Happy Mother's Day! (22 page)

Unable to bear his pain any longer, Erin got to her knees on the bed and came up behind him, pressing her body up against the curve of his spine and, resting her head against his neck, linked her hands across his chest.

It was little enough but the physical contact seemed to help him regain some degree of control over his emotions because the shudders that racked his body gradually stopped.

As he straightened up Erin loosed her grip and leaned back on her heels, her grave blue eyes trained on his face as he swept the blue-black hair back from his brow.

‘I can’t even begin to imagine what it must feel like …’ she said softly.

‘You really want to know?’ he yelled, turning his seething anger on her. ‘Will that satisfy your grubby, prurient curiosity? You’re just like all the others, pretending sympathy while enjoying the misfortunes of another!’

Erin flinched at the bile in his tone but did not try and defend herself or protest this very black view of human nature.

‘If you want to tell me, Francesco.’

She realised he had never stopped blaming himself for his brother’s death.

‘I wake up every morning and there’s a dark empty space inside me … a black hole.’ He pressed a hand to his chest and turned eyes that were filled with bitter self-reproach to Erin. ‘It hurts knowing that I will never see him again, never hear his voice again, and the worst part is I could have stopped it. I
should
have known.’ He swallowed, the muscles in his brown throat working as he closed his eyes.

Hand pressed to her mouth, Erin watched as he fought to regain control. She was shocked and horrified. How long, she wondered, had he been carrying around this guilt and pain?

‘It never even occurred to me that he was ill.’

Certainly when Rafe had turned up at his place looking the personification of a tragic hero Francesco had been more irritated than alarmed. The state of his brother’s marriage, like his mood, had see-sawed violently between bliss and dark, brooding despair.

‘Why didn’t I see that his mood swings were getting worse?’

‘Why should you?’

Francesco’s head came up; he gave her a guarded look.
‘Why?’

‘Yes, why?’ ‘I should have.’

‘We don’t analyse minutely the behaviour of the people close to us.’

‘Maybe Rafe didn’t want me to see, and who could blame him? It’s not as if I’d been wildly sympathetic before.’

Erin flung up her hands in frustrated exasperation. Francesco seemed totally determined to blame himself for what had happened to his twin. ‘Did you tell him everything?’

Francesco dismissed the question with an impatient gesture. ‘That’s not the same thing. If he hadn’t felt he had to hide his illness from me.’ teeth clenched, his features rigid, he ground his clenched fist into the bed frame ‘… if I had known I would have made sure he took his medication. If I’d thought before I doled out advice Rafe might still be alive.’

‘That’s a lot of ifs, Francesco. When bad things happen we look for a reason,’ she began, choosing her words with care. ‘It’s human nature, but sometimes,’ she said sadly, ‘there simply isn’t one to find. Bad things just happen; they happen to good people who don’t deserve it. You can’t blame yourself for what happened to your twin, Francesco. It isn’t your fault.’

He gave a twisted smile. ‘That’s what the doctors said,’ he admitted. ‘They talked about chemical imbalances, but it wasn’t
a chemical imbalance in his blood that killed Rafe; it was black despair.’ His voice shook with the depth of his feelings and raw emotion. ‘And I stood by and watched it happen.’

Erin could not bear to hear any more of this. ‘That’s nonsense and you know it!’ she protested. ‘Do you really think your brother would want you to beat yourself up over this?’ she demanded.

He looked startled by the question. ‘I never really.’

‘Thought about it like that? Well, that’s obvious, because if you had you’d have realised that he wouldn’t have any more than you would have wanted him to if the situation had been reversed.’

‘Rafe was always there for me. He always had time for me.’

‘This hair-shirt look really doesn’t suit you, Francesco. In fact all this self-flagellation is pretty self-indulgent.'Ashamed of yelling at him when she ought to have been soothing him, she added a guilty-sounding, ‘Sorry.’

He schooled his laboured breathing to something that approached normality. ‘No, it is I who should be sorry.’ It might be his imagination but Francesco was conscious of feelingfor want of a better word
—lighter
than he had in a long time.

‘What for? I’m the one who scolded you.’

‘I needed scolding,’ he reflected, a shadow of a smile lifting the sombreness of his expression. ‘You’re right—I am wallowing in self-pity.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘No?’ He arched a dark brow and shrugged, one corner of his sensual mouth lifting in a crooked smile that just tore at her sensitive heart. ‘Maybe you should have. Erin, the things I said.’ he began, his manner uncharacteristically awkward as he met her eyes. ‘I should not have shouted at you … The thing is it is difficult for me to speak of my feelings. Rafe used
to say that my aura—he was very into that sort of stuff—must have so many “keep out” signs that it would take a very brave person to get close to me.’

His dark eyes flickered across her face before his chin dropped to his chest. ‘Someone who goes where angels fear to tread,’ had been Rafe’s exact words.

‘Or a really stupid one,’ she muttered under her breath as she drew back the fingers that hovered just above his dark hair. Her heart ached to see him so vulnerable. ‘It must have been a terrible time for you and your family,’ she said huskily.

‘It was not good.’ He gave a twisted smile. ‘But at the time there were things to do … arrangements … no time to think. Later it was harder and my parents took it very badly.’

And everyone expected Francesco to cope, Erin thought, looking at his broad shoulders and thinking of the problems people offloaded on them.

‘My mother especially.’ He lifted his head, dragging a hand through his tousled dark hair before revealing, ‘There was always a special bond between her and Rafe.’ Nothing in his expression or manner suggested he had in any way resented this special relationship. ‘She hasn’t been the same since.’

‘She still has you!’ The indignant protest died on Erin’s tongue when, without warning, he reached across and took her face between his hands.

‘You had me, too,
cara,
but you didn’t want me.’

Didn’t want him? God, if only that were true. If she had ever fooled herself into believing she didn’t love him the last few minutes had destroyed that illusion. Seeing the depth of pain in his eyes had torn at her heart. She had felt his grief and loss as though it had been her own … and had felt helpless.

If she could have she would have taken his pain on herself.
And yet she was about to add to it by taking away his chance to be a full-time father.

She just couldn’t do that to him; Francesco had lost enough without losing his child.

‘I alwayswanted you, Francesco.’
And I’ll always love you!

Francesco’s eyes darkened and a muscle in his lean cheek clenched as he sucked in a deep breath.
‘Erin …’
His hands slid to her shoulders as he said something thick in his own language. As he bent his head towards hers Erin closed her eyes, her eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings against her flushed cheeks.

‘Perhaps we could make a go of it?’

Francesco’s hands fell away and his head came up with a jerk. His dark eyes raked her face with an intensity she found hard to endure. ‘You are agreeing to come back to Italy with me?’

My God, is that what I’m doing? Do I really want to be pregnant in a foreign country loving a man who only wants me back because of the child I’m carrying?

‘I’m prepared to give it a go, for the sake of the baby.’
You are crazy, Erin.
‘But the secrets have to stop. And don’t say there were no secrets, because our marriage was based on a tissue of lies and omissions from day one. You never once mentioned your twin.’

‘I suppose it was a relief to be with someone who didn’t know about Rafe, to escape the interminable sympathy. The conversations that stopped when I walked into a room. Death is one of the last taboo subjects in our society. It makes people uncomfortable to be around someone who is bereaved. They either gush or cross the street to avoid you.’

‘When did he … when did Rafe die?’ She could actually see how a man like Francesco, a man who was fiercely private and self-contained, might find well-wishers intrusive.

‘Six months ago.’

‘Six months!’
No wonder Francesco’s feelings were so raw. ‘That’s no time at all.’ she began, then stopped, the colour seeping from her face.

That meant that when she had met Francesco his brother had only been dead for three months.

Their meeting. The whirlwind romance, the reckless dash into marriage—all suddenly made a horrible kind of sense.

The behaviour she had attributed to a man in love could equally be attributed to a man unwilling to confront his feelings.

Some men in similar circumstances might have turned to drink or relied on prescription drugs.

In Francesco’s case he had turned to her!

It all made perfect horrible sense!

Francesco, half out of his head with grief and unwilling to acknowledge his feelings of anger and guilt, had used anything to distract himself. She had been the ultimate distraction and he had used her to ease the pain he was going through. Not consciously—she did not believe he was capable of being that callous.

Had he already begun to realise that he didn’t really love her the night of the ball? It would explain why he had not done more to stop her going. Sure, his pride had been hurt that it had been her who had walked away, but maybe deep down he had been secretly relieved? Until he had found out about the baby.

‘You’re cold,’ Francesco said as she shivered.

She gave a forced smile and stood up, clutching the robe tight around her. ‘A little.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine. I think I’ll go change.’

‘You can keep the shirt.’

My heart for your shirt.
The exchange hardly seemed fair. Repressing the hysterical laugh that was lodged in her throat, she nodded tightly and left the room.

E
RIN
managed to maintain a shaky illusion of composure until she was safely in her own room. Once there she sank onto the bed with her head in her hands.

Her face was tear-stained when a few minutes later she lifted her head and exclaimed out loud, ‘Oh, my God, I really said I’d go back to Italy with him.’

Walking over to the old-fashioned washstand, she turned on the cold tap and splashed her face with water. There were water droplets trembling on her lashes as she looked at herself in the mirror. The indent between her feathery brows deepened as she sighed.

How did I manage to fool myself? she wondered. It seemed incredible that she had for one moment believed that just because it would be convenient she had fallen out of love with Francesco.

Love didn’t work that way; at least it didn’t for her. The important thing now was that she didn’t lose sight of the fact that love didn’t automatically equate with happy ever after, especially when the object of your affections had never really been in love with you in the first place.

No more self-delusion—she had to see things as they really were, she told herself sternly.

The problem was that seeing things as they were did not
produce any magical solution. As she dried her face and applied a thin layer of concealing tinted moisturiser Erin nursed the depressing knowledge that there was no solution, magical or mundane.

God, this was a nightmare!

Her troubled gaze trained on the horses in the paddock underneath her window, she lifted her chin. Perhaps it was best not to try and think of a solution to everything, just concentrate instead on sorting one problem at a time.

The scene on the patio when she went downstairs was of domestic harmony. Sam was seated on a wrought-iron chair reading the newspaper while his wife was irritating him by reading aloud headlines that caught her eyes.

It was the sight of Francesco sitting on a rug spread on the grass, making baby Gianni, who was kicking his legs, chuckle by blowing raspberries on his bare tummy that stopped Erin in her tracks.

The hand around her heart tightened as she watched him. He would make the most incredible father.

Valentina was the first to notice her. ‘Erin! Grab a scone before this greedy piglet scoffs the lot,’ she said, ruffling her husband’s hair.

Erin glanced towards the plate of scones liberally laced with cream and shook her head. ‘No, thanks.’ She made a conscious effort to look anywhere but at Francesco, who had turned his head when Valentina had called her name.

Erin looked at the spot on the rug that Francesco patted. She slipped off her shoes and began to walk towards him across the wet grass. Just looking at him made her ache with love. It was a mystery how she had ever managed to fool herself she could ever feel anything else for him.

Before she reached them her phone began to ring. She gave an apologetic grimace and pulled it from her pocket. ‘It’s Mum,’ she said, pretending not to notice the looks her hosts exchanged at the information. ‘I’ll just take it …’ She gave a vague gesture towards the house and walked barefoot in that direction.

Once out of sight of the group she lifted the phone to her ear. ‘Damn, no signal!’ She gave a frustrated sigh and looked around. She spotted the flight of stone steps that led to the room above where Sam stored the horses’ feed and headed for it at a fast trot.

She slipped on her shoes before running lightly up the steps. At the top she scanned the screen on her phone and gave a sigh of relief when she saw she had a signal.

‘Mum, what’s wrong?’ It was safe to assume that something was wrong—her mother had a talent for timing her crises to coincide with social occasions. A less generous person might have suspected she timed it deliberately!

Erin sat on the top step and listened with more resignation than concern—she’d been there too many times before to panic—as her tearful mother explained between sobs that her father had walked out.

‘I’ll be right th—’ She let out a startled yelp as the phone was pulled unceremoniously from her fingers. She lifted her head in time to see Francesco lift it to his ear.

‘No, Erin won’t be there. She has a previous engagement.’

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she yelled furiously.

‘Something you should have done a long time ago—cut the apron strings,’ he informed her callously.

Erin rose to her feet quivering with indignation. Though he was standing a couple of steps below her she still had to tilt her head to look him in the face. ‘How
dare
you? You had no right! She was in a
terrible
state; she needs me.’

‘No, she uses you,’ he contradicted.

‘You’re talking about my mother.’

‘And she’ll carry on using you,’ he said, ignoring her furious insertion, ‘until you break the cycle. It’s about habit and guilt. If you go every time your mother calls you’re simply reinforcing her behaviour.’

Her eyes flashing dangerously in response to his extraordinarily high-handed attitude, she glared up at him. ‘And if I let you run my life and decide who I talk to I’m simply reinforcing your inclination to be a total despot!’ she yelled back. ‘My mother
needs
me.’

‘So does your family.’

‘But she is my …’ Lower lip caught between her teeth, she shook her head as she caught his meaning.

‘The baby and I … we are your family now, Erin. What are you going to do when the baby is born? Drop everything including him when she calls?’ he suggested bitterly.

She felt as though she were being torn in two directions. At one level she knew he was right—he was after all only echoing thoughts she had had herself. But she resented him for making his point this way, for making no allowances for her feelings.

‘The situation is untenable, Erin,’ he said quietly.

Did he think she didn’t know that? ‘I feel responsible.’

‘Get over it,’ he recommended unsympathetically. He tossed the phone and she automatically caught it. ‘If you don’t like the situation you can change it—the choice is yours.’

Some choice,
she thought, staring at the phone in her hand. ‘You’re asking me to choose between my mother and you.’ He shrugged. ‘It is not something you should have to think about.’

‘You have no right to ask me!’ she quivered, lifting a hand to her head. ‘You’re just as bad,’ she accused shrilly, ‘as she is! Get out of my way. I’ve had enough of this!’

‘That’s right,’ he jeered. ‘If things get difficult or even mildly uncomfortable, run away.’

‘“Mildly uncomfortable!”’ she yelled back. ‘Maybe this is a minor irritation to you—’

‘You’ve never been a
minor
anything!’ he retorted.

Her mistake, Erin decided when analysing the moment at a later date, was turning her head to look back at him as she ducked under his arm to reach the next step. If she hadn’t she would have been able to regain her balance when her heels snagged in the hem of her jeans and she wouldn’t have taken a dive down the shallow flight of stone stairs and ended in an inelegant heap on the floor on the cobbled yard below.

She lay there, winded, her eyes wide open. As she struggled to get her breath she was aware of Francesco falling to his knees beside her.

‘Are you all right?’ Without waiting for her to respond, he added furiously, ‘
Dio!
You little idiot! What the hell did you think you were doing!’ Before she had either the breath or the opportunity to respond Francesco launched into a low, incensed sounding tirade in Italian.

Erin only understood one word in three, but one sentiment she did pick out was a very heartfelt wish that he had never set eyes on her.

‘And I,’ she gasped, hoping he attributed the weak tears that flooded her eyes to pain. ‘wish I’d never laid eyes on you, either.’

‘You just threw yourself headlong down a flight of stairs. You could have killed yourself, and what about the baby?’ ‘There was no
throwing
involved. I just fell over my own
feet.’ Clumsy, she was willing to admit to, but not stupid! ‘And it wouldn’t have happened in the first place if you hadn’t been …’ She stopped, wide eyes lifting to his face. ‘Oh, my God, the baby!’ She tried to ease her weight off one hip and winced. The cramping pain that extended like a band around her middle made her gasp. ‘You
are
hurt!’

She was, but it wasn’t her own safety that Erin was worrying about.

‘Here, let me help you.’

She shook her head. ‘I think I might stay here for a moment.’ Please,
please,
God, make the baby all right. If anything happened to it she would never forgive herself. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

‘I think perhaps you should call an ambulance, just as a precaution.’

Even before she had finished speaking he had his phone out and was punching in the emergency number.

‘Ambulance,’ he snapped. ‘The nature of the emergency? My wife has fallen down a flight of stairs. No, she’s conscious and … look, she’s twelve weeks pregnant. Just get here.’ He gave the address before sliding his phone back into his pocket. ‘They said just stay still.’

Erin nodded as he pushed the hair back from her brow with cool brown fingers. ‘Pretty much what I planned to do. You know I’m sure everything’s fine.’

‘Of course it is,’ he agreed.

If it wasn’t—his firm jaw tightened as he pushed aside the thought he wouldn’t permit himself to contemplate such a possibility.

‘I’m just being c-cautious.’ Erin strove to hide her terror, but it was a struggle.

‘You want this baby a lot, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’ She wanted this baby with a ferocity that she had not imagined she was capable of. She might not be able to have the man, but the baby was hers.

He reached out tentatively towards her stomach and then drew back. ‘Are you still in pain?’

‘A little,’ she admitted. ‘I think I must have caught my side on the bottom step.’

Francesco looked at the sharp edge and cursed under his breath. When he turned back to Erin she was dabbing the tip of her tongue to the beads of sweat along her upper lip. He had no doubt at all she was playing down her symptoms for his benefit.

‘You will make them save my baby, won’t you, Francesco, if I’m out of it for any reason?’

Francesco, pale under his tan, closed his eyes. ‘You won’t be out of it,’ he told her hoarsely.

‘But just in case,’ she persisted.

‘I will do everything that is necessary.’
To keep you safe and well,
he added silently.

The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. Francesco watched, feeling increasingly useless as they loaded Erin into the back of the ambulance. Before getting in himself, Francesco babbled a brief explanation to a shocked and concerned Sam and Valentina who had appeared.

The presence at Erin’s side of a paramedic who monitored her condition meant he couldn’t even hold her hand. Once they reached the hospital casualty department the situation got, if anything, more frustrating. She was whisked away immediately, while they expected him to be content with a promise from a harassed-looking doctor that they would tell him as soon as they knew anything.

Francesco was not content.

He was expressing his discontent to an officious and most obstructive person whose name badge identified him as some sort of administrator when a doctor older than the one who had spoken to him earlier approached.

‘Mr Romanelli, is it?’

Francesco took the hand extended to him.

‘James Ross.’

‘What is happening to my wife?’ The conspiracy of silence was driving him crazy. Did these people not appreciate that with no information it was natural to assume the worst? ‘I need to be with her.’

The doctor gave a soothing smile. ‘And you shall be,’ he promised. ‘Come with me—we’ll go somewhere a little more private.’

Wasn’t that what they said in medical dramas before they broke bad news?

Francesco refused tea, refused a seat, and explained that the only thing he was interested in was information concerning his wife’s well-being.

‘Yes, well, I’m afraid that your wife has some internal bleeding.’

He looked understanding as Francesco, deathly pale beneath his naturally vibrant colouring, sank into the chair he had just rejected.

Francesco had felt like this only once before. On that occasion he could remember thinking that a man could only endure this sort of pain once. Yet here he was alive and feeling as if someone had pushed their hand into his chest and ripped out his heart.

‘That is bad?’

‘Well, any surgical intervention carries a risk.’

The breath left Francesco’s body in a long shuddering sigh. ‘You mean you can do something?’

‘Good Lord, yes! I’m sorry I wasn’t clear.’

Francesco suspected it was his mental acuity and not the doctor’s communication skills that were at fault.

‘Hopefully we will be able to perform the procedure via a laparoscope—no need, you understand, for an incision? That is the method of choice, but there are no guarantees. Depending on what we find, we might have to go in.

‘Your wife is very concerned about what the operation will mean for the baby, but I have made it quite plain to her that there is really no option.’

‘The baby is all right—alive?'Amazement swept over him. ‘I assumed when you said …’

‘No, your baby is doing very well, and there is no reason that it should not survive the surgery without taking any harm. Though again, and I emphasise this, there are no guarantees.’

‘But it has a fighting chance?’ If anything happened to the baby, Erin would never forgive him—he would never forgive himself!

‘Absolutely. Now would you like to see your wife?’

Francesco leapt to his feet. ‘I would.’

The doctor spoke into an intercom and a nurse appeared. ‘Would you take Mr Romanelli to his private room to see his wife?’