So when after weeks of being pretty elusive Francesco had telephoned out of the blue and announced he was getting married Valentina had been delighted for him.
A secret ceremony in a tiny chapel with only herself and Sam to witness the event had seemed the height of romance until she’d realised the couple had only met five days earlier!
That had really set the alarm bells ringing!
It was hard not to conclude, given the timing, that his totally out-of-character whirlwind marriage had been some sort of backlash to his twin brother’s death.
She hadn’t really been surprised when the marriage had folded after a month.
‘I for one,’ Sam added, ‘would do a hell of a lot more than tell a few white lies for him. He believed in me when nobody else did, or have you forgotten how much we owe him? We’d have lost this house … the stud, everything!’
‘I know … I know … and I’d do anything for him normally, but we’re lying to Erin. How’s she going to feel when she realises we’ve been tricking her?’
In the end they’d come to a compromise: she would not spill the beans to Erin, but if the other girl asked her a direct question she wouldn’t lie.
CHAPTER SIX
ERIN, who was curled up on the sofa, put the book she was reading to one side and rose to her feet when Valentina walked in.
‘Who were you talking to?’ Valentina asked, looking around the empty room.
‘The heroine,’ Erin explained, indicating the book that lay open. ‘She is so good it makes me nauseous.’
‘Then why are you reading the book?’
‘I’m hoping she’ll wake up and realise that the hero she’s been waiting for doesn’t exist.’ The problem with heroiclooking men was it was a massive disappointment when you discovered they were just as incapable of knowing the meaning of fidelity as any other man.
‘That makes you a terrible cynic.’
‘That makes me an optimist,’ Erin retorted, running a hand through her hair before tightening the knot in the orange scarf that secured it in a loose ponytail at her nape. The vibrant colour clashed gloriously with the equally vibrant shade of her copper-red curls. ‘She might not be as stupid as she seems.’
Her glance drifted to the plump baby gurgling contentedly in his mother’s arms. Valentina made motherhood look so easy … just watching her made Erin feel inadequate. Were good mothers born or could you learn? she wondered.
Erin hoped, for the sake of her unborn baby, that the latter was true!
‘So, being an optimist, do you think people can change?’
Erin tore her eyes from the golden-skinned baby and caught Valentina watching her with an expression that made her wonder uneasily if she didn’t suspect something. It wasn’t the first time she had received that impression.
For a moment Erin was tempted to tell her; she ached to have someone to confide in, someone to tell her that the doubts and fears that kept her awake nights were normal.
But then sanity intervened.
Francesco was Valentina’s cousin and to ask her to keep the information from him would put her in an awful position. Valentina would no doubt consider that Francesco had a right to know and Erin could not disagree, she knew she had to tell Francesco about the baby.
She had actually been on the point of putting pen to paper to do just that earlier that week, not having mentioned it in her earlier letter, when she had picked up the phone and without warning heard his voice.
But when the moment had presented itself, she hadn’t told him; she hadn’t said anything.
She hadn’t been able to—the protective defences she had struggled to construct had disintegrated and so had she! Her eyes had still been puffy and red the next day from the orgy of weeping just hearing his voice had triggered.
It would be so much simpler if her conscience would allow her to delay telling him until after the divorce. Because once he did know Erin knew that realistically there would be no question of a smooth, uncontested divorce.
It just wasn’t going to happen.
Not given Francesco’s inflexible and unforgiving attitude when it came to the subject of fathers who tried to evade their responsibilities.
Francesco held the view that absentee fathers came slightly lower on the evolutionary scale than lice! And while he had once expressed some admiration for single mothers who brought up children and juggled careers, he had added the rider that it was inevitable the child would suffer.