One Night: Red-Hot Secrets: A Secret Disgrace / Secrets of a Powerful Man / Wicked Secrets

‘Of course Oliver is more important to me than my work,’ she answered truthfully.

‘There is no greater gift a parent can give a child than the security of growing up in a family unit that includes both parents,’ Caesar told her, without commenting on her response. ‘For Oliver’s sake it seems to me that the very best thing we can do for our son is to provide him with the stability that comes from knowing that his parents are united, and here on Sicily, in my position, that means married.’

CHAPTER FIVE (#uca5b93f6-1a10-5d19-9a6a-caadc87ebec4)

‘MARRIED!’

Just speaking the word left her throat feeling as raw as her shocked emotions were beginning to feel.

‘It’s the best solution—not just to the situation with Oliver but also to the situation with your grandparents and the effect the past has had on their family reputation.’

‘The shame I brought on them, you mean?’ Louise demanded angrily, as she tried to focus on what Caesar was saying and fight down the panic that was threatening to seize her. How could she marry Caesar? She couldn’t. It was impossible, unthinkable.

But not, apparently, as far as Caesar was concerned, because he was continuing, ‘At the moment the village remembers you as a young woman who shamed her family with her behaviour. That shame is, according to our traditions, carried not just by you but also by your family—and that means your grandparents and Oliver. If I were simply to legitimise Oliver and make him my heir that would remove the shame from him, but it would not remove it from you or from your grandparents, and that in turn would be bound to affect Oliver. There would always be those who would seek to remind him of your shame, and in the future that could impact on his ability to be a strong duca to his people. If, on the other hand, I marry you and thus legitimise our relationship that would immediately wipe out all shame.’

So many different emotions were struggling for supremacy within her that Louise simply could not voice any of them. More than anything else she longed to be in a position to throw Caesar’s arrogant and unwanted offer back at him—just as she longed to tell him that in her opinion the people who ought to be ashamed were him, for publicly shaming her, and those who had welcomed that shaming for the opportunity it had given them to judge a naive eighteen-year-old. However she knew there was little point—not when even her own grandparents had subscribed to the values of their community and stoically borne the stigma of that shame without complaint.

‘As my wife you would be raised above the past. So would your grandparents, and so, of course, would Oliver,’ Caesar continued.

He could imagine the thoughts that would be going through her head—the battle between her love for her son and her own personal pride. Caesar frowned. It kept catching him off guard that he should feel so attuned to her, but he couldn’t deny that he did. Was it because she had borne his son, or because of Louise herself? He could feel the grim ache of an old self-inflicted wound and its shameful scar. He might not be prepared to admit it to her—after all he could barely admit it to himself—but despite that he knew he would never escape from the burden of his own responsibility for the humiliation she and her family had suffered.

He had allowed her to be punished because the ease with which his desire for her had overwhelmed his self-control had been an almost unbearable blow to his pride. He hoped he had learned since then to recognise that strength came from acknowledging one’s vulnerabilities, not in trying to deny them.

He had no idea what had caused that lightning spark of furious, fierce connection he had felt with her, that indrawn breath taken out of time when something deep and meaningful passed between them. He had wanted her and he had been ashamed of that wanting, so he had denied both it and her. He could have stayed at the castello. He could have delayed the business meetings he had had in Rome. But he hadn’t. Instead he had walked away from her, and in doing so had destroyed something very special.

Louise would never know how often over the years he had thought about her and his guilt. He would certainly not burden her with any of that now, knowing that the fact she had never replied to his letter begging her for forgiveness told him exactly what she felt about him and his betrayal.

Marriage to him now would restore her honour, and that of her family, but it would not free him from the burden of guilt he would always have to carry. That she wanted to refuse him was obvious to him, but he could not allow her to do so. Oliver was his son, and he must grow up here into his rightful inheritance. He was, he recognized, asking her to make a very big sacrifice, and the only comfort he could find in doing so was to tell himself that since there was no one in her life, nor had there been for many years, she was not looking for a relationship in which she could give her love to the man who partnered her.

‘You have told me more than once how important both Oliver and your grandparents are to you,’ he reminded her. ‘Now you have the opportunity to prove that by agreeing to my proposition.’

He had her tricked and trapped, Louise recognised. If she refused then he would accuse her of putting her own interests before Oliver and her grandparents. She wasn’t eighteen and vulnerable any more, though. He didn’t hold all the cards. Oliver was her son. Once she returned to the hotel she could book them onto the first flight on which she could find seats, and once they were back in London they could come to some arrangement over Oliver that was on her terms, not Caesar’s.

It seemed, though, that he had guessed what she was thinking, because he announced grimly, ‘If you are thinking of doing something rash, such as leaving the country and taking Oliver with you, I would advise against it. There is no way my son will be able to leave the island without my permission.’

Louise could feel her heart filling with sick misery as the reality of the situation sent it plunging downwards as though it was weighted with a stone. Caesar had the power to enforce his threat, Louise knew. However, she still had one card left to play.

‘You have talked a lot about me putting Oliver first, but perhaps you should be asking yourself if you should do the same. You want to claim Oliver as your son. You want him to live here and be brought up as your son and heir, but it doesn’t seem to have occurred to you how shocked Oliver is going to be to learn that you are his father. It isn’t something that can just be announced to him out of the blue. It will take time to prepare him for that kind of information. Even when he does know, and even if he is prepared to accept that you are his biological father, he might choose to reject you.’

‘Encouraged to do so by you, you mean? That would be a very Sicilian form of revenge, I agree.’

‘I would never do that.’ Louise’s shocked anger showed in her voice. ‘I would never use my son’s emotional happiness to score points over you. He means far too much to me for that.’

‘If you really mean that then you will allow him to know the truth without any delay. Oliver is desperate to know about his parentage. I was able to work that out for myself just by his manner towards me, even without the contents of your grandfather’s letter. It is my belief that he will welcome the news that I am his father.’

Louise sucked in her breath, her gaze brilliant with angry contempt at his arrogance.

‘I also believe that the sooner he is told the better—especially if at the same time we tell him that we are going to be married, and that in future both he and you will be living here with me,’ Caesar continued.

‘And I believe that you are rushing things, and you are doing that for your own sake, not Oliver’s. It’s all very well for you to talk about rescuing my reputation and therefore that of my grandparents by marrying me, but the reality is that what you are doing is blackmailing me into marriage.’

‘No. What I am doing is trying to point out to you the benefits for Oliver of a marriage between us. What I am doing is putting the interests of our son first and suggesting that you do the same.’

‘But there’s no … no love between us. Marriage should be based on shared love.’ It was all Louise could think of to say.

‘That’s not true,’ Caesar contradicted her immediately.

For a moment her heart leapt, and she wanted to cry out against what that meant. She couldn’t want Caesar to claim that he loved her, could she?

‘We both love our son,’ he continued, thankfully oblivious to her own reaction to his words. ‘We owe it to him to give him the loving, stable childhood that comes with having both his parents there for him and united in their love for him. We both missed out on that, Louise. Me because I was orphaned and you because …’ He had to turn away from her, so that he didn’t betray how shocked he had been when his enquiries had revealed to him how emotionally barren her own childhood had been.

‘Because my father didn’t want me?’ Louise supplied sharply for him.

‘Because neither of your parents put you first,’ Caesar told her. ‘I know this isn’t easy for you, Louise,’ he continued. ‘But you aren’t the only one who feels that mutual love and respect is the best basis for an adult relationship as close as marriage. I share that belief.’

There it was again. Her heart was thudding—slamming, in fact, into her chest wall. As though she was still that vulnerable eighteen-year-old, helplessly in love with Caesar.

‘But of course we both know that such a relationship isn’t possible between us.’

Of course they did. Caesar had never loved her and could never love her. Did she want him to? No … no, of course not.

‘I do know how you feel about me,’ Caesar continued, causing her to go hot and cold all over. Did he actually dare to think she still cared about him? ‘How could I not when you never replied to my letter.’

Now he had thrown and confused her.

‘What letter?’ she asked him.

Caesar hesitated. He had allowed himself to drop his guard too much already, but now that he had gone this far he knew that Louise would insist on an explanation—as she had every right to do.

‘The letter I sent you when I got back from Rome, apologising for my behaviour and asking you to forgive me.’

He had written to her? He had asked for her forgiveness? He had apologised? Her mouth had gone dry. It was inconceivable that he was lying. She knew that instinctively, just as she knew what it must have cost him all those years ago to make such a gesture and now to admit to it.

‘There was no letter,’ she told him, her voice low and husky. ‘At least I never received one.’

‘I sent it your father’s address.’

They looked at one another.

‘I … I expect he thought he was protecting me.’

Caesar’s heart ached for her. If she needed him to pretend he believed that then he would do so.

‘Yes, I expect so,’ he agreed.

He had written to her and her father had kept his letter from her. Please don’t let that acid-hot burn behind her eyes be tears. That would be too shaming. It had only been a letter of apology, she reminded herself, nothing more. Exactly the kind of thing a young man of Caesar’s upbringing and position would expect of himself: a neat tying-up of unwanted loose ends so that he could draw a line under what had happened between them.

Caesar’s crisp, ‘It’s the present we’re living in now, Louise, not the past,’ only confirmed what she had been thinking, and he continued equally crisply, ‘We both have a duty to the child we created together that I believe goes much further than any of our own needs. I appreciate that a loveless marriage is the last thing you want, but I can promise you that for Oliver’s sake I am prepared to do whatever it takes to be in his eyes a good husband as well as a loving father.’