His Final Bargain

‘My father loved my mother,’ he said. ‘It ended badly, but he always instilled in me that it was worth committing to one person. He didn’t believe in half measures. His philosophy was you were either in or you were out. I admired that in him.

‘I tried my best with Giulia. I gave her what I could but it wasn’t enough. At the end of the day we didn’t love each other. No amount of commitment on my part could compensate for her guilt over Alessandra’s blindness. She just couldn’t handle it. She rejected her right from the start. In her mind, it was as if someone had handed her the wrong baby in the hospital. She couldn’t seem to accept that this was what life was going to be like from now on.’

‘I’m sure there are a lot of parents who feel that way,’ Eliza said.

He scored a pathway through his hair, as if even thinking about that time in his life made his head ache. ‘The thing was, Giulia didn’t want to have my baby. She wanted her ex’s child.’

Eliza’s frown showed her confusion as it pulled at her forehead. ‘But you said she deliberately set out to get pregnant, that she set you up.’

He gave her another weary look. ‘It’s true. But the thing is, I could have been anyone that night. She wanted to hit out at the man who’d let her down so badly. She wasn’t thinking straight. On another night she might not have done it, but of course once it was done it was too late to undo it. She wasn’t the type to have an abortion and, to be honest, I didn’t want her to. We were both responsible for what happened. I could have walked away from her that night. But, in a way, I think I was trying to prove something too.’

Eliza sank her teeth into her lip, thinking about how devastating all this had been for him. His life had changed so swiftly and so permanently. And she had been part of that devastation when she had rejected his proposal. Was she always destined to ruin other people’s lives? To make them desperately unhappy and destroy the life they had envisaged for themselves?

‘I’m sorry…I can see now why you feel I’m partly to blame for how things have turned out. But who’s to say we would’ve had a great relationship if I had been free to marry you?’

His dark eyes meshed with hers. ‘Do you seriously doubt that we couldn’t have had a satisfying relationship after what we shared during those three weeks?’

She turned away from his penetratingly hot gaze and folded her arms across her middle, cupping her elbows with her crossed over hands. ‘There’s much more to a relationship than sex. There’s companionship and emotional honesty and closeness. The best sex in the world doesn’t make up for those things.’

‘Is that what you have with your fiancé? Emotional closeness?’

‘I should get back…’ Eliza glanced towards the villa. ‘Alessandra will be well and truly awake by now. Marella will be wondering what’s happened to me.’

She started back along the pathway but she didn’t hear Leo following her. She glanced back when she got to the fountain but he had disappeared from sight. She gave an uneven sigh and, with a little slump of her shoulders, made her way inside the villa.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALESSANDRA HAD ONLY just woken when Eliza came back to the nursery. ‘I’ve got a special surprise in store,’ she said as she lifted her out of the cot.

‘What is it?’ Alessandra asked, rubbing at one of her eyes.

Tatiana had explained to Eliza that eye-rubbing was something a lot of vision-impaired children did. But while it gave temporary comfort similar to sucking a thumb, as the child got older it was less socially acceptable. Tatiana had advised that distracting the child from the habit was the best way to manage it, so Eliza gently pulled her hand away and circled her tiny palm with the finger play, Ring a Ring o’ Roses.

Alessandra giggled delightedly. ‘Do it again.’

‘Give me your other hand.’

The little girl held out her hand and Eliza repeated the rhyme, her heart squeezing as she saw the unadulterated joy on the toddler’s face. ‘Again! Again!’

‘Maybe later,’ Eliza said. ‘I have other plans for you, young lady. We’re going for a walk.’

‘I don’t want to walk. Carry me.’

‘No carrying today, little Munchkin,’ Eliza said. ‘You’ve got two lovely little legs. You need to learn to use them a bit more.’

She took the little tot’s hand and led her out to the landing and then down the stairs. She got Alessandra to feel the balustrade as she went down and to plant her feet carefully on each step before taking another. It was a slow process but well worth it as by the time they got down to the ground floor she could tell Alessandra was a little more confident.