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Amelia didn’t even think to ask how Issy had found her on a private jet on a runway in England. She didn’t think to feel shame or embarrassment about what the staff had witnessed or where they were. She just let her sister envelop her, let herself sink into her sister’s loving embrace and let that feeling heal and soothe just enough to get through the next minute and the minute after.
‘I’m so sorry, Issy. I’m so, so sorry.’
‘Shh. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing,’ her sister said with such vehemence, it nearly made Amelia smile.
As her jagged breathing slowed and eased, she looked up and saw Issy for the first time. The Caribbean had glazed her skin golden, the blonde of her hair actually suiting her. ‘Issy, you look beautiful.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, a simple shoulder shrug accepting the compliment without deflection or dismissal and it was lovely to see. ‘You, however, Lia, look bloody awful.’
Amelia barked out a laugh and something eased in her chest. ‘Oh, Issy. I’ve made such a mess of things,’ she said, the sadness returning as swiftly as the flutter of a bird’s wings.
‘Whatever it is, we will fix it,’ Issy replied confidently, and Amelia relished the feeling of being comforted, of being cared for. Issy turned to look behind her at the man standing at the top of the cabin.
Amelia’s heart lurched, the height and breadth so similar to Alessandro it had fooled her for a moment. But then she saw all the ways in which Gianni Rossi was different from his cousin, one of them being the sheer love she saw when he looked at her sister.
Something unspoken passed between them and Issy turned back to her and asked, ‘Can you come with us? I want to take you home.’
And even though the word jarred, even though Amelia was sure her sister didn’t mean back to the one-bedroom flat in Brockley, even though she nodded and let herself be gently taken from the cabin of the private jet, she knew that wherever she was going it wasn’t home, because Alessandro wouldn’t be there.
For the next few weeks Alessandro stayed at Villa Vittoria, taking complete control of the Aurora project. He saw every email, every message, every report—it all went through him. And he knew that he was behaving like a tyrant, but somehow it had become imperative that nothing go wrong on this project. That nothing caught him by surprise again.
Gianni had tried to talk to him when he’d returned from the Caribbean, but for the first time in his life Alessandro didn’t want to talk to his cousin. Just seeing the happiness Gianni had found with Isabelle Seymore, of all people, was unbearable and hehatedthat he felt that way. Never had he been jealous or resentful of the cousin who was more like a brother to him, but Gianni’s joy came too soon after the sheer shock of Amelia’s departure from his life.
You’re hiding. I understand that. But it can only last so long.
But Gianni was wrong. Alessandro could make it last as long as he needed it to. Technology allowed him to stay in Tuscany and only fly out when necessary for meetings in both Europe and on the African continent should Sofia Obeid need it.
If she had noticed anything different about his exchanges, she had said nothing. Nor had she mentioned Amelia once. Which, instead of soothing his curiosity, only made it worse as he wondered if they were in communication, wondered if they spoke regularly, or at all.
He was not that surprised when he received the first message from Amelia informing him of her obstetrician’s details. Of the first appointment. Of the results of the first scan. He hated himself for answering each message with one-word answers, but he wasn’t capable of more. Because he would trail off into explanations, or justifications or demands that she return to him, or pleas that she let him return to her. And he wasn’t ready for that. He knew that.Recognisedthat. Because she’d been right. He was still stuck in the past, its grip a vice around his heart and soul holding him in a place where he was not worthy of a future with Amelia and his child. Not yet.
He knew what it looked like from the outside...that he’d abandoned everything, including the mother of his unborn child, but he had never—wouldnever do that. He had sent Amelia access to an account just for her that was separate from an account for their child. He had sent her the paperwork that showed he had no access to that account, would not be able to see any expenditures or receive notifications, knowing that it was the least he could do.
The only person he saw, aside from Gianni or Sofia in the occasional meeting he attended, was his mother. As the weeks turned into months, he began to travel to Milan almost once a week. The first time he’d visited it had been intensely painful. He had been full of resentment, anger and hurt. He hadn’t expected much, he hadn’t even really expected to talk, but his mother had appeared relieved, as if she’d been waiting for this day to come. That time they had simply, and very awkwardly, made polite conversation. Aurora Vizzini hadn’t questioned him, asked him why he was there, or pushed him beyond what he was capable of, which was probably for the best. If she had, he might have left and not come back.
On the third visit they’d argued, impatience getting the better of him, hurt taking over, but as he’d left, she’d told him that she loved him. On the fifth visit he’d told her about Amelia and on the seventh he finally asked why they hadn’t left that night. Why—when he and Gianni had needed to leave so badly—had she stayed?
Sitting in the chair, she couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘The shame and guilt that I couldn’t be strong enough for you and Gianni...it will never leave. The horror that I allowed that man to inflict upon you...’ She trailed off, shadows haunting her gaze.
And that was when his hurt and anger welled up to the surface, only to be swept back down in a whirlpool of guilt and anguish. ‘But what about what he inflicted upon you? I couldn’t stop it, Mamma,’ he said, his voice quiet, but as rough as if he’d been howling his pain for years. Hot damp heat pressed against his eyes. ‘I couldn’t stop him, Mamma,’ he repeated uselessly.
‘You were a child, Alessandro, of course you couldn’t stop it.’
‘But I wasn’t always—I grew, I was—’
‘No,mio bambino, it was not for you to protect me. I was...glad when he realised that he could no longer...behave the way he had done.’
The anger and frustration that Alessandro had felt, once he had become bigger than his father and the physical threats had lessened but the manipulations and constant mental abuse had increased. And still he’d been powerless to do anything until they’d been old enough to escape, to get out, find jobs and work to support themselves—to support her.
‘I couldn’t get us out sooner,’ he replied, the hot, furious energy leaving him utterly drained, as if he’d run a marathon.
‘You got us out,’ his mother stated, her eyes full of vehemence, determined that he would see how much that meant to her.It is more than I did, came the silent conclusion. ‘I am so sorry for what I was unable to do as your mother.’
He shook off her apologies and she snatched up his hand, her skin silky soft and paper thin, her age startling to him as if only moments ago she’d been a young woman at the mercy of her husband.
‘You need to hear it, know it and believe it. I am sorry that I could not protect you.’
‘And I am sorry for exactly the same thing,’ he replied, all that anger, all that hot rage melting away beneath the realisation that it was never about betrayal. It was never about being let down or lied to...it was about the helplessness that he’d felt as a child that had stifled and terrified him.
