The Rinucci Brothers: Wife and Mother Forever / Her Italian Boss's Agenda / The Wedding Arrangement

Chapter Seven

JUSTIN stared at her. ‘Did I hear that properly?’

‘I think you did. What were you expecting? Gratitude? Well, maybe I’d be grateful if I didn’t know the real reason behind this.’

His voice was hard. ‘And you think the reason is what?’

‘Control. Acquisition. I’m useful to you, because of Mark, and when something’s useful you have to make sure it can’t escape, right? So you buy it.’

He went pale. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m trying to buy you?’

‘What else? The perfect takeover bid, mounted under perfect conditions—the important one being secrecy so that the object of acquisition doesn’t even know about it until it’s too late.’

‘Object of acquisition!’ For pity’s sake, listen to yourself! You’re talking nonsense.’

‘I don’t think so. You’ve done a perfect job, behind my back, only I wasn’t supposed to see the strings being pulled.’

‘I tried to give you something,’ he shouted. ‘Something I thought you wanted. You’ve told me how much you love this place.’

‘I was talking generally, not angling for a handout.’

‘Yesterday you were crying about it.’

‘Don’t remind me about yesterday,’ she said dangerously.

The way he’d kissed her as an assertion of power rankled with her still, and drove her to lash him cruelly. She would think about it later. For now she only knew that the moment she had seen him her heart had felt a disturbance that was mysteriously linked to anger.

‘The place is yours now,’ he snapped. ‘Do what you damned well like with it.’

‘I can’t. This isn’t right. It mustn’t happen.’

‘You can’t stop it. The sale’s gone through.’

‘I don’t see how you can have done it in one day. All that money takes time.’

His shrug was a complete answer. What was a huge amount to her was a pittance to him. He’d probably handed over cash.

‘I can’t accept the cottage as a gift,’ she said. ‘Nor can I take the extra money. As soon as it’s paid to the executor, and he’s cleared the debts, I’ll tell him to return you the balance.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he shouted. ‘Where’s your common sense?’

‘Obviously I don’t have any. But I do have some self-respect, enough not to take charity from you.’

She heard his sharp intake of breath, and the look on his face was very ugly. She held out the papers and he snatched them.

‘Go to hell,’ he said with soft venom. ‘Go there and stay there.’

Both tense with anger, neither noticed a figure looking down at them from the stairs, or heard the soft noise as he scuttled back to bed.

For a moment it seemed that Justin expected her to yield. When she didn’t he simply walked out of the room, and a moment later she heard his car starting up. She sank down on the stairs, trembling violently.

She wondered what had come over her to have rejected his gift. To keep the cottage had been her heart’s desire, and now it was hers, if she would only bend her pride a little.

But no power on earth could make her bend it for this man. His curt, businesslike tone as he’d outlined his methods, the way he’d crushed all opposition, the easy way he tossed money around, told her all she needed to know about his motives.

And it was all the worse because a corner of her heart had started to warm to him. If he’d done this in friendship she might have been tempted to accept. But Justin Dane didn’t ‘do’ friendship.

She went back to her room and lay down, not expecting to sleep. But the fight had left her drained, and she dozed uneasily. When she awoke the sun was high, but Justin’s car had not returned.

Looking out, she saw Mark sitting far out on the rocks. She dressed and hared out after him, ready with the words of reproach for slipping away alone. But they died on her lips when he raised his eyes and she saw the unhappiness in his face. Just like at the start, she remembered.

‘Hallo,’ she said, speaking cheerfully. ‘You’re out early. Anything interesting in the pool?’

‘Some crabs. Nothing much. I just wanted to think a bit.’

‘Well, it’s a good place for it. Did you come up with anything?’

He shook his head. ‘Thinking doesn’t really help,’ he said wistfully. ‘It doesn’t change anything.’

He was too young to believe that, she thought. Unable to find any words of wisdom she said, ‘It’s easier to think on a full stomach. Breakfast?’

He nodded. ‘Then can we come back?’

‘Yes, we’ll spend the day here.’

She waited for him to ask if his father had returned, but he said nothing.

After breakfast they went back to the beach and explored the rock pools until Mark said, ‘Here’s Dad.’

Justin was coming across the sand towards them. He smiled at Mark, and then in Evie’s general direction.

Mark greeted his father kindly but without eagerness. Nor did he ask about the surprise Justin had promised. She recalled his sadness of that morning and guessed that it was still there, suppressed beneath a polite smile.

It was like that for the rest of the day. On the surface all was calm. But beneath were tensions, only just held in check. In the evening Justin insisted on taking them out to a restaurant.

It was an expensive place and they all dressed up for it. She wondered why he’d done this until she realised that, in the fuss of waiters and choices to be made, the awkwardness between them was less noticeable.

He offered her wine, but refused it himself, explaining that he never touched alcohol.

Of course, she thought. Staying teetotal is a way of keeping control.

But then she castigated herself for dwelling so much on thoughts of him and his motives. There and then she made a resolution to put him out of her mind.

But that was hard when other people seemed so aware of him. At a nearby table sat two young women, both of whom seemed much taken with Justin. They regarded him with lustful appreciation, tried to catch his eye, smiled if his head turned briefly.

They were beauties that any man would be proud to have on his arm, and they were Justin’s, if he wanted them, which he didn’t seem to. She had to give him full marks for courtesy, for he gave her and Mark his whole attention.

She was forced to see him through their eyes as a vitally attractive man, with a presence and charisma that went beyond mere good looks, and she began to remember things she would rather forget: days on the beach with him stretched out beside her, half naked or fooling in the surf. From there it was a short step to being held against his bare chest as he kissed her fiercely, repeatedly.

It was useless to say that she hadn’t wanted that kiss. Some part of her had wanted it, although she would go to the stake before letting him suspect.

Then came other thoughts—the way she’d awoken on the sofa to find him kneeling beside her, asking gently about her sadness. His unexpected kindness had touched her heart, making her vulnerable to him. But then he’d tried to turn it to his own advantage…

‘Are you all right?’ Mark asked her.

‘I’m fine.’

‘I thought you looked a little sad.’

‘Not me,’ she said untruthfully.

It was late when they reached home and Mark’s eyelids were drooping. When Evie suggested that he go to bed he agreed without protest. Justin bade his son goodnight and immediately opened his computer.

‘I think I’ll go to bed, too,’ she said.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Goodnight.’

She regarded the back of his head with exasperation.

‘Goodnight,’ she said, and went upstairs.

She tucked Mark in and sat down on the bed. ‘You didn’t enjoy today, did you?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘It was like it used to be.’

‘Used to be? When?’

‘Just before Mum left. She and Dad—they were polite but it was horrible.’

Evie groaned. Why hadn’t she thought?

‘I’m sorry, Mark. We were just both in a bad mood. It didn’t mean anything. Don’t worry. Go to sleep, and everything will be all right in the morning.’

But when she’d gone to bed and switched out her light she wondered if she’d spoken truly. How could everything be all right after this?

She lay for a while, trying to get to sleep, but actually listening for the sound of Justin climbing the stairs. Instead she heard something from the next room that made her sit up in bed. There it was again—a wail from Mark’s room.

She was out on the landing in a moment, pushing open his door to find the child sitting up, his eyes closed, tears pouring down his face.

‘Mark,’ she said urgently, taking him into her arms. ‘What is it, darling?’

‘Mum,’ he wailed, ‘Mum!’

She tightened her arms, feeling the frail body shaking with misery against her. He’d given up on words now and simply lay against her, crying uncontrollably. At last she felt his hands grasping her arms tightly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he hiccuped.

‘There’s nothing to be sorry about. But please, tell me what’s the matter. Did you have a bad dream?’

‘No, it was a lovely dream.’

‘Was it about your mother?’

‘Um!’ He nodded against her shoulder.

‘You miss her all the time, don’t you?’ she whispered.

‘It’s worse at night, because then I dream she’s alive. She comes home to me and says it was all a mistake and she didn’t mean to go without me. Then we run away together. Or sometimes she stays home with me. It was a mistake, you see. She didn’t really leave me because she wouldn’t do that.’

His voice rose on the last few words and he buried his face against her, shaking with sobs.

‘No, darling, she wouldn’t,’ Evie murmured, racked for him.

Gradually he grew quieter. She continued to sit there, holding and soothing him, but actually alert, because her sharp ears had detected a faint sound from just outside the door.

‘She would have come for me,’ Mark said, ‘if she hadn’t died.’

‘Of course she would. And I know she never stopped thinking of you, all the time.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really.’

‘Then why didn’t she come home? Do you think Dad stopped her?’

‘No,’ she said swiftly. ‘I know he wouldn’t do that.’

‘You don’t really know.’

‘Yes, I do. He’d never do anything to hurt you. Mark, you must believe me.’

‘But he wouldn’t bring her home when she died.’

‘That’s different. When she was alive—’

She paused. She had no right to repeat to Mark what Justin had told her. After a moment she realised that she had no need to say any more. The child had fallen asleep against her shoulder.

Gently she laid him down on the bed and drew the covers up. Then she kissed his cheek before slipping quietly out of the room and closing the door.

It was dark in the corridor, but the sliver of moonlight from the window was just enough to show her Justin standing there, leaning against the wall, his head back, motionless.

‘Waiting at the window every week,’ he whispered.

‘Justin—’

‘Standing there for hours because today would be different—today she’d really come.’

Of course he’d heard his son’s words, and his heart had understood. If only he could talk directly to Mark like this. She could see the tears on his cheeks. He didn’t try to brush them away. Perhaps he didn’t know about them.

She reached out and held him, enfolding him in the same gesture she had used to comfort his son, and at once she felt his arms go around her, clinging on to her as if he were seeking refuge.

‘But she never came—’ he murmured.

‘Justin!’ She took hold of him, giving him a little shake.

He looked at her despairingly. ‘I was sure she’d come, but she never did.’

‘You?’ she echoed, wondering if she’d heard him clearly.

‘She promised,’ he said huskily. ‘I knew she wouldn’t break her promise—but I never saw her again.’

Only then did she understand that Justin wasn’t empathising with his son’s loss. He was talking about a loss of his own.

It was as though a pit had opened beneath her, and from its depths came an aching misery that left her shattered. It clawed at her, howling of endless despair, grief too great to endure. The man in her arms was shuddering with that grief and she held him more tightly, helplessly trying to comfort something she did not understand.

They mustn’t stay here, she thought. Mark might hear them and come out. Gently she urged him across the landing to her own room. He could barely walk.

Inside, she closed the door without switching on the light. He almost fell on to the bed, taking her with him, for his hands were holding on to her like grim death.

Once before he’d held her in an unbreakable grip, but this was different. Instead of arrogance, she felt only his need and desperation and everything in her went forward to meet it, embrace and console it.

‘It’s all right,’ she murmured, just as she had done with the child. ‘I’m here. Hold on to me.’

He kept his eyes fixed on her. He was still trembling like a man caught in a nightmare from which there was no escape.

‘Justin, what’s the matter? It’s not just about Mark’s mother, is it?’

‘No,’ he said hoarsely.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘I can’t—so many things—there’s no help for it now.’

‘There’s help for everything, if you’ve got someone who really wants to help you,’ she said. ‘But how can I, if I don’t understand?’

‘How can you understand, when I don’t understand it myself?’ he whispered. ‘I want to ask why—I’ve always wanted that—but there’s nobody to ask.’

She couldn’t bear his agony. Without thinking about it, she leaned down and laid her lips tenderly over his.

‘It’s going to be all right,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to make it all right.’

She had no idea what she meant, or what she could do to help him. But the details didn’t matter. What mattered was easing his pain in any way she could. So she kissed him again and again until she felt him begin to relax in her arms.

It was unlike the other kiss in every way but one, and that was the slow burning inside her. But whereas that first excitement had been entwined with anger, this one was a part of pity and sorrow. She wanted him to find oblivion in her, lose himself in her completely, if that could give him a respite from suffering.

So she offered herself to him without reservation, waiting for the moment when his own desire rose and he reached out, taking over the kiss, turning her so that he was above her on the bed.

He checked himself for a moment, as though the earlier memory had come back to him. Seeing his doubt, she began to unbutton his shirt while her smile told him enough to ease the dread in his face. Then he was opening her pyjama top and laying his face against her warm skin.

He stayed like that for so long that she wondered if this was all he wanted, but then she felt his hands move on her with increasing urgency and she knew that they both wanted the same thing. And they wanted it now.

They made love quickly, as if trying to discover something they badly needed to know. And when they’d found the answer they made love again, but slowly this time, relishing the newly discovered treasure.

Afterwards there was peace, clinging to each other for safety in this new world, while the moonlight limned their nakedness.

She kissed him. ‘Can you talk about it now?’ she whispered.

‘I’m not sure. I’ve never tried before.’

‘Maybe that’s the trouble. Talk to me, Justin, for both our sakes.’

‘I don’t know where to begin.’

‘Start with your mother.’

‘Which one?’

The answer startled her. She rose up on one elbow and looked down on him. After a moment he started to speak, hesitantly.

‘For the first seven years of my life, I was like any other child. I had a home, two parents who loved me, or seemed to. Then the woman I thought of as my mother became pregnant.

‘Almost overnight she lost interest in me. I found out why almost by chance. I overheard her talking to her sister, saying, ‘It’ll be wonderful to have a child of my own’. That was how I learned that she wasn’t really my mother.’

‘Dear God!’ Evie said softly. ‘Did you tell her what you’d heard?’

‘No, I kept it to myself for months, pretending it wasn’t true. But the pretence wore thin, especially when the baby was born, a boy.

‘I was jealous. I started to have tantrums. So they called social services and said that I was “out of control” and I must go into care. After that I couldn’t pretend any longer. I’d been adopted as second best, because they thought they couldn’t have children. Now they didn’t need me.’

She stared at him, too shocked to speak.

‘I don’t remember much about that day,’ he said. ‘I know I screamed at my parents not to send me away. I begged and pleaded but it was no use. They didn’t want me.’

‘Wait, stop,’ she begged, covering her eyes as though, by this means, she could blot out the terrible story. ‘I can’t take this in. Surely they must have had some love for you?’

‘You don’t understand. I was a substitute. If they’d never had one of their own I suppose they’d have made do with me, but now I was surplus to requirements. It took me years to see that, of course. All I knew at the time was that it was my own fault for being wicked.’

‘How could anyone be so cruel as to put that burden on a child?’ she burst out furiously. ‘It’s unspeakable. I suppose that’s what they wanted to believe so that they didn’t have to feel guilty about what they were really doing.’

‘Yes, I worked that out in the end, too. But at the time I believed what I was told.’

‘Where did they take you?’

‘To what is laughingly known as a “home”, which means an institution. At first I thought my mother would come and visit me. I used to stand at the window, watching the entrance. I knew she’d come. But weeks went by and there was no sign of them. Even then I didn’t face it, not until one of the other boys jeered, “You’re wasting yer time. Yer Mum dumped yer”.

‘Of course, then I knew, because in my heart I’d always known. The only way I could cope was to fight him. He was bigger than me, but I won because I hated him, not only because of what he’d said, but because his mother was taking him home the next day.

‘The home wasn’t a bad place. They meant well and they did their best. There was no affection because the staff turnover was so high, but I couldn’t have dealt with that anyway. I’d learned enough not to want to get close to people, so I don’t know what I’d have done if anyone had tried to get close to me. Something violent, probably.’

She shook her head in instinctive denial. At one time she might have mistaken him for a violent man, but now she sensed differently.

‘I left when I was sixteen,’ he resumed, ‘and on the last day—’

He stopped, and a shudder went through him.

‘What happened?’ she asked softly.

He didn’t answer at first. Then he said, ‘Give me a minute.’

He rose and walked to the window. She stared at his broad back, wondering how she could ever have thought his size and strength alarming. All she could see now was that he was racked with misery. She went to stand beside him, turning him towards her, and had to fight back tears at what she saw.

He was actually shaking. Something was devastating him, and for a moment she thought he would be unable to speak of it.

At last he said, ‘When I left they had to tell me the whole truth about myself. That was when I learned that my birth mother had given me away almost as soon as I was born.’

Evie stared at him, slowly shaking her head in speechless horror.

His laugh was harsh and bitter.

‘You’ll hardly believe this, but I was left on the orphanage doorstep like some Victorian foundling. If your mother does that, she can’t be traced, you see. She’s got rid of you completely.

‘That was all they knew. I turned up one evening out of the blue. Apparently a doctor said I was about a week old. They did some research into the babies that had been born recently in that area, but none of them was me.’

‘You mean your birth wasn’t even registered?’

‘Not by my mother. The orphanage registered me, of course.’

‘It’s awful,’ she whispered. ‘All this time, not knowing who you really are.’

‘But I do know who I am,’ he said with bitter irony. ‘I’m the son two mothers didn’t want. What could be clearer than that?’

‘I used to wonder why you were so angry and suspicious all the time,’ she said. ‘Now I wonder how you’ve managed to keep your head together.’

‘I’m not sure I have. For a long time I was crazy. I didn’t behave well, either in the home or after I’d left it. I drank too much, brawled, got into trouble with the police, served some time in jail. That brought me back into contact with my adoptive parents.’

‘They came to help you?’ she asked, longing for some redeeming moment in this dreadful story.

‘No, they sent a lawyer to say they’d get me a good defence on condition that I stopped using their name. They had an unusual name, Strassne, and since I still bore it people were beginning to associate this young low-life with them.’

‘So that was when you became Justin Dane?’ she asked. She would have liked to say something more violent, but was controlling herself with a huge effort.

‘No, I became John Davis. My one-time “parents” insisted on doing it by deed poll, so that it was official and they’d never have to acknowledge me again. Then they paid for a very expensive defence, and John Davis was acquitted. They didn’t even attend the trial.’

‘So what happened to John Davis?’

‘He didn’t survive the day. I changed my name to Leo Holman. Not by deed poll. I just took off and gave my name as Leo wherever I went.’

‘Don’t you need some paperwork to get things like passports and bank accounts?’

‘Yes, and if I’d needed those things it would have been a problem, but I wasn’t living in a world of passports and bank accounts. I worked as a handyman, strictly for cash, got into trouble again, went inside—never long sentences, just a couple of months, but every time I came out I changed my name again. I lost track of how often. What did it matter to me? I no longer had a real identity, so it didn’t matter how often I changed it.

‘The last time I was in prison I met a man who put me straight. His name was Bill. He was a prison visitor, but he’d done time himself so he knew what he was talking about. He saw something in me that could be put back on track, and he set himself to do it.