The Brabanti Baby

“So you did. But that hardly renders her incommunicado with the rest of the world—unless he’s touring the polar ice cap.”

“There’s also the time difference to take into account. New York’s six hours behind Malta.”

“I have enough business interests worldwide to be well aware of international time changes, Eve,” he reminded her, offering his finger to Nicola, who immediately grasped it in her tiny fist and favored him with a solemn, large-eyed stare.

“Look at that, will you?” he said. “Even though I’m her father, I’m a complete stranger to her. Yet she clings to me with absolute confidence, certain she is safe with me and wraps me around her little heart without even trying. I cannot imagine being indifferent to where, and how, she is.”

Ignoring the clutch of emotion inspired by the sight of Nicola’s translucent dimpled knuckles curved so trustingly around his long, tanned finger, Eve said, “If you’re suggesting Marcia doesn’t care—!”

Beryl chose that moment to come into the room with a bowl of peaches, and a basket of warm sweet rolls to go with the curls of butter and preserves already on the table. A young girl accompanied her, bringing in a fresh pot of coffee.

Glad of the interruption, Eve helped herself to the fruit and hoped he’d drop the subject of Marcia’s apparent lack of concern for her baby. Because how could she defend something she herself found hard to understand?

The moment they were alone again, though, Gabriel picked right up where he’d left off. “If I am suggesting she doesn’t care,” he said, gently disentangling himself from his daughter’s grip, and pouring himself more coffee, “I’ll be glad to have you prove me wrong. You told me, your first night here, that you’re accustomed to being around children, in which case I respect your opinion. Are you a teacher? Is that how you gained your experience?”

“No. I work as a nurse in an inner city health clinic, and I can tell you that the babies I see would consider themselves fortunate beyond their wildest dreams if they had the kind of home Marcia provides for Nicola.”

“Are you saying your patients live in poverty?”

“That, of course—and in some cases, it’s extreme. But it’s not just the grinding misery of being poor that shows in their eyes, it’s the violence and neglect that so often go with it. Many of them have learned before they’re two years old that they have no future.”

His gaze rested on her face with a compassion in its blue depths that, if she’d allowed it, would seriously have undermined her determination to resist him. “You must find that very distressing.”

“It breaks my heart, every day.”

“And the fact that Marcia appears to treat my daughter like a toy to be cast aside when something more interesting comes along, doesn’t?”

“It’s not like that, at all!” she insisted heatedly. “You only have to look at Nicola to see that she’s well cared for.”

He fixed her in such a reproachful stare that she squirmed. “Signorina Eve, a vintage car might be well-cared for, or a garden, or a public park! But a baby deserves better than that, surely? A baby should be treasured, doted upon, adored.”

“What makes you think Nicola isn’t?”

“On the surface, nothing, although I admit I’d expected her to look a little more robust for her age, and be a good deal more contented than she often is.” He flicked a glance at Nicola who, for once, was quite happy gazing at the slow-circling blades of the ceiling fan, then turned his attention again to Eve. “But I see that I’m making you very uncomfortable with my speculations and opinions. Forgive me. I have no right trying to drag you into the middle of what is, after all, a fight between my ex-wife and me.” He pushed the basket of sweet rolls closer. “Try these and some of Beryl’s excellent home-made preserves. I swear, if she suspects I’ve spoiled your appetite, she’ll make my life a misery.”

The way you made Marcia’s? Eve wondered. Because the luxury evident throughout the villa, the sublime Mediterranean setting, the stunning good looks and simmering sensuality of the man seated opposite her—not to mention the charm he could turn on at will—exactly suited Marcia’s exotic tastes. Which could only mean that there had to have been something seriously amiss in the marriage, not only for Marcia to walk away from it in the first place, but for her to so adamantly refuse ever to come back or to face Gabriel again.

“I rather doubt anyone could make you miserable without your consent,” she said, breaking open a roll and buttering it. “You strike me as being quite…invincible.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to talk me out of taking you sightseeing later on?”

“Would it do me any good to try?”

“Not in the least,” he said, laughter brimming in his voice. “It’s exactly as you suspect: I’m used to having things my way.”

And therein, perhaps, lay the answer to why the marriage had gone wrong, because Marcia was obstinate as a mule. “Neither you nor my cousin seems to understand the concept of compromise,” she observed. “And I don’t mind telling you, just how your hard-nosed attitude will ultimately affect Nicola frightens me.”

His fingers brushed against hers and grew still. “Don’t be afraid, Eve,” he said gently. “We’re on the same side in this. We both want what’s best for my daughter.”

She found herself reacting oddly to his touch, with part of her yearning toward his warmth and strength, and another part shrinking from the subtle danger of him. He could say what he liked, but it was what he didn’t say that troubled her the most. He wasn’t nearly as guileless as he’d like her to believe, and for reasons based on nothing but instinct, she couldn’t shake the feeling that if she didn’t keep him at arm’s length, she’d end up becoming his victim.

“If that’s true,” she replied, “then you’ll agree it would be best if I stayed home with her today. She’s had a very rough week of it since she arrived here, and I’d feel better if I were around to keep an eye on her.”

He’d decided on the Lamborghini, believing that her seeing the sights from the comfort and vantage point of a convertible would coax her into forgiving him for having dragged her out against her will, and insisting they leave the baby with Beryl.

He should have known better. Stiff with resentment, she sat poker straight, her hands clenched in her lap, her eyes focused directly ahead, even though the city bastions rose up on her right, impressive enough in their age and magnificent engineering grandeur to stop most tourists dead in their tracks.