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Was it worth it?‘ Dominic said after a pause. Apart from this, was it worthwhile?‘
Kate sucked in a deep breath, feeling lightheaded for a moment as she recalled the bone-melting bliss of being in Cristiano‘s arms again. The profound, inexpressible wonder of making love with him. The fierce joy of touching his hair, smelling the scent of his skin, listening to his voice—even though what he‘d said had only confirmed her worst fears.
Yes.‘ Her eyelids flickered for a moment, and then she looked up at Dominic through a haze of pain. Because now I know. There‘s no future for us.
There never really was.‘
It was almost dark by the time Cristiano returned to the chalet. His whole body ached from nine hours out on the mountains, pushing himself—and his luck—harder and further than was safe or sensible.
The delicious lethargy that had gripped him when Kate was here had disappeared at the same time as she did, leaving him with an edgy restlessness that only adrenaline could calm. Or so he‘d thought. However, having spent the day hurling himself down black runs, skiing off-piste in a blizzard, and latterly in the gathering dusk as well, he had to admit defeat.
Walking into the warm house, he breathed in the scent of woodsmoke and the lingering traces of red wine and herbs from the meal Kate had cooked the other night—and was almost knocked sideways by the wave of physical longing that smashed into him.
He had to get away from here, he thought irritably, his battered body protesting as he took the stairs two at a time. There was no point in staying. The relaxing break that Francine had prescribed had ended up being anything but, and he knew he was deluding himself if he thought that his memory was going to come back any time soon.
Or that Kate was.
The thought caught him off guard, and sent another surge of unwelcome lust pulsing through him. He didn‘t want her to come back, he told himself angrily. It was just because he was bored, stuck here with nothing to focus on, getting restless without the routine of training. Because the pillows still smelled of her hair, and the glass she had drunk from in the hot tub still stood on the bedside table and he hadn‘t spoken to another soul since he‘d said goodbye to her.
And because he had never been left before. It was always him that did the leaving.
Impatiently he undressed, stripping off his ski gear and stuffing it back into his bag, collecting up the clothes that lay scattered all over the floor and the end of the bed and the chair by the window. Picking up his dress shirt, he paused, closing his eyes and remembering how sweet and sexy she had looked in it as she‘d sat cross-legged on the bed, telling him about the night they‘d met in Monaco.
Bundling the shirt up, he shoved it viciously into the bottom of the bag, underneath everything else, almost as if that would help him bury the memory and the ache of unfulfilled desire. Turning round, he surveyed the room, checking to see if he‘d left anything.
There was something on the floor, sticking out slightly from under the chest of drawers. Cristiano‘s head pounded and his stiff shoulders ached as he bent down to pick it up.
A black velvet evening bag.
Perhaps it was Francine‘s. Although it was unlikely that she‘d use anything so formal out here, he thought, unfastening the catch.
Inside was an invitation to the Campano party at the Casino. Cristiano‘s heart skipped as he realised the bag must belong to Kate. Beside the invitation was another piece of paper. He took it out.
It was a letter. Turning it over, he stared hard at the writing on the front of the envelope.
Cristiano Maresca
Personal and Private.
His heart started to beat faster. For a moment he considered ripping it into pieces, or throwing it into the embers of the fire downstairs on his way out.
The coward’s way out, a cold voice sneered in his head. Mother Superior‘s voice.
Gritting his teeth, he sank down onto the bed and tore open the envelope, sliding the paper out and unfolding it with clumsy fingers.
He was shaking now. It wasn‘t a long letter, he noted with relief as his eyes scanned quickly over the lines. Kate‘s writing was neat and confident. Clever, he thought with a stab of bitter self-loathing. Pushing the hair back from his forehead, he focused hard on the strokes her pen had made on the paper, forcing himself to look hard at the individual letters. They jumped slightly in front of his eyes, rearranging themselves.
Dai sbrigati, Cristiano! You’re not trying!
He let out a low curse, tipping his head back and looking around the softly lit bedroom as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t back in that classroom, with the Mother Superior standing over him, her cane poised to strike him across the palms of his hands at the next word he got wrong.
Concentrarsi.
Well, he had come a long way since those days, he thought bitterly. He had taught himself to concentrate to world-championship standard. But it had been hard enough to get the words to keep still and to stay in order in Italian. English was another matter altogether.
Dear Cristiano…
I don’t know if you remember me…
Kate‘s voice was in his head as with painstakingly slowness he forced his eyes to move from one word to the next. And suddenly it was as if she was there with him again, smiling that smile that made the dimples appear in her cheeks, looking at him with those gentle blue eyes…
Eyes that would be full of pity and scorn if she really was here watching him now, he thought disgustedly, getting abruptly to his feet and tearing the paper in half, and then in half again. He didn‘t need to put himself through this—didn‘t need to take himself back to that place with its smell of chalk and pencil shavings and feel again the horror of being exposed as stupid. A failure.
Dropping the torn fragments of paper onto the bed, he strode into the bathroom and turned on the cold tap. His reflection in the mirror above the basin shocked him. He was unshaven and hollow-eyed, his hair badly in need of cutting.
You’re a waster, Cristiano. Just like your father. You’ll never amount to anything.
His mother‘s voice this time. He stooped, splashing icy water over his face.
Gesu, he was going mad. He really needed to get back to Monaco and training. He needed to get back to being the person he‘d worked so hard, sacrificed so much to turn himself into—three times World Champion racing driver. Francine had been wrong—he didn‘t need to remember, he needed to forget.
Back in the bedroom, he zipped the bag shut and pulled it off the bed. As he did so the torn pieces of the letter fluttered onto the floor like confetti. Impatiently he bent to pick them up, glancing down at the top one as he crossed the room to the door.
He stopped dead, as if he‘d just walked into a glass wall. Dropping the bag, he held the fragment of paper in both hands, staring down at it in disbelief as his pulse rocketed and the breath whooshed sickeningly from his lungs.
Ragazzo stupido. Read it again. You’ve got it wrong. Scowling, he looked at the paper again, staring hard at each word until he could be sure there was no mistake.
You
Have
A
Son.
Chapter Nine
LIFE in the hospital had a completely unreal quality. Kate felt as if she‘d been abducted by aliens and taken to a different planet—a parallel universe of hushed voices and sympathetic smiles, of squeaking linoleum and rustling uniforms.
Another day was beginning. Through a gap in the geometric print curtains the light was pearly grey. Distantly she could hear the sounds of the city outside waking up, but she felt a million miles from it. It was amazing how quickly this had become her world, Kate thought dully, flexing her stiff back as her gaze moved automatically to her son. A world which had at its centre the bed in which Alexander lay, and which extended only as far as the strip-lit corridor outside, the nurses‘ station, and the parents‘ kitchen and bathroom.
She ventured to those outposts as little as possible, preferring to spend every moment at Alexander‘s bedside, even when he was asleep. The nurses, her mother, Lizzie and Dominic had all tried to persuade her to go home and catch up on her own sleep, or at least shower and change her clothes, but there was no way she was going to leave him.
Not again.
She blinked, fighting exhaustion as she gazed down on the small body in the bed, and a crushing weight of love and anxiety descended on her like a landslide, so that she had to catch her breath. He was so precious. So beautiful. And, with his dark hair falling back from his forehead and his sweet face serious and remote in sleep, so like Cristiano…
A steel door inside her mind clanged shut, blocking off that forbidden area—but not before a convulsion of pure, hot longing had gripped her, making her insides tighten and her skin tingle. She dropped her head into her hands, pressing her fingers into her eye sockets. God, what kind of mother was she? To be feeling such things when her child lay in a hospital bed? It was bad enough that she hadn‘t been here when Alexander was taken ill, but to be still thinking—still longing for Cristiano now…
It was unforgivable, and it had to stop.
All that mattered now was Alexander.
She opened her eyes, suddenly aware that the sandpapery rasp of his breathing with which she had measured the hours of the night was quieter now.
