The Brunellesci Baby

‘I know how it feels.’

An unpleasant shock stirred in her stomach. ‘You have a child?’

‘I have Nicky,’ he said. ‘And I don’t intend to let him go.’

Deadlock. In his rock-hard face she saw the same unyielding willpower he’d exerted in order to get his hands on Dominic, to force through the paperwork that made him the baby’s legal guardian, ensuring there could be no comeback if Lia changed her mind.

She wasn’t giving up, but banging her head against the brick wall of his intransigence wouldn’t accomplish anything at this point. ‘I’d like to see him,’ she said.

‘He’ll be having his nap.’

‘I’ll wait.’ Short of bodily throwing her out, or getting a henchman to do it, he wouldn’t shift her.

He regarded her consideringly for several seconds, perhaps weighing how much of a fight she’d put up if he did physically remove her. Then he gave a short, surprised laugh, strode to a discreet intercom on the wall and pressed a button. ‘Two cups and a pot of coffee please, Mrs Walker,’ he said into the machine. ‘And something to eat.’

Switching off, he wandered to a window, looking out at the driveway and lawns. Perhaps realising it was discourteous to present his back to a guest, however unwelcome, he turned abruptly. ‘When did you begin watching the house?’ he asked.

‘Yesterday was the first time.’

‘Have you been in Australia for long?’

‘Since the day before.’

‘Where are you staying?’

She told him, but he didn’t seem to recognise the name of the bed and breakfast accommodation. Small, cheap and basic, it was no doubt not the kind of place that he or anyone he knew would even notice. ‘It’s clean,’ she said. ‘And quiet.’

He glanced out of the window, then returned his attention to her. ‘I tried to keep track of you after you left here. You moved about a lot. I didn’t know you’d returned to New Zealand.’

‘You had me watched?’ Resentment at the intrusion coloured her voice. ‘Why?’ Had he anticipated that Lia might one day challenge his guardianship of her son? Hoped for some damning sign that would count against her, strengthen his position?

His mouth went tight. ‘I wanted to know if you were all right. You’re Nicky’s mother, after all. And Rico loved you, however wrong-headed he was.’

Rico, his younger brother who had loved life and lived for the moment, impatient with the restrictions and expectations of the Brunellesci family. And who had paid the price and died far too young in the wreckage of his car, leaving a baby and a desperate, injured and grief-stricken mother who couldn’t cope with what had happened to her and her child.

Even after securing legal custody of his brother’s child, Zandro had been concerned about Lia? Hard to believe.

He might, she supposed, have been protecting the family’s reputation, perhaps afraid of what Rico’s lover might say about his brother, about his parents, about Zandro himself.

‘I managed,’ she said. ‘My…my friends helped, when I got back home to New Zealand.’

‘Better friends, I hope, than the ones you had in Sydney.’

Sydney was where Lia had met Rico, she on a working holiday from New Zealand, he escaping what he’d called the suffocation of his family home and business.

It had been love at first sight; at least that was what they’d believed. One look at Lia and no other woman existed for Rico—he’d told her so on their second meeting. She’d felt exactly the same. The pace of their affair was matched by the pace of their lifestyle—fast, frenetic, sometimes wild. They were young, heedless, caring for nothing but each other, the need to enjoy every moment as if they knew their time would be short, eager to explore every heady new sensation to the fullest. Perhaps deep down they’d known that such sizzling, euphoric emotion couldn’t last. But never had Lia dreamed it could end so shatteringly.

When she’d fled back to New Zealand it was to a totally different lifestyle, after finally realising how few people she could rely on once her laughing, handsome lover was dead, his money gone with him, her baby taken and her health broken.

A plump middle-aged woman entered with a tray that she placed on the table nearest the visitor. Noticing the compress as she straightened, the woman looked surprised. ‘You’re hurt? Can I do anything?’

Zandro looked at the compress. ‘Perhaps some more ice, Mrs Walker… Lia?’

‘No, it’s fine now, but maybe you could take this away?’ She unwound the compress, and when the housekeeper had left inquired, ‘What happened to Mrs Strickland?’

‘She retired and went to live with her daughter in Sydney.’ Zandro crossed the big room and poured coffee into the cups, silently indicating the sugar and milk on the tray. He picked up his cup as she added sugar to hers. ‘I would like to believe,’ he said, straightening with the cup in his hand, ‘that you have changed—a lot. Is that possible?’

‘What do you think?’ she demanded witheringly. ‘After losing Rico and having his baby snatched away, you supposed there’d be no change?’

Something flickered across his face, too fast for her to identify it. Chagrin, perhaps—surely not compassion.

It was quickly replaced by an impenetrable mask when he’d seated himself opposite her. ‘The fact is, you have no rights now. You agreed, and it was all legal and aboveboard.’

He’d been much smarter than Lia. Taken her to a lawyer—his lawyer—to sign over her baby to him. No doubt the legalese was watertight.

Her jaw ached and she looked down into her coffee, trying not to snap back a retort that would only antagonise him. ‘My information,’ she said, ‘is that a parent can rescind guardianship.’

‘Are you prepared to bear the scrutiny of a court on your suitability to care for Nicky?’

Aware of being on frighteningly shaky ground, she gulped some coffee and tried to sound confident. ‘If you insist on taking it that far. I have nothing to hide.’ A barefaced lie. She told herself—not for the first time—that desperate situations demanded desperate measures. Saving a child from a life of misery surely justified a few unavoidable falsehoods.

‘Nothing?’ He seemed incredulous, and again she experienced a nervous, dreaded uncertainty.

He couldn’t possibly have guessed her secret. His scepticism was based on what little he’d known of Lia months ago, after his brother’s death.

If her perilous bluff failed she would go to court, tell the truth and throw every resource she could muster into the fight to beat the Brunellescis and take Dominic home where he belonged. A proper home where he’d be loved for himself, not for what he represented to the future of a business empire. A home where love and understanding were more important than money, and success was measured by the quality of relationships and the satisfaction of a job well done, instead of company dividends. Where he’d be allowed to choose his career, rather than be indoctrinated with the idea that as a Brunellesci he was destined to be swallowed up by the corporate politics of the family’s various holdings. And where he’d never be forced into a role that would stultify him and break his spirit.

Zandro was staring intently at her. ‘A solo mother,’ he said, ‘with…let’s say dubious connections. And have you had a job since you left here?’ he pressed.

‘Yes.’ No need to panic. She didn’t have to answer his questions. Pre-empting the next one, she said, ‘I don’t have a lot of money, but I own a house.’ Her parents had left it mortgage-free on their deaths. Just an ordinary three-bedroom suburban bungalow in Auckland, but a house all the same. An asset. Of course she and Dominic couldn’t stay there—she’d have to sell it—but she wasn’t going to tell Zandro of her long-term plan. ‘I can make a good life for Dominic. I’ll give up everything to make sure of it.’

‘And how long will this altruism last?’

‘It isn’t altruism. It’s love. Maternal instinct.’ Boldly she met his eyes.

He made an acid sound of disbelief.

She ignored it. ‘You could help make the changeover easy for him.’

He finished his coffee in one gulp and put down the cup, then sat back and folded his arms, seemingly thinking. ‘He’s happy here, he has everything he needs, and if you’re the loving mother you’re pretending to be you’ll leave him.’

Her heart gave a brief lurch, and she forced herself to breathe normally and stay silent.

‘I propose that you visit him as many times as you like while you’re here—to satisfy yourself he couldn’t be better off.’

He didn’t begin to understand her compulsion. A mother’s frantic need to rescue a child she felt she’d deserted was only half of it.

He paused. ‘And if it works out, we can talk about visiting rights for the future.’