‘Madonnamia...he is the picture of me as a child,’ Gaetano almost whispered. ‘Except for the curls.’
‘I don’t know where the curls came from. Looks wise he didn’t get much of me, either,’ Lara framed as Freddy toddled over to Gaetano and grabbed his knees to look up at him. ‘As you can see, he’s very friendly and outgoing.’
Gaetano startled her by bending down and scooping their son up into his arms with every appearance of enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go upstairs. This house has a playroom and I brought in more toys and...er, a nanny,’ he completed rather stiffly.
‘What on earth would you need a nanny for when I’m here?’
‘I was thinking of a future visit, when perhaps you might want to leave him,’ Gaetano lied, shading that story a second later by adding more convincingly. ‘And, of course, if we’re going to talk, that wouldn’t be easy with a young child around.’
‘Good grief...a nanny? How long are you planning to stay here?’ Lara asked in astonishment, watching his lean darkly handsome face tense until her attention fell on the huge and fabulous portrait above the landing. ‘That is gorgeous,’ she whispered, in awe of the beautiful brunette and the fabulous blue ball gown and jewellery she sported. ‘I wonder who she was.’
‘My mother,’ Gaetano informed her, his tone clipped. ‘When he died, my grandfather left this entire estate to me. He had cut off communication with her long before she died. It was a generous legacy but I wish he’d given me the chance to get to know him instead.’
‘You never met the man?’
‘No. My mother was an only child and she disappointed him, much like she disappointed me. Possibly he feared that I would do something similar, so he never sought me out.’
Lara swallowed hard, aware that she was discussing a sensitive topic because she had done her homework on Gaetano’s background as far as was possible with only the Internet as a research tool. ‘She left you when you were very young,’ she remarked ruefully.
‘Walked out on my father and me, divorced him and, only weeks later, married a Swiss billionaire who lived in Brazil,’ Gaetano completed unemotionally.
‘Did she ever have any more child—?’
‘No. I think we can take it as a given that she wasn’t the motherly type,’ he incised very drily. ‘She died three years ago, I believe. Her husband informed me after she had passed, although I can’t think why because I have no memory of her whatsoever.’
Lara recognised the coolness of his gaze shielding his enduring pain over that hurtful truth and her heart went out to him because she knew how such a wound lingered in the mind. ‘Perhaps the same could be said for my birth mother—I mean, her not being the motherly type. Remember I was adopted,’ she reminded him.
‘Yes, I recall that. What do you know about your birth parents?’
‘Nothing whatsoever. I decided not to look into it—’
‘Why not?’
Lara flushed. Two years earlier, she hadn’t shared much beyond the barest facts of her life with Gaetano because she had been ashamed of how unprepossessing even her adoptive background was. ‘I just wasn’t interested,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘Getting curious could be a mistake, too. I could be a child born after some awful event like rape...who knows?’
‘You’re too pessimistic. That’s not like you,’ Gaetano pronounced with a frown as he pushed open a door into an old-fashioned children’s nursery. ‘You once impressed me as an incurable optimist.’
‘Yes...well, we all put our best face on when we think we’re falling in love,’ Lara countered, lifting her chin.
‘Think?’Gaetano echoed with emphasis as he lowered Freddy and their son sped towards the box of brightly coloured toys he had glimpsed.
‘Yes,’ Lara confirmed with determination. ‘I don’t think it was real for either of us. You needed something or someone to ground you when you had no memory.’
‘Oh, don’t stop there,’ Gaetano urged sardonically, getting down on the rug beside Freddy to show him how to open the big red bus he was investigating. Of course, she was telling the truth, he acknowledged inwardly and, since he had reached the same conclusion on his own, why exactly was he arguing the point? Or had he only reached that conclusion because it was a coping mechanism to persuade himself that what he had grieved at losing had never been real in the first place?
‘What do you think you were feeling if it wasn’t love?’
Lara compressed her lips while her cheeks burned. ‘I was very attracted to you, and I hadn’t felt like that before.’
‘Lust, then. How edifying to discover that now about the woman I married.’
Lara wanted to throw something at him. Saving face around Gaetano was an uphill challenge. She could feel the heat in her cheeks as though she were boiling alive because lying didn’t come naturally to her. But forcing herself into that mindset, even when she didn’t believe it, had been a necessary part of her recovery process. Shoving a smile on her face as she told herself that she could afford to be the bigger person now that she had got over him, she removed her coat and got down on the rug on the other side of her son. ‘I was very attached to you,’ she admitted grudgingly.
Somewhat mollified by that admission, Gaetano was already questioning why he cared and why conversations with Lara went in directions that they never ever went with anyone else. And as the answer dawned on him, his taut expression vanished, and he smiled brilliantly at her. ‘You’re the only person I know who treats me normally.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘The job title gets in the way of normality. Nobody but Dario ever tells me anything that I don’t want to hear, which is why I value him so highly. I appreciate that you have a different attitude from him.’