Mistresses: His Unexpected Heir

CHAPTER FIVE

TRUE to his word, Faith did not see Tino again while Agata and Rocco were in Naples. There were no more phone calls, either.

She didn’t expect there to be.

Tino wasn’t going to accept the change in their relationship gracefully. If he accepted it at all. She had to believe he would though.

Especially after allowing him to make love to her that night. Not that she’d had a lot of choice. Once he set his course on seduction, she was a goner. She loved him. Needed him. While that truth scared her to death, she didn’t try to deny it. Self-deception was not something she indulged in. She’d accepted the physical intimacy because it substituted for the emotional connection she craved after learning she carried his baby. And sometimes, when he made love to her, she actually felt loved by him—if only for that short while.

It was that simple. And that complicated.

But maybe it was on the way to something better… something truly more.

He had initiated the shift in their relationship in the first place. Initially, sleeping all night with her in his apartment in Marsala, and then making love to her in his family home. That reality mitigated her fears for their future, although it did not completely rid her of them.

He might not want to admit it, but he was already thinking about her in broader terms than simply his “current convenient partner.” They’d been exclusive from the very beginning—something they had both insisted on. Add that to how well she fit with his family and their friendship and they had a strong basis for a lasting relationship. The fact that she loved him would only make it easier to raise a family with him.

Even if he never came to love her as he’d loved Maura, it would be enough to be his wife and mother of his children. She had never expected to have this much claim to family again. She certainly did not expect it all.

Not after everything she had lost.

Besides, she’d never loved Taylish like she loved Tino, but he’d been happy in their marriage. Content to have her loving commitment if not her passion.

There were times she knew he had wanted more, but he’d never regretted their marriage. Only leaving it in death. He’d told her so, just before breathing his last.

But she didn’t want to remember that day. It belonged in her past—along with the two families she’d lost. The only real families she’d ever had. Until now.

Her current hopes and dreams were reflected in the series of joy-filled family centric sculptures she did over the next week.

Agata called her when the older couple returned from the continent. Faith did not tell her about having dinner with Tino and Giosue, leaving that bit of information for them to reveal. She also avoided having Agata come to her studio the following week. She did not want Tino’s mother to see the revealing pieces of art before Faith had a chance to tell him of his impending fatherhood.

Every day that went by and she did not hear from him, she missed him more. She wanted to share the miracle of her pregnancy with him, but it was important to give him space. He had to come to terms on his own with the new parameters of their relationship.

However, when the silence between them stretched a week beyond his parents’ return, she called him. Only to discover he’d had to fly to New York to meet with his brother and a potential client. She tried his cell phone, but the call went straight to voice mail. After that had happened a couple of times, once very late in the evening, she figured out he was avoiding her with diligence.

It bothered her, feeling a lot like rejection. She clung to the knowledge that if he wanted to break it off with her, he would do so definitively. He would not simply begin avoiding her like an adolescent. No, he was just struggling with the changes between them more than she’d anticipated.

It made her nervous about how he might react to the news of her pregnancy. Thankfully, he was as Sicilian as a man could get. Some might think that meant unreconstructed male, but she knew that for Tino that translated into an all-out love for family and children especially. He might not be thrilled about her new role in his life, but he would be happy about the baby. Being the traditional Sicilian that he was, it would never occur to him to seek a relationship with the child that excluded her.

Thank goodness.

His desire to marry a Sicilian woman if he ever did remarry worried her a little, but he would just have to buck up and deal with it like a grown-up. It wasn’t as if he objected to her personally. He liked her as much outside the bedroom as in it. She was sure of it. Even at his apartment they did not spend all their time in bed together.

And when they were in bed, they didn’t only have sex. They talked. Not about anything personal, but about politics, faith, what they thought of the latest news, his business—the types of things you didn’t talk about with a bare acquaintance.

He might know much about her art career, but he knew her stance on environmentalism, government deficits, latch-key children and his desire to dominate his own corner of the upscale wine market.

Right now, though, he had to adjust to the fact that she was a part of his family’s life and a bigger part of his than he had intended when they first got together.

In the meantime, she agreed to join Agata for lunch at the Vineyard.

A day earlier than he had told his family to expect him, Valentino pulled his car into his spot in the newer multicar garage he’d had built to the side of the house when he married Maura. So she could keep her car parked inside for her comfort. She’d teased him about spoiling her, but it had been so easy to do. His dead wife had been a very sweet woman.

Much like Faith.

He sighed at the thought, frustrated with himself.

The trip to New York had been longer than he wanted or expected, though it had one side benefit. It had made it easier to distance himself from Faith. Though forwarding her calls directly to voice mail had taken a larger measure of self-control than he would have expected. Much larger.

Which only went to show that he had to become serious about getting their relationship back on track.

Or he would have to let her go, and that was not something he wanted to do.

The craving he felt to hear her voice filled him with anger at himself along with a sense of helplessness he refused to give in to. He had been fighting the urge to sleep all night with her since the beginning. Never before had he been tempted not to be home in the morning for his son to wake up to because of a woman. He’d known giving in would come with a cost, but he had not expected it to be his sanity.

It had felt right taking her to his bed in the family home. Too right. Now he questioned his intelligence in doing so. For that insanely stupid choice had come at an emotional cost, as well, one he had no right to pay.

If he were a truly honorable man, he would let her go completely. He’d told himself so over and over again while in New York. What did it say for his inner strength that he could not do it?

Certainly it was nothing to be proud of.

Physically distancing himself from her was not the same as regrouped emotions, he had learned. His need to see her grew with each day even as he fought it. He might have won, but he hungered for not only the sound of her voice, but the shiver of her laughter and the feel of her skin. He was like a drug addict shaking for his next fix.

It would be a couple of days at least before he could go to her, too. Agonizing days if those in New York were anything to go by. But Gio had missed his papa and had to be Valentino’s first consideration.

Of course, if he left when his son was sleeping, Gio would be missing nothing.

The thought derailed from its already shaky tracks as he recognized the melodious laughter mingled with his mother’s voice coming from the terrace. He stood frozen, uncharacteristically unsure of what to do. No doubts about what he wanted to do. He wanted to see Faith. But what should he do?

His decision was taken from him by his mother’s voice. “Valentino, figlio mio, is that you?”

“Si, Mama. It is me.”

“Come out here.”

He had no choice but to obey. He might be thirty years old, but a Sicilian man knew better than to dismiss a direct command from his mother. It would hurt her and cause her distress. Hurting those he loved was something he avoided at all costs. Even when it was his peace of mind at stake, like now.

Walking out onto the terrace, he found not only his mother and Faith, but his father and Giosue as well.

His son jumped up from where he’d been dangling his feet in the water beside Faith and came running full tilt at Valentino. “Papa, Papa…you are home!”

“Si, I am home and glad to be here.” He swung his son high into his arms and hugged the wiggling, eight-year-old body to his.

“I missed you, Papa. Zio Calogero should not call you to New York.”

“Sometimes it is necessary, cucciola. You know this.”

His son ducked his head. “Papa! Do not call me that. It is a name for little boys, but I am big. I am eight!”

“Ah, but a man’s son is always his little one,” Rocco Grisafi said as he came and hugged both Valentino and Giosue. “Welcome home, piccolo,” his father said, emphasizing his point with a humorous glint in eyes the same color as Valentino’s.

It had been decades since his father had last called him that and Valentino laughed.

Giosue giggled. “Papa is bigger than you Nonno, how can he be your little one?”

Valentino’s father, who was in fact a head shorter than he, winked at his grandson. “It is not about size, it is about age, and I will always be older, no?”

“That’s right,” Valentino agreed. “And I will always be older than you,” he said as he tickled his swimsuit-clad son.

Giosue screeched with laughter and squirmed down, running to the pool and jumping in, his head immediately coming up out of the water. “You can’t get me now, Papa.”

“You think I cannot?”

“I know it. Nonna would be mad if you got your business clothes wet.”

That made everyone laugh, including Faith, drawing Valentino’s attention like a bee to a rose. Damn, damn, damn. She was beautiful, wearing a bright green top and matching pair of Capri pants she had rolled up above her knees so she could dangle her feet in the water of the pool. Her gorgeous red hair fell loose around her shoulders and her sandals were nowhere to be seen.

Even his mother’s hug and greeting got only a portion of his attention as the rest of him strained toward the woman he wanted to take into his arms and kiss the daylights out of.

“So, I hear from my grandson that you and my dear friend are well acquainted already,” his mother said, finally garnering his whole focus.

Well versed in how his mother’s mind worked, he immediately went hyperalert to any nuance and ultracautious in his own reactions. She was on a kick to get him married and fathering more grandbabies for her. His argument that it was time for Calogero to do his duty by the family was met with deaf ears.

His mother wanted more grandchildren from Valentino. Full stop. Period.

And now she’d discovered he was friends with Faith.

He had to be very careful here. If his mother even got a hint of the intimate nature of his relationship with Faith, Agata Grisafi would have her oldest son married off before he could get a word in edgewise. “We’d met before, yes.”

“You’d met? I am sure your son said you were friends,” his mother chided with a gleam in her eyes, confirming Valentino’s worst fears.

He simply shrugged, confirming nothing. Denying nothing. Sometimes that was the only way to deal with his mother and her machinations. Deflection wasn’t a bad tactic, either, when he could get away with it.

He’d long ago acknowledged he never wanted to face his mother across a boardroom table. She made his toughest clients and strongest competition look like amateurs.

“More interesting to me is your friendship with her,” he said. “You rarely mention Faith.”

“You are joking me, my son. I talk about my dear friend TK all of the time.”

“Yes, but what has that to do with Faith?”

His mother’s eyes widened and she flicked a glance to the woman in question. Faith was not looking at them, but her shoulders were stiff with unmistakable tension. This grilling had to be causing her stress as well.

“You are not good friends, are you?” his mother asked, in a tone that said she no longer had any doubts about the superficial nature of their relationship.

Relieved, but unsure what had convinced her, he simply said, “We know each other.”

“Not very well.”

He shrugged again, but had a strong urge to deny what felt like an accusation. Though the words had been spoken in his mother’s normal voice, his own emotions convicted him.

Mama shrugged, looking smug, her expression that of a woman who knew what he did not. “Faith Williams is TK.”

“Your artist friend?” he asked in genuine shock. “I thought he was a man!”

“No, she is very much a female, as you can see.” The laughter lacing his mother’s voice did not faze him.

The memory of Faith saying maybe the woman in the statue on his dresser was letting go did. She was the artist of that particular piece of art. When she’d made the comment, she could have been hinting, but more likely she was exposing the true inspiration behind the figure.

Which meant what? That she had a son? “You did not tell me you had a child,” he said to her.

She stood up and faced him. “If you will recall, the father is holding the child,” she said, proving once again that their thoughts traveled similar paths.

“What is that supposed to signify?”

“Figure it out for yourself, Tino. Or better yet, ask your mother. Agata understands far more than you do and knows me much better.”

He couldn’t believe she was being so argumentative in front of his family. His mother was bound to realize there was more between them than a casual friendship if Faith kept this up. Hell, if he had to explain what they were talking about, things would get dicey. The statue was in his bedroom, after all. How could he explain Faith—his not so good friend—seeing it?

“It’s not important,” he said, in an attempt to put sand on the fire of his mother’s curiosity.

“No, I don’t suppose it is.” Faith turned to his mother and gave her a strained smile. “It’s time for me to be going.”

“But I thought you would stay for dinner.”

“Yes, do not let my arrival change your plans.” He wanted to see Faith, even if it meant being judicious under the watchful eye of his family.

He knew it was not the smartest attitude to take. He was supposed to be cooling down their relationship, but seeing her brought into sharp relief just how hard that had been over the past weeks. How much he had missed her.

“I feel the need to create.” She hugged his mother. “You know how it is for me when I have a fit of inspiration. You are not offended, are you?”

“Will you let me see the results of this inspiration?” Agata asked. “I am still waiting to see the pieces you made while Rocco and I were in Naples.”

Faith’s hand dropped to her stomach, like she was nervous. “I’ll let you see them all eventually. You know that.”

“You promise? I know how you artists are. Especially you. If you think a piece is not up to standards, you will pound it back into clay.”

That strained smile crossed Faith’s beautiful features again. “I can’t promise to keep something I hate, but you should be used to that by now.”

His mother gave a long-suffering sigh, but she hugged Faith warmly. “I am. You cannot blame me for trying, though. You have spoiled me, allowing me access to your work before you do others.”

Faith’s laugh was even more strained than her smile. “You are my friend.” Even though he was wet from the pool, she hugged Giosue goodbye, as well. “I will see you next week in school.”

Her leave-taking of his father was the usual kisses on both cheeks. But she simply nodded at Tino before turning to go. Though it fit in with the facade of casual friendship he had tried to create, he felt the slight like a blow to his midsection.

He understood being careful in front of his parents, but this went beyond that. Had it been deliberate? Or was she simply doing her part to allay suspicion? Unfortunately, he could not ask her, nor could he request a more warm goodbye without looking suspect himself. They would have to talk about how to act in front of his family, as it was clear that was going to be an issue in the future. He was only surprised it had taken so long for the matter to arise, now that he knew how close she was to his mother and son.

That was secondary as he watched Faith walk away, and he had to fight everything in himself not to go after her.

“And you worried your mother was developing a tendre for TK,” his father said with a big, amused laugh.

“Never say so!” His mother shook her head. “Sometimes, my son, you are singularly obtuse.”

“But he is good at business,” Giosue piped in, as if trying to stand up for his deficient father and not knowing exactly what to say.

Apparently everyone else in his family knew Faith’s life more intimately than he did.

He was determined to rectify that ignorance. Starting now. “Mama, what did she mean by saying that the father was holding the baby in my statue?”

It was one of the reasons he loved the piece so much. It showed the father having a tender moment with his child as well as his wife.

His mother’s pause before answering gave him time to realize what a monumentally stupid question that had been to ask. He had just gotten through admonishing himself regarding this very topic and here he was drawing attention to it.

No doubt about it. Faith Williams messed up his equilibrium and made mush of his usually superior brain function.

There was nothing wrong with the way his mother’s brain was working, however. “Do you mean the statue that I bought you? The one that you keep on the bureau in your bedroom, Valentino?” she asked delicately like a cat licking at cream.

“Yes, that is the one,” he said with as much insouciance as he could muster under his mother’s gimlet stare.

He offered no explanation and, surprisingly enough, she did not demand he do so. He could read the speculation in her eyes as easily as a first-year primer.

She looked down at her hands as if examining her manicure, which was incidentally perfect as usual, before looking back at him. “I’m not sure that is something she would care for me to share with you.”

He wasn’t about to be deterred after the huge gaffe he’d committed to get the information. “Mama,” he said with exasperation. “She told me to ask you.”

“Si, well, I suppose. You know she lost her husband to a car accident six years ago?”

“I know she is a widow, yes.”

“She lost her child in the same accident.”

“How horrible.” It had nearly destroyed him to lose Maura; if he had lost Giosue as well, he did not know how he would have stood it.

“Just so.” Mama reached out and hugged her wet grandson to her. “She sells her artwork under TK as a tribute to them. Her husband’s name was Taylish and her son would have been named Kaden.”

“Would have been?”

“She was pregnant. And from what she said, that was something of a minor miracle. Her life has not been an easy one. She was left an orphan by her mother’s death years earlier. She never knew her father—or even who he was, I believe.”

“Life has enough pain to make joy all the sweeter,” his father said with the same pragmatism he spoke the well-used Sicilian proverb, cu’ avi ‘nna bona vigna avi pani, vinu e linga.

He who owns a good vineyard has bread, wine and wood.

The Sicilian people were a practical lot. The fatalism of their cultural thinking reflected in the fact that Sicilian vernacular had no future tense. Just past and present.

Regardless of his pragmatic heritage, Valentino found it almost debilitatingly painful to discover that his happy-go-lucky Faith had such a sorrow-filled past. Her optimistic nature was one of the things he found most attractive about her. She made him feel good just being around.

To discover that her attitude was in spite of past agonies, not because she had never had any, was so startling as to leave him speechless.

“I think Signora Guglielmo wanted to be a mama very much,” Giosue said. “She loves all the children at school, even the bratty ones.”

His son’s observation made Valentino chuckle even as it made him sad for the woman who had to find an outlet for her nurturing nature with other people’s children.

He remembered her once telling him that she believed she was not meant to have a family. He had assumed that meant she thought she was not cut out to be a mother. He had not minded knowing that at all, as it assured him she would not expect marriage and children someday down the road. Now he saw a far more disturbing meaning behind the words.

When Faith had said she wanted more from him, she truly had meant more. She wanted what she had thought she could not have. A family.

And the only way he could give it to her was to break a promise that for him was sacred.

It was not an option.

But neither was letting her go so she could find that with someone else.

CHAPTER SIX

FAITH drove like an automaton toward Pizzolato. They’d met? They knew each other?

Each word Tino had used to answer his mother’s innocent questions had driven into her heart with the precision of an assassin’s dagger. And the wounds were still raw and bleeding. As they would be for a very long time.

How could he dismiss her as if she meant nothing to him?

But she had the answer to that, an answer she wanted to ignore, to pretend no knowledge of for the sake of her lacerated heart. She only wished she could do it—that she could lie to herself as easily as she had deluded herself into believing things were changing between them.

He could dismiss her as someone of no importance in his life because that was exactly what she was. She was his convenient sex partner. Nothing more. Friends? When it was convenient for him to think so, but that clearly did not extend to times with his family.

They’d met. The words reverberated through her mind over and over again. A two-word refrain with the power to torture her emotions as effectively as a rack and bullwhip.

She did not know why he had slept with her that night in Marsala. She had no clue why he had taken her to his bed in his family home, but she knew why he hadn’t called her for two weeks and had ignored her calls to him.

Perhaps he regretted that intimacy and was even hoping to end their association.

The pain that thought brought her doubled her over, and she had to pull to the side of the road. Tears came then.