.

‘And you'll read me a story?'

‘I will,' Riccardo intervened, ‘if you would like.'

‘I would rather Aunty Jules. She always reads to me now.'

Only Julia caught the grimness of his expression as their eyes tangled, and she shivered. She would let none of her own apprehension show for Nicola to see, and she didn't, but by the time she returned to the kitchen her seething temper at his casual exploitation of the situation was on the verge of reaching boiling point.

She steamed into the kitchen to find him lounging on one of the kitchen chairs, flicking through Nicola's drawing book, with a glass of wine in his hand. He looked up as soon as she stormed in, in no way apparently intimidated by the light of fire in her eyes.

‘Would you care to tell me what the hell you were playing at? Telling Nicola that you and I were going out? How dare you?'

‘Why don't you go and pour yourself something to drink and calm your frayed nerves?'

His dark eyes were unreadable. Gone was that glimpse of a man no longer in control of his situation. All that hesitation he had displayed in the company of his daughter had vanished. Every inch of him now breathed self-assurance.

Julia wondered how she could have softened towards him, even momentarily. The only drink she wanted to pour was not down her throat but over his arrogant head!

‘If my nerves are frayed then you're the reason!' Julia sat down opposite him and his utter composure only served to fire her up more. ‘What did you think you were doing, telling Nicola that you and I…that you and I
were going out together
!'

He took his time answering. He inspected the pale gold liquid in his glass, then tilted it to his lips so that he could swallow another mouthful.

‘Did you think that you were going to have things all your own way?' he asked softly. ‘You suggested that I don't tell my own daughter who I am because it might destabilise her and she is already coping with the loss of her mother and your brother.' He found that he could not bring himself to refer to Martin in any other way. ‘I respected that decision, but tell me this…how am I supposed to put in an appearance without her wondering who the hell I am? And why am I showing such a disproportionate interest in her when I am nothing to you?'