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Outside the traffic flowed in hushed lines past the park. She would be able to see it if she got up and walked across the Persian rug to the huge Georgian windows that looked over the private garden to the road and the park beyond. There were no noisy neighbours here, no litter on the pavements, no faulty lights in the shared hallway or damp on the walls.
Here, the scent of money hung in the air—more pungent than the fragrant bursts of lilies dotted in vases along the hallway.
She didn’t bother to look round when Raffaele entered, but she felt his presence and became alert, alive. And hated herself for it.
‘I had a word with the doctor. Everything seems to be well.’
The quiet, low voice. The slightest Italian accent. Utterly enigmatic.
She rolled onto her side so she didn’t need to look at him.
‘Us mortals have doctors too, you know, Raffa. I was managing perfectly well with my own antenatal appointments.’
‘I’ve printed some of the scans of the bambino,’ he said, ignoring her. ‘It makes it all seem even more real.’
She knew exactly what he meant. The last scan she had seen had been weeks and weeks earlier. A tiny bundle—all head and little limbs. Today’s scan was incredibly clear and in colour—every detail somehow conveying the proud, quiet dignity of their baby boy. There was no doubt he looked like his father. But she wasn’t going to acknowledge that to him. The less she could share with him the better. They weren’t some happy little family, cooing over their growing baby together. They were at war, no matter how he tried to dress it up.
She stared through the panes of glass to the bare branches of the trees that screened the house from the road. Trees that children could climb…
‘Did you grow up here?’ she said suddenly. ‘You and Salvatore?’
He paused.
‘Not Salvatore, no. This house belonged to my mother. It was held in trust for me until I was twenty-one. We spent most of our time at the villa in Rome before I went to school, but Christmas was always here in London. Why do you ask?’
She sat up on her elbows, glanced over her shoulder to where he stood, framed in the doorway, exuding that magnetic something that drew her to swing her legs to the ground and move closer to him.
‘It occurred to me that you might have been growing up here while I was five miles away across town. And how different our lives must have been.’
She didn’t mean to let bitterness glaze her words but it did, and the taste seeped into the air between them.
‘I hear what you’re saying. And I’m the first to admit that I had privilege, cara. But would I rather have had my own mother and father alive and live in poverty with them? Yes, I would.’
If he’d slapped her she couldn’t have felt his reproach more sharply.
‘I’m sorry. I never thought of it like that before. Of course you must have missed your own parents.’
‘Every day.’ His gaze flicked to the dressing table, as if he half expected to see his mother sitting there. But then he trained it back on her—relentless. ‘Children need their parents just as parents need their children. They need to be there, to keep them safe and protect them. And it’s unfair of anyone to get in the way of that.’
‘I wasn’t trying to keep you out, Raffa. I didn’t think you’d want to know.’
‘You never gave me the chance.’
He stared through every inch of her self-righteousness like a drill through concrete, splintering her excuses. But he was right.
She swallowed. ‘I was going to tell you. Of course I was.’
‘When? After the birth? When he started to walk? First day at school? How much of my son’s life did you think it reasonable to deprive me of?’
She cringed. How had she failed so spectacularly to see things from his point of view? Why had she ignored the voice in her head that told her he had the right to know?
‘It wasn’t like that, Raffa. You threw me out! The Di Viscontis didn’t want to know me my whole life and—’
He put his hand up.
‘I’m not going to judge them. And I’m not going to fight with you about why we’re here. That is a complete waste of my time and yours. The baby is well, thank God, and from here on in we focus on the future. So tell me what you need. Your mother—do you want a car sent for her?’
‘No! Not yet.’
She shook her head vigorously and walked to the window. She couldn’t let her mother know where she was. She had to think this through. The minute Lynda heard that she was with Raffa in Regent’s Park she would start to imagine all sorts of fairytale nonsense. She’d start dreaming of engagements and weddings and christenings and one huge happily-ever-after.
