The Italian's Christmas Child Read online

  And for Vito it was as though the rest of the world vanished. He focused in amazement on the baby who bore a remarkable resemblance to a framed photograph Vito’s mother had of her son at a similar age. Huge brown eyes from below a mop of black curls inspected him with sparkling curiosity. A chubby fist waved in the air and suddenly Vito froze, out of his comfort zone and hating it. He had never gone weak at the knees for puppies or babies, had put that lack of a softer side down to his grandfather’s rigid discipline. But now he was looking at his son and seeing a baby with his own features in miniature and he finally realised that the very thought of fatherhood unnerved him. His own father had been a hopeless parent. How much worse would he do with Angelo when he had no idea even where to start?

  Holly paused beside the child seat to say awkwardly, ‘So…er…obviously this is Angelo. He’s a little bored at weekends because during the week I look after a pair of toddlers and it’s a lot livelier here.’

  Vito tried to stand a little less stiffly but in truth he felt much as if someone had swung open the door of a lion’s cage and left him to take his chances. ‘Why did you call him Angelo?’

  ‘Because you’re Italian,’ Holly pointed out, wondering why he was questioning the obvious. ‘I looked up Italian names.’

  Vito forced himself closer to the baby. His hands weren’t quite steady as he undid the belt strapping Angelo into his seat. As Vito lifted the baby, Angelo gave his father an anxious, startled appraisal.

  ‘You’re used to children,’ Holly assumed, rather taken aback by that deceptively confident first move.

  ‘No. I don’t think I’ve ever been this close to a child before. There are none in the family and most of my friends are still single as well,’ Vito told her abstractedly, wondering what he was supposed to do with the little boy now that he was holding him.

  ‘Thank you for having him,’ Vito breathed in a driven undertone. ‘You could have made a different decision but you didn’t.’

  Nothing about this first meeting was going in any direction that Holly had foreseen. And she was even less ready to hear her baby’s father thank her for not opting for a termination. Her eyes prickled with sudden emotion.

  ‘I wanted him from the first, never had any doubts there,’ she admitted gruffly. ‘He’s the only family I have…apart from my friend Pixie.’

  As Angelo squirmed and wriggled, Vito lifted him higher and swung him round in aeroplane mode.

  The baby’s eyes grew huge and he let out a frightened howl before breaking down into red-faced, gulping sobs.

  ‘Let me take him,’ Holly urged in dismay as Vito lowered the squalling baby. ‘He’s not used to the rough stuff. There are no men in his life, really, just Pixie and me…’

  Vito settled Angelo back into Holly’s arms with more than a suggestion of haste and relief. ‘Sorry, I upset him.’

  ‘He needs time to get used to you,’ Holly explained. ‘I’ll put him on the floor to play with his toys.’

  Vito was tempted to back off entirely but that struck him as cowardly and he held his ground to crouch down on the rug. Finally recalling that he had brought a gift, he removed it from his pocket and tipped it out of a box. ‘It’s only a little toy.’

  Holly winced as she noted a piece of the toy break off and fall. It had detachable tiny parts and was totally unsuitable for a baby. ‘You can’t give that to him,’ she told Vito apologetically. ‘He puts everything in his mouth and he could choke on those tiny pieces.’

  In haste, Vito removed the toy and its parts again and grimaced. ‘I didn’t think. I really don’t know anything about babies.’

  Holly pulled over Angelo’s toy box and extracted a red plastic truck that was a favourite. ‘He likes this… Coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘Black, no sugar,’ Vito murmured flatly, recognising that getting to know his son and learning how to play with him appeared to be even more challenging than he had feared.

  Holly made coffee, acknowledging that she was simply delighted that Vito had had enough interest to come and meet Angelo. She could see how awkward he felt with their child and knew that if she didn’t make Vito feel more comfortable he might not want to make another visit. Not that he had prepared very well for this first visit, she thought ruefully, wondering what he had thought a baby would do with a miniature brick action figure festooned in even tinier weapons.

  When she returned with the coffee, Angelo was sucking on his little red truck and refusing to share the toy with his father. Holly got down on her knees beside them and, with his mother on hand, her son relaxed his grip on the truck and handed it to Vito. For an instant he looked as though he had no idea what to do with the toy and then some childhood memory of his own must have prompted him because he ran the toy across the rug making vroom-vroom noises and Angelo gave a little-boy shout of appreciation.

  A little of Vito’s tension ebbed in receipt of that favourable response. It shook him to appreciate that he had actually craved that first welcoming smile from his son. He wanted the little boy to recognise him as his father, he wanted him to like him and love him, but it was intimidating to appreciate that he hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about achieving those things.

  Holly parted her lips to say, ‘When you first came in you said there was something that you needed to explain to me…?’

  Vito’s lean, strong profile clenched and he sprang upright. ‘Yes. That sex-party scandal that made headlines,’ he framed with palpable distaste. ‘That wasn’t me, it was my father, Ciccio.’

  As she too stood up, Holly’s mouth dropped open in shock. ‘Your…father?’

  ‘I didn’t deny my involvement because I was trying to protect my mother from the humiliation of having her husband’s habits exposed so publicly,’ Vito explained grimly.

  Holly dropped down on the edge of the sofa behind her. ‘Oh, my goodness.’

  ‘My mother could confirm the truth if you require further proof that I wasn’t involved. What did happen that night was that I received a phone call in the early hours of the morning telling me that my father had fallen ill and needed urgent medical attention,’ Vito told her, his delivery curt.

  ‘The person calling refused to identify herself, and that should’ve been my warning. My mother was in Paris and I had to take charge. I wondered why my father had taken ill at an apartment owned by the bank but the minute I walked into it I could see what I was dealing with, and that I had been contacted like a clean-up crew in the hope of keeping the wild party under the radar.’

  Holly nodded slowly, not really knowing what to say.

  ‘My father had had a heart attack in the company of hookers and drugs,’ Vito volunteered grimly. ‘I had him collected by a private ambulance from the rear entrance and, having instructed a trusted aide to dispose of all evidence of the party, I intended to join my father at a clinic. Unfortunately the press were waiting outside when I left and I was mobbed. One of the hookers then sold her story, choosing to name me rather than my father even though I had never met her in my life. She probably lied because there was more of a story in my downfall than in that of a middle-aged married man with a taste for sleaze.’

  ‘So you took the blame for your parents’ sake?’ Holly whispered in wonderment.

  ‘My mother’s sake,’ Vito emphasised drily. ‘But my mother worked out the truth for herself and she is currently divorcing my father. She looked after him until he had regained his health and then told him that she wanted a separation.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that? I mean, their divorce means that your sacrifice was in vain.’

  ‘I’m relieved that they’ve split up. I don’t like my father very much…well, not at all, really,’ Vito admitted, his wide sensual mouth twisting. ‘He’s a greedy, dishonest man and my mother will have a better life without him.’

  Utterly amazed by that flood of unrestrained candour from a male as reserved as Vito, Holly continued to scrutinise him with inquisitive blue eyes. ‘Why are you telling me all t
his now?’

  ‘You’re family now in all but name,’ Vito told her wryly. ‘And I couldn’t possibly allow you to continue to believe that I am not a fit person to be around my son.’

  Holly fully understood that motivation and muttered, ‘I’m sorry I misjudged you. I was naive to believe everything I read on the internet about you. I told you before that I don’t know who my father is,’ Holly admitted, wrinkling her nose. ‘My mother gave me several different stories and I challenged her when I was sixteen to tell me the truth but she still wouldn’t answer me. I honestly don’t think she knows either. In those days she was fairly promiscuous. I’ve had no contact with her since then.’

  ‘You’ve never had a father…much like me. Ciccio took no interest in me when I was a child and when I was an adult he only approached me if he wanted something,’ he revealed, settling down with striking grace of movement into an armchair. ‘My grandfather was my father figure but he was seventy when I was born and he had a Victorian outlook on childcare and education. It was far from ideal.’

  Holly was fascinated by what she was learning about Vito’s background, although she really wasn’t sure why he was choosing to tell her so much. ‘I think very few people have an ideal childhood,’ she said ruefully.

  ‘But wouldn’t it be wonderful to give Angelo that ideal?’ Vito pressed, black velvet lashes lifting on glittering gold as he studied her.

  Her heart raced and her mouth ran dry. Hurriedly she dropped her gaze from his, only for her attention to fall to the tight inner seam of his jeans stretched along a powerful muscular thigh. Guilty heat surged through her and she shifted uneasily. ‘And how could we give Angelo an ideal childhood?’ she asked abstractedly.

  ‘By getting married and giving our son a conventional start in life,’ Vito spelt out with measured assurance. ‘I’m not only here to meet Angelo, Holly…I’m here to ask you to be my wife.’

  Disbelief roared through Holly. She blinked rapidly, doubting the evidence of her ears. He was proposing? He was actually proposing marriage to her because she had had his child?

  Holly loosed an uneasy laugh and Vito frowned, because that was hardly the response he had envisaged. ‘I think your grandfather’s Victorian outlook is showing, Vito. We don’t need to get married to give Angelo a decent upbringing.’

  ‘How else can I be a proper father when I live in a different country?’ Vito demanded with harsh bite. ‘I really don’t want to be only an occasional visitor in my son’s life or the home he visits for a few weeks in summer when he’s off school. That is not enough for me.’

  Holly watched Vito lean down to lift Angelo, who was tugging at his shoelaces. He closed his arms tentatively round Angelo’s small restive body and settled him down on a lean thigh. There was something incredibly sexy about his newly learned assurance with their son and her cheeks coloured at that seemingly tasteless reflection, but the smouldering edge of Vito’s sexuality seemed to be assailing her every thought. ‘Well, I can see that it would be difficult for you and far from ideal, but marriage…well, that’s a whole different ball game,’ she told him regretfully. ‘I want to marry a man who loves me, not a man who accidentally got me pregnant and wants to do what he feels is the right thing by me.’

  ‘I can’t change how we conceived Angelo but with a little vision you should be able to see that where we started isn’t where we have to end up,’ Vito responded smoothly. ‘I may not love you but I’m insanely attracted to you. I’m also ready to settle down.’

  ‘Yes, you were engaged, weren’t you?’ Holly slotted in rather unkindly.

  ‘That’s not relevant here,’ Vito informed her drily. ‘Stay focused on what really matters.’

  ‘Angelo,’ Holly replied, with hot cheeks, while her brain trooped off in wild, unproductive circles.

  He was asking her to marry him… He was actually asking her to marry him! How was she supposed to react to that when she had been astonished by his proposal?

  ‘You should also consider the reality that eventually Angelo will be very rich, and growing up outside my world isn’t the best preparation for that day,’ Vito pointed out. ‘I want to be his father. A father who is there for him when he needs me. A benefit neither you nor I enjoyed.’

  He was making very valid points but Holly felt harassed and intimidated rather than grateful for his honesty. ‘But marriage?’ she reasoned. ‘That’s such a huge decision.’

  ‘And a decision only you can make. But there would be other benefits for you,’ Vito told her quietly. ‘You could set up as an interior designer and live your dream with me.’

  ‘You’re starting to sound like a trained negotiator,’ Holly cut in.

  ‘I am a trained negotiator,’ Vito conceded. ‘But I want to give our son the very best start in life he can have, with a genuine family.’

  And that was the real moment that Holly veered from consternation and fell deep into his honeytrap. Those emotive words, ‘a genuine family’, spoke to her on the deepest possible level and filled her head with happy images. That was a goal that she, and surprisingly Vito in spite of his privileged background, both shared, and that touched her. As she studied her son sitting peacefully in his father’s arms her heart melted. She had felt ashamed of the lack of caution that had led to her pregnancy. She had been mortified that she had failed her own life goals and could not give her son the family security and the opportunities he deserved. But if she married Vito she would be able to put all her regrets behind her and give Angelo two parents and a stable home with every advantage.

  ‘Even people in love find it hard to make marriage work,’ Holly reminded him, fighting to resist the tempting images flooding her imagination, and to be sensible and cautious.

  ‘We’re not in love. Our odds of success may well be better because we have less exalted expectations,’ Vito contended silkily. ‘And our arrangement need not be viewed as a permanent trap either. In a few years, should one or both of us be unhappy, we can divorce. All I’m asking you to do at this moment in time, Holly…is give marriage a chance.’

  He made it sound so reasonable, so very reasonable. He was inviting her to try being married to him and see if they could make it work. It was a very realistic approach, guaranteed to make her feel that by trying she would have nothing to lose. And she looked back at him in silence with her heart hammering while he raked an impatient hand through his cropped black hair.

  ‘I’ll think it over.’ Holly fibbed, because she had already thought it over and really there was no contest between what Vito was offering Angelo and what she could hope to offer her son as a lone parent.

  ‘Be more decisive, bellezza mia,’ Vito urged. ‘If you marry me I will do everything within my power to make you happy.’

  Holly had known true happiness only a few times in her life. One of those moments had been waking at dawn enfolded in Vito’s arms. Another had been the first time she had seen her infant son. But just being with Vito also made her happy and that worried her, implying as it did that she was craving something more than a very practical marriage based on their son’s needs. Should she listen to that voice of reason and warning now? Stay on the sidelines where it was safe rather than risk dipping her toes into the much more complex demands of a marriage?

  But at the baseline of her responses there was no denying that she wanted Vito Zaffari with a bone-deep, almost frighteningly strong yearning. How could she possibly walk away from that? How could she stand back and watch him take up with other women, as he would, and know that she had given him that freedom? And the answer was that she couldn’t face that, would sooner take a risk on a marriage that might not work than surrender any hope of a deeper relationship with him.

  Holly breathed in slow and deep and lifted her head high. ‘All right. We’ll get married…and see how it goes…’

  And Vito smiled, that heart-stopping smile that always froze her in her tracks, and nothing he said after that point registered with her because she was washed away by sh
eer excitement and hope for the future.

  Vito registered the stars in her eyes with satisfaction. Having been driven by the need to secure the best possible arrangement for his son’s benefit, he had expended little thought on the actual reality of becoming a married man or a father. He wanted Holly and he wanted his son: that was all that mattered. And Holly would soon learn to fit into his world, he thought airily.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘SMILE!’ PIXIE TOLD HOLLY. ‘You look totally stupendous!’

  Holly smiled to order and gripped her hands together tightly on her lap. The past four weeks had passed in a whirlwind of unfamiliar activity and changes. Now it was her wedding day and hopefully she would finally have time to draw a breath and start to relax. Only not when it was a wedding about to be attended by a lot of rich, important people, she reasoned nervously.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asked her best friend and bridesmaid, ruefully surveying Pixie’s legs, which were both encased in plaster casts.

  Her housemate had returned from a visit to her brother badly battered and bruised from a fall down the stairs, which had also broken both her legs. The extent of her injuries had appalled Holly and, although the bruising had faded, she couldn’t help feeling that there was more amiss with her friend than she was letting on because Pixie’s usual chirpiness and zest for life seemed to have faded away as well. And although she had gently questioned Pixie on several occasions, she could not work out if it was her own imagination in overdrive or if indeed there was some secret concern that Pixie wasn’t yet willing to share with her.

  Predictably, Pixie rolled her eyes. ‘I keep on telling you I’m fine. I’ll get these casts off in a couple of weeks and I’ll get back to work and it’ll be as if this never happened.’

  ‘Hopefully you’ll be able to come out to visit us in Italy in a few weeks’ time.’

  ‘That’s doubtful.’

  ‘Er…if it’s money—’

  ‘No, I’m not taking money off you!’ Pixie told her fiercely. ‘You may be marrying Mr Rich but that’s not going to change anything between us.’