Rachael Thomas – Italian Mavericks: Carrying The Italian's Heir: Married for the Italian's Heir / The Last Heir of Monterrato / The Surprise Conti Child (страница 23)

‘That is so sad,’ she said in a whisper, but still he couldn’t look at her.

‘He died at the hands of a rival street gang. It was my fault. I should have made him come home when he first left. It was my job to keep him safe.’

She touched his arm and he looked at her. The compassion in her eyes was too much. ‘It’s not your fault, Dante.’

‘I failed him, Piper. I failed him and my mother. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I didn’t protect and care for them.’

When Piper had told him she was carrying his child he’d appeared to give more importance to the deal and salvaging his reputation, but it was the need to look after her and his baby which had driven him to such drastic action. He’d never thought it would be possible for him to care, to want to put himself in a vulnerable position again, but as soon as he’d known why she’d come to Rome it had been the only thing he wanted to do.

* * *

Piper looked at Dante. The pain in his eyes was too much to bear and she wanted to hold him, tell him it wasn’t his fault and try and ease his pain—just as he had done for her when she’d finally confessed to the blindness which had affected her left eye since birth. That hadn’t mattered to him and this didn’t matter to her. She wanted him to see he wasn’t to blame—not when he’d been so young himself.

‘You mustn’t blame yourself,’ she said, and gently squeezed his arm, wanting to offer some kind of comfort.

‘You don’t know anything about it.’ He pulled his arm free of her touch, and the rejection stung her far more than any icy words.

‘I want to know.’ She watched as he pressed his thumb and finger against his signet ring, just as he’d done whilst she’d read over the contract he’d drawn up. He’d stood over her then and tension had crackled in the air, just as it did now. ‘What if I meet your mother? Shouldn’t I at least know something?’

He swore harshly in Italian, but she resisted the urge to step back and drop the subject. She needed to know about his past. Not only because she might meet someone who knew, but because she wanted to—for her child. His mother was her child’s grandmother. Could he deny her that?

‘There will be no meeting between you and my mother. I will explain the true situation to her, and I suggest you tell yours. That way neither of us will give false hope to anyone.’

‘False hope of what? Love and happiness?’ She tried to keep the hurt from sounding in her voice, but his rejection of her cut deep. Even so, what he said made sense. Maybe telling her mother the truth, instead of dressing it up as a fairytale romance, would be best. At least that way she wouldn’t have to explain when he walked away from her, leaving her a single mother, alone in the world except for her own mother.

‘Love and happiness are for fools,’ he said, and scowled at her, reminding her of that morning in his office when she had been positively the last person he’d wanted to find waiting for him. He touched his ring again, drawing her attention back to his brother.

‘Whatever happened to your brother, it’s not your fault.’ She moved towards him again, desperate to know more and understand.

‘I wanted to make a better life for my mother. She had a tough time bringing up two boys alone and in poverty, and Alessio was wilful and rebellious even as a child.’

Piper recalled the article she’d read in Celebrity Spy! Whilst going to great lengths to expose his playboy lifestyle, it had credited him with having made his own fortune. Had he really been motivated by the need to provide for his brother Alessio?

She looked at him, then at his hand. ‘Was the ring his?’

The question was out before she could think, before she could stop it, and for a second the air around her froze as he looked at her. She bit her bottom lip and watched as he looked down at his right hand, at the gold signet ring she’d studied as he’d slept beside her that morning.

‘I bought it for his sixteenth birthday and planned to give it to him that evening, after a family meal, but Alessio had other ideas and he’d long since gone. I spent the night consoling my mother and being angry with him, wanting only to banish the selfish youngster from my mind and my life.’

She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a gasp of shock, but it still slipped out. ‘That must have been terrible for your mother.’

‘I have never forgiven myself for doing that to her.’

‘You?’

‘If I hadn’t ruled Alessio so hard, trying to shape him into the man I wanted him to be instead of allowing him to find out who he was, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.’

‘I still don’t see how it’s your fault,’ she said, exasperation getting the better of her.

‘That, cara, is because you do not know me. Nothing good will come of you being entangled in my life.’

‘Our child will come of it, and to me that is good.’ She flung the words at him, angry that he wouldn’t let her close, wouldn’t let her past the invisible barrier he had around him.

Slowly he moved towards her and reached out, touching her face. Her anger melted away and she yearned for more than a caress to her face.

‘You have a very generous nature. Never let anyone change that. Least of all me.’

Before she could say anything else he brushed his lips over hers and her eyelashes fluttered down. As he moved back, away from her, it was as if he was going behind a barrier of ice. She could still see him, but the coldness in his eyes, the frozen set of his shoulders, warned her that what they’d shared during the weekend was finished.

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