Sicilian Nights Omnibus (19 page)

‘Your stepbrother didn’t mention anything about Antonio denying he had fathered your child when I spoke to him. He was most concerned about you, and asked me to keep him informed of any progress I might make in my search for you.’

Annie felt as though her heart had stopped beating.

She turned towards Falcon, imploring him. ‘You haven’t...you haven’t told him where I am, have you?’

Falcon’s frown deepened.

‘He told me that his sole aim is to help and protect you.’

To help and protect
her
, but not Ollie. Colin didn’t want anything to do with her baby, and if he had his way, Ollie would be removed from her life for ever.

How long did she have before Colin found her and started waging his relentless war to make her have Ollie adopted all over again? Panic clawed at her stomach. Everyone had always said how lucky she was to have such a devoted stepbrother, but they didn’t know him as she did.

‘He mustn’t know where we are.’

In her panic she had revealed more than was wise, Annie recognised as she saw the way Falcon Leopardi was watching her. He was waiting for her to elaborate, to give him a logical reason as to why she didn’t want Colin to find them.

‘Colin believes that it would be better if Ollie was adopted,’ she eventually managed to tell him.

Because he had not been able to get Antonio to pay up? Or because he felt it was the best option for the child? Falcon didn’t think he needed to spend much time considering the two options. Colin had asked him specifically if there were any assets likely to come to Oliver from Antonio’s estate or his family.

‘But you don’t agree with him?’ Falcon asked now.

‘No. I could never give him up.
Never
. Nothing and no one could ever make me do so.’

The passion in her expression and her voice changed her completely, bringing her suddenly to life, revealing the true perfection of her delicate beauty.

Falcon felt as though someone had suddenly punched him in the chest, rendering him unable to get his breath properly.

‘I agree that a child as young as Oliver needs his mother,’ he told her, as soon as he was back in control of himself. ‘However, your son is a Leopardi—and as such it is only right and proper that he grows up amongst his own family and his own people in his own country. It is my duty to Oliver and to my family to ensure that he is raised as a Leopardi—and that you, as his mother, are treated as the mother of a Leopardi should be treated. That is why I am here. To take you both back to Sicily with me.’

Annie stared at him. His talk of duty was a world apart from the world she knew. Such a word belonged to another time, a feudal ancient time, and yet somehow it resonated within her.

‘You want to take Ollie and me to Sicily—to live there?’ she asked unsteadily, spacing out the words to clarify them inside her own head and make sure she had not misunderstood him.

His ‘yes’ was terse—like the brief inclination of his head.

‘But you have no proof that Ollie is—’

The look he was giving her caused her to go silent.

‘The evidence of his blood is quite plain to both of us,’ he told her. ‘You have seen it yourself.’ He paused and looked down at the stroller before looking back to her. ‘The child could be mine. He bears the Leopardi stamp quite clearly.’

His!
Why did that assertion strike so compellingly into her heart?

‘He doesn’t look anything like Antonio.’ He was all she could manage to say.

‘No,’ Falcon agreed. ‘Antonio took after his mother, which I dare say is why our father loved him so much. He was obsessed by her, and that obsession killed our own mother and destroyed our childhood, depriving us of our father’s love and our mother’s presence. That will not happen to your child. In Sicily he will have you—his mother—the love and protection of his uncles, and the companionship of his cousins. He will be a Leopardi.’

He made it all sound so simple and so...so right. But she knew nothing of him of or his family other than that he had taken the trouble to track them down because he wanted Ollie.

How could she trust him—a stranger?

As though Falcon sensed her anxiety, he asked, ‘You love your son, don’t you?’

‘Of course I do.’

‘Then you must surely want what is best for him?’

‘Yes,’ Annie agreed helplessly.

‘You will agree, I think, that he will have a far better life growing up in Sicily as a Leopardi than he could have here?’

‘With a mother who works as a cleaner, you mean?’ Annie challenged him.

‘I am not the one who makes the rules of economics that say a financially disadvantaged child will suffer a great deal of hardship in his life. And besides, it is not just a matter of money—although of course that is important. You are alone in the world—you no longer have any contact with your stepbrother; you are all the family Oliver has. That is not healthy for a child, and it has been proven that is especially not healthy for a boy child to have only his mother. In Sicily, Oliver will have a proper family. If you love him as much as you claim, then for his sake you will be willing to come to Sicily. What, after all, is there to keep you here?’

If his last question was brutal it was also truthful, Annie admitted. There was
nothing
to keep her here—except of course that you did not go off to a foreign country with a man you did not know. You especially did not do so when you had a six-month-old beloved child to protect.

But in Sicily there would no Colin to fear. No dread of waking up to find her stepbrother leaning over Oliver’s cot with that fixed look on his face, as she had once found him when he had visited her shortly after Ollie’s birth.

Something—she didn’t know what, other than that it was some deep core instinct—told her that in Falcon Leopardi’s hands her precious son would be safe, and that those hands would hold him surely and protectively against all danger.

But what about her? What about the disquieting, unwanted, dangerous reaction she sensed within herself to him as a woman to his man? Panic seized her but she fought it down. It was Ollie she had to think of now, not herself. His needs and not hers. Falcon Leopardi was right to say that Ollie would have a far better life in Sicily as a Leopardi than he ever could here in London alone with her. When she added into that existing equation the potential threat of her stepbrother there was only one decision she could take, wasn’t there?

As she struggled to come to terms with what the surrender of herself and her son into Falcon’s care would mean, she reminded herself that only this morning she had laughed at herself for wishing for the impossible—for the magical waving of a wand to transport her somewhere she and Ollie could be safe.

That impossible had now happened, and she must,
must
seize the opportunity—for her son’s sake. For Ollie. Nothing mattered more to her than her baby.

A strange dizzying sensation had filled her, making her feel giddy and weightless, as though she might almost float above the pavement. It took her several seconds to recognise that the feeling was one of relief at the removal of a heavy weight.

People would think she was crazy, going off with a man she didn’t know, trusting her son to him. If she confided in Susie and Tom, who had been so kind in drumming up research work for her among Tom’s writing friends while she was pregnant, they would ask questions and warn her to be careful. Susie would remind her of Colin’s offer and look reproachfully at her. Susie had never understood why she hadn’t accepted Colin’s offer of a home. She had thought him kind and concerned. She had agreed with him about the benefits of having Ollie adopted.

How desperately she regretted letting slip to Susie in a moment of weakness that she had a stepbrother, and then letting Susie coax his name and address out of her. Susie had meant well when she had contacted him behind her back, believing that she was doing the right thing, and Colin had behaved in an exemplary fashion—playing the role of caring stepbrother to the hilt during her pregnancy, taking charge of everything.

‘What happens if I refuse?’ Annie asked now.

Falcon had been expecting her question.

‘If you refuse, then I shall pursue my rights as Oliver’s blood relative through the courts.’

He meant it, Annie recognised.

‘You’re asking me to accept a great deal on trust,’ she pointed out. ‘I have no reason to trust your family and every reason not to do so.’

‘Antonio was never a true Leopardi. By his behaviour he dishonoured himself and our name, just as he dishonoured you. It is my duty to put right that wrong. You have my word that you will come to no harm whilst you are under my protection—from anyone or anything.’

Feudal words to match his feudal mindset, Annie thought, more affected by what he had said than she wanted to admit. He was offering her something she already knew she craved: respite and safety. What option did she have other than to take them when they were offered?

She sucked in a steadying breath, and then asked as calmly as she could, ‘When would we have to leave?’

She had given in far more easily than Falcon had expected. Was that a reason for him to feel suspicious of her? Suspicious? No. After all, he knew all there was to know about her. But curious? Perhaps, yes.

‘Soon,’ he answered her. ‘The sooner the better. My father isn’t well. In fact, he is very frail, and it is his greatest wish to see Antonio’s child.’

‘There are things I shall need to do,’ Annie began.

The reality of what she had committed to—not just herself but more importantly Oliver too—was only just beginning to sink in. But she could tell from Falcon Leopardi’s expression that he would not allow her to have any second thoughts.

‘Such as?’ he questioned, confirming her thoughts.

‘I shall have to notify Ollie’s nursery—and the council. And I’ll need to check to see if Ollie needs any special injections for Sicily.’

‘He doesn’t. And as for the nursery and your flat, you can safely leave all that to me. You will, however, both need clothes suitable for a hot climate. It is high summer in Sicily now.’

New clothes? How on earth was she going to afford those?

Humiliatingly, as though he had guessed what she was thinking, Falcon continued smoothly, ‘Naturally I shall cover the cost of whatever is needed.’

‘We aren’t charity cases.’ Humiliation made Annie snap. ‘I’m not letting you buy our clothes.’

‘No? Then I shall have to telephone ahead to one of my sisters-in-law and ask them to provide a suitable wardrobe for you both. They are both English, by the way, so I expect you will find you have a great deal in common with them. My youngest brother Rocco and his wife already have one adopted child—a boy the same age as Oliver.’

His brothers had English wives? She would have other female company? A little of Annie’s anxiety receded—only to return as she wondered how his brothers’ wives would react to her.

‘Do you all live together?’ she asked uncertainly. She had only the haziest knowledge of Italian family life—and none at all of aristocratic Sicilian family life.

‘Yes and no. Rocco has his own home on the island, whilst Alessandro and I both have our own apartments within the Leopardi
castello
, where my father also lives. A suite of rooms will be made ready for your occupation.’

‘Mine and Ollie’s?’ Annie checked.

‘Of course. His place is with you. I have already said so. Now—’ Falcon flicked back his cuff to look at his watch ‘—we shall meet tomorrow morning in order to do necessary shopping. I shall call for you both at your flat and then with any luck we should be ready to leave for Sicily tomorrow evening. I shall request Alessandro to have a private jet made ready for us. As for all the necessary paperwork with regard to your life here, as I said, you may safely leave all of that to me.’

‘And you won’t tell Colin that you’ve found me?’

She hadn’t meant to ask, and she certainly hadn’t meant to sound so pathetically and desperately in need of reassurance, but it was too late to wish the plea unspoken now. Falcon was looking at her, searching her face as though seeking confirmation of something? Of what? Her fear of Colin?

‘No, I won’t tell him,’ Falcon confirmed. She was afraid of her stepbrother. He had guessed it already, but her reaction now had confirmed his suspicion. But why?

‘If he finds me, he’ll only try to persuade me to give Ollie up for adoption.’ Annie felt obliged to defend her plea.

Falcon nodded his head and repeated, ‘I won’t tell him.’

* * *

It was well into the early hours when Annie woke abruptly out of an uneasy sleep, her heart thudding too fast and her senses alert, probing the darkness of the unlit room for the source of the danger that had infiltrated her sleep. Outside in the London street beyond the flat a motorbike backfired, bringing a juddering physical relief to her tensed nerve endings.

She looked towards the cot where Ollie lay sleeping, and prayed that she had done the right thing in agreeing to go to Sicily—that she hadn’t exchanged one form of im-
prisonment for another. As long as Ollie was safe that was all that mattered. Nothing else.
Nothing
.

CHAPTER THREE

T
RUE
TO
HIS
word, Falcon Leopardi had arrived at the flat early in the morning to collect her and Ollie in the chauffeur-driven car he had hired. He had taken them to Harvey Nichols, where they had spent over an hour and more money than Annie liked to think about equipping Ollie with suitable clothes and a large amount of baby equipment for his new life.

Now, surveying what looked like a positive mountain of small garments, Annie felt guilty. She had been enjoying herself so much, choosing everything for him.

‘I’m sorry.’ She apologised to Falcon. ‘I’ve chosen far too much, and it’s all so expensive. Perhaps we should think again?’

‘I shall be the judge of what is and is not expensive—and we don’t have time for second thoughts. You still have your own wardrobe to attend to—although, I imagine that is something you can do far more comfortably without my presence.’

He pushed back the cuff of his suit jacket—a habit of his, Annie had noticed. In a different suit this morning, in a light tan that looked very continental, he had had all the super-thin and super-pretty salesgirls turning their heads to look at him.

‘I’ve booked a personal shopper for you, so I’ll leave you to it and come back in an hour.’

Annie nodded her head. He was leaving her to her own devices because he had other things to do—not because somehow or other he had known how on edge the thought of him standing over her whilst she selected hot weather clothes had made her. She mustn’t start elevating him to the status of something approaching a mind-reading saint. But she did feel more comfortable knowing that he wouldn’t be standing there, silently assessing her choices, ready to point out all the reasons why it wasn’t suitable.

As a little girl she had loved pretty clothes and going shopping with her mother, just the two of them, but all that had changed once her mother had remarried. Colin had complained that she wasn’t giving their new extended family a chance to work when she told her mother that she didn’t like shopping with her stepfather and Colin in tow. He had always had the knack of knowing when she had complained to her mother about him—and the knack of making sure she regretted doing so.

The personal shopping suite was a revelation to someone who couldn’t even remember the last time she had shopped for clothes for herself. To her relief Ollie, who had earlier been torn between enchantment and excitement, surrounded by all the toys in the babywear department, had now fallen asleep in his buggy.

Her personal shopper looked as though she was around her own age, although she was wearing clothes far more fashionable and body-hugging than Annie would ever have felt comfortable wearing.

‘I’ll measure you first,’ she announced, after she had introduced herself as Lissa.

‘I’ve always been a size twelve,’ Annie told her, causing the elegantly arched eyebrows to arch even further.

‘Different designers have differing ideas of what a specific size is, which is why we prefer to take proper measurements,’ Lissa informed her with a soothing smile. ‘And as for you being a size twelve—I’d bet on you being closer to a size eight. A ten at the very most. We find a lot of customers experience a change in their body weight and shape post-baby—although not many of them actually drop a size without working at it. Have you any specific designers or style in mind?’

‘No. That is, we’re going to be living in Sicily, so I shall want clothes suitable for a hot climate—but nothing too expensive, please. I prefer simple, plain things.’

‘Daywear and evening things? Will you be entertaining? What kind of social life—?’

‘Oh, no—nothing like that,’ Annie interrupted her quickly. ‘No. I’ll be spending all my time with my son. Just very plain day things.’ It was hard to sound as firm as she would have liked to with Lissa encircling various bits of her body with the tape measure.

‘Just as I thought,’ the other woman declared triumphantly once she had finished. ‘You are an eight. Now, if you’d like to help yourself to a cup of coffee—’ she gestured towards the coffee machine on the table ‘—and then get undressed and put on a robe, I shall go and collect some clothes. I shan’t be long.’

She wasn’t, soon returning accompanied by two other girls and a rail packed with clothes.

Two hours later Annie felt like a small and very irritating child. Even worse, she was humiliatingly close to tears. Lissa was very much out of patience with her, she could tell.

She was back in her below-the-knee A-line denim skirt, under which her cheap tights shone in the overhead lights. The skirt was worn with a short-sleeved cotton blouse that she had bought in the latter stages of her pregnancy, which covered her from neck to hip. She felt hot and uncomfortable, and she was longing to escape from the store and from Lissa’s obvious irritation.

‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised miserably, for what felt like the umpteenth time, ‘but I just couldn’t wear any of them.’

She had, she recognised, lost Lissa’s attention—and the reason for that was because Falcon had just walked into the room.

‘All done?’ he asked, quite plainly expecting that it would be.

Annie had to say something.

‘Well, not really...’ she began—only to have Falcon frown.

‘Why not?’ he demanded.

‘It seems that everything is “too revealing”,’ Lissa answered smartly for her, very plainly wanting to voice her sense of irritation and injustice.

Annie couldn’t blame her. The clothes Lissa had shown her were beautiful—sundresses in perfect colours for her skin, with tiny straps and softly flowing skirts, well-cut narrow-legged Capri pants in white and black and zingy lime, and a shade of blue that almost matched her eyes, strappy tops, sleeveless V-necked dresses... Clothes meant to allow as much sun as possible to touch the skin. Clothes that would catch the male eye. Clothes that women wore when they wanted to attract male attention. In amongst them had been swimsuits and bikinis, wraps, sandals with no heels and high heels, underwear in cotton so fine that it was transparent—everything that any woman could reasonably need for a long sojourn in a hot climate. But Annie had rejected it all. Even the heavenly white sundress with embroidered flowers that had—ridiculously, given its sophistication—reminded her of a dress she had had when she’d been about six years old.

‘Too revealing?’ Falcon looked at the rack of clothes that the salesgirl was now gesturing to with her hand. He was Italian, and an architect by training and desire. Good lines were important to him, and he couldn’t see anything in the clothes he was being shown that in any kind of way merited the description ‘too revealing’.

He turned from the clothes to Annie, his eyebrows snapping together as he studied her appearance in the over-large dull top and the denim skirt, his frown deepening in disbelief as he realised that she was wearing thick-looking tights.

‘The temperature can rise above forty degrees centigrade in Sicily in the summer. You will need clothes that are cool and loose. It will be impossible for you to continue wearing the kind of clothes you are wearing now.’ He turned to the salesgirl and told her firmly, ‘We will take everything.’

Everything?
All of it? He couldn’t mean it. But quite patently he did.

Was this how things were going to be from now on? Was he going to continually tell her what she could and could not do? Automatically she stiffened in rejection of allowing that to happen. Perhaps she had acted too impulsively and in doing so had jumped from the frying pan into the fire? Perhaps...?

‘We need go get moving. My brother has arranged for one of his fleet of jets to fly us out to Sicily in four hours’ time, so I suggest that we now return to your flat. I have spoken with the council, by the way, and cancelled your tenancy.’

‘Cancelled it? But what if I change my mind and I want to bring Ollie back?’

‘Back to what? Your stepbrother rang my office this morning, and left a message for me asking if I had managed to trace you as yet.’

Had he told her that deliberately, to put her off insisting that she might want to come back? Was he trying to manipulate her? Had she made a terrible mistake?

How her mood now contrasted with and mocked the gratitude she had felt towards him last night. Why was she such a fool? Her mother had often said that Annie was a bad judge of character. Those had been her words to Annie as she had shaken her head over a boy from university who had asked her out, and over Rachel, a schoolfriend her mother had said was a bad influence on her. And clearly she had misjudged the extent of Antonio’s malice towards her, and what it would lead him to do.

She had made more than enough mistakes, enough bad judgements, and had paid the price for doing so. She wasn’t going to let Falcon Leopardi browbeat her into making yet another mistake.

She lifted her chin and challenged him. ‘What will you tell him?’

‘Nothing. He is your stepbrother, and so it is up to you to decide what you do and do not want him to know.’

His answer took the wind out of her sails, completely deflating the hard bubble of anger inside her and leaving her feeling foolish.

‘I’ll have you dropped off at your flat, so that you can pack everything that you want. Don’t bother about packing any baby stuff. I’ve phoned Rocco and asked his wife to order everything you’re likely to need to be ready for you. You’ll need your passport, of course. I don’t expect you have one for Oliver, so I’ve arranged for the British passport office to get one rushed through. They’ll need a photograph, needless to say, so we’ll get that done now, and we can go before I drop you off.’

* * *

Falcon had thought of everything, Annie admitted tiredly later, when the chauffeur-driven Mercedes limousine came to a halt on the runway, only a matter of yards from where a sleek jet was waiting for them.

The last time Annie had flown anywhere had been when she had gone to Cannes with Susie and Tom, in her capacity as Tom’s researcher. He had been attending the showing of a film based on one of his books, as well as using the trip to source some background information on his new book, set against the backdrop of the jet set. That was why she had been on Nikki Beach—because Tom had felt that she could get a better insight into a woman’s perspective of the scene there than him. She had tried to protest that she wasn’t that kind of researcher, and that she preferred working amongst the books of the British Library, but Tom had refused to listen.

He had been devastated after what had happened to her, blaming himself until she had begged him not to do so. Both he and Susie felt that it was for the best that she couldn’t remember anything of what had happened after she had swallowed her drugged drink until she had started to come round, when Susie had found her, but Colin didn’t share that view. He had pressed her over and over again, insisting that she
must
remember something.

* * *

He had never known anyone whose eyes were so extraordinarily expressive when she didn’t realise she was being watched, Falcon acknowledged. He could see quite clearly the pain and fear darkening them, and he wondered who or what had caused them.

‘Let me take Oliver for you,’ he offered, reaching for the now awake baby as the chauffer opened the car door.

Immediately Annie recoiled, holding her baby tightly.

‘I can manage, thank you,’ she said, stiff and uncompromising.

She was very protective of her child, Falcon admitted, and told her dryly, ‘I
am
his uncle.’

‘And I am his mother,’ Annie pointed out, quickly and defensively.

‘You will find that in Italian families it is expected that babies are passed around amongst the relatives, so that everyone in the family can share in the joy of having them there,’ Falcon informed her calmly.

* * *

Stupidly, his words made her eyes sting with emotional tears. There was nothing she wanted more for Ollie than a large and loving family who would take him to their hearts and accept him and love him. And her with him?

The chauffeur helped her out of the car, and a uniformed steward came forward from the plane to greet them, followed by the pilot. Neither of them seemed curious about her. Too well trained, Annie decided. They were probably used to Falcon Leopardi boarding private jets with a woman in tow. But not a woman like her, Annie thought, uncomfortably aware of her shortcomings. Falcon’s women would be soignée and confident. They would wear designer clothes that showed off the sensuality of their bodies. They would definitely not be dressed as she was, nor holding his disliked late half-brother’s child.

What was she doing, comparing herself to them? The type of woman Falcon dated and Annie Johnson were worlds apart—so very many worlds apart. Suddenly out of nowhere she felt a sharp stab of almost physical pain for all that she had lost, all that was denied to her. It was so intense that it almost made her cry out loud.
Was
there a woman in his life? A special woman? A woman who he planned would ultimately bear his children? The pain intensified, seizing her in its claws and mauling her so badly that she almost cried out.

What was the matter with her? She had everything she wanted. The sexuality and happiness of some unknown woman meant nothing to her. Her life was what it was. It was for Ollie’s sake and not her own that she had even felt what she had, she defended herself. Because he would never know what it was to be the child of two people who had created him out of their love for one another, who were there with him to show him that love. She knew what it was like to grow up without a father, and she hated knowing that Ollie would suffer that same loss.

‘Let me take him now.’ Falcon reached for Ollie, taking from her before she could stop him, and leaving her no option other than to allow the steward to guide her up the steps and into the plane.

She tried not to be impressed, but it wasn’t easy. She had never imagined that the interior of a plane could be like this—furnished more like a sitting room than the kind of aircraft interior with which she was familiar.

Falcon had followed her into the plane, and was pointing out to her the sky cot that had been prepared for Ollie. The baby was wide-awake now, and gazing round in wide-eyed delight.