The Italian's Unexpected Love-Child

This was the question which bothered her the most. His leaving her this villa.

Why, Dad? Why?

Her heart caught at finding herself calling him Dad like that. Caught, then turned over. She’d never called the student from Latvia Dad, not even in her thoughts. He’d just been the sperm donor. Not a real person. Just some tadpoles in a test tube. She’d never tried to picture what he looked like. She’d blanked her mind to him. Not so Laurence Hargraves. He was real in her head. Very real. She couldn’t stop thinking about him.

Tears pricked at her eyes, filling them quickly then threatening to spill over. When the girl seated across from her on the ferry started staring at her, Veronica found a smile from somewhere, blinking the tears away before pulling her phone from her straw bag. She’d promised her mum she would take photos of everything and send them to her.

So she did, starting with the ferry, the sea and the approaching island.

* * *

Leonardo wasn’t on the pier waiting for her. Instead there was a middle-aged man holding a sign with her name on it. He looked very Italian, with curly black hair and dark eyes. Clearly, he didn’t know what Veronica looked like, as he was scouring the crowd of tourists with a worried look on his face.

When she walked right up to him and introduced herself, his face broke into a radiant smile.

‘Signora Hanson,’ he said with a thick Italian accent, dark eyes dancing. ‘Why, you are molto bella! Leonardo should have told me.’

Veronica smiled. She didn’t speak Italian but she could recognise a compliment when she heard one.

‘Where is Leonardo?’ she asked, disappointed at his no-show.

‘He said to tell you he is sorry. He was held up. Business. He is flying in soon.’

‘Flying in? But there is no airport on Capri.’

‘There is a helipad. At Anacapri. I am to give you a sightseeing tour then take you there to meet him. Here. Let me take your luggage.’ He tossed the sign with her name on it in a nearby bin.

Veronica didn’t have the heart to tell him she didn’t really want a sightseeing tour, so she just smiled and said, ‘How lovely,’ then climbed into the back of a long yellow convertible that looked like a relic from an early Elvis Presley film.

She was glad after less than a minute that she’d put her hair back into a secure ponytail. The breeze coming off the sea—plus the wind caused by Franco’s rather cavalier driving—would not have made for a pretty result. Veronica tried to appreciate the sights but she really wasn’t in the mood. She’d been so looking forward to meeting Leonardo her disappointment was acute. She politely declined a visit to the Blue Grotto, admitting at that stage that she had been to Capri once before, many years ago, her one-day tour having included a visit to the grotto.

‘It’s a lot busier these days,’ she said, noting the long line of boats waiting to go into the famous cave.

Franco frowned. ‘Too busy. But, come the end of September, things will be better. The cruise ships. They will stop coming. Will you be here then?’

‘Unfortunately not.’ September had only just arrived and her return flight was for just over three weeks’ time.

‘It is too warm for the top to be down,’ Franco decided at this point, and pressed a button which sent a canvas top up and over, shading her from the sun. Which was perhaps just as well, Veronica’s pink-and-white striped top having a deep boat neckline which might catch the sun on her neck. She always lathered herself in sunscreen. She didn’t want to burn.

Once Veronica put aside her disappointment over Leonardo’s no-show, she enjoyed the tour. Franco was a very agreeable guide, his knowledge of the island that of a man born and bred there. It turned out he was also married to Leonardo’s older sister, Elena. They had three children, a boy and two girls.

She wondered if Leonardo had told him she was Laurence’s daughter. Possibly not yet, she decided, swallowing back the questions she was dying to ask about her father. Maybe another day...

Finally, after getting a text on his phone, Franco headed for Anacapri and the helipad.

Despite telling herself there was nothing to be nervous about, Veronica’s stomach tightened and her heartbeat quickened. By the time Franco reached the top of the hill and parked, she found she could not sit in the back of the taxi any longer. Leaving her straw carryall on the back seat, she climbed out and walked around, lecturing herself all the while about her upcoming meeting with Leonardo.

Yes, he’s very attractive, but he’s a playboy, Veronica. Quite a notorious one. Don’t ever forget that. Play it cool when you come face to face with him. Don’t, for pity’s sake, let his good looks—and his undoubted charm—distract you from your quest. You’ve come here to find out about your father, not flutter your eyelashes at Leonardo Fabrizzi.

A helicopter approached from the direction of the mainland. Veronica shaded her eyes to watch it, despite already wearing sunglasses. The helicopter was black with red writing on the side and tinted glass, so she couldn’t see who was sitting in it. As it came in to land, the wind from the huge rotor blades hit her like a mini tornado. Thank God she’d chosen to wear her new white jeans, and not the sundress with its gathered skirt. As it was, a few strands of hair came loose from her ponytail, whipping across her face. Finally, the helicopter’s noisy engine shut down and the blades slowed. A side door on it slid open and out jumped a man, a tall dark-haired man in a pale grey suit and a blinding white shirt open at the neck with no tie.

Veronica recognised Leonardo instantly, despite his hair—which he’d worn disgracefully long back in his skiing days—now being cropped short. It suited him, however, showing off his face to better advantage, highlighting his sculptured features and strong jawline. Still, she’d already known about his new haircut, having studied many images on social media during the last two weeks.

He was, however, even better looking in the flesh than in recent photos, two-dimensional images not able to capture the total essence of this man. He was, Veronica accepted as she watched him stride towards her, not just the stereotype of tall, dark and handsome. Leonardo was more than that. Much more, as evidenced by the way her heart began racing within her chest. Aside from his looks, there was the way he moved. The way he walked. The set of his broad shoulders. The angle of his head. He was the total male package. Arrogant. Confident. And super sexy.

As he drew nearer, her heartbeat accelerated further.

Did he do this to all women? she wondered with exasperation. Did he make them forget everything that life had taught them about males of the ‘player’ species? Did he make them want to act like fatuous female fools?

Possibly.

Probably!

Veronica sarcastically renamed him ‘tall, dark and dangerous’ in her head.

It was a good thought to have. A sensible, soothing thought, giving her the willpower to draw in several deep, gathering breaths, consciously slowing her heartbeat and untangling the knots in her stomach. No way was she going to have her head turned by Leonardo Fabrizzi. She’d avoided that trap all those years ago. Surely she was better equipped not to fall for it this time.

All you have to do is think of Jerome...

He was staring at her, she knew, despite his sunglasses hiding the expression in his eyes. She could sense his penetrating gaze behind the opaque lenses, perhaps because his dark brows were drawn slightly together, forming two little frowning lines. It made her glad she was wearing sunglasses herself. That way he wouldn’t see into her eyes which she knew were, indeed, the windows to her soul.

Not that her soul was bothered by Leonardo Fabrizzi. It was her body which was bothered currently. Her silly, possibly frustrated female body which had been too long without the comfort of a man’s arms around her, without the wonderful feeling of being held, kissed and caressed.

‘Veronica?’ he said in that sexy voice which by now she was familiar with.

Her smile felt forced. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

His smile was light. And wry. ‘I should have known you’d be beautiful,’ he said. ‘Laurence was a very handsome man. Welcome to Capri,’ he added, stepping forward to draw her into a very Italian hug.

Her arms were trapped by her side as he pulled her close, the strength and warmth of his body bypassing her resolve to be sensible around him. Oh, God. She could feel herself melting in his arms. Feel her blood charge hot and heady around her veins. Her neck flushed. So did her face.

‘Goodness!’ she exclaimed, pulling back out of his embrace before she combusted. ‘I’d forgotten how very demonstrative Italians were.’

Leonardo’s eyebrows arched. ‘You don’t hug hello in Australia?’

‘We do. Though usually just relatives and close friends.’

‘How very odd. If I overstepped the mark, then I apologise. Come. It is too hot to be standing out here in the sun.’ He took her elbow and turned her back towards where the taxi waited for them, Franco still behind the wheel.

She resisted pulling her arm away, thinking that would be too rude. And too telling. He was just being a gentleman, after all. But, oh, it worried her, that wildly pleasurable sensation which had charged up her arm at his touch.

‘You don’t have any luggage?’ she asked when he dropped her arm to open the back door of the taxi.

‘No need. I keep spare clothes here at my parents’ hotel. My Capri clothes, I call them. No business suits for me when I stay here, isn’t that so, Franco?’ he said as he handed her into the car and climbed in after her.

‘Si, Leo. You are a different man once you come here.’

‘Have you been looking after our visitor? Shown her the more famous sights?’