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‘No. She never told him about me. And any time I asked her about my father she’d get angry, and then say she couldn’t remember, as though falling pregnant was something trivial and unimportant.’
Her face flashed with emotion. ‘When she died her lawyer gave me the answers I’d wanted all my life—and, because I was a minor, I was sent to live with my father—a man who was as blindsided by my existence as I was his.’
A muscle jerked in his square jaw and her gaze fell to it instinctively. ‘How could she have been so selfish?’
‘That was my mother,’ Amelia observed drily. ‘She was the absolute definition of selfish. I suppose she thought she’d never die—utterly juvenile, given her lifestyle. Or maybe she thought she’d tell me when I was older. More likely, she just didn’t think it through at all. She definitely knew who my father was, though, because in her will—and, believe me, I was shocked to discover she’d had the maturity to even draft one—my parentage was clearly noted. To this day, I have no idea why she chose to raise me on her own. God knows there were about a thousand things she’d have preferred to do with her life.’
The pain-filled invective lay around them, dark and spiky. Antonio’s fingers stroked the flesh at her ankles and he stood at her legs, looking up at her contemplatively. ‘And did your father take you in straight away?’
Her cheeks stained pink as the mortification of that summer wrapped around her anew. ‘You make me sound like a puppy,’ she said with a shake of her head, in an attempt to lighten the conversation.
He didn’t smile. ‘Did he?’
‘More or less,’ she answered, her eyes sparking with memories. ‘He had a DNA test to be sure. I can’t blame him,’ Amelia was quick to offer in defence. ‘Their relationship was brief, and he never heard from my mother again. His scepticism makes sense.’
‘Perhaps. But I imagine his caution hurt you, as a young woman?’
Her expression was wary. ‘I understood,’ she said sharply, unable to admit the deep pain she’d felt at his decision.
‘And once the results came back?’
Now her smile was brittle. ‘I was a diSalvo, beyond a shadow of doubt,’ she said. ‘He laid proud claim to me in much the same manner you are to our baby. That’s the way it works in dynasties like this, isn’t it? Children are heirs more than they are people.’
Antonio’s face was a mask of careful consideration. ‘I think children are both.’
Amelia shifted her gaze away from his. ‘Perhaps. In any event, I was no longer a child.’
‘You were twelve?’
Twelve—still so young, she realised now. ‘Nearly thirteen. And I’d been living with my mum so I’d seen a lot.’ Her smile was a rejection, a way of shutting the conversation down. ‘It’s all water under the bridge now.’
* * *
It was unusual for Antonio to have a conversation shift away from him, even more unusual to have it purposely pulled. He didn’t want to allow the change in direction. There was too much he wanted to know.
But it was the first day of their marriage—an interrogation could wait, surely? He had all the time in the world to find the answers he wanted.
So he smiled calmly and then scooped some water up and flicked it at her. Her surprise was obvious and he wondered how she’d react, watching her, waiting.
Then she laughed, and returned volley, reaching down and lashing him with a heavy spray of pool water before reaching down once more. This time he caught her wrist and pulled, so she fell into the pool with him. She went underwater, then bounced back to the surface, dashing her hair away from her eyes.
She blinked, clearing her eyes, and the air between them seemed to charge. Her breasts were clearly visible beneath the saturated cotton of her T-shirt, bobbing on the water and, out of nowhere, he remembered the way they’d felt in his palms, the way he’d taken her nipples into his mouth, and his body was tight and hard beneath the water.
‘Race you to the other side,’ she challenged and, before he could answer, she was off. He watched her stroke for several seconds before powering to catch up with her. Yes, an interrogation would wait—there were better ways to spend the first day of their marriage.
* * *
Dinner was a surprisingly easy affair. Antonio was a skilled conversationalist and he kept things light, enquiring about her time at university and her job at Hedgecliff Academy. It was no hardship for her to talk about her pupils and her work, the school she’d come to love.
What she didn’t say was the part it had played in her recovery—she’d lost her mother and she’d chosen to turn her back on her father and her brother. Oh, there was no scandal, no unpleasant estrangement, but she’d walked away from them and all they stood for, choosing to live the life she’d always fantasised about.
A quiet life, with simple pleasures and easy friendships.
She didn’t say how Hedgecliff had pulled her back together when she’d been searching for her real identity, separating herself from the girl who’d been the daughter of a supermodel and then a billion-pound heiress.
And whether he had questions or not, she didn’t know because he moved their talk along, sharing his own stories of his time at university—his degree at Cambridge, and then he’d done postgraduate study at Harvard, which explained why his English was so perfect. And all the while he’d been overseeing his family business.
She knew from previous conversations that these
