Rings of Gold: Gold Ring of Betrayal / The Marriage Surrender / The Unforgettable Husband

‘Aye, aye, aye …’ Alfredo sighed envyingly. ‘To be able to go down there and join in the fun …’

‘Alfredo—’ Impulsively, Sara knelt down to his level. ‘Lia is your grandchild—’

‘I know this.’ He turned, eyes so incredibly softened by pride and joy that it caught at her throat.

‘You love her already.’

‘Sì,’ he confirmed. ‘We—how you English say?—bonded!’ he exclaimed. ‘From the moment she saw me, Sara! She came into my arms as if she had known them always! I love her,’ he sighed. ‘She loves me! It is wonderful!’

‘She is part of me too, Alfredo,’ Sara firmly reminded him.

‘It would be difficult to deny this when she is the image of you.’ He grinned.

‘She needs her mother.’

‘Of course!’ He looked almost shocked that she should feel the need to tell him that. ‘All children need their mother …’ he added, his attention drifting back to the beach where the game had now finished and Lia was busy with her bucket and spade while Fabia erected a beach umbrella over her to keep off the sun. ‘Nico was entirely devoted to his mama,’ he went on softly. ‘They would play together—on this same beach—just like that.’

‘Rosalia,’ Sara prompted softly.

‘Sì.’ The gold eyes darkened. ‘You named the child after Nico’s mamma. I thank you.’ He gave a small nod of his head. ‘It was—kind of you under the circumstances.’

‘She was a very special woman, so Nicholas once told me. She—’ Sara eyed him carefully. ‘She was devoted to both her husband and her son.’

‘Sì.’ Again the word held a wealth of tenderness. ‘As we were devoted to her,’ he added. ‘But she took very sick. Then she died. We both grieved for her badly—still do in some quiet moments, though it was a long time ago now.’

‘Would Rosalia be proud of you, Alfredo, for denying her son the right to love his own wife and child as she loved you both?’

There was a sudden stillness about him. Sara held her breath, waiting—waiting to see how he was going to respond to that blatant attempt to reach his conscience.

‘You presume too much,’ he said curtly then.

‘Do I?’ was all she answered, and stood up, deciding she had said enough for now. She had planted the seed; now it was up to him to decide whether to nurture it or just let it die. But if he did let it die then he would be shaming the memory of his beloved wife. Sara had made that point sink indelibly in. ‘Just remember that Lia is my child,’ she concluded. ‘Try any of your rotten tricks to take her from me and I shall fight you to hell and back.’

His golden eyes flicked sharply to her. ‘And how could I possibly do that?’ he asked, back to being the man she used to know—the one who could terrify her with a look like that.

But not any more, she informed herself bracingly. ‘You know exactly how you can do it,’ she countered. ‘I am one step ahead of you, Alfredo,’ she warned. ‘Force me to, and I will use my ace card.’

His eyes were studying her with a gleaming intelligence. ‘And what would that ace card be?’ he asked silkily.

She didn’t have one, but it wouldn’t hurt to let him think that she might have. ‘If you don’t already know then I’m not going to tell you.’

‘My son loves his papà,’ he added slyly.

By that Sara assumed he was wondering if she had some way of proving her innocence and Alfredo’s culpability to Nicolas.

‘Your son has a right to love his own daughter too,’ she responded, and turned away, preparing to leave him alone with that.

But his voice when it came to her made her skin crawl with dismay. ‘He has a new woman,’ he said. ‘Her name is Anastasia and she lives in Taormina. He visits her twice a week when he is here.’

Her eyes closed on the words. And she had a flashback to a week ago when she had lain in his arms and heard Nicolas himself confirm that statement. ‘Of course I have tried!’ he had spat at her. ‘Do you think I like feeling this way about you?’

Cancer. Alfredo was a cancer that lived on the weaknesses of others.

She walked away from him, feeling sick and shaken.

When she got back to her suite, Nicolas was there. Her heart sank. He was angry, his lean face stone-like and cold.

Retribution was nigh, she recognised wearily, and with a wry little smile stepped further into the suite. Then stopped dead. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked sharply.

The bedroom door was open, and a couple of maids were busily laying all Sara’s clothes out on the bed.

No! she thought on an upsurge of alarm. Alfredo had not already done it, had he? He hadn’t—?

‘Come with me.’

Catching hold of her hand, Nicolas all but frogmarched her out of that suite and along the hallway to the next, where he threw open the door and propelled her inside. She ended up standing in the middle of a beautiful white and blue sitting room; her eyes drifted dazedly around her surroundings without taking anything in.

The suite door shut with a controlled click. She spun back to face him. ‘What are they doing with my clothes?’ she demanded shakily.

‘Removing them,’ he replied. ‘The suite was not yours to begin with. I was allowing you time to settle before moving you, but, having witnessed the way you could attack a sick old man, I do not see why I should make any concessions to you—on anything!’

‘The suite was not yours … allowing you time to settle …’ Her mind was too busy sorting through what he had said to worry much about the angry way he had said it.

‘You mean,’ she ventured at last, ‘that you’re moving Lia and me up a floor, to the family apartments?’

For some reason her conclusion made him frown in puzzlement. ‘What have you been doing with yourself this last week?’ he demanded. ‘You cannot, surely, still be so ignorant of the changes that have been made here?’

Her answer was a blank look because she hadn’t so much as set foot into the rest of the house since arriving here. She had eaten all her meals in her own room and confined all her recreation to the beach and the pool, which had meant her only having to walk up and down the outer steps. Other than that she had stayed put, with no interest in reacquainting herself with a place where she hadn’t felt welcome the first time and was sure that that welcome would be even smaller this time.

His sigh was impatient. ‘This whole house has been completely redesigned since you were here last—essentially to accommodate my father’s less mobile state!’ he explained. ‘Oh, he gets around quite freely—as you saw just now,’ he added, with a flash of that anger to remind her why she had been dragged in here like a naughty child. ‘With the aid of special chair-lifts we have had fitted alongside the east stairway. But for the sake of comfort other changes were made.’

‘What changes?’ she prompted warily when he went grimly silent. She wasn’t a fool; she knew Nicolas was angry with her. She also knew, therefore, that he was not telling her all of this for her own health!

‘There has been a—reallocation of private facilities. My father now has the full use of what was previously considered the family tier. He needs specialist attention,’ he went on. ‘Twenty-four-hour nursing. Daily physiotherapy and so on. So rooms on that level have been equipped accordingly.’

‘Like a mini-hospital, you mean,’ she suggested.

‘Yes.’

Alfredo must be very ill to warrant such vast and expensive care and attention in his home, she realised, and flicked a look of pained comprehension at Nicolas for what he must be feeling. His father meant the world to him.

He dismissed the look with a cold lifting of his chin. ‘The guest suites, therefore, are now below us, level with the pool, recreation rooms and garden terrace,’ he continued. ‘Because this—’ he made a short, gesturing motion with his hand, which she presumed encompassed this whole tier ‘—is now my own private wing of the house.’

‘Ah, I begin to see,’ she said with a small, bitter, wry smile. ‘You want Lia and me out of your private rooms and down in the guest suites where we belong.’

‘No,’ he said silkily. ‘You do not see at all.’ His eyes narrowed on her face, his next words carefully chosen for maximum impact. ‘Your child remains exactly where she is. It is you who are moving. In here. In this suite—with me.’

Silence. She met that with total, woolly-minded silence. He watched and waited, his hooded gaze glinting over her long, bare legs, which had been faintly tinted gold in the days she had spent here already. Her plain pink shorts with their loose pleated style did nothing to camouflage the slender hips beneath them. Nor did the simple crop-waisted vest-top, which gave glimpses of her flat stomach when she moved, hide the fact that she was wearing no bra beneath it. Two firm crests were thrusting gently against the thin cloth in a dusky invitation that he would have had to be totally indifferent to not to feel the hot sting of temptation that hit his loins. He remembered too well how they tasted, how they would respond to the lightest touch from him.