The Italian's One-Night Baby

‘Yes,’ he said gruffly in English. ‘He waits for you.’

Ellie was a mass of nerves and trying not to show it. Could Beppe be her...? No, she refused to think about that because it wasn’t very likely when Beppe had been married at the time. The more likely scenario would be Beppe telling her that he hadn’t known her mother well enough to give her any useful information as to who her father might be.

‘Miss Dixon...’ A small man near her own height greeted her at the door of a book-lined room with a warm smile. ‘Come in and sit down. Adriano will bring us morning coffee.’

With a soft sound of pleasure she sat down in the chair overlooking the beautiful garden. ‘This is such a comfortable room,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘All these books and bits and pieces are fascinating and when you throw the view in, as well—’

‘I’m a lifelong collector and passionate gardener,’ Beppe admitted as he sat down opposite her.

‘Thank you for being willing to see me like this,’ Ellie said a little awkwardly. ‘I can only hope that I’m not about to say anything that may make you regret it—’

‘I don’t take offence easily,’ Beppe reassured her. ‘But I confess that I’m very curious about your mother. What happened to her after she left Italy?’

‘I didn’t even know for sure that she had been in Italy, although it was a fairly obvious assumption,’ Ellie admitted, opting for complete honesty as she dug into her bag and extracted the emerald ring. ‘My mother left me this ring...’

Beppe paled, his easy smile slipping for an instant. He scooped up the ring at the same time as the door opened and Adriano brought in a tray. He spoke to the young man with a couple of hand signals. ‘Adriano’s deaf,’ he muttered absently, his attention still fixedly focussed on the emerald.

‘He’s a great lip-reader,’ Ellie remarked.

‘He’s had a lot of training over the years. Once he’s acquired the necessary experience working here, he hopes to find a more exciting position abroad,’ Beppe told her and he leant forward to deposit the ring back on the table beside her cup. ‘I gave your mother this ring. It once belonged to my mother,’ he added heavily.

‘Okay.’ Taken aback by that admission, Ellie nodded acceptance. ‘So you knew her well?’

‘Better than I should have done in the circumstances,’ Beppe confided in a weighted undertone of discomfiture. ‘Annabel spent that summer working for an English family who had a holiday home not far from here. My brother, Vincenzo, met her first and they got engaged before I even met her. I think you would call it a whirlwind romance because they had only known each other for a few weeks.’

Ellie sighed, thinking of what she had learned about her mother from her sister Polly. ‘What year was that?’

Beppe told her and the timing dovetailed in Ellie’s mind. Her older sister would only have been a toddler when Annabel came to work in Italy.

‘How do I describe Annabel to you...her daughter?’ Beppe sighed. ‘She was full of life and tremendous fun to be with but she was a little impulsive when it came to love.’

‘Yes,’ Ellie agreed, wondering what was coming next.

‘I was married to a wife who was disabled. That is not an excuse. There can be no excuse for what happened,’ Beppe continued with unconcealed regret. ‘I learned that I was not the man I believed I was. I fell head over heels in love with your mother and it was the same for her. I was thirty-five then, hardly an impressionable boy, and I fully believed that I loved my wife. Amalia was a wonderful wife. It was not an unhappy marriage yet I broke her heart and my brother’s. But mercifully, generously my brother did not choose to publicly accuse me of what I had done and my wife was not humiliated. Together, Amalia and I concentrated on restoring our marriage, locked away that secret affair and moved on.’

‘I honestly don’t know what I can say to what you’ve just told me because I know none of the people involved,’ Ellie said carefully. ‘But I am sorry to hear that other people were injured by my mother’s actions.’

‘Annabel injured herself most of all. She could’ve had a good life with my brother but she gave him up because she met me,’ Beppe admitted with remorse. ‘Vincenzo was still estranged from me when he died. It was a horrible mess for all of us—’

‘I’m very sorry,’ Ellie breathed, feeling inadequate in the face of such honesty and a very personal story, which she had never expected to hear told.

‘The last time I saw your mother she was very angry with me,’ Beppe confessed unhappily. ‘I had told her from the outset of our affair that I would not leave my wife but she refused to accept that. My love for my wife was a different kind of love but no less real to me. Although I was an unfaithful husband, Amalia forgave me and we stayed together and we were blessed by many more happy years before she passed away...’

‘My goodness... I genuinely didn’t come here to cause you distress, but I can see that I’ve done nothing but rake up disastrous memories!’ Ellie exclaimed guiltily, seeing the tears that shone in Beppe’s dark eyes. ‘Unfortunately, I came here with a very different angle, Beppe. I’m trying to find out who my father is—’

‘In Italy?’ he cut in, his surprise unconcealed. ‘Surely you are far too young to believe you were conceived here? When were you born?’

And she told him and his face became very sombre. ‘I believed you were several years younger, but it is certainly a possibility that I could be the man you seek. Dio mio, that could explain why your mother told me that I would live to regret not leaving my wife for her.’

Ellie fell silent, disturbed by the harsh nature of what she was learning about the mother she had never known.

‘We will have to look into this more. With tests? That is how it is done, is it not?’

‘Are you willing to do that?’

‘Certamente... Of course,’ Beppe responded. ‘Now perhaps we should discuss something less challenging while we consider what we have both learned.’

Ellie’s hand shook a little as she lifted her cup because she was marvelling at his calm manner.

Beppe chuckled. ‘I must be on my very best behaviour now in case you turn out to be a relative.’

And Ellie’s hopes soared, that he was the man, that he would turn out to be her father and that a lifetime of frustrating speculation would be ended. They parted an hour later with Beppe promising to contact a doctor he was friendly with, who would advise them discreetly on their quest. Tears rolled down Ellie’s cheeks as she drove back to her hotel. She was in a daze and she was praying that Beppe would be the man she sought because she had really, really liked him and it would be beyond wonderful to discover a father she could actually connect with as a person.

Rio, however, had a very different experience when he joined his godfather for lunch. After what transpired there, bitter anger consumed him and when he left he headed straight to Ellie’s hotel, determined to confront her. Learning that she had gone for a walk to a local landmark, he set off to follow her in his car.

Ellie paused halfway up the very steep hill and wiped the perspiration from her brow, registering that in such sultry heat, she had tackled a challenge too great for her fitness level. Hearing the sound of an approaching vehicle, she stepped back onto the verge. She was disconcerted to see Rio at the wheel of a very racy scarlet sports car. He braked and leant across to open the passenger door. ‘Get in!’ he told her uninvitingly.

‘No, thanks,’ Ellie responded. Her day had been demanding enough without adding him into it.

Without a word, Rio shot her an intimidating glance from molten gold eyes and sprang out of the car, stalked round the bonnet, and before she could even guess his intention he had scooped her off her startled feet and dropped her into the passenger seat, slamming the door after her.

‘What the heck do you think you’re playing at?’ Ellie yelled at him in disbelief as she struggled to open the door to get out again and failed because he had already engaged the child lock to prevent her from doing exactly that.

Rio shot back behind the wheel, his lean, darkly handsome face granite hard. ‘We have to talk—’

‘No, we don’t. I have nothing to say to you!’ Ellie proclaimed vehemently. ‘Let me out of this car—’

‘Put your seat belt on!’ Rio growled at her as if she hadn’t spoken.

‘No, I won’t. I refuse to go anywhere with you!’ Ellie yelled back at him.

Rio leant across her to wrench the seat belt round her and she was so taken aback by the second act enforced against her wishes that she studied him in shock. ‘This is kidnapping and assault,’ she informed him furiously. ‘I will go to the police and make an official complaint about you!’

‘Go ahead!’ Rio bit out rawly.

‘You are out of control,’ Ellie informed him. ‘You’re not thinking about what you’re doing!’

‘Sì... If I’d thought about it, I would have come armed with a gag!’ Rio slung at her wrathfully.

‘Much good that would do you. I’m a judo black belt,’ Ellie countered. ‘Had I known you were planning to kidnap me, I would have defended myself to stop you grabbing me.’

‘Don’t kid yourself,’ Rio practically spat at her as he raked the car on up the hill she had been struggling to climb. ‘If you were assaulted, you would be far too busy assessing the pros and cons of acting aggressively to take action quickly enough to defend yourself!’

And Ellie was stunned by that eerily accurate reading of her character. Rio was the single exception to her abhorrence of violence in all its forms and even when it came to him she didn’t want to actually hurt him, just hold him at bay or make him go away. ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Somewhere we can talk in peace,’ he grated.

Ellie skimmed an infuriated glance at his set profile, noting the classic slope of his nose, the definition lent by his perfect cheekbones, the outrageous sweep of his black lashes. ‘You’re driving too fast—’