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Thinking about how much she loved Gio sometimes made her head spin because she knew how vulnerable her emotions made her. She hadn’t told him that she loved him because she believed that if she didn’t lay that guilt trip on him there was more chance that he would learn to love her in the future. He had been in love with his first wife when he’d married her and he was clever enough to eventually recover from that bad experience. Why shouldn’t she be optimistic? Particularly when Gio was steadily becoming more open with her and sharing all his secrets?
After all, right now, Leah was incredibly happy and the twins were thriving and slowly falling into a routine as they began to sleep longer at night. To her surprise, Gio revelled in the ordinary family stuff and he gladly joined in with bathing their children, feeding them and taking them for walks in their pram. Of course, he enjoyed all that, she conceded. Never having had the benefit of a normal childhood for himself, he loved seeing the twins enjoying that security and the love and appreciation that went along with them.
Leah still longed, however, to give Gio the blood connection that his Zanetti grandparents had denied him and, pondering that thorny problem, she had decided to approach them for him because he was too proud to risk rejection a second time. She had searched online to discover their names and, since their palatial country home was occasionally open to the public, discovering their address had not been much of a challenge. And after a great deal of thought, she had printed a photo of the garden his grandmother had created and had written a letter, identifying herself, mentioning their great-grandchildren and asking to meet them at their home to tell them about Gio, the grandson they had refused to acknowledge. If they ignored the letter, she would have lost nothing by making the effort on her husband’s behalf, she reasoned ruefully.
She was convinced that his grandparents’ acceptance would mean a great deal to Gio. Whenever she mentioned the older couple, she saw the pain in Gio’s eyes and, even though she knew he would probably be angry about her interference, she thought that if she could help in any way it was worth that risk.
A response to her letter awaited her back at thecastelloand she hid it in her sleeve before Gio could enquire about it because she didn’t want to tell him any lies. She was shaken that she could have received a reply so soon and nervous in the sense that she had now started something that was no longer wholly in her control. Opening the letter in private, she found a formal reply inviting her to visit and giving her a phone number. She immediately decided to visit the elderly Zanettis while Gio was in the UK on business.
Gio’s grandparents, Eufrasio and Matalia Zanetti, the Conte and Contessa Santastino, lived in a country house only marginally less imposing than thecastellothey had sold.
The week after that letter arrived, Leah stepped out of the car that had brought her to the house outside Florence and lifted her chin. Now she would discover whether or not Gio was correct in his conviction that the older couple were inveterate snobs obsessed with their pedigreed lineage and, even decades on, still painfully sensitive to their daughter’s fall from grace.
What worried Leah most of all was the horrid suspicion that Gio would kill her if he knew where she was and what she was trying to do for him. They had grown so close and now she was doing something he probably would disapprove of and he might well be furious with her, she reasoned nervously. Gio, after all, had a great deal of pride. He didn’t look back with regret to the past because he was too busy moving forward at speed. He didn’t give those who wronged him a second chance, didn’t believe in it but, even so, he had given Leah more than one chance, hadn’t he? Had that only been because she was pregnant? His dreadful childhood and his resolve that he would make every possible effort to be a good and active father to his own offspring? Was the wedding ring on her finger only there for those most basic reasons?
She was probably kidding herself if she allowed herself to believe that she was anything more important to Gio than the mother of his children, the wife he required to create a secure traditional home for the twins. He made her happy and he seemed happy with her, but he had told her from the start that he wasn’t offering her love, so she couldn’t say she was being short-changed, could she?
Sadly, when she had told Gio that she wantedmoreshe had truly meant that she wanted a great deal more than his wildly entertaining expertise between the sheets.
Admittedly, he was incredible in bed, she thought, her cheeks warming at the reflection that Gio had needed to go away for a night or two to allow her to catch up on her sleep. And it was not as though intimacy were confined only to the night hours. Once Gio had registered that Leah was fascinated by encounters in unexpected places, he had ensured that he delivered on that score as well. Their only disappointment had been making love in the Maserati when they had ended up getting out of the car and using the bonnet instead, but by that stage of the proceedings Leah had been so consumed by giggles that Gio had marvelled at his ability to save the day.
Her body still heated by her recollection of that episode, Leah entered the classy drawing room of the Conte and Contessa’s home with a straight back and a composed expression. Dealing with guests by Ari and Cleo’s side had given her a great deal more social confidence than she had once had but facing up to Gio’s blood relatives still demanded considerable courage. Although they were now in their late seventies, his grandparents were elegantly dressed and still upright and strong.
‘Please sit down, Leah. We do appreciate your visit,’ Gio’s grandmother said in accented English.
‘Hopefully you are not as hot-headed as the man you married,’ her husband remarked, provoking his wife into a staccato burst of Italian.
‘You see how hen-pecked I am,’ he lamented with a glint of amusement in his creased eyes.
‘You’re not hen-pecked, you’re grumpy because you haven’t had your afternoon tea yet,’ his wife told him roundly, pressing a bell by the fireplace.
Moments later a maid came in carrying a tray and a very formal afternoon tea session commenced, complete with bone-thin porcelain, cloth napkins, minuscule sandwiches, even tinier fancy cakes and solid silver cutlery. Leah was grateful that Gio wasn’t with her. His tolerance threshold for extreme formality and exaggerated old-style courtesies was low. While her brother was very much at home with such customs, Gio, denied such experiences when he was younger, was aggressively contemporary in his habits.
‘At that first meeting with him at the museum we weren’t prepared and we didn’t know what to say. One moment he was there and then he stomped off and that was that,’ the older woman explained heavily.
‘I was concerned to see that he had the hot temper his father was famed for,’ her husband added.
‘Gio doesn’t lose his temper,’ Leah responded carefully. ‘He’s very controlled, very cautious. I think his background made him that way.’
‘It doesn’t help that he’s the very picture of his father,’ Gio’s grandfather admitted, compressing his lips. ‘But it was unreasonable to judge him for that.’
‘His fatherwasa vile character,’ Matalia Zanetti murmured tightly. ‘We did everything within our power to try and persuade our daughter to leave him, but she was as addicted to him as some were to the drugs he sold. Nothing would move her and in the end we had to accept that she was where she wanted to be.’
‘The town priest, Father Luca, came to us when Gio was a boy and told us that he was being neglected and he asked us to consider fighting for custody.’
The old man looked very sad. ‘We felt we could not face another scandal in the newspapers and the dragging out of all that dirt concerning our daughter again. We also thought the priest was exaggerating but stories came out after Gio’s father’s imprisonment and subsequent death which horrified us. We let Gio down badly and from what we read about him, he deserved so much more from us.’
‘But by then it was too late and Gio had come to Florence as a student and we had simply stared dumbly at him as though he were an exotic beast when he approached us.’ Gio’s grandmother’s eyes were bright with unshed tears, her deep sigh one of regret.
‘Well, all that’s behind you now,’ Leah pointed out, keen to inject a more positive note into the conversation but suddenly very pleased that she had taken the risk of visiting on Gio’s behalf. ‘I’m suggesting a fresh start and staying away from the past because everybody is sure to have a different opinion on that. Gio loathed his father, but he wasn’t close to his mother either because she didn’t ever try to protect him from his father. It’s better for you to know that in advance.’
‘You’re a very sensible young woman,’ the Contessa told her. ‘How do you suggest we go about meeting our grandson?’
‘We’re holding the twins’ christening in thecastellochapel in ten days. That gives me plenty of time to explain to Gio that I visited you. I brought an invitation for you,’ Leah admitted, digging into her capacious leather bag to extend it.
‘Do you have any pictures of the twins...? Oh, yes, I have kept up with the news,’ Gio’s grandmother admitted with a smile.
Smiling back, Leah extended her phone and brought up the most recent photos. There was one of Gio holding Aurora and she noticed his grandparents lingered over that one the longest. ‘He’s a wonderful man,’ she said quietly. ‘Very clever, generous and caring. I think the only lessons he learned from his father were how not to be like him.’
