Larenzo's Christmas Baby

If she’d felt any pain or discomfort, it was long gone as the exquisite friction of Larenzo’s body created a pleasure deeper and fiercer than what she’d already felt at his experienced hands.

She let out another long, ragged cry as the sensations exploded inside her again and with a shudder Larenzo emptied himself into her and then was still.

They lay like that for a few seconds before he wrapped his arms around her and rolled onto his back.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?’ he asked quietly.

Emma could still feel him inside her, still feel the bone-melting ripples of pleasure that had utterly rocked her moments before. ‘Because like I said, it didn’t matter.’

‘I might have done things differently...’

‘I liked the way you did things.’

He laughed softly then, his arms tightening around her. ‘Thank you, Emma,’ he said quietly, and she wasn’t quite sure what he was thanking her for. She propped herself on her elbows to gaze down at him, and saw the ravages of both grief and pleasure on his face. She had no regrets, and yet she still wished she could smooth the furrows of worry from his forehead. She brushed his hair from his eyes instead, savouring the feel of him.

‘I should be thanking you,’ she said, and Larenzo smiled faintly before glancing out at the night sky; the moon was on the wane, dawn only an hour or two away. ‘You should sleep.’

Did he want her to leave? Uncertainly Emma started to roll off him, but Larenzo clasped her to him once more.

‘Stay,’ he said, his voice rough with emotion. ‘Stay until morning.’

And so she did.

CHAPTER THREE

THEY CAME AT DAWN. Larenzo heard the first car drive up, the crunch of gravel, the sound of a car door shutting quietly, as if they were trying to hide their presence. As if they could.

He stilled, every muscle tensing, Emma still in his arms. Emma. He would spare her an ugly scene. She deserved so much more than that, but that was all he could give her now.

Slowly he slipped from the bed, doing his best not to disturb her. She sighed in her sleep and turned, her tousled hair falling across one cheek, a tendril lying across her breast.

He gazed at her for a moment, drinking her in: the golden, freckled skin, the wavy golden-brown hair, her lashes fanned out on her cheeks, although he knew if she opened her eyes, they would be golden-green. His golden girl for a night, gone in the morning.

At least he would be gone.

Quickly Larenzo turned, reaching for his jeans. He pulled on a rugby shirt and ran his hands through his hair, took a deep breath. And looked one last time at Emma, at freedom and happiness, pleasure and peace. He’d known them all with her last night, and now they were nothing but memories. Resolutely he turned from her and left the room.

* * *

Emma awoke to the thud of boots on the stairs, the sound of stomping down the hall. She was still blinking the sleep from her eyes, one hand reaching for the sheet to cover herself, her mind barely processing what she’d heard, when the door was thrown open and three men crowded there, all of them glaring at her. Her heart seemed to still in her chest, everything in her going numb with horror as she stared at these strange men.

‘What—?’

They spoke in rapid Italian, too fast for her to understand, although during her two years in Sicily she’d become fairly conversant in the language. Still, she understood their tone. Their derision and contempt.

She clutched the sheet to her breasts, her whole body trembling with indignation and fear. ‘Chi sei? Cosa stai facendo?’ Who are you, and what are you doing? They didn’t answer.

One man, clearly the leader of the pack, ripped the sheet away from her naked body. Emma gasped in shock. ‘Puttana.’ He spat the single word. Whore.

Emma shook her head, her mouth dry, her body still trembling. She felt as if she’d awakened to an alternate reality, a horrible nightmare, and she had no idea how to make it stop. Where was Larenzo?

One of the men grabbed her by the arm and yanked her upwards. She came, stumbling, trying futilely to cover herself. He reached for her T-shirt and shorts discarded on the floor and threw them at her.

‘You are English?’ he asked, his voice clipped, and she nodded.

‘American. And my consulate will hear—’

He cut her off with a hard laugh. ‘Get dressed. You’re coming with us.’

Quickly, clumsily, Emma yanked on her clothes. Dressed, even if only in flimsy pyjamas, she felt a little braver. ‘Where is Signor Cavelli?’ she asked in Italian.

The man eyed her scornfully. ‘Downstairs, at the moment. But he’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.’

Emma’s mouth dropped open. Prison? What on earth was he talking about? Were these awful men police?

‘Come on,’ the man commanded her tersely, and with her mind spinning she followed the men downstairs.

Larenzo stood in the centre of the sitting room, his eyes blazing silver fire as he caught sight of her.

‘You are all right? They didn’t hurt you?’

‘Shut up!’ The words were like the crack of a gunshot as one of the men slapped Larenzo across the face. He didn’t even blink, although Emma could see the red imprint of the man’s hand on Larenzo’s cheek.

‘They didn’t hurt me,’ she said quietly and the man turned on her.

‘Enough. Neither of you are to speak to one another. Who knows what you might try to communicate?’

‘She has nothing to do with any of it,’ Larenzo said, and he sounded scornful, as if he were actually in control of the situation. With an icy ripple of shock Emma saw that he was handcuffed. ‘Do you actually think I’d tell a woman, my housekeeper no less, anything of value?’

The words, spoken so derisively, shouldn’t have hurt. She knew, intellectually at least, that he was trying to protect her, although from what she had no idea. Even so they did hurt, just as the look Larenzo gave her, a look as derisive as those of the carabinieri, did.

‘She’s nothing to me.’

‘Even so, she’ll be taken in for questioning,’ the man replied shortly and Larenzo’s eyes blazed once more.

‘She knows nothing. She’s American. Do you want the consulate all over this?’

‘This,’ the man snapped, poking a finger into Larenzo’s chest, ‘is the biggest sting we’ve had in Sicily for twenty years. I don’t give a damn about the consulate.’

They’d been speaking Italian, and, while Emma had caught the gist of it, she still didn’t understand what was going on.

‘Please, let me get dressed properly,’ she said, her voice coming out croaky as she stumbled over the Italian. ‘And then I’ll go with you and answer any questions you might have.’

The man turned to glare at her with narrowed eyes. Then he gave a brief nod, and, with another policeman accompanying her, Emma went upstairs to her bedroom. The man waited outside the room while she pulled on underwear, jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a fleece. She brushed her teeth and hair, grabbed her purse and her passport, and then, just in case, she took her backpack and put a change of clothes, her camera, and her folder of photographs in it. Who knew when she’d be able to return? Just the realisation sent another icy wave of terror crashing through her.

Taking a deep, steadying breath, she left the room. The man accompanied her downstairs; the front door was open and she saw several cars outside. Larenzo was being shoved into one. She turned to the man.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Palermo.’

‘Palermo? But that’s nearly three hours away—’

The man smiled coldly. ‘So it is. I’m afraid you’ll have to be so inconvenienced.’

Three hours later Emma sat in an interrogation room at the anti-Mafia headquarters of Palermo’s police department. She’d been given a paper cup of cold coffee and made to wait until finally the man who had made the arrest back at Larenzo’s villa came and sat down across from her, putting his elbows on the chipped tabletop.

‘You know your boyfriend is in a lot of trouble.’

Emma closed her eyes briefly. She was aching with exhaustion, numb with confusion and fear, and she missed Larenzo desperately even as she forced herself to remember she hadn’t actually known him all that well. Until last night. Until he held me in his arms and made me feel cherished and important. ‘He’s not my boyfriend.’

‘Whoever he is. He’s going to prison, probably for the rest of his life.’

Emma licked her dry lips. ‘What...what has he done?’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I have no idea. All I know is he was—is—CEO of Cavelli Enterprises.’ And that when he kissed her her mind emptied of thoughts. He made her body both buzz and sing. But then words began to ricochet through her, words Larenzo had spoken to her last night. It’s my own fault. What had he done?

The man must have seen something of this in her face for he leaned forward. ‘You know something.’

‘No.’

‘I’ve been doing this for a long time.’ He sounded almost kind. ‘I can tell, signorina. I can tell when someone is lying.’

‘I’m not lying. I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what Cavelli Enterprises did.’

‘And if I told you Larenzo Cavelli was involved with the Mafia? You wouldn’t know anything about that?’

Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed hard. ‘No, I certainly wouldn’t.’

‘It didn’t concern you, the amount of security he had for that villa?’

She thought of his insistence on locking the doors, the elaborate security system. ‘No.’

‘Don’t play dumb with me, signorina.’

‘Look, maybe I was dumb, but I really didn’t know.’ Emma’s voice rose in agitation. ‘Plenty of people have detailed security systems.’

‘Cavelli never said anything to you?’

Again his words raced through her mind. The grief on his face, the resignation she’d heard in his voice, the sense that everything was over, that this was his last night. He must have known they were coming to arrest him. He must have realised his activities had been discovered. Even so she couldn’t reconcile the man she’d known, however briefly, with the Mafia. And yet as tender a lover as Larenzo had been, he was still virtually a stranger. She had no idea what he’d got up to when he’d been away from the villa. No idea at all.

‘Signorina?’

‘Please,’ Emma said wearily. ‘I was his housekeeper. I barely saw him. I don’t know anything.’

Eight endless hours later she was finally released from the police. When she asked about returning to the villa, the man at the desk shook his head.

‘The villa is being searched by the police. Everything there is potential evidence. You won’t be able to go back for some time.’

And so Emma headed out into the busy streets of Palermo, mopeds and sports cars speeding by, her mind spinning as she tried to think what to do now. She had no real reason to go all the way back to the villa. She had nothing of value there but a few clothes and photography books.

But where could she go?

She ended up at a cheap hotel near the train station; she sat on the single bed, her backpack at her feet, her whole life in tatters.

She told herself she was used to moving on, and it would be easy enough to look for a new job. She could spend some time with her father in Budapest while she decided where she wanted to go, what she wanted to do.

And yet that prospect seemed bleak rather than hopeful; she might be used to moving on, but she hadn’t been ready this time. She’d liked her life in Sicily. The villa had been the closest thing she’d ever known to a home.

And as for Larenzo...

She’d known, of course she’d known, that their one night together wasn’t going anywhere. But it had still meant something. She’d felt a deep connection to him last night, an understanding and a tenderness... Had it all been false? According to the police, he was a Mafioso. The inspector had told her they had incontrovertible evidence, had said there were photos, witnesses, files. Everything to convict Larenzo Cavelli of too many horrible crimes. Extortion, the police had said. Theft. Assault. Organised delinquency, which was the legal term for involvement in the Mafia.

Faced with all of it, Emma knew she had no choice but to believe. Larenzo Cavelli was a criminal.

The next morning, after a sleepless night, Emma went to an Internet café to arrange her passage to Budapest. Yet as she clicked on a website for cheap airfares, she realised she didn’t want to go there. She didn’t want to traipse around Europe, taking odd jobs, at least not yet. She wanted to go somewhere safe, somewhere far away from all this, to recover and heal. She wanted to see her sister. Quickly Emma took out her mobile and scrolled through for Meghan’s number.

‘Emma?’ Concern sharpened her sister’s voice as she answered the call. ‘You sound...’

‘I’m tired. And a bit overwhelmed.’ She didn’t want to go into the details of what had happened on the phone; they were too recent, too raw, and she was afraid she might burst into tears right in the middle of the Internet café. ‘My job in Sicily has ended suddenly, and I thought I’d come for a visit, if you don’t mind having me.’

‘Of course I don’t mind having you,’ Meghan exclaimed. ‘Ryan will be delighted to see you.’

Emma pictured her tousle-haired three-year-old nephew with a tired smile. It had been too long since she’d seen him or her sister. ‘Great. I’m going to book a flight for tomorrow if I can.’

‘Let me know the time and we’ll pick you up from the airport.’

Twenty-four hours later Emma touched down in New York and, after clearing immigration, she walked straight into her sister’s arms.

‘Is everything okay?’ Meghan asked as she hugged her tightly. Emma nodded wordlessly. Nothing felt right at that moment, but she hoped it would soon. All she needed was a little time to get over this, and then she’d be back on the road, taking photographs, looking for adventure, as footloose as ever. The prospect didn’t fill her with anything except a weary desolation.

She spent the next week mainly sleeping and spending time with Ryan and Meghan; she wanted to shut the world out, but she couldn’t quite do it, and especially not when her sister looked up from The New York Times one morning, her eyes narrowed.

‘I’m just reading an article about how business CEO Larenzo Cavelli was arrested for being involved in the Mafia.’ Emma felt the colour drain from her face but said nothing. ‘Wasn’t that your boss, Emma?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s why your job ended?’

Emma nodded jerkily as she poured some orange juice. ‘Yes.’

‘You were working for someone in the Mafia?’

‘I didn’t know, Meghan!’

Meghan sat back in her chair, her eyes wide. ‘Of course you didn’t know. But good gracious, Emma. I’m so glad you’re here, and you’re safe.’

Emma closed her eyes briefly. She could picture Larenzo as he braced himself above her, his face suffused with tenderness as he gave her more pleasure than she’d ever known or thought possible. And then just hours later, when she’d heard the thud of the boots in the hall, the men glaring at her as they ripped the sheet away from her body...

‘So am I,’ she said quietly. ‘So am I.’

After that she couldn’t shut out the world any more. She read in the newspaper that Larenzo had confessed to everything, and there would be no trial. Within a month of her arrival he’d been sentenced to life in prison.

Two days after that, Emma realised she hadn’t got her period that month. One three-minute test later, she discovered the truth. She was pregnant with Larenzo Cavelli’s child.

CHAPTER FOUR

Eighteen months later

‘LOOK AT ME, Aunt Emma!’

Emma waved to her nephew as he clambered to the top of the climbing frame at the playground near her sister’s house. It was late October, and the leaves of the maple trees in the little park were scarlet, the sky above a cloudless blue. It was a beautiful, crisp day, and yet even so she couldn’t keep herself from picturing the mountains of Sicily, and remembering how clear and pure the air was up there at this time of year.

Shivering slightly in the chill wind, Emma told herself to stop thinking about Sicily. She would never go back there. Never see the Nebrodi mountains again. Never see Larenzo Cavelli again.

Which was just as well, considering the man was a criminal.

Instinctively her gaze moved to the stroller a few feet away, where her daughter Ava was sleeping peacefully. She was ten months old, born on Christmas Eve, and Emma still marvelled at her. Still marvelled at the way her own life had changed so drastically.

When she’d discovered she was pregnant, she’d been shocked and numb for days, as well as embarrassed that she hadn’t even thought about birth control when she’d been with Larenzo. That was how much he’d affected her. How much she’d wanted him in that moment.

Meghan, as eagle-eyed as ever, had guessed she was pregnant within a matter of days, and Emma had ended up telling her sister everything.

‘What do you want to do?’ Meghan had asked in her direct way as they’d sat at her kitchen table, Emma shredding tissues while Meghan got up to make tea. ‘I love babies,’ she continued as she switched on the kettle, ‘and I think each one is a blessing, but I’ll support you no matter what.’

‘Thank you,’ Emma had answered, sniffing. ‘Truthfully, I don’t know what to do. I never planned on marrying or having a family...not that marriage is a possibility in this case.’

‘Why haven’t you?’ Meghan asked, one hip braced against the counter as she fixed Emma with a thoughtful stare. ‘Most people think about being with someone, at least.’

‘I don’t know.’ Emma shredded another tissue, avoiding her sister’s perceptive gaze. ‘You know me. I like to be on the move. See new things. I don’t want to be held down.’

‘And a baby is the ultimate in being held down,’ Meghan answered with a sigh.

‘Yes...’ Which made it seem simple, but Emma felt as if nothing was.

‘I know Mom leaving affected you badly, Em,’ Meghan said quietly. ‘More than it did me. I was at college. I was already out of the way.’

‘She was your mother too,’ Emma answered, still not looking at her sister. By silent agreement she and Meghan had never really talked about their mother. Emma hadn’t even seen her in at least five years. Louise Leighton had moved to Arizona with her second husband when Emma was still in high school; Emma had spent a wretched few months out in Arizona with her, but it had been awkward and stilted and just generally awful, and she’d left pretty quickly, after one blazing argument. Her mother hadn’t protested.

Since then, beyond a few pithy emails, her mother had never made any attempt to contact her. She didn’t know if Meghan was in touch with her or not; she’d never asked, told herself she didn’t care.

‘Anyway,’ Meghan resumed, ‘what I’m trying to say is, I understand if motherhood scares you. You didn’t have the best example.’

‘I’m not scared,’ Emma answered. She pressed a hand against her middle, almost as if she could feel the tiny life moving inside her. ‘I just feel like my whole life has been upended. Everything that happened in Sicily...’ She trailed off, fighting against the memories that continued to swamp her, and Meghan came over to give her a hug.

‘It’s hard,’ she said. ‘And you have some time.’

As the days slipped by Emma had come to accept this new life inside her, and realise that, to her amazement, she actually welcomed it. She watched her sister with Ryan and knew she wanted that same kind of bond, that closeness with another person. Already she felt a surprising and unshakeable love for this person who was a part of her.

Once she had pictured her life unspooling like a rainbow-coloured thread as she traipsed about the world, having adventure after adventure. But perhaps motherhood would be the greatest adventure of all.

It had been that, she thought now as she gazed at her sleeping daughter. From the moment she’d been born, dark-haired and grey-eyed, Ava had possessed the Cavelli charisma. Whether she was screaming to be fed or simply demanding to be heard, the force of her personality could not be denied. She was her father’s daughter.

And her father was serving life in prison.

Emma had had a year and a half to become accustomed to the fact that Larenzo was a Mafioso, and yet the knowledge still had the power to stun her. She couldn’t look back on their one night together without experiencing a shaft of bittersweet longing, as well as a sense of bewilderment that the man she’d thought she’d known, at least a little, was someone else entirely.

‘Are you almost ready to go?’ Meghan asked as she walked up to her in the park. Her cheeks were red with cold and she cradled a thermos of coffee. ‘Ryan will want his lunch before playgroup, and, if I’m not mistaken, your little madam is going to wake up soon and want hers.’

‘Undoubtedly.’ With a wry look for her sleeping daughter, Emma reached for the handles of the pram.

‘Emma...’ Meghan began, and Emma tensed instinctively. She’d known a conversation was coming; she’d been living with Meghan and her husband, Pete, for over eighteen months now. They’d been happy to support her through her pregnancy and she’d taken a few odd cleaning jobs until she’d been too ungainly to manage it, in order to contribute to the household expenses.

Then Ava had been born, and her life had become a sleepless whirlwind; she’d stood in its centre, dazed and helpless to do much other than care for this baby that still managed to startle her with her existence.

But her daughter would be a year soon and Emma knew she needed to find her own way. Make her own life, for her own sake as well as her sister’s.

‘I know,’ she said quietly, her gaze on Ava sleeping in the pram, the pink blanket pulled up to her chin, which had a cleft the same as Larenzo’s. ‘I need to get a move on.’

‘No.’ Meghan put a hand on Emma’s arm. ‘I wasn’t going to say that. I’d never say that, Emma. You’re welcome to stay with us as long as you like. Always.’

Emma shook her head. She knew her sister meant well, but she also knew that she couldn’t stay. She hadn’t contributed anything to the household finances since Ava’s birth, and she and Ava had taken up the spare bedroom for far too long. Meghan and Pete wanted more children, and they needed the space.

‘I’ve been meaning to get my act together for months now,’ she told her sister. ‘I’ve just—’ she let out a long, low breath ‘—felt frozen, I suppose. And keeping Ava fed and changed has taken more energy than I care to admit.’ She let out a shaky laugh. ‘I don’t know how you do it.’

‘Motherhood is never easy, and Ava is a demanding baby,’ Meghan answered. ‘But this isn’t about me or Pete, Emma. It’s about you. What’s best for you. I want you to have your own life. Maybe meet someone...’

Emma shook her head. She couldn’t even think about meeting someone. She might not have loved Larenzo Cavelli or had her heart broken, but even so something in her felt a little dented. A bit bruised. And she’d never been interested in a serious relationship anyway. She was even less so now, with a bad experience and a baby in tow.

‘I know I need to get a job.’

‘It’s not about money—’

‘But it is, Meghan, at least in part. As wonderful as you are, you can’t support me for ever. I’m twenty-seven years old, and I chose to have a child. I need to step up.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I know I seem like a sleep-deprived zombie most of the time, but I have been thinking about possibilities. Maybe moving to New York and getting a job there, something to do with photography.’

As far as a plan went, it wasn’t very sensible, and Emma could tell her sister thought so from the look on her face. ‘New York? But it’s so expensive. And I’m not sure there are too many jobs in photography going...’