‘How would I know that you would not be like my father? That was what haunted me! I had to know you would not be like him before I entrusted you with the knowledge of our child—before I entrusted my life to you! Our lives to you! I had to get it right, Vito! I’d got it wrong about you twice before! First I was weaving dreams about you while we were in Europe, wondering if you were The One! Only to crash and burn hideously when Carla appeared! And then—dear God...’ She rubbed a weary hand across her forehead. ‘I got it wrong again—disastrously—over Carla and your uncle’s shares! So I could not, just could not, risk making a third mistake over you! Not when our child’s happiness would be at stake.’
She paused, her expression changing. Softening.
‘It was when I saw you with little Johnny. When I saw how easily you spoke to him, how natural you were with him, how patient, how you so obviously liked him...’ She gave a little choking laugh. ‘And yesterday—all that time playing with him, paying him attention, enjoying his company...’
She swallowed.
‘It confirmed to me everything I’d come to believe about you, made me trust in you. Trust that you would always be a good father to our own child. So then I knew—I finally knew—that the time had come when it was safe to tell you, knowing you would welcome the news, rejoice at it.’
She fell silent. Then lifted her eyes to him, her face contorting.
‘Instead—’
Her hand pressed against her mouth. Vito had not moved—not a muscle. He stood as immobile as a statue, his face as closed, as shuttered as it had ever been. Rejecting her. Rejecting what she was telling him. Rejecting her plea for understanding.
‘Instead,’ she said dully, heaviness weighing her down, crushing her with a sense of hopelessness, ‘you reacted in horror. You were appalled to discover I was pregnant. And every fear I possessed was proved right.’
She fell silent. She had said it all.
For an endless moment the silence stretched. Then Vito spoke.
‘I was appalled at your secrecy, Eloise. Not your pregnancy.’
His voice was remote, as if coming from a long, long way away.
‘That’s what I condemned,’ he said.
The silence came again—longer now. Unbearable. Faintness was drumming at her again, but she had to speak, to ask one last question. The only question in the universe.
‘And do you still condemn me, Vito, after hearing why I kept it secret from you?’
She saw him take a breath, saw his chest rise, heard the sharpness of its intake.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
Abruptly he turned away, pacing across the room. A million thoughts were in his head...a million emotions burned through him. Jangled and tangled, jarring and marring. Making no sense.
He halted, looked back at her. ‘What do you want, Eloise?’
There was only neutrality in his voice, but it was deceptive. She started as he said it, looking at him warily.
‘What do I want?’
She heard her own voice echo his. Heard it again in her heart. What did she want?
Her own thoughts answered her.
I want my happy-ever-after. The one I’ve longed for all my life. My determination from a child has been to find the right man, fall in love, make a family. Live happily ever after.
But were such things even possible? When Vito had first swept her away she’d wondered if it had meant that he was ‘The One’. Then she’d crashed and burned in Rome, over Carla and those shares. Then here, in America, it had seemed to be within her reach again. Then, yesterday, she had crashed and burned again.
And now—
New thoughts came.
Maybe what I’ve longed for all my life is just a dream—a dream I dreamt because I wanted to recreate my parents’ marriage as it should have been, so I could have the childhood I craved. Maybe that’s why I clung to that dream.
She let her eyes rest on Vito. She had been through so much on his account—happiness and bliss. Despair and rejection. Hope and fear.