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She didn’t care that their son could hear this. Much as Vincenzo hated it, she’d left him no choice. “Legally I have the right to be with him until nine tonight. I bring him back early as a consideration to you, Mila. Go ahead and call your attorney. By the time you reach him, I’ll have brought Dino back.”
He glanced at his son. “We’re going out to dinner.”
“Can we get pizza?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“With her?” Mila demanded.
Vincenzo didn’t answer. Dino walked out the door with him. It closed hard behind them.
“Mama’s real mad.”
“I’m sorry about that. She’s missed you a lot.”
They got in the car. “Are we going to eat with Signorina Spiros?”
“We are.”
“Did she want me to come?”
“I’ll say. In fact, she refused to eat with me unless you came.”
A smile broke out on his face.
“Hey—our hotel!” he cried a few minutes later. “Is she waiting in our room?”
“Yes.”
Irena thanked the clerk in the gift shop and took the two presents she’d bought back to the hotel room. Vincenzo had told her it was the one he and Dino always stayed in. They pretended it was their home away from home. The more she was getting to know him, the more she realized what an exceptional father he was.
If Vincenzo was the father of her unborn child, it would have no better parent. But she was getting ahead of herself. First they needed to broach the subject of marriage with Dino. These things took time.
Under the best of circumstances, his son might need months, even a year, to get used to the idea. Unfortunately Irena didn’t have that long with a baby on the way. She still hadn’t given up the idea of going to Canada.
Her ears picked up the rap on the door. Nervous over what was to come, she turned in time to see the two of them enter the room. It suddenly hit her they could be her future husband and stepson. As the thought penetrated, she was overcome by a myriad of emotions ranging from anxiety that it couldn’t work, to excitement that it might.
“Hi, Dino!”
His brown eyes smiled. “Hi, signorina!”
Vincenzo’s gaze traveled from one to the other. “I’ve just told him we’re going to have dinner here. I’ll call the kitchen. He wants pizza. What else would you like?”
“Salad? Coffee?”
He nodded and picked up the house phone to place their order.
“Come over here, Dino.” She’d put one of her gifts on the table. When he joined her, she told him to open it. Out of the bag came a canister of fifty pickup sticks. “Have you ever played this before?”
When he shook his head, she looked at Vincenzo. “What about you?”
A gleam entered his eyes. “Once long ago. We called it Shanghai.”
“Well, the game I know works like this.” She opened the top and put all the sticks in her hand. Then she placed it on the table and let the sticks fall. Picking out the black stick she said, “The trick is to remove each stick one at a time so the others don’t move. The person who can remove the most sticks is the winner.”
She got busy and loosened ten sticks before disturbing some. Dino couldn’t wait to be next. The game entertained all of them until their meal was wheeled in on a tea cart.
While they ate, Vincenzo took over in the translation department. “Dino? We brought you here to discuss something very important. It’s about me and Irena.”
“What is it?” Above his lips he had a milk moustache.
Irena exchanged a private glance with Vincenzo and they both smiled. “Do you know how you always ask me how come I’m not married and I always tell you it’s because I haven’t found the right woman yet?”
He nodded. “But now you’ve found Irena, huh.”
When Vincenzo explained what Dino had said, Irena expelled the breath she’d been holding.
“Yes. We want to get married right away. How do you feel about that?”
Once the question was posed Dino said, “Can I see you get married?” He’d asked it without hesitation. Vincenzo translated.
“We do everything together, don’t we?”
Dino nodded. “Will Grandpa be there?” More translation.
“Not this time. Irena’s family won’t be there, either, because we’re doing this too fast for everyone to get ready.”
“It’s not too fast for me!”
The look in Vincenzo’s eyes as he translated said it all.
“Will Father Rinaldo marry you in the little church down the road?”
“I don’t know. That’s up to Irena.” He explained what his son had asked.
Dino looked at her with entreaty. “It’s a very pretty church,” he said in English.
Irena didn’t feel comfortable about that. Although she had strong feelings for Vincenzo, their marriage was going to be one of convenience first and foremost. Neither of them had expressed feelings of love for each other and they were really only marrying for the baby’s sake. Vincenzo didn’t even know if the baby was his or not!
“I tell you what, Dino. Your father and I will talk it over before we decide. Would that be okay with you?”
He let the subject go and asked another question before getting out of his chair to come and stand by Irena. He stared at her with an earnestness that melted her heart and asked her something in Italian. Again Vincenzo explained.
“He wants to know if you’ll let him come to see us more often than once a month after we’re married.”
She didn’t have to think about it. “Tell him I would love for him to come and live with us all the time, but I know he loves his mommy, too.”
Vincenzo cleared his throat before enlightening his son. At that point Dino’s spontaneous response was to reach out and hug her. Irena hugged him back, loving this precious boy already. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she told him to wait a minute. She got up from the chair and walked over to the phone table where she’d put his other gift.
“This is for you,” she said in English, handing him the bag.
His face came alive in anticipation. “Two presents?” he said in the same language.
She understood what he meant. “Yes. Go ahead and open it.”
He quickly pulled the little tied box out of the sack and undid it. Beneath the lid lay six chocolate bocci balls. “Stupendo! Grazie, signorina.”
“Di niente, Dino.” She’d heard that expression often enough. “Call me Irena.”
Dino gave her another hug, then offered them both a chocolate. Irena declined hers, knowing how much he loved them, but his father had no reservations and popped one in his mouth. Dino followed suit.
“Delizioso,” they both said at the same time. Just then she got an inkling of what Vincenzo would have been like when he was an irrepressible boy Dino’s age. The image would always stay with her.
They settled down to a couple more rounds of pickup sticks, then Vincenzo made the announcement that they had to go. “Your mama is expecting you, and Irena and I have to drive back to Riomaggiore this evening.” To her relief, Dino didn’t act upset they had to go.
“The game is yours, Dino.” She put it in the sack and handed it to him. In his other hand he had his bag of chocolate and they left the room.
In a minute they were on their way to the villa. Irena was content to listen while the two of them kept up a rapid conversation in Italian. Dino had a dozen questions, firing one after the other.
It was like déjà vu when they drove up in the courtyard and Vincenzo told her he’d be right back. Except that this time Irena got out of the car to give Dino another hug and say goodbye. “Arrivederci, Dino.” She was determined to learn Italian as fast as she could.
He grinned in delight. “Arrivederci, Irena.”
The die was cast. Irena had committed herself. There was no going back. Vincenzo was forced to suppress his euphoria as Mila herself answered the door, ready to castigate him. But for once Dino didn’t seem to notice the tension coming from her.
“Guess what, Mama? Irena gave me presents. She and Papa are getting married and I get to watch!”
“Why don’t you go up for your bath?” Vincenzo suggested. “I need to talk to your mama.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow night and let you know everything that’s happening, okay?”
“Okay. Ciao, Papa.” He raced up the stairs with a new spring in his step.
Vincenzo eyed his ex-wife. Beneath her anger she looked anxious, and with good reason. Since their divorce she’d had everything her way, but now that he was getting married, they could tear up the existing visitation agreement. “Thank you for letting me take him this evening. As you can see, it was important.”
“I want to meet her.”
“If you wish. Where’s your husband?”
“Leo’s in Rome.”
“Shall I bring her in, or do you want to walk out to the car?”
Without answering him verbally, she moved past him and headed for the Fiat. Irena could see them coming and got out. She’d never looked more beautiful to him than right now standing there poised and elegant without being aware of it.
“Mila Ricci? May I present Irena Spiros from Athens,” he said in English. “She doesn’t speak Italian so we’ll speak in English.”
“How do you do,” Irena said and shook Mila’s hand. “You have a wonderful boy in Dino.”
“Thank you,” Mila answered in a brittle voice. She thrust Vincenzo an icy stare. In Italian she said, “How do you expect Dino to handle the situation when she can’t even speak Italian?”
“She’ll learn. Dino’s anxious to teach her.”
“I won’t stand for it, Vincenzo.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “You’re going to have to.”
“This won’t change visitation.”
She was in for a huge shock. Ignoring her warning he said, “You’re being rude in front of my fiancée, Mila.”
Her cheeks flared with color before she addressed Irena. “Do you have any experience with children?”
“No, but when Dino is with us, I’ll try my hardest to make him happy.”
Mila just found out Irena was a woman of high-class and breeding. It was impossible to fight good manners without looking like a shrew.
To Mila he said, “My attorney will be contacting yours. By Tuesday you’ll know all my plans. Ciao, Mila.”
Leaving her to digest that bit of news, he helped Irena back into the car. By the time he’d walked around to the driver’s seat, Mila had gone back into the villa.
“I feel sorry for her.” Irena spoke once they’d reached the main road. “I don’t think there’s a mother alive who wouldn’t feel threatened to know her child was going to be around the influence of another woman on a part-time basis.”
He gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Perhaps now you have an inkling of how I felt when Mila remarried.”
She nodded sadly. “Life shouldn’t be this way.”
“You mean everything should be perfect where every child gets to live with its own mother and father until he or she is happily married off and the whole wonderful process starts all over again?”
“Something like that,” she whispered.
“You’ve already gotten a taste of what it’s going to be like dealing with Mila. I’m glad she insisted on meeting you.”
“So am I.”
“In case her behavior has given you second thoughts, let me know now. I’ll phone Dino to tell him there’s been a change in plans. I don’t want him to go to sleep tonight thinking that something’s going to happen he’s been wanting for such a long time.”
“I don’t understand. Why would your getting married make such a difference to him?”
“My story’s as convoluted as yours. When I divorced Mila, I had to give up a lot to win my freedom from her. Dino was the main casualty, of course. He was so hurt by the tension in our impossible marriage, divorce was the only solution. But both our families disowned me over it.”
“Are you joking?”
“I wish I were. If I wanted to see my child, I had to agree to abide by the severe stipulations she set up.”
“Couldn’t a judge have interceded?”
