His Final Bargain

She was responsible for the devastation of Ewan’s life.

Eliza twirled the ring on her hand. It was too loose for her now. It had been Samantha’s engagement ring, given to her by Ewan’s father, Geoff, who had died when Ewan was only five. Samantha had devoted her life to bringing up their son. She had never remarried; she had never even dated anyone else. She had once told Eliza that her few short happy years with Geoff were worth spending the rest of her life alone for. Eliza admired her loyalty and devotion. Few people experienced a love so strong it carried them throughout their entire life.

The traffic was congested getting out of Naples. It seemed as if no one knew the rules, or if they did they were blatantly ignoring them to get where they wanted to go. Tourist buses, taxis, cyclists and people on whining scooters all jostled for position with the occasional death-defying pedestrian thrown into the mix.

Eliza gasped as a scooter cut in on a taxi right in front of them. ‘That was ridiculously close!’

Leo gave an indifferent shrug and neatly manoeuvred the car into another lane. ‘You get used to it after a while. The tourist season is a little crazy. It’s a lot quieter in the off season.’

A long silence ticked past.

‘Is your mother still alive?’ Eliza asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you ever see her?’

‘Not often.’

‘So you’re not close to her?’

‘No.’

There was a wealth of information in that one clipped word, Eliza thought. But then he wasn’t the sort of man who got close to anyone. Even when she had met him four years ago he hadn’t revealed much about himself. He had told her his parents had divorced when he was a young child and that his mother lived in the US. She hadn’t been able to draw him out on the dynamics of his relationship with either parent. He had seemed to her to be a very self-sufficient man who didn’t need or want anyone’s approval. She had been drawn to that facet of his personality. She had craved acceptance and approval all of her life.

Eliza knew the parent-child relationship was not always rosy. She wasn’t exactly the poster girl for happy familial relations. She had made the mistake of tracking down her father a few years ago. Her search had led her to a maximum-security prison. Ron Grady—thank God her mother had never married him—had not been at all interested in her as a daughter, or even as a person. What he had been interested in was turning her into a drug courier. She had walked out and never gone back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s very painful when you can’t relate to a parent.’

‘I have no interest in relating to her. She left me when I was barely more than a toddler to run off with her new lover. What sort of mother does that to a little child?’

Troubled mothers, wounded mothers, abused mothers, drug-addicted mothers, under-mothered mothers, Eliza thought sadly. Her own mother had been one of them. She had met them all at one time or the other. She taught their children. She loved their children because they weren’t always capable of loving them themselves. ‘I don’t think it’s ever easy being a mother. I think it’s harder for some women than others.’

‘What about you?’ He flicked a quick glance her way. ‘Do you plan to have children with your fiancé?’

Eliza looked down at her hands. The diamond of her engagement ring glinted at her in silent conspiracy. ‘Ewan is unable to have children.’

The silence hummed for a long moment. She felt it pushing against her ears like two hard hands.

‘That must be very hard for someone like you,’ he said. ‘You obviously love children.’

‘I do, but it’s not meant to be.’

‘What about IVF?’

‘It’s not an option.’

‘Why are you still tied to him if he can’t give you what you want?’

‘There’s such a thing as commitment.’ She clenched her hands so hard the diamond of her ring bit into the flesh of her finger. ‘I can’t just walk away because things aren’t going according to plan. Life doesn’t always go according to plan. You have to learn to make the best of things—to cope.’

He glanced at her again. ‘It seems to me you’re not coping as well as you’d like.’

‘What makes you say that? You don’t know me. We’re practically strangers.’

‘I know you’re not in love.’

Eliza threw him a defensive look. ‘Were you in love with your wife?’

A knot of tension pulsed near the corner of his mouth and she couldn’t help noticing his hands had tightened slightly on the steering wheel. ‘No. But then, she wasn’t in love with me, either.’