Resisting The Italian Single Dad

He had waited all day for her call and when none came he knew he needed to take matters in hand.

Carly spoke with a professional enthusiasm to the group, explaining her approach to sleep with the aid of an overhead presentation and a detailed account of some of the previous families she had successfully worked with. Max listened to her talk, realising it would be so easy to believe in everything she said. But Max knew that life wasn’t so simple. He raised his hand when she spoke about the importance of initially staying with your child as they fell asleep.

Her brow furrowed. ‘Yes, Max?’

‘Shouldn’t we be encouraging our children to be independent? Everything you are saying will make them even more dependent on us.’ Max was gratified to see some of the other parents nod in agreement.

‘The most independent and contented people are those who are secure in their love—isn’t that the gift we want to give our children?’ Without waiting for him to answer, Carly continued her talk.

Max shook his head. Didn’t she understand the importance of making a child independent? All of her tenderness and comforting talk was nonsense. Children needed to learn to cope on their own. Just as he had done growing up. His mother had rarely been around when he was a child as she had often worked a double shift in her job as a hotel chambermaid. Being independent hadn’t done him any harm…how many other people were running a billion-euro business at thirty-three? And he had coped when his mother had died when he was nineteen. He’d got on with his life. Isabella was without a mother too. She was at a greater disadvantage than other children so it was important that she learned to be strong. Not to rely on others. What if anything happened to him and Isabella was completely reliant on and attached to him? How would she manage? One thing was for sure, Carly Knight’s tenderness and comfort would be of little help then.

At the end of the talk Carly patiently answered the other parents’ questions. Begrudgingly he admitted that some of what she said made sense, especially the need for routine and consistency. He knew he needed to revise his work commitments, but his clients expected him on location to personally present at design bids, and with a workforce of over five hundred staff, it was his responsibility to make sure that work continued to flow into the practice. And as loath as he was to admit it, sometimes a hotel room was preferable to facing the emptiness of his house late at night when Isabella had eventually fallen asleep. The loneliness that engulfed him in those late hours often felt as though it were eating him up from the inside out.

As the other parents drifted out of the room, after giving Carly enthusiastic applause, he stood and approached her as she packed away all the sleeping aids she had shown around the group.

She raised one of her perfectly arched eyebrows. ‘It was an unexpected surprise to see you here.’

Hidden in her teasing tone was a hint of scepticism. He shrugged, leant against the wall next to a table filled with pots of tender, newly sprouting plants, name stickers haphazardly applied to the terracotta-coloured plastic. ‘I thought it would be a good opportunity to get a head start in understanding the techniques you’ll use with Isabella.’

Carly placed the lid on the yellow cardboard box. ‘In other words, you’re here to try and persuade me to come to Lake Como with you.’

‘Yes.’

She shook her head. ‘At least you’re honest, unlike a lot of other people.’

Surprised by her jaded tone, he said, ‘I thought in your line of work you’d see the positive in everyone.’

Today she was wearing a knee-length, primrose-yellow summer dress. She rested her hand against her upper chest, where the top buttons were undone to reveal smooth creamy skin. ‘I try to be…’ She eyed him carefully as though trying to weigh up just how much she could trust him.

He hesitated for a moment, but decided to go for broke…no matter how humiliating it was to be practically begging this woman. He cleared his throat. ‘I’m a proud man who doesn’t like to admit when he’s getting things wrong…’ he paused, taken aback by the sudden need to unburden himself in the face of Carly’s attentive blue gaze ‘…but I’ve been getting things wrong with my family for far too long. I need help. I need your help. Will you come?’

‘I don’t usually—’

He stepped forward, handed her the paper sheet he had folded into his jacket pocket earlier this morning. ‘Isabella created this drawing yesterday with Vittoria, I thought you might like it. I think she has an artistic flair.’

She took the sheet and smiled at the tiny pink handprint that had then been covered in a rainbow of assorted Pollock-like paint drips. ‘Considering your profession it’s no wonder that Isabella would have an artistic flair too. What type of projects is your firm involved in?’

‘We mainly specialise in large commercial contracts.’

She nodded and lifted her laptop bag. ‘Any that I would be familiar with?’

He went and picked up the cardboard box. ‘The Ayer building in New York, Yumba International Airport.’

She held the classroom door open for him to pass through, her eyes widening. ‘The Ayer building—wow, I’ve seen photos in the press. It’s a stunning building.’

After she said her goodbyes to the owner, who was in her office, they walked out into the school garden and then to the road beyond the security gate. ‘What did you think of my talk?’

‘You have a flair for public speaking—really engaging.’

His answer seemed to amuse her, but then with a more serious expression she said, ‘I meant the content, the substance of my approach.’

She had said earlier that she liked his honesty. He didn’t make it a habit to talk about his past, or anything to do with his family. But he knew he had to open up to Carly if he wanted her support. He lowered the box to the ground, shrugged on his jacket against the chill in the evening. ‘It’s very different from how I was brought up—I had to be independent from a young age. I can see the benefit to a lot of what you say…but I need help implementing it.’

She gestured for him to pass the cardboard box to her. Nodded down the road. ‘My underground station is in that direction. I have to go—I’m meeting a friend later.’

‘Can I give you a lift?’

She shook her head. ‘The underground will be faster.’

‘So, have you made a decision about this weekend?’

She frowned and indecision shone in her eyes. Why was she so reluctant to go to Lake Como with him? His instinct told him that there was more to it than just her planned weekend away. She didn’t trust him. He smiled. ‘Honestly, the ice cream in Lake Como is really good.’ He gestured to the dull day surrounding them. ‘And you can’t say that you’d prefer to stay here with this weather.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘What time is your flight tomorrow?’

‘My plane has a slot for five p.m. at London City jet centre.’

‘I’ve a full schedule tomorrow until three.’

‘A driver from my office can collect you if you give me your address. We can board immediately, so provided you are there by four-forty we can go. Will that work for you?’

Carly inhaled a deep breath. Looked down at Isabella’s painting she was still carrying in her hand. ‘I’ll go because of Isabella. You can pay me my standard fee but also make a charitable donation to the family support group I gave the talk to on Tuesday. They do incredible work helping disadvantaged parents—please make sure your donation is generous.’

She turned away from him and walked quickly towards the station, the low heels of her summer sandals clipping on the footpath, her loose blonde hair shimmering in the sudden burst of sunshine that broke free of the cloud mass.

For a brief moment he felt elation.

And then he remembered what it was he was facing this weekend.

Isabella asleep in his arms, Max stared out of the jet’s window, his thoughts clearly far, far away, which Carly supposed was a welcome change from how he had longingly been eyeballing his phone, which was lying on the coffee table sitting between them. After Isabella had fallen asleep, he had asked her to pass it to him but she had whispered, ‘No, it will disturb Isabella. Use this time to enjoy holding her; giving her the comfort she wants.’ He had thrown her an exasperated look but she had just shrugged and returned to pretending to read the magazine the jet’s hostess had passed to her along with the best Americano Carly had ever tasted.

The implications of Max’s words yesterday that his plane had a slot at five for take-off hadn’t fully registered with Carly until she had seen his private jet sitting on the runaway. He owned a plane. Max Lovato was even wealthier than she had first guessed and that wealth made her uncomfortable and extra cautious around him. It made her want to push him to prove that he was a good father to Isabella. To figure out what his real priorities in life were—wealth or family?

Soon after take-off Carly had suggested that Isabella should have a nap; from her eye rubbing and yawns it was clear she was tired. Max had questioned whether they should instead keep her awake in the hope she would sleep through the night but had accepted Carly’s explanation that they needed to avoid Isabella being overtired and taken her into the jet’s bedroom. But Isabella had refused to settle and had clung to Max instead. Guessing that Isabella was picking up on her father’s stress, lying down in the middle of the day clearly not being his thing, Carly suggested that they come back out into the lounge and cuddle. Within five minutes Isabella had fallen fast asleep.

Now, Carly tried to focus on an article about the benefits of superfoods and whether they were superfoods or not, but her attention kept being drawn back to father and daughter.

Isabella had her father’s mouth, the soft wave now relaxed in sleep from its earlier unhappy jutting out. When Carly had boarded the plane, Isabella had eyed her warily before burying her face into her father’s chest, her little hands bunching the light blue material of his polo shirt. Isabella’s complexion was lighter than Max’s—her skin was the colour of golden honey, her hair adorable chestnut curls. Her eyes were molten chocolate brown and could easily break your heart with the defiance that sparked in their depths and spoke of a toddler struggling to understand her world.

Alongside his polo shirt, Max was wearing navy chinos, his sockless feet in loosely laced navy boating shoes. Carly’s gaze time and time again was drawn to his bare ankles, the smoothness of his dark tanned skin over the ankle bone oddly compelling.

He had started off sitting upright, his reluctance to relax, to spend downtime with his daughter obvious. What was holding him back from fully engaging with his daughter? Was his job that pressurised? Was it the need for success and even more wealth and power? Or was he simply struggling like so many other parents? She thought back to that torment she had witnessed the first time she had seen him and winced. She wanted to help him in his grief for his wife, in his struggle with understanding and connecting fully with his daughter. That was why she had agreed to this weekend. Even after he had shamelessly turned up at her meeting Wednesday afternoon in a bid to persuade her to go with them to Lake Como. But to give him his due, he had listened attentively to her talk, which she had delivered in a more faltering than usual style, thanks to his unnerving concentration that had his gaze follow her every movement. After, out in the street, she had heard the sincerity in his voice when he said he needed her help.

But, despite all his well-meaning pledges, she wasn’t yet convinced he really was prepared to put the effort into what needed to be done.

As Isabella had relaxed in her sleep, as though by osmosis, Max too had visibly unwound. He had shifted forward in his seat, his legs moving outwards, his shoulders dropping, his right hand relaxing to gently rub against his little girl’s bare leg where her pink denim dungarees had ridden up from her bare feet.

Isabella’s earlier hot cheeks from fighting both sleep and her father had now cooled and Carly smiled at the little girl, already taken by her strong spirit.