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“I do, too. She makes you happy, huh.”
Vincenzo smiled at his son’s insight. “Yes.”
“Did you know she’s afraid of the water, too? She told me while we were looking out of the castle window.”
So…his son had an ally. “But she doesn’t seem to mind heights because she liked the cable car ride.”
“I know. So did I. She’s fun!”
“I agree.”
Lowering his voice to a whisper Dino said, “She’s beautiful, too, but don’t tell you know who I said so.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t. Now before you know who comes downstairs, give me a hug.” He felt Dino’s arms wrap around him and squeeze him hard. “I’ll see you at the end of the month.”
“I wish we could do stuff more often.”
“But this is working, right?”
As Dino nodded and wiped his eyes, Mila appeared in shorts and a top, looking immaculate as always. His son broke away and ran toward her, giving her a big hug. She kissed his head before flicking her glance to Vincenzo.
“You’re later than I expected.”
In a gush of excitement, Dino told her all about their outing to Rapallo with Signorina Spiros. Vincenzo was perfectly happy for his son to take over and explain.
Mila’s expression hardened. “Take your things upstairs, Dino. I want to talk to your father alone.”
“Okay.” He turned to Vincenzo. “I love you, Papa.”
“I love you, too.”
He grabbed his sack of toys and started up the steps. When he’d disappeared from sight, Mila turned to him. “You’ve never introduced Dino to another woman before. How important is she to you?”
“Very.” Last evening he’d come close to cardiac arrest when he’d seen Irena at his front door. If he wasn’t mistaken, Mila lost color.
“And she’s Greek?”
“Dino’s already said as much. Now I have to go, Mila. Irena is waiting for me.”
“She’s here?”
“Sì. She is in the courtyard in my car.”
“How dare you bring her here, Vincenzo! And how dare you sleep with a woman in the apartment while Dino’s there on visitation!”
“Save your anger, Mila. She stayed at a hotel.”
“I forbid it, Vincenzo.”
Vincenzo felt his own anger toward his ex-wife bubbling to the surface. “Forbid what? I’ve obeyed every edict of the visitation stipulation to the letter. There’s nothing in it that states I can’t be with a woman in my car or my own apartment in Dino’s presence. My life has nothing to do with you anymore, Mila.”
“We’ll see about that!”
“If you and your father want to throw more money away talking to your attorney, I can’t stop you, but I promise you’ll be wasting your time.”
“You won’t be so smug when I tell your father and he gets the judge to alter the stipulation.”
“That’s not going to happen. Ciao, Mila.” With Irena’s arrival, Vincenzo now held the trump card and he would use it.
“Don’t you walk out on me yet!” Her strident voice had risen higher. “I’m not finished!”
“If you aren’t, you should be. Dino has missed you. Don’t keep him waiting.”
He left the villa, knowing he’d put the handcuffs on Mila for now. It was always a wrench to walk away from his son, but for once someone was waiting for him. He found himself somewhat breathless as he got back in the car and turned to Irena. Elation filled him that they were finally alone.
The richness of her black hair held his gaze, but it hid part of her features. He leaned closer to smooth it behind her ear, unable to resist touching her before starting the car. He studied her beautiful Grecian profile for a prolonged moment before pulling beyond the gate and out onto the main road.
“I took this week off from work to be with Dino and don’t have to report until tomorrow morning. Let’s make the most of the time.”
She stirred restlessly. “Vincenzo—I think we need to talk. You need to know the reason why I came…I didn’t want to say anything in front of Dino.”
“It’s enough that you’re here.”
“I’m being serious.”
“I never thought you weren’t.”
“Please listen to me. I won’t be staying in Riomaggiore. I’m on my way to Toronto. If you’d be kind enough to drive me to the airport, I’ll be grateful.”
She was running away again. This time he wouldn’t let her. “I thought you quit your job at the newspaper.”
“I did.”
“Then what’s in Canada?”
“Another job away from Greece.”
“If that’s what you’re looking for, I could offer you a public relations position at the plant in La Spezia.”
He watched her hands clench together. “I don’t speak Italian.”
“I would teach you.”
“Vincenzo—” she cried in frustration. “I stopped to visit you because I knew you would see the headlines about Andreas’s marriage to Gabi. It was important to me that you didn’t think I was a total liar.
“When I left Riomaggiore, I went back to break it off with Andreas. After I met you, I knew that my relationship with Andreas was doomed—you were right about that. Andreas figured it out for himself, too.”
Vincenzo was silent for a moment before speaking. “Be thankful Simonides acted on his instincts.”
“Whether he did or didn’t, I acted on mine and slept with you. That was the turning point for me.” The attraction between them had been too powerful. They’d just gone with the moment.
He turned onto a road leading into a park. As soon as he could, he pulled to the side and shut off the engine before giving her his full attention. “Now tell me why you showed up at my door. The truth.” Vincenzo was no one’s fool.
“You’re so sure I had an agenda?”
His penetrating blue eyes searched hers. “Let’s just say you and I have a strong chemistry. Whatever the camouflage, I believe it brought you back.”
He was right about the intensity of their physical longing for each other. “What if I told you the camouflage is hiding a compelling problem that has caused me to veer off course and fly alone?”
“I’m listening.” He knew she was referring to the analogy about the geese.
Her heart thudded at the thought of her own daring. “Were you serious when you said you thought we should get married?”
“Perfectly.”
She moaned. “That wasn’t a fair question to ask you since the circumstances aren’t the same as they were two months ago. I didn’t know you already had a son and a troubled marital history.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“I—I’m sorry your first marriage didn’t work out—” her voice faltered “—but it’s not just that. There is something else I need to tell you, something…”
“What is it, Irena? What is it that has changed since our last meeting?” Vincenzo was again silent for a moment, clearly in deep thought, before his gaze shifted to Irena once more. “Irena, are you pregnant…with my baby?”
Shocked at his insight, Irena lowered her head, hating what she had to tell him. “I’m pregnant, Vincenzo, but I don’t know if the baby is yours. I’ve been to two OBs for opinions. Both worked out the timetable with me and came to the conclusion that we can’t be sure either way who the father is.”
“Simonides doesn’t know?” Vincenzo was a proud man. She’d been expecting that question and was prepared for it.
“I only came from the second doctor yesterday afternoon before I flew here.”
“And he’s on his honeymoon…” Vincenzo’s eyes narrowed on her face. “How soon do you plan to tell him?”
“I don’t.”
“As in never?”
“If you think that makes me an evil woman, I’ll understand.”
“Since I know you’re not, why in heaven’s name wouldn’t you tell him? He has the right to know.”
“It’s a long, complicated story.”
“I doubt it rivals my own.” There he went again alluding to a life that she knew next to nothing about. “Go on.”
“Look, Vincenzo. I’ve wasted enough of your time. I shouldn’t have come here. Please just drive me to the airport.”
“Not until you explain.”
Irena threw her head back, causing her hair to resettle around her shoulders, and closed her eyes. Then she took a deep, cleansing breath before she began to speak. “It all started over a year ago when Leon, Andreas’s brother, and Deline, Leon’s wife, had a very serious quarrel. He was working long hours as Andreas’s assistant, was hardly ever at home and it hurt Deline a lot. She accused Leon of neglecting their marriage and her. She wanted to start a family, but hadn’t been able to get pregnant and things were bad between them.
“They separated for a couple months. When Deline told him she was thinking of making the separation permanent, Leon was so hurt he got his friends together and took out the Simonides yacht. His friends invited some women on board and everyone got drunk. Then a terrible thing happened.”
For the next little while Irena relived the nightmare that had come close to destroying so many families. “I still don’t know how Deline is handling it. Besides being pregnant with Leon’s baby, she’s taking care of the twins he fathered on board the yacht with Thea Turner that night.”
“She must love him very much.”
“She does. I believe their marriage has a good chance of making it. But if I were to tell Andreas about our baby, it could destroy not only him, but his marriage, too. Gabi’s an innocent in all this and went through hell when her half sister died in childbirth. Until Gabi contacted Andreas, she was the one who took care of the twins for the first four months of their lives. If this baby is Andreas’s, how would this news affect her?”
Vincenzo moved his hand to play with the ends of her hair. “The more the plot unravels, the more it sounds like my own complicated family saga.” This was the second time she’d heard him mention anything about them.
“All the families have been in crisis, including mine. My parents had been counting on my marriage to Andreas. They’ve been grief stricken since he married Gabi. They think I’m heartbroken over it! If they knew it was his baby, they’d insist he take responsibility.
“And Andreas would insist on taking control, because that’s the way he’s made. But then everyone would get in on the act to make things right with me. Nothing would ever be the same again.”
Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. “It would ruin so many lives—that’s the reason why I have to keep this a secret from Andreas.”
Vincenzo cocked his dark head. “Does anyone else know you’re pregnant?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“If we’re going to get married, I insist that everyone believe the baby is mine.”
Irena gasped. “Vincenzo, what I said earlier…You don’t want to marry me! Especially not now.”
“Irena, the baby you carry has as much chance of being mine as Andreas’s. As you have explained, he already has a wife, therefore I insist on taking responsibility. You need a husband, the baby needs a father and I need a wife.”
“Vincenzo…”
“I’ll ask you the question again. Does anyone else know you’re pregnant besides me and your doctors?”
“Yes.”
“Who is it?”
She bit her lip. “It’s Deline.”
Vincenzo rubbed the side of his jaw. “Under the circumstances she’s probably the only person you know who could be trusted. Do you think she’d be able to take our secret to the grave?”
Our secret. Irena couldn’t fathom that he was really considering the idea of marriage to her, especially after what she had just told him.
“If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have told her in the first place.”
“Does she support you in keeping this from Andreas?”
“No. She’s afraid that if I don’t tell him, it’ll come out one day anyway. But she would never betray me.”
