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Had his father hated him that much?
Bile burned the back of Luca’s throat. The answers to so many questions had gone with Franco Cavallari to his grave—including why he’d had photos of Annah and Ethan in his possession, and, more disturbingly, what he’d planned to do with them.
For the next ten minutes Mario sat on the tail of the hatchback. Annah drove at a fair clip, obviously familiar with the winding back roads and country lanes. When they reached the village she parked on a side road and Mario pulled up behind her.
She got out, crossed the road, and disappeared through a gate in a high wooden fence.
A full minute passed with no sign of her, then another. Luca tapped his fingers against his thigh.
How long did it take to collect a child?
He watched other vehicles come and go. Other parents disappear through the gate, all of whom emerged soon after with one or more children in tow.
He got out of the SUV and paced the footpath, stopping every few seconds to glare across the road. From behind the wheel, Mario sent him a look that was vaguely amused, and Luca gave him a dark scowl.
He looked across the road again. Perhaps he should go in?
No sooner had the thought formed than the gate swung open, and Annah came out holding the hand of a dark-haired boy.
Luca froze. Suddenly, his heartbeat sped up and his hands went clammy.
He was about to meet his child. An event for which he had no point of reference. No previous experience to help him navigate this unfamiliar territory.
He stared at Ethan, so like himself as a boy, and a memory surfaced. A vignette of the Cavallari family in happier times, years before ugly revelations had torn them apart and planted them on opposite sides of an unbridgeable divide.
The day was hot and they were picnicking on
the family estate. Luca was young, no older than Ethan, and he was riding high on his papà’s shoulders, giggling and shrieking as Franco put his arms out like an airplane and raced across the lawn. His mother wore a pretty sundress and sat under a big oak, baby Enzo cradled in her arms. Luca could hear the sweet tinkle of her laughter, unaware that in years to come he would rarely hear his mother laugh.
Luca had loved his father. It pained him to admit it, but he had. He’d idolised him. Wanted to be him. In the eyes of his young son, Franco Cavallari had been an important man. Wealthy and successful. Handsome and charismatic. Other men treated him with deference—and respect.
Luca had been a teenager when he’d finally understood it wasn’t respect his father engendered in other men, but fear.
On the night Franco initiated his eldest son into manhood, Luca’s love for him had turned into something confusing and complex. A gut-churning mix of revulsion and love and hatred he struggled for years to understand.
His first big mistake was believing he could change his father. His second was not destroying Franco when he had the chance. Emotion had made him weak. Incapable of doing what had to be done.
If he had been stronger, if he’d taken Franco down, he could have saved his brother.
He took a deep breath and calmed his heart rate. He wouldn’t fail Ethan like he had failed Enzo. He could do this. He was a better man than Franco; he could be a better father. All he had to do was stay focused and control his emotions.
* * *
‘Is that him, Mummy?’
Ethan tugged on Annah’s hand. Standing with her feet glued to the pavement, she swallowed down a bubble of nervous laughter. ‘Yes, sweetheart,’ she said, staring across the road. ‘That’s him.’
‘Holy Moly,’ breathed a woman’s voice.
Annah glanced to her left. Harriet, a frazzled but good-humoured mother of five, stood with her youngest—a little girl with ginger ringlets—balanced on her hip.
Harriet, like Ethan, stared across the road. So did several other mothers as they trotted along the street and bundled their kids into cars. Annah couldn’t blame them. Luca Cavallari was a knee-weakening mix of smouldering sex appeal and unadulterated machismo.
‘Who is that?’ said Harriet.
Ethan leaned around Annah’s legs. ‘That’s my daddy,’ he said proudly.
Oh, God. The footpath swayed beneath Annah’s feet. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Harriet was looking at her, bug-eyed.
