Behind the Castello Doors

‘Mel is dead.’ Beth’s voice caught in her throat as she stared at Sophie and felt a pang of grief for her friend, who had only seen her baby a few times before she had died. It still seemed impossible that Mel was gone. She had always been the strong one out of the two of them, the daring one, who had teased Beth for being a timid mouse and protected her from the school bullies with her acid tongue and fiery temper.

She realised that Cesario was waiting for her to continue, and took a ragged breath. ‘Last autumn there was a flu epidemic in England that was especially serious for pregnant women. Mel thought she just had a cold, but within two days she was in Intensive Care, fighting for her life. The doctors decided to deliver Sophie early to give mother and baby a chance. But Sophie was tiny; she only weighed three pounds and was placed in the special care baby unit.’

Tears choked her as she remembered watching Sophie through the clear plastic walls of the incubator, willing the tiny scrap of humanity to live. ‘For a while Mel rallied and things looked optimistic. She was even able to hold Sophie once, for a few minutes. But a few days later she died suddenly. The doctor said the flu virus had put too much strain on her heart.’

Beth blinked hard to dispel her tears. She finally had Cesario’s attention, and she needed to convince him that he had a responsibility towards Sophie. She swallowed and forced herself to continue.

‘A few days before her death Mel told me she had recognised your photo in a newspaper. The paper had printed your name, and she realised that the man she had slept with at the party in London was Cesario Piras, and that you were Sophie’s father. I had already agreed that if anything happened to Mel I would look after Sophie. Mel made me promise that if she died I would try to find you and let you know you had a daughter.’

Cesario was silent while he absorbed the information Beth had given him. She must know it would be easy enough to verify her story, and therefore it was unlikely she was lying. But even if what she had said was true, it did not prove that the child on her lap was his.

If only he could remember the events at that party in London a year ago. But that night he had turned to drink to banish the demons that haunted him, to silence for a few hours the voice in his head that insisted he had been partially responsible for Nicolo’s death.

His hard features revealed nothing of his thoughts. ‘What part do you play in this, Ms Granger? Why did you agree to take care of Ms Stewart’s child? Why aren’t her family involved?’

‘Mel didn’t have any family. Her parents died when she was young and she grew up in care—as I did, after my mother died. We met in a children’s home and became friends.’ Once again Beth’s voice was husky. ‘When Mel found out she was pregnant I promised I would help her bring up the baby. After she died I learned that she had named me as Sophie’s legal guardian.’

Cesario swung around and rested his arm along the mantelpiece, staring at the black empty grate. He should have asked one of the staff to light a fire, he thought heavily. He could hear the rain still beating against the walls of the castle. Perhaps the room was too chilly for a small baby.

He remembered how in the first weeks after Nicolo had been born he had felt awed by the responsibility of caring for a new life. His little son had seemed so vulnerable that Cesario had found himself constantly checking on him, and he had demanded that fires be lit in every room in the castle so that the baby was not exposed to any cold draughts.

He had never expected to see another baby at the Castello del Falco. Four years ago he had vowed never to marry again, or have another child. It was inconceivable that anyone could ever replace Nicolo in his heart. Yet, unbelievably, he was now faced with the possibility that he had a daughter who had been conceived on the anniversary of the date he had lost his son. Was it a bizarre twist of fate? he wondered. Or a fabrication invented by a woman who claimed she had been asked by the child’s mother to find him? There was only one way to establish the truth.

‘I will arrange for a DNA test to be done,’ he said abruptly. ‘I admit I was drunk at the party in London a year ago, but I find it hard to believe that I slept with your friend and have no recollection of it.’

The idea that he could have been so out of control that he’d unknowingly had sex with a woman he’d picked up in a bar did not sit comfortably with Cesario.

‘However,’ he continued roughly, ‘I accept that it is a possibility, and therefore a paternity test is necessary. Until it can be done, and the results obtained, you and the baby will stay here at the Castello del Falco.’

Beth felt a spurt of shock—partly at the arrogance of the man standing a few feet from her and partly at the implication of his words. Stay here? In this grim, grey castle? With its equally forbidding owner? The idea sent a shiver through her.

‘Oh, no, that’s not necessary,’ she explained quickly. ‘I expected you would want a DNA test, so I booked a room at a hotel in Oliena for three days. Once the test has been done I’ll take Sophie back to England and wait there for the results.’

She did not add that she was sure the test would prove Cesario was the man Mel had slept with. Mel had been certain she had recognised him in the newspaper.

You must find Cesario Piras and demand financial help for Sophie,she had said in the note she had left for Beth.

Mel must have sensed that she was not going to live, Beth thought sadly. And in her last days she had attempted to arrange some measure of security for her daughter by asking Beth to search for the man she’d believed was Sophie’s father.

Cesario frowned. ‘It makes more sense for you and the child to stay here until we know for sure whether or not she is mine.’

His gaze was drawn to the baby, and he felt as though he had been kicked in the gut when she turned her head and stared at him with her huge dark eyes. She was beautiful—almost as beautiful as his son had been. Was it his imagination, or did she bear a resemblance to Nicolo? Dio, was she his?

The idea was so shocking that he could not begin to assimilate how he felt about it. But one thing struck him forcibly. If Sophie was his daughter she deserved his care and protection. He could not at this point contemplate the notion that she would also deserve his love. Losing Nicolo had almost destroyed him, and the idea of loving another child evoked a host of feelings inside him. The strongest of which, he admitted grimly, was fear. Experience had taught him that love was a bittersweet emotion. It would be better if Sophie was not his child, but until he knew the truth he wanted her to remain here at the castle.

That meant that for now, at least, Beth Granger would have to stay too. He wasn’t sure what to make of her. On the face of it her apparent willingness to take on her friend’s child seemed amazingly altruistic. She was young—he guessed in her early twenties—and from her shabby clothes it was safe to assume that she did not have much money. Could he believe that she had agreed to act as guardian to another woman’s child out of the kindness of her heart?

‘Mr Piras, there’s really no need for you to go to any trouble—especially tonight, when you are busy with your party,’ Beth said a little desperately. ‘The hotel has provided a cot for Sophie, and I left our luggage there.’

‘I’ll send one of my staff to collect your things and bring them back to the castle.’ Cesario’s eyes narrowed when Beth looked about to argue. ‘It is still raining heavily. Surely you cannot think it a good idea to take a baby out in such weather? I am inviting you and Sophie to stay here as my guests.’ He paused, and then added, ‘Under the circumstances, I think we should drop formalities and use our respective Christian names.’

He was so intimidating that she could not imagine she would ever feel confident enough to use his first name, Beth thought wryly. Skirting around the issue of how to address him, she focused on a far more important problem. ‘But where will Sophie sleep? I have her buggy with me, but although she naps in it during the day it’s not suitable for her to sleep in all night.’

‘The castle has a nursery which is fully equipped with everything you might need.’

It was a long time since he had visited the room which had once been his son’s, and for a moment Cesario struggled with the idea of allowing another child to sleep in the antique hand-carved cot that Nicolo had slept in until only a few months before his death, when he had moved into a ‘big bed’. But he could not deny a baby a safe place to sleep, he reminded himself.

‘I don’t want to be a nuisance,’ Beth mumbled, her heart sinking as she acknowledged she could offer no other reason for her and Sophie not to stay at Cesario’s home. She could hear the wind howling around the castle turrets, and the rain hammering against the windows sounded even heavier than when she had arrived. For Sophie’s sake it would be better to remain here, but she wished the enigmatic master of the Castello del Falco did not have such a strange effect on her.

Throughout their conversation she had been intensely aware of him. Her eyes seemed to have a magnetic attraction to his tall, imposing figure as he leaned against the fireplace. His close-fitting black trousers moulded his muscular thighs, and his white shirt was made of such fine silk that she could see the faint shadow of dark chest hairs beneath it.

She lifted her head and flushed when she met his hooded gaze, embarrassed that he had caught her staring at him. He was probably used to women being fascinated by him, she thought ruefully. The livid scar on his cheek did not detract from his incredible good-looks. Ruggedly handsome, he possessed a dark, smouldering sensuality which evoked a curious sensation in the pit of her stomach—an ache of longing for something she did not understand but that she sensed this man, with his earthy virility, could appease.

What was the matter with her? she asked herself impatiently, as a shockingly vivid image came into her mind of being kissed by Cesario Piras. She could not help wondering what it would be like to be crushed against his broad chest and feel his lips on hers. She knew she was sexually naive for a woman of nearly twenty-four, but after her father had walked out when she was a child—leaving her and her seriously ill mother to fend for themselves—she had found it hard to trust any man. She had dated a few men, but nothing had ever been serious and she’d never felt any desire to take things further than a goodnight kiss at the end of an evening.

She sensed instinctively that Cesario would want more than a few chaste kisses. He would be passionate and demanding, and undoubtedly a skilled lover.

Horrified by her wanton thoughts, she hastily sought to break the silence that stretched between them. ‘Hopefully it won’t take long to arrange the test. We’ll probably only need to stay for a few days.’

Cesario shrugged. ‘I wish for you to remain here until the results of the test are known, which I believe can take a week or more.’

He could not take his eyes off the baby. He felt a sense of incredulity that she might possibly be his, but if she was then there was no question he would deny responsibility for her.

‘If it is proved that Sophie is my child, she will live with me here at the castle,’ he stated decisively.

‘Live here!’ Shock, followed almost immediately by a sense of wild panic paralysed Beth’s vocal cords so that her voice emerged as a faint gasp.

‘Where else would she live?’ Cesario queried, sounding surprised by her reaction. ‘If Sophie is a Piras, then the Castello del Falco is her home and her heritage.’

‘But I am Sophie’s legal guardian. I promised Mel I would be a mother to her baby. And I live in Hackney,’ Beth added desperately, clutching Sophie tightly to her, as if she feared Cesario would snatch the baby from her arms.

‘If I am her father she will have no need of a guardian.’

Cesario’s eyes narrowed speculatively on Beth’s tense face.

‘You clearly went to a lot of trouble to find me,’ he said after a moment, ‘and you were prepared for Sophie to undergo a DNA test. What do you expect me to do if it is established that she is my child? Surely you do not think I would simply allow you to take her back to England?’

‘I …’ Beth floundered, not knowing how to answer. The truth was she had assumed that Cesario Piras would want nothing to do with his daughter. Perhaps the fact that she had been abandoned by her own father had made her cynical. But a man who had had casual sex and carelessly did not use protection did not seem likely to accept responsibility for the baby who had resulted from a one-night stand. Cesario hadn’t even told Mel his name, she thought disgustedly. If it hadn’t been for the newspaper photo the identity of Sophie’s father would have for ever been a mystery.

‘It didn’t occur to me that you might want to be involved with your baby,’ she admitted.

‘Then why go to the effort of tracking me down?’

Cesario’s granite stare was so unnerving that Beth hurriedly looked away from him. ‘I hoped to persuade you to make a financial settlement for Sophie,’ she muttered.

She felt her face flood with colour. The statement sounded so cold-blooded, but she was innately honest and could not deny the truth. The idea of asking for money was abhorrent to her, but the harsh reality was that she could not afford to bring up Sophie on the low wage she earned from her cleaning job. She was a qualified nanny, but after she’d been unfairly sacked from her last position she had lost confidence and became wary of looking for another placement. Even if she could find a better job, the cost of childcare, rent and bills would leave nothing for all the things she wanted Sophie to have: music lessons, ballet classes, new clothes rather than hand-me-downs—all the things she had longed for when she had been a child.

The atmosphere in the library had become tangibly tense. Beth darted Cesario a nervous glance and discovered that his granite gaze had turned to steel: cold and hard and edged with a mocking contempt that caused her stomach to cramp.