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God, the ache for him went bone deep.
‘Well, if you could spare a moment out of your busy social diary …?’
Dervla nibbled on the sensitive flesh of her full lower lip. If he’d rung to say come back what was she going to do? Of course, he might have rung to say let’s call it a day. The second possibility almost tipped her over the edge into total panic.
‘If you’ve got something to say, Gianfranco, just say it.’ Whatever he said, she told herself she could deal with it.
‘We have a problem, Dervla.’
She closed her eyes, sure she knew what was coming: it was the second possibility. He was going to say let’s call it a day—this relationship is more trouble than it’s worth.
She had always wondered what she’d feel like when this happened. Now she knew—she wasn’t going to feel anything at all.
She was numb.
‘Well, it could be worse—you could have sent me an email.’ Perhaps one day you’d be able to legally end a marriage that way, neat and clinically without any need for even looking at your partner.
Anger swelled inside her. She wanted to see Gianfranco. She wanted to tell him to his face what he was throwing away. She wanted to tell him that he was damned lucky she loved him and it was his loss.
Her chest tightened … Oh God, and mine, she thought, thinking of her life stretching ahead, a life of days when she would not hear Gianfranco’s voice or see his face.
‘Email? What are you talking about? No, don’t tell me, there’s no time. It’s Alberto.’
‘Alberto?’ she echoed. ‘Not a divorce?’
‘Divorce?’ A volley of Italian words they didn’t teach in the polite surroundings of her language class came down the line. ‘Have you been talking to Alberto?’
‘No,’ she said, turning her back on a wildly gesticulating Sue so that she could concentrate on what he was saying.
‘Alberto has run away.’
It took several moments for the blunt statement to penetrate. When it did the blood drained from Dervla’s face. She swayed.
‘Oh, my God, no, is he …? How long? The police …’ She sank into the chair that Sue placed behind her knees and whispered, ‘I feel sick.’
Sue took the phone from her limp grasp and with a marshal light in her eyes waded right in.
‘What the hell have you said to her? No, she damned well isn’t all right!’
‘I’m fine, Sue, will you give me—?’
‘You’re not fine,’ Sue contradicted. ‘She nearly passed out, you blithering idiot.’
Dervla, struggling to contain her nausea, groaned; with the best intentions in the world Sue was making matters worse. She could just imagine how Gianfranco would react under normal circumstances to being called a blithering idiot, but these were not normal circumstances—his son was missing.
If anything happened to Alberto she could not bear to think of how Gianfranco would react. He adored the boy. So did she.
I should be there with him.
Consumed with guilt that she wasn’t there when he needed her most, Dervla got unsteadily to her feet. This was not a moment for wimpy fainting.
The next blistering instalment of Sue’s indictment came to an abrupt halt as she said, ‘Oh, God, I’m sorry. When … how …?’ And began to listen.
‘He’s all right, Dervla. He rang his dad from Calais.’
With a gasp of relief Dervla snatched the phone from her friend’s hand. ‘Is it true? Alberto is safe?’
‘He’s fine, cara, though he won’t be when I get my hands on him.’ This grim observation drew a weak laugh from Dervla. ‘He took a slight detour from the school excursion and ended up in Calais. You’ve got to admit the boy has ingenuity. He rang from the ferry. Apparently he’s on the way to England.’
‘Here! Well, at least you know he’s safe. I wonder what on earth made him do something like that?’ she puzzled. Alberto was about the most unmixed-up adolescent she had ever met. He was a total stranger to teenage angst. ‘It’s just so unlike him.’
‘Who knows why a teenager does anything?’
Something in Gianfranco’s voice made her wonder if he knew something that he wasn’t telling her. It hurt that he was excluding her again.
‘Can I do anything?’
‘Yes, that’s why I rang.’
Not because you needed to hear my voice. For a moment she longed with every fibre of her being for Gianfranco to want and need her as much as she did him. She wanted him to feel the same aching emptiness she did at this moment. She wanted him to love her.
Then on the heels of the thought came guilt. What a selfish, self-centred cow I am, she thought in disgust. Gianfranco was already feeling as bad as he could. His son was out there alone and, no matter how mature he seemed, Alberto was still a child and he was the only part Gianfranco had left of the woman he had loved—so Gianfranco already knew about the aching emptiness.
‘Anything.’ The word emerged with far more force than she had intended.
‘That’s a rash offer.’
‘It’s a genuine offer, Gianfranco. I love Alberto too, you know.’
‘I know. He speaks very highly of you too.’ This time she was sure the edge in Gianfranco’s voice was unmistakable.
‘Try not to worry,’ she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say that wasn’t ‘I love you’.
‘I’m sending Eduardo over with the car. He’ll be there in about half an hour. If you could meet Alberto off the ferry and take him back to the house?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can.’
‘Fine, I’ll see you then,’ she said, trying to match his businesslike tone and, she suspected, failing pretty comprehensively.
She put the phone down and turned to Sue. ‘You got the gist of that?’
Sue nodded. ‘You’re riding shotgun on the kid until Dad gets here.’
Dervla nodded.
‘And after that?’
‘After that, I suppose …’ Dervla’s slender shoulders lifted. ‘I don’t really know,’ she admitted. ‘He’ll be here in about half an hour. I suppose I’d better get my things together.’
‘I put your holdall in my bedroom.’
‘Thanks.’ Sue followed her into the bedroom and watched while she unzipped the bag to check the contents.
‘So you’re not coming back, then?’
‘I suppose that depends.’
‘On whether you choose Gianfranco or a baby?’
Hearing it put so bluntly made Dervla blanch.
‘You know, I never even knew you wanted a baby. I thought you were totally all right with the situation.’
‘I was, or at least I thought I was,’ she amended huskily. ‘Maybe,’ she speculated, pushing her hair from her face with the crook of one elbow as she bent forward to pick up her toiletries from the floor, ‘I’d just never met a man whose children I wanted to have.’
‘You really love him, don’t you?’
Dervla gave a laugh, pulled a scarf from her bag and, bunching her hair at the base of her neck, wound it around to secure it there. ‘He’s the only one who doesn’t seem to realise I do, which, considering he’s supposed to have a mind like a steel trap, is kind of ironic.’
‘You could tell him?’
Dervla turned and angled her helpful friend an incredulous look. ‘It’s the last thing he wants to hear.’
‘Maybe he should hear it. What are you going to do about the fertility treatment?’
‘I suppose I’ll just have to forget it.’
‘Can you?’
Dervla’s face creased with anguish as she admitted, ‘It won’t be easy. It was much easier to accept never having a child of my own while I knew there was no hope, but now …’ Dervla stopped, unable to continue as her voice became totally suspended by tears.
Her visit to the fertility specialist had opened up all sorts of possibilities she hadn’t let herself think about before.
Before Gianfranco had entered her life she had genuinely believed that she had accepted her infertility. There were, after all, other things in life than children.
It didn’t make her any less of a woman.
Or did it, in Gianfranco’s eyes at least?
She had never been able to push the question from her mind. He was such a terrific father to Alberto it seemed impossible to her that he wouldn’t want other children and a woman who could provide those children.
As it turned out her fears had been totally unfounded. Gianfranco didn’t want her babies.
‘The chances of me conceiving naturally are virtually zero. Or “entering miracle territory”, to quote the fertility specialist I saw.’
‘You’ve already been to see a specialist?’
Dervla could understand her friend’s surprise. It was a bit of a turn-about for someone who had always said she couldn’t understand women who put themselves through repeated courses of IVF when statistically the chances of conceiving were so low.
‘I know I said there was no way I’d put myself through that sort of thing, but at the time it wasn’t a viable option for me. If you can’t have something it makes life easier if you tell yourself you don’t really want it.
‘The doctor was cautiously optimistic, but this is a new technique and they’re looking for suitable patients to be involved in a clinical trial. The chances are it wouldn’t have worked anyway,’ she said, zipping the bag and hefting it onto her shoulder.
Was she going to allow her reluctance to let go of that faint possibility kill her marriage stone-dead?
‘Marriage is about compromise,’ she said, as much for her own benefit as Sue’s. Halfway to the door she stopped and turned, her eyes filled with tears she refused to allow to fall.
‘You know, every time I feel like I’m getting close he pushes me away. He doesn’t care for me the way I—’ She stopped abruptly. Regretting and deeply embarrassed by the impulsive confidence the moment it left her lips, Dervla lifted her chin to a determined angle and smiled mechanically as her eyes slid from Sue’s. ‘I’d better go downstairs and wait for Eduardo.’
She was on the stairs when Sue’s voice drifted down the stairwell echoing against the concrete walls.
‘Maybe he cares too much, Dervla, and it scares him. Just a thought …’
Sue meant well, but she didn’t know Gianfranco; he wasn’t scared of anything.
The limousine was waiting for her. The chauffeur jumped out when he saw her and took her bag, enquiring politely after her health.
Dervla slid into the back with a murmured, ‘Hello, Eduardo.’
As the engine purred to life she was unable to prevent her thoughts returning to the first time she had travelled in this car. It had been a day for firsts: her first trip in a limo and her first time with a man.
Neither had been planned. She had not woken up that day and thought, Hey, this would be a good day to lose my virginity. Who can I think of to oblige? And if he owns a limo that would be a ‘two birds with one stone’ scenario.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ACTUALLY that day had started out a bit of a stinker. One of Dervla’s patients, a dear old man who had fought his way back to health after heart surgery, had passed away quite suddenly.
Not inclined to linger and chat in the changing rooms, she had hurried hoping to catch the earlier bus home. As she’d walked through the swing doors of the main entrance she had paused to pull up the hood of her jacket against the rain.
Peering up at the grey sky had not improved her mood. She had been preparing to make the dash across the busy road to the bus stop when she’d felt a hand on her shoulder.
She had turned and found her eyes on a level with the middle button of an expensive leather jacket. She had known that underneath the jacket the owner wore a pale grey cashmere sweater.
She had tilted her head and just managed to keep the inappropriate—almost as inappropriate as wondering about what he’d look like minus the cashmere—gasp locked in her throat. As her eyes had connected with his dramatically dark eyes the weariness that had made her steps leaden had been instantly swept away in the wake of an adrenaline rush.
At least she had hoped it was adrenaline, but if her hormones had been involved she would have been in trouble because she had forgotten how to breathe. It might have helped if he’d moved his hand, but it had still been on her shoulder and he’d been showing no inclination to move it any time soon.
Breathing unevenly, but breathing, which was a relief, she had sketched a smile.
For the past week she had seen Gianfranco Bruni every day. Dervla had been able to observe first hand the satisfactory healing of the wound she had sutured. She had also been able to observe his devotion to his son and his ability to function with very little sleep.
He had sat at his son’s bedside for thirty-six hours straight before finally leaving it for long enough to shower, change his clothes and return clean-shaven. Dishevelled and bloodstained he had looked more good-looking than any man had a right to—scrubbed up he had been simply off-the-scale gorgeous!
Once news of his presence had spread people had started appearing from all over the hospital on the limpest of pretexts until John had let it be known that his unit was not a zoo, and anyone there without a valid reason would have some explaining to do.
Despite the fact Gianfranco’s absences had only ever been brief he had still oozed a restless vitality. You got the impression that if invited to scale the odd mountain before supper he’d leap at the chance.
