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‘I do. I do believe you. Alicia told me herself.’ I just didn’t want to believe her …
Paolo looked at him for a long moment and then kept walking until they got to a window. Just inside the glass were incubators and Paolo pointed to the nearest one. Dante saw a tiny olive-skinned baby with a head of thick dark hair. She wriggled and stretched and yawned, tiny hands opening and closing. And then he saw the name tag: Lucia D’Aquanni. The name of their mother.
He could feel a surge of such emotion rip upwards from his feet that he swayed and had to put a hand on the glass to steady himself. The only way he could deal with it and stay standing was to push it down. Deep.
Paolo faced him. ‘Dante, you’re my brother, I love you. I too went through what you did but it’s not your job to keep protecting me.’ His brother’s eyes flashed. ‘If you really want me to go ahead with the paternity test I will, but know this, it will only be for you and I will never look at it. I do not need proof that this is my baby. I know, and I love Melanie. We will be getting married. No matter what.’
Dante felt as if he were trying to climb up an incredibly steep and slippy slope. He put a heavy hand on Paolo’s shoulder. ‘I don’t want you to do the test. And I’m sorry for ever asking you and putting you through this.’
His eyes asked his brother to forgive him and Paolo did, without question, straight away. Because he had been there too and he understood.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ALICIA’S BACK TENSED when she sensed the brothers coming back into the room. She glanced up quickly and the bleak look on Dante’s face made her blood run cold. She avoided Melanie’s eye and looked at her hands.
Dante came to the end of the bed and Alicia could hear the breath he took. When he spoke his voice was clipped. ‘Melanie, please accept my congratulations on your baby. You and Paolo have my best wishes and I am truly sorry for any hurt I may have caused.’
Alicia sensed his eyes settle on her for a moment, like a flash of sun passing through the parting clouds, but she kept looking resolutely down at her hands.
Her sister spoke with quiet dignity. Alicia saw Paolo take her hand. ‘Mr D’Aquanni, thank you. You have no need to apologise. I know what …’ She stopped for a second. ‘It doesn’t matter what I know. We’re all fine, Paolo and I are together and our baby is healthy; that’s all that matters.’
Nobody moved for a long moment and then Alicia felt compelled against her will to look up. Her eyes clashed with Dante’s dark, intense gaze and she couldn’t look away. She started shaking her head even before the words came out. ‘Dante I’m not—’
‘Alicia, please, come with me now.’ His voice sounded strained.
Alicia looked from one set of speculative eyes to the other. They didn’t need to hear this—this was between her and Dante. She remembered his look just now after seeing the baby and it had hardened and firmed her resolve.
Before walking out of the clinic, though, she went and looked in on her niece for a long emotional moment. Dante watched her from a distance; he didn’t trust himself to go back and look at that tiny baby again.
Outside the clinic Alicia felt a curious calm settle over her. Nothing could disguise the fact that seeing the baby—seeing his baby niece—had had little or no impact on Dante. And that meant that Alicia had to face facts. She couldn’t go on like this. It would kill her.
She turned to face him as he was about to open the car door for her. His easy action angered her. Did he really think she was going to meekly jump into the car, pretend that the last twenty-four hours hadn’t happened?
When Alicia didn’t move Dante looked at her sharply. ‘What is it?’
Something in her expression made ice settle around his heart—the ice that had lodged there when he’d seen baby Lucia. Paolo and Melanie’s happiness had been almost too much to bear. It was so alien to him, that image. He needed to get back to terra firma. Away from here. With Alicia. He would take her back with him; they would sort things out, go on from there.
‘I’m not going with you.’
Her voice cut through his thoughts. ‘What?’ He frowned and then an impatient look crossed his face. ‘Of course you are. I have to be back in Rome tonight. Come on, get in, it’s freezing.’
Alicia was oblivious to the cold weather, the leaden skies.
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not going back. This is it, Dante. The end.’
His hand fell from the car door. ‘Alicia, come on. We can talk about whatever is wrong in the car.’
Whatever is wrong? Where would they start? This had nothing to do with Paolo and Melanie any more. This was them. The fact that Dante had been wrong all along was laughably beside the point.
She shook her head and backed away slightly, arms around her belly, her eyes huge.
A feeling moved through him, panic mixed with relief. ‘If you want to stay for a few days, that’s fine. I can send the plane back to get you when you’re ready …’ his mouth quirked tiredly ‘… or you can come economy if you insist, I know how you feel—’
‘No!’ She had to stop him, had to make him see. ‘You don’t understand. I mean I’m not coming back—at all. I want you to go now. I want to stay here. I know we’ll have to see each other again, at the wedding or … or whatever …’ already a knife was piercing her heart at that thought ‘… but that’s it, Dante. This affair is over.’
A fierce elemental wave of possessiveness moved through him and he stepped forward. ‘No, it’s not. You don’t say when—I do.’
‘That’s just the problem,’ Alicia said sadly. ‘You will, one of these days, and I won’t be able to bear it.’
