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“What’s the matter now?”
Now?
She guessed a lot was the matter. In retrospect it had been for a long time. But she’d let certain issues slide in the hope that things would get better.
“Why aren’t you talking to me? Julie?”
He really didn’t understand.
“My nephew just lost his parents. It’s all I can think about right now.”
“Why do you have to be the one to sacrifice everything?”
“Because I want to!”
Her emotional cry must have gotten through to him because there was a long silence.
Clearly he couldn’t meet her expectations. Brent didn’t have the maturity or the desire. How could she have thought he was the right man for her? Where was her judgment?
“So what are you saying?” he finally said.
She took a deep breath. “I guess I’m saying goodbye. I had some wonderful times with you, but it’s over, Brent. It has to be. I think we’ve both known it for a while.” She hung up.
Her mind on Nicky, Julie left the master bedroom and rushed into the nursery where she’d slept on the twin bed last night. He hadn’t moved since she’d given him his last bottle. After he’d put up such a struggle, it was no wonder.
He didn’t know her!
Four weekend visits in five months weren’t enough for him to reach for her. She wasn’t his mommy.
Last evening and during the night he’d fought the formula Pietra kept on hand for a supplement to her breast-feeding. Julie had rummaged in the cupboards to look for it. But he wasn’t having any of it. He wanted his mother and had been inconsolable.
Today he’d finally stopped rooting long enough to take the bottle and drain it, almost as if he realized his life had changed and he was resigned to his fate.
It killed Julie inside.
She looked down at him, studying his fine blond hair and facial features. Shawn’s contribution. Pietra had bequeathed him her olive complexion and dark eyes.
But his sturdy, long-limbed body didn’t appear to belong to either of them. Nicky had weighed in at nine pounds three ounces, too big a baby for his small-framed mother. Julie had a feeling he was going to be a lot taller than her five-ten brother.
“Where did that mouth come from?” she whispered, tracing the outline with her finger. Just once on her last visit she’d coaxed a fleeting smile from him. It was wider than his parents’. He would break hearts one day.
He had already broken hers, but he didn’t know that yet. Who could guess how long he would try to push her away while he waited for his parents to reappear?
How much did a five-month-old understand about the fact that they were gone and would never come home again? A sob escaped her throat. Probably a lot more than mere mortals could comprehend.
She had no doubt that Nicky was missing the sweet smell of his mother’s skin—the way she held and loved him—the touching way she called him Niccolo.
Pietra had supplied his first nourishment upon entering the world, tendered by words rushing from her soul as she whispered her joy to him. Hers was the familiar voice he’d listened to while he’d been in her womb waiting to be born.
Fresh tears welled behind Julie’s swollen eyelids.
Who would be able to comfort him when he didn’t hear his father’s laughter, or feel him blow on his tummy after a diaper change? Whose strong arms would never again carry him with fatherly pride, arms that had held him minutes after he was born, letting him know he was adored.
In a matter of seconds the security of that loving haven had been wiped out forever by a drunk driver. In its place … chaos.
One more kiss to the baby’s forehead followed by salty tears and Julie slipped out of the nursery to go downstairs. But strident voices coming from the living room caused her to pause on the landing.
“Lem has an important court case coming up and needs to get back to Honolulu soon, so a big funeral is out. We’ll have a graveside service for them here. Father Meersman has agreed to officiate. It’s all I can handle.”
“We have to wait for Pietra’s uncle to call us back, Margaret. Despite the problems, he did raise her and her brother after their parents were killed. He has equal input in any decisions.”
“As far as I’m concerned, after ignoring her because she married my son, he has no rights.”
“Shawn was my son, too,” he reminded her in a quiet voice. “He would expect us to do the decent thing for Pietra. For our daughter-in-law’s sake I’ll have to insist we wait for him, Margaret.”
“Don’t use that patriarchal tone with me, Frank.”
“I’ll do whatever’s necessary in order to make certain the right thing is done here. No doubt her uncle has been thrust into considerable pain from the shock. That’s why the doctor’s with him. In case this news has softened him, their deaths might have achieved something that couldn’t be accomplished in life.”
“Spoken by the paragon of virtue.”
Julie winced to hear her mother’s bitterness come out. Her parents had been divorced ten years. Both had eventually remarried and moved from Sonoma. Yet by the way they were reacting, it could have been yesterday.
Her mother had always been difficult. There was probably a medical name for it. Julie noticed their respective spouses had absented themselves from Shawn’s house. With good reason.
“Margaret—we’ll have to put our personal differences aside and consider what’s best for Nicky.”
“Funny how you didn’t worry about Julie and Shawn when you walked out. But for that, Shawn might sti—”
“Don’t go there, Mom. Dad’s right,” Julie cried, entering the room, hating the resurrected pain that never really went away. As usual when her parents were together on the rare occasion, her mother managed to turn the conversation ugly.
Their heads swiveled in her direction. In the past twenty-four hours they’d aged. So had she.
“Nicky didn’t ask for any of this. We need to concentrate on what’s going to happen to him. He’s all alone and sick! Except for the babysitter, he’s among virtual strangers!”
Her mother’s cheeks filled with angry color. “That’s my point, Julie. Surely you don’t think we need the input of a tyrant who terrified Pietra so much she married our son in order to get away from him—”
“He’s still her flesh and blood. She never made him out to be a tyrant. An autocrat maybe.” Julie didn’t understand all the feelings that went into their complicated relationship.
“Is there a distinction?” she lashed out.
Her mother’s misplaced anger was transparent.
“Lest you forget, Margaret, our son and Pietra fell in love.”
“I wasn’t born yesterday. Pietra made certain she got pregnant. She planned her seduction very carefully so Shawn would have no choice but to marry her and bring her to the States. Well, he did that. Now look what’s happened!”
And you never forgave her for it.
Pietra had come between Shawn and their possessive mother, but love had been the culprit. Nothing else.
Her mother’s head reared. “Julie? You’ll have to come to Hawaii with us. I certainly can’t raise a child all over again by myself. Lem will give you a part-time job so—”
Julie didn’t hear the rest because the house phone rang. She hoped it was the pediatrician.
“I’ll get it.” She ran into the kitchen and clicked on. “Hello?”
“Ms. Marchant?”
“Yes?”
“This is Katy at Dr. Barlow’s office. He says to change the baby the second he’s wet, then put on the cream he’s prescribed. I’ll call it in to our clinic pharmacy right now. If the redness doesn’t start to go away soon, you’re to phone us.”
“Thank you. He was so miserable all night.”
“It should clear it up.”
“What’s the address?”
After learning it, she hung up and ran back in the living room. “Dad? That was the doctor. Would you mind running by the pharmacy? It’s on Center Street and Wolcott. Dr. Barlow ordered a special cream for Nicky.”
“I’ll go right now.”
He gave her a hug before walking out the door. She was glad he’d left them alone. The time had come to deal with her mother. Love for Nicky had reinforced her spine.
Once her father was gone she said, “I’m not going to Hawaii, Mom. Actually I was hoping to use any money from Shawn’s insurance policy so I can stay in the town house and look after Nicky.”
“If you think you can move in here with your latest boyfriend, then you c—”
“No,” she cut her off. Anything but. “I won’t be seeing him anymore.”
“When did this transpire?”
Julie could tell her mother was pleased by the news. She’d lost Shawn to marriage, and didn’t want to lose her daughter the same way.
“It doesn’t matter. The fact is, I want to take care of Nicky.”
“We’ll do it together, Julie.”
All her life Julie’s mother had expected the world to revolve around her. Over the years the demands she’d placed on their family had driven a wedge. First their father had left. Then Shawn, who did the unspeakable by marrying without her consent. Julie moved to San Francisco after college.
Her gaze flew around the front room of the small, Spanish-style town house. Shawn and Pietra had made a happy home in Sonoma where he worked for a winery.
Everywhere she looked, from pictures to baby toys and quilts, evidence of Nicky’s angelic presence in the house surrounded them.
“Aside from the fact that it wouldn’t be fair to Lem, this is Nicky’s home,” she reasoned quietly.
Her mother’s eyes glittered. “Not anymore.”
Her mother seemed beyond reason, but Julie had to try. “Pietra loved Sonoma because it reminded her of Italy where she met Shawn and they fell in love. They planned a life here with Nicky. We can’t take that away from him. He’s lost everything else.”
“Any insurance money will be put in a fund for Nicky’s college. Your father and I are in agreement there.”
“In that case I’ll find a way to work at home so I can stay here with him.”
“Have you forgotten I’m his grandmother?”
“You just admitted you can’t do it alone. I’m his aunt, and I’m the right age to do it alone,” she declared.
Her mother gestured impatiently. “You’re only twenty-four. You don’t know the first thing about being a mother.”
No, Julie didn’t. In fact, she was terrified of doing everything wrong, or worse, not knowing what to do at all. But that was beside the point.
“Did you and dad know how to be parents when you first brought Shawn home from the hospital?”
Having caught her mother off guard, she took advantage of the silence. “I was on the phone to the baby’s doctor before you and Lem got here. Nicky finally took a whole bottle a little while ago. I’ll learn as I go. It’ll work.”
“It’s not going to happen, Julie. You might as well know the truth now.”
“What truth?” Her mother had been working up to something.
“Lem is filing papers with the court to give me custody of Nicky. That’s why I’ve planned to have graveside services the day after tomorrow, then fly right on to Hawaii with him. I want you with us. It’s a necessary precaution in case Pietra’s uncle gets any funny ideas.”
Julie frowned. “About what?”
“About wanting to claim his niece’s male child now that Shawn isn’t alive. You know how possessive Italian men are.”
“Not really.”
Italians didn’t have the monopoly on that particular trait. Julie’s mother was a case in point. This was simply another ploy on her part to manipulate Julie, but she wasn’t buying it. Not this time.
“You look tired, Mom. Why don’t you lie down while I check on Nicky.”
“If he’s awake, bring him down, will you please? I want to feed him.”
For the moment, her parent was through talking. Julie went back upstairs to the nursery, her thoughts on her mother’s comment. In truth she had no idea what Italian men were like. She’d seen some pictures of Pietra’s family, but she’d never met any of them. From what she gathered they were a pretty formidable bunch.
According to Shawn, the Di Rocche empire had a reputation for being among the wealthiest and most influential of all the old Milanese families in Italy.
Until his untimely death, Pietra’s father, Ernesto, had worked alongside his older brother, Aldo. From that point on, Aldo had raised her and her brother along with his own three sons. Today Aldo Di Rocche stood as the powerful head of the consortium which included a vast number of banking and commercial interests.
Strictly by chance Shawn had met Pietra at one of the Di Rocche vineyards. One thing led to another and they fell in love. Shawn married Pietra in secret, then told everyone after the fact. It was a brilliant move. Neither her uncle nor their mother could do anything about it.
Julie had applauded their decision. Especially when she’d learned about the tension Pietra had lived with growing up in a household with an authoritarian uncle and three male cousins who had little use for her.
The only person Pietra felt close to was her older brother whom she loved, but he lived in another part of the world. Julie could understand why. Whether families were torn apart by divorce or death, the consequences were life changing.
She stared down at the baby. Was it possible her mother was right and Pietra’s uncle would try to get custody? He had the money and the clout, but Julie couldn’t bear the thought of it.
Her fingers curled around the bars of the crib. “Let’s hope your grandmother’s wrong. You want to stay here with me, don’t you, sweetheart? I love you so much.”
He was still asleep on his back, his arms outstretched at either side of his head, his hands closed into semifists. While she stood there fighting more tears, her father came into the room. He handed her the sack from the pharmacy.
She quickly changed Nicky’s diaper, applying the cream to his little backside that was bright red.
“You’re going to make a wonderful mother someday,” he murmured.
“Thanks, Dad.” When her mother went back to the hotel, Julie would tell her father her plans. He’d be on her side.
She wrapped a fussing Nicky in a receiving blanket and picked him up, giving him a kiss on both cheeks. As she started out of the room, her father called her back.
“There’s something I need to tell you before we go downstairs. It’s going to kill your mother.”
Alarm caused the hairs to prickle on the back of her neck. “D-did you hear from Pietra’s uncle?”
“No. He’s too ill to come, but her brother, Massimo, has arrived. He checked in at MacArthur Place. I just got off the phone with him from the mortuary. He was able to give me more information about Pietra to put in the obituary.
“Honey—” He cleared his throat. “Did you know Shawn and Pietra made out a will?”
She blinked. “No, but most couples have one.”
“It’s natural of course, but apparently they appointed him the baby’s guardian should anything to happen to them.”
What?
Pain stabbed at her heart, causing her to gasp. She stared at her father. “I don’t understand—he’s a bachelor who lives and works in a primitive area of the world. He’s never even seen Nicky!” She couldn’t understand why he’d never even been to see the baby.
Her dad’s features looked gaunt. “Nevertheless that was their wish. He came for a quick visit before Nicky was born. They talked it over then.”
Few things in life had hurt Julie more than this.
“He gave me the name of Shawn’s attorney. I called him on the way home from the pharmacy. Your mother and I were named beneficiaries of Shawn’s estate and insurance money, but Nicky goes with Pietra’s brother.
“The will’s iron clad. Your mother can plague Lem till the cows come home, but for all his legal expertise he won’t be able to break it.”
Devastated by the news, Julie nestled the baby closer. “W-what are her brother’s intentions?” she whispered. “Did he tell you anything?”
A heavy sigh escaped. “He’s coming over here later to see Nicky and talk to us. As far as the funeral goes, he doesn’t want to interfere with any plans we’ve made. But after it’s over, he’ll be taking the baby back with him.”
“Back where?” Her voice shook. “The man spends his life hacking his way through jungles in Central America!”
“I’m as stunned by this as you are.”
Her father looked wounded. Julie wasn’t the only one hurt by this news.
After learning about the accident, she hadn’t thought anything could bring her spirits lower. But this revelation had torn the heart right out of her body. She had to do something before it was too late.
Her mother’s remarks still rang in her ears.
I’m going to get custody of Nicky in case Pietra’s uncle gets any funny ideas about wanting to claim his niece’s male child now that Shawn isn’t alive. You know how possessive Italian men are.
“Dad—don’t tell mother about the will yet. She wants to feed Nicky. While she does that, I need to run to the store for a minute.” A white lie could be forgiven. “When I get back, we’ll talk to her together.”
“That’s a good idea. I need some time to collect my thoughts first. Come to your grandpa.” He reached for the baby who refused to be comforted. “Let’s go warm a bottle, shall we?”
After finding her purse, Julie followed her father downstairs. Relieved to discover her mother was either in the kitchen or the bathroom, she slipped out the front door to the driveway.
At four in the afternoon the temperature had climbed into the nineties. Coupled with August’s moderate humidity, the interior of her car was hot to the touch. She started up the air-conditioning and headed for the luxury hotel near Sonoma Plaza.
En route she practiced what she was going to say to Pietra’s brother if she could find him. Nothing sounded right. By the time she’d reached her destination and had approached the front desk, she was a mass of nerves.
“I’m here to see Mr. Massimo Di Rocche. Would you ring his room, please?”
“Certainly. Your name?”
“Julie Marchant.”
After a full minute the clerk gave her the disappointing news that he hadn’t picked up. “Do you want to leave a message?”
“Yes. Ask him to call me on my cell phone the second he’s able.” She left her number before going into the bar for a soda. If she didn’t hear from him within twenty minutes, then she’d have to go back to the town house.
Not five minutes passed before her phone rang. It sent her into a panic. For Nicky’s sake, whatever she said to Pietra’s brother, she had to be careful. Diplomatic.
She clicked on. “H-hello?”
“Julie Marchant?”
The way he said her name sounded foreign, and for want of a better word, intimate. It sent a shockwave through her body.
“Yes. Thank you for calling me back.”
“I didn’t realize you’d phoned until I’d finished my shower.” After a silence, he said, “We share a loss no one else could possibly understand, do we not?”
The tangible sorrow in his deep voice echoed her own agony. It opened the floodgates. “Yes.” A sob escaped her throat. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be. Since hearing the news, I’ve hardly been in control myself. Where are you exactly?”
Exactly? She swallowed hard. “In the bar of your hotel.”
“Come up to my suite where we can talk in private.” He gave her the number.
“Thank you. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She wiped the moisture off her face with a napkin. One last sip of cola for sustenance and she left the bar. The elevator let her off on his floor. Halfway down the hall she saw a man in a white polo shirt and tan khakis turn in her direction.
The clothes could have belonged to a thousand men, but the unconscious elegance of his stance, the way the material molded his broad shoulders and tall, lean body caused her mouth to go dry.
Even from the distance separating them, she could see he’d come from a scorching environment. His jet-black hair, combined with olive skin bronzed by the sun, took her breath.
Brows of the same black intensity framed his aquiline features. The proud nose and aggressive jaw sat well on such an unquestionably masculine face.
Her fascinated gaze fell helplessly to the lines of his wide, sensual mouth. Nicky’s mouth! The baby’s big size was no longer a mystery. He’d inherited his uncle’s build, too. Every boy should be so lucky.
“What conclusions have you drawn?” came the silky question.
CHAPTER TWO
HEAT stole into Julie’s cheeks to be caught staring like that. Of medium height, she had to tilt her head a ways. Their gazes collided. Midnight-black eyes stared back at her. Between their sadness and the shadows beneath them, she could see his pain.
“Forgive me. I was so busy picking out the similarities between you and Nicky, I didn’t realize I was being rude.”
“I confess to doing the same thing. Pietra sent me pictures of the baby. You two share the same golden hair. It’s much lighter than your brother’s.”
“Nicky’s will probably grow darker in time.”
“Yours is like the sunlight finding a hole in the darkest canopy of the jungle floor.”
She took an extra breath. “Is that a good thing?”
“Si, signorina. A very good thing when you’re slowly being devoured by a world of crawling green.”
The image made her shiver.
“Come in.”
“Thank you.” As she walked past him, her elbow brushed against his arm, sending a different kind of sensation through her body. Her emotions, like her grief, were out of control.
They entered a lounge with some love seats and a table. She was too anxious to sit.
“Mr. Di Rocche—”
“Surely you can call me Massimo. Nicky’s existence makes us relatives of a sort.”
“Massimo, then—” she said a little breathlessly, smoothing her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “I imagine you’re wondering why I came here instead of waiting to meet you this evening.”
A speculative look crossed his striking features, made even more prominent by suffering and fatigue. “Since you couldn’t have known where I was unless your father told you, I’m assuming he revealed the contents of the will. If you’re here on behalf of your family, begging me not to take Nicky away, I’m afraid it’s out of my hands.”
“I realize that.”
Shawn and Pietra had made their wishes known through legal means. It appeared Massimo intended to honor them to the letter. Already she could see he wasn’t the kind of man to tolerate interference when it came to his life, be it professional or personal.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “When I agreed to their wishes, I could never have contemplated this tragedy happening.”
“No one could.” Her voice shook.
“Tonight I’ll make it clear to your family that I plan to bring Nicky back to the States for periodic visits. And naturally you’re all welcome to visit him whenever you can.”
She wanted to ask him where would that be exactly. She’d love to inquire if he expected her family to cut through a sea of vines with a machete in order to reach him and Nicky. But she didn’t dare provoke him.
“That means a lot.” Unfortunately her mother’s worst fear would come to fruition when she heard the provisions of the will. Shawn and Pietra had really pulled the rug from under them. “However, I’m here for an entirely different reason.”
He frowned. She felt his piercing gaze scrutinize her. It took all her willpower not to look away.
“I’ll come straight to the point. Unless you got secretly married like Pietra, and she didn’t choose to tell me you have a wife, then you’re going to need help with Nicky for a while.”
“Naturalmente. I’ve already made the arrangements.”
“So fast?” she fired angrily.
His gaze turned wintry. “I’m in a hurry, Ms. Marchant.”
“I’ll just bet you are,” she said through grated teeth. “It must have been quite an inconvenience to leave your precious dig and fly here to deal with a nephew you didn’t even bother to see after Pietra had the baby.”