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The moment he knew about the baby Erin knew that he would use all his considerable powers of persuasion to make her give up the idea of a divorce completely.
But even if he had turned up on his knees begging her to come back, a scenario slightly less likely than snow in the desert, Erin would not have considered trying again, especially only for the sake of their unborn child.
It wasn’t as if it would work out any better the second time around. Nothing had changed. Essentially they were the same people, the same totally incompatible people. If they got back together she would only end up having to walk away a second time.
And that was something she had to avoid at all costs. Leaving the first time had hurt more than anything in her life and the thought of feeling pain like that again … Oh, my God, I just can’t go through that again! she thought, gulping as she bent to pick up the stuffed toy Gianni had thrown on the floor.
‘No, I don’t think people can change,’ she said, putting the toy back in the baby’s plump hand.
In order to change you had to admit you were in the wrong—something that her estranged husband had refused point-blank to do. As her thoughts lingered on the subject of Francesco her soft features grew bleak.
It wasn’t difficult to work out what she had seen in him. He had had more raw sexual magnetism in his little finger than a normal man had in his entire body.
Erin could forgive herself for the physical attraction, but what she couldn’t forgive herself for was seeing emotional depth in his brooding silences and strength in his reticence.
It seemed laughably pathetic now, but she had really thought she had found her soul mate, the one man in the world that she was meant to be with. She had seen what she wanted, when in reality there had been nothing to see.
He had been shallow, selfish and cruel.
How had she ever imagined that their marriage could work?
She was confident that walking out and turning her back on him and a lifestyle to which she had been patently unsuited had been the right thing to do. She had no doubts at all … if only she could forget that look of bleak devastation she had seen in his dark eyes …
‘But sometimes …’ Valentina’s voice interrupted her thoughts.
Erin shook her head. ‘My mum believed my dad could change for thirty years.’
It was the first reference that Erin had made to her parents’ marriage. On the one occasion Valentina had met Erin’s mother, she had been far less restrained when it came to disclosing the gory details of her husband’s numerous infidelities! Much to her daughter’s obvious discomfiture.
‘When you were growing up … did you know what was going on?’ Valentina asked curiously.
Erin shrugged, her expression tight as she admitted, ‘The entire village knew what was going on.’
Valentina gave a grimace of sympathy. She herself had found it difficult to warm to Clare Foyle. She couldn’t rid herself of the uncharitable conviction that the older woman rather enjoyed her status as tragic, dumped wife.
What Erin still struggled to understand was that, after all these years and numerous affairs, all her father had to do was look sheepish and contrite and his wife would welcome him with open arms no matter how many times he humiliated her.
Erin knew better than to challenge her father or attempt to make her mother see he would ever change. The only thing her previous interventions had never done was make her mother accuse her of not wanting to see her happy.
She gave a philosophical mental shrug. She had long a
go accepted that where her father was concerned her mother could not think rationally.
And who was she to criticize? Hadn’t she almost gone down the same road herself?
‘They’re planning a trip to France to tour the winemaking regions.’
‘My cousin married an Australian winemaker …’ Valentina stopped and gave a self-conscious grimace. ‘But then you’d know that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to …’
‘No need to be sorry,’ Erin said, pretending a pragmatism she was a million miles away from achieving. ‘And actually there are entire chunks of Francesco’s life which are a total mystery to me.’
‘Well, I don’t suppose that is so surprising—you actually didn’t know one another very long. That isn’t a criticism,’ she added quickly. ‘Sam said he knew he was going to marry me five minutes after we met!’
‘But I’m assuming that you waited a little longer than five days before you got married.’
Most sane people did, she reflected, still unable three months after the event to explain the reckless way she had jumped into marriage with a man whom she hardly knew. A man who she had already discovered had lied more than once to her.
But then there had not been a whole lot of sanity involved in her steamy relationship with Francesco Romanelli!
