Her phone still hadn’t rung.
She checked it dozens of times, waiting for Luca and May to return. As she unpacked the groceries and emptied her luggage. Still, nothing.
Her little flat always felt small after the grandness of the country estate that Clint owned. But it was all hers. Small or not, this was her flat. She’d bought it with her own money. Owning it outright meant her living expenses were negligible. But what about as May got older? What about school? School uniforms? Excursions and trips? She swallowed past the nervous lump in her throat and retrained her thoughts. Those were bridges that could be crossed when she got to them.
She slipped her phone back into her jeans, with the grim conclusion that he might not call.
What had he said? He wanted to go back to hating her. Had he really hated her? Had she hated him? She frowned, trying to remember how she’d felt about him seventy two hours earlier.
It definitely hadn’t been hate. She’d hated that he’d cheated on his wife. And she’d hated how they met. But she was too in love with May to feel anything like hatred for her father.
A knock at her door had her crossing the room quickly. She wrenched the door open and let out a noise of excitement. “Luca! May!” She wrapped her arms around both. “I have never been so pleased to see two people in my life.”
She pulled May into her arms and sniffed her hair. “Oh, my baby girl. We’re going to be okay. Just you and me, okay?” She rubbed her cheek against the crop of dark curls.
“Maggie?” Luca’s Italian accent resonated with surprise. “Something is wrong?”
She shook her head, but tears moistened her eyes. “I’ve just missed my girl,” she said, only half-truthfully.
“Well, she has been an angel for us.” He lifted the baby bag off his shoulder and nodded to the small nursery. “May I?”
“Thank you.”
May began to wriggle her chubby little legs and hands and babbled, “Down. Show, show!” And pointed to the nursery.
“Luca? May wants to show you something in there, I think.”
“Okay, May. What is it?” He peered around the door, a toy crown on his head. Maggie laughed. For a straight-laced tycoon, he had become an adorable dad, and a very lovely friend to Maggie. She’d never seen her best friend Rosie happier since marrying Luca. Tonight, though, Maggie really needed to be alone. She lifted her phone out of her pocket and checked it again. Nothing.
A second knock from the door sounded and she moved to it. “Rosie’s not with you, is she?” She asked, puzzled, wondering if it was Mrs. Lloyd from downstairs. She made a habit of collecting Maggie’s mail whenever she travelled. She wrenched the door open and looked out to see who was calling.
“Dante!” She exclaimed, stepping back to take in his appearance. He was wet from head to toe, holding a bottle of wine in one hand, a self-deprecating smile on his handsome face. In one quick glance, she could see that the wine he’d brought was the same bottle they’d shared that first night.
“Maggie,” he nodded, stepping into her apartment and slamming the door.
She swore under her breath and threw a look to the nursery door. “What are you doing here?”
“Amelie said you wanted to speak to me. And I needed to talk to you, as well.”
“Oh, I’m glad. I really do need to talk to you. But your timing is not great.”
“Well, Maggie,” Luca’s chuckle interrupted, “it would appear this little girl is ready to enter the Sorbonne. I wonder where she gets this from?”
Dante looked past Maggie, his expression shocked, to where a pint-sized May stood. She was wearing an apron and a chef’s hat, her pudgy little fingers exaggeratedly running a toy whisk around a bowl.
She swore under her breath. “I can explain,” she said to Dante.
His eyes were two enormous black pools of judgement in his face. “Can you?” He demanded hotly.
“Luca,” she turned around, her face showing her panic. “This is Dante Velasco. Dante, Luca Abramo.”
“Abramo?” Dante grunted. “I’ve heard of you.”
Maggie wasn’t surprised. “And this is May.”
Luca looked from Dante to May and immediately put two and two together. The searing resentment on the other man’s face was unmistakable.
“So you were not quite pining for me as I imagined,” Dante said, finally. He, on the other hand, had looked at May and Luca, put two and two together and got sixteen.
“Dante, I’ve been trying to explain…”
“Like hell,” he said with a quiet mutiny.
“Luca,” she looked at him with desperate appeal. “I’m so sorry to ask this, but would you mind taking May for one more night? I’ll come and get her first thing in the morning.”
He nodded. “It is no problem.” He eyed up the other man with a dark seriousness. “I am just going to have Raul drive around the block a few times. You call if you need me, and I’ll be right back.”
Dante squeezed his hands into fists by his side. If the Italian didn’t leave, he’d have a smashed head. Reading his thoughts, Maggie reached out and cupped a hand over his fist. “Just let me explain,” she whispered.
She hugged the little girl, squeezing her tight to her chest. Her tears, as she left, broke Maggie’s heart. But she knew she needed to get this right. She had one chance. May would be okay. But if she didn’t tell Dante the truth now, she might never get another chance.
“Will you have a seat?” She invited nervously.
He looked around, scathingly, taking in her shabby but bright furnishings. “The least the bastard could do is support you. He’s worth a fortune.”
“As are you,” she pointed out acerbically. “And Luca’s not May’s father.” She took in a deep breath, and fixed him with her steady, cool blue gaze. “You are.”
Dante stared at her, and his fingers seemed to lose contact with the wine bottle. Maggie watched as it dropped to the ground and broke clean in half, spilling the expensive liquid over the tiled floor like a thick pool of blood.
“Que?”
“May is fifteen months old. I found out I was pregnant three months after we met.”
He crouched to his haunches and picked up the wine bottle, staring at the perfect, sharp break.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yes, you do,” she countered, crouching down beside him.
He looked at her, and there was such a hatred burning in his eyes that she sucked in a sharp breath. “I have a daughter?”
“Yes. Her name is May. May Velasco Carrington.”
He closed his eyes. “Why did you not tell me before this?”
Maggie’s cheeks were flushed. “It was the wrong decision,” she said honestly. “I see that now. Back then, I thought you were some two-timing sex-mad megalomaniac. That I, and May, would be better off without you.” She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “I was wrong. I should have given you the choice.”
“Damned right,” he snarled, standing up and pacing the room in one lithe movement. “She is my flesh and my blood.”
“I know. But we were only together for one night. It wasn’t something I wanted to burden you with. ”
“Burden me?” He exclaimed furiously, spinning around with a face so pale it was as white as an egg.
“Yes, burden you!” She repeated, rubbing her temples. “You didn’t strike me as father of the year material, and I didn’t want you to… take her away from me,” she finished, finally.
He turned away from her, staring out the small, grimy window. “You didn’t want me to take her away from you? From what? This palatial existence?” His expression was as hard as nails. “Yet that’s exactly what I plan to do, mi dolor,” he promised darkly.
“You can’t be serious?” She gulped, her worst fears confirmed.
“Unless you do everything I ask of you, then yes. I will take her.”
Maggie reached behind her and sat down on the ground. Though she didn’t know it, her face showed pur
e, blind fear. “You don’t mean it.” She shook her head.
“Don’t I?” He bared his teeth in an approximation of a smile. It came out more as a growl. “How much do you want to bet?”
He looked around her flat, his disgust obvious. “You are raising my daughter here? Like this?”
Maggie’s expression was defensive. “It’s mine. And I own it. And she has the best of everything.”
“It is the size of a wardrobe.” He strode across the small lounge and looked down in the street. “And who is Luca Abramo to her?”
Maggie’s mind was working furiously. So much so that she wasn’t listening to Dante now.
“Maggie?” He demanded loudly. “Who is Luca?”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “My best friend’s husband. He’s a friend. They have a daughter the same age.”
He flicked a hand through his hair and nodded. “Nonetheless, I will require a paternity test.”
“A paternity… you can’t be serious?” She stood now, and stared across at him beseechingly.
“Do you think I would take your word for it that she is my daughter?”
“Actually, yes,” Maggie muttered quietly. “Dante, I hadn’t been with another man for a long time before you. And I haven’t been with anyone since.”
His eyes glinted as he processed this information. But he didn’t otherwise react. Slowly, he closed the distance between them. His hands on her shoulders were firm. “You are a liar.”
She gaped. “I am not lying.”
His eyes flicked over her face, nothing in his expression but disdain. “You have lied to me all along. About your character. Your life.”
“What do you mean?” She demanded desperately.
“How many opportunities have you had this weekend to tell me the truth?”
She flushed. “I wanted to. I knew I had to. But then you said that you were glad that there hadn’t been any consequences. And I wasn’t sure how you would react.” She reached for his chest, putting her hands against his hard wall of abdominals. “Please believe me. I was working out a way to tell you.”
“That is the problem, Maggie, when you make such a habit of lying. How can I believe you? How will I ever believe you?”
He took a step backwards and focussed on a point over her shoulder.
“I live in Spain. My lawyer will contact you. Once May has been proven to be my child, she will relocate.”
Tears flowed out of Maggie’s eyes. “Please,” she whispered, “Just stop talking like that. Let me try to explain.”
“Explain that I have missed what, fifteen months of my own child’s life?” The last of his control gave way, and a white hot rage seemed to emanate from his body. “That I might still be none the wiser, if I hadn’t come here tonight?”
She caught the thread. “Why did you come here tonight?”
“It does not matter now.” His eyes bored into her with the full force of his disgust. “Don’t you see? Nothing matters now, except our child. How could you spend the weekend making love to me, all the while keeping May’s very existence a secret?”
He looked around for the keys he’d dropped when he’d come in. He retrieved them and moved to the door. “As I said, my lawyers will be in touch.”
He didn’t slam the door when he left. He pulled it closed with a controlled click that somehow spoke volumes.
Maggie collapsed to the floor, her head in her hands, her knees at her chest. How was she going to handle this? It was an absolute nightmare.
6
“Well?” Beneath the table, Maggie’s legs would not stop shaking. She had barely stopped shaking for over a week, actually, since Dante had left her apartment.
Luca fixed her with a glance that only added to her fear. For it was a look without hope. “Nothing in here is unreasonable, Maggie.”
And she knew. He didn’t approve. He was siding with Dante.
She turned to Rosie.
Even worse than Luca’s quiet judgement was the way Rosie’s sea green eyes were avoiding her.
“It is unreasonable. He’s already made us jump through hoop after hoop, and now he wants us to move to another country! It’s too much!”
Luca frowned. “He has only done what any man would do, given the nature of your relationship.” He topped up Maggie’s wine glass and leaned forward. “I know you are hurt, but it is wise of him to … be certain, before bonding with May.”
Maggie gritted her teeth. “He is the only man I’ve been with in a very long time. You both know that.”
“Si, si,” Luca said defensively. “But we know you. He doesn’t. Not really. And, with all due respect, he has every right to be suspicious.”
“Jesus, Luca, whose side are you on?” She asked quietly, lifting her wine and drinking half of it in two big gulps.
“We’re on your side,” Rosie spoke softly. “And May’s side.” She spun in her seat to look at Luca. “There must be something we can do.”
“Legally, he has every right to petition for custody.”
“But relocating to Spain?”
“It is not a permanent relocation. He is asking you to commit to three months, and then re-evaluate.” He focussed his gaze on Maggie thoughtfully. “But if you do not stay, he has committed to seek full custody. Given his considerable financial standing, and reputation, I do not think you would win.”
“But we could help her,” Rosie said, reaching out and squeezing Maggie’s hands.
“We could commit every penny we owned, cara, the courts would still favour the father in this situation.”
“I thought the mother usually got the benefit of the doubt.” Maggie interrupted sullenly.
Luca hesitated for a moment. “If Dante were to play hardball, which I get the distinct impression he will if necessary, he would be able to paint you in a very unflattering light, Mags. You met when you were doing work for an agency. It would not be difficult to suggest you were working as an escort.”
“But I wasn’t!” Her cheeks flamed.
“It doesn’t matter. Disputes such as this come down to image, and his image is beyond reproach.”
“He’s a womaniser,” she retorted fiercely.
“He’s had girlfriends. The matter of his divorce was sealed, by mutual consent of both parties.”
“But I know he cheated. Or at least, I think he did.” She frowned. How had her certainty on that score eroded so completely?
“Impossible to prove,” Dante said with a shake of his head. “Besides, that was years ago.”
Maggie pushed her wine glass away, her face pinched. “So I have no choice?”
“You have choices,” Luca contradicted. “If you want to fight him, we will support you. And for once, you will let us give you money, because it is for something you truly need help with. And even though I know it would be a lost fight from the start, we would commit anything you needed.”
“I can’t ask you guys to do that,” she said bleakly.
“You don’t have to ask,” Rosie promised. “We’re offering.”
Maggie shook her head. “I made a mistake.” Her bleak gaze encompassed them both. “May shouldn’t pay the price. Dante shouldn’t pay the price.” She was terrified. “I have to go.”
Rosie closed her eyes, defeatedly. “Okay.” She nodded. “I will come over and see you.”
“We will come over and see you,” Luca contradicted. He turned to his wife and kissed her nose. “As if I would set you free amongst all those red-blooded Spaniards, mi amore.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “Fine. You go, take May, get settled, and as soon as you’re ready, we’ll come. In fact, you call, and anytime you need me, I’ll be there.”
Maggie was grateful beyond words for their generosity. But she had meant what she’d said. This was her mistake. She had to face it on her own.
Vin Velasco was located on the edge of a small coastal town to the North of Spain. Prettier than a postcard, if you asked Maggie, the town was made up of tightly built red
-brick buildings, built in such a way that they spiralled out from the town’s church.
And in the distance, on a softly rolling hill, was the medieval monastery that had been converted into a winery by the Velasco family in the seventeenth century. She exhaled a breath of total wonderment as the car swept out of the town and begun the drive to the estate. On one side of the car, vineyards stretched as far as the eye could see. On the other, fields dotted with yellow wildflowers and fluffy lambs.
“This ees all Velasco land,” her driver said conversationally, veering a little off the side of the road as he gesticulated out of his window. Maggie instinctively reached out and put a hand on May’s stomach, sending a silent prayer heavenwards that they’d survive the journey.
“They are the premiere wine making family in this part of the world. So many generations.” He tsked with pride, and fixed Maggie with a bushy eyebrowed look of enquiry in the rear-vision mirror. “Do you have business with the family?”
Maggie bit down on her lip and looked out of the window. Nerves were swirling in her gut, making it difficult to speak. “Oh. Yes. It’s … a private matter.”
The driver’s laugh was a cackle. “No such thing in our town,” he said with a wink. “There are spies from the village everywhere.”
Maggie settled back in the comfortable leather of the luxury car, and hoped he was wrong.
She wasn’t sure she was ready for the world to know about Dante Velasco’s lovechild. And she was pretty sure Dante would feel the same way.
The car travelled onwards for several miles further, until it took a sharp turn to the right and seemed to double back on itself. “The roads were made by monks,” he said by way of explanation. “No one has seen fit to change them since.”
Maggie didn’t respond. The closer they got to Dante, the more she wanted to cry, or scream, or throw herself in front of a bus.