‘There was nothing underhand about it,’ he assured her calmly.
‘You had someone prick my baby’s heel and take a sample of Luca’s blood, and that’s not underhand?’ Her eyes were like pinpoints of fury on his face.
‘I was told that saliva does just as well.’
‘Am I supposed to be reassured by the idea of someone sticking a foreign object into my newborn baby’s mouth?’
She was on fire and magnificent. If he were in a position to choose a mother for his child, who better than Cassandra?
‘Well?’ she demanded, taking the tension between them to breaking point. ‘Don’t you have anything to say about it?’
‘I had the midwife you trusted do it. It was all above board. She didn’t like doing it, even with a court order, but for the sake of what she called a foregone conclusion she said that it was better she did it than anyone else.’ Catching hold of Cassandra, he laced his fingers through her hair to bring her close. ‘Forgive me?’
With a disbelieving laugh she pulled away. ‘No. I won’t forgive you.’ She stared at him white-faced. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to open it?’ She glanced at the envelope in his hand.
Slowly and deliberately he ripped it up in front of her and let the pieces drop.
‘I don’t need to look at it. I trust you, and I know our son,’ he said.
As they stared at each other, a multitude of emotions flashed across her face, and then after what seemed to him like an eternity she said, ‘Are you going to clear that up?’
Breath rushed out of him as the tension in the room subsided. His shoulders relaxed and his face creased in a grin. He wanted to drag her close, but he dropped to his knees instead and thought himself the luckiest man on earth as he gathered up the unnecessary proof that the child sleeping upstairs was his. He didn’t need a piece of paper to tell him what he already knew. He had known the moment the midwife had put the baby in his arms. He just hadn’t wanted to admit it—not to himself, not to Cass—and not because he didn’t want the child but because he so desperately did. And for the first time in his life he had wondered then, as he wondered now, if he had what it took to be a father—and not just a father but a good father. The best. Though remembering what Cass had said about babies not coming with a manual, he thought he could learn to do this...they could learn together.
* * *
By the time she came downstairs after feeding Luca and putting him back to sleep, Marco had got the fire blazing.
‘Sit,’ she invited. ‘Thanks for stoking the fire.’
‘You want to talk,’ he guessed.
‘Yes, I do.’ Sitting down with some space between them, she turned a concerned look on Marco’s face. ‘I believe childhood forms the foundation of our lives—makes us who we are.’
‘Childhood certainly teaches us what we don’t want,’ he said.
‘And what we do,’ she countered gently.
‘We strive for some things, and do our best to avoid others,’ he said with a shrug.
‘Is it that simple, Marco? It wasn’t that simple for me. I look back and I see my parents differently now I’m older. But my past is well documented, while yours is equally well hidden.’
‘And you want to know why?’
‘You’re the father of my son. It would be strange if I didn’t, if only so I can understand you better.’
At one time she might have been surprised to see Marco’s eyes darken with emotion, but not now. The birth of their baby had changed him in some deep fundamental way, unlocking some hidden part of him. ‘Tell me about your mother. Can you remember her?’
‘Of course I can.’ He frowned as he thought back. ‘As you said, I see things differently now, but as a child I felt burdened by her. Now I can see that she did care for me in her way, but she was weak.’
‘You mustn’t blame yourself for how you felt about her as a child. You’ve resolved that as an adult.’
‘Have I? I used to blame her for everything—for taking me away from the man I thought was my father, and for not staying with the man who was my father by blood. I later learned that my real father had abandoned her, and the man she married had no interest in a bastard son once he found out the truth about my parentage. I thought my mother was a drunken slut who had slept with another man and who then tried to pass me off as the true son of her marriage. I refused to see that her descent into alcoholic rages and her dependency on drugs was a result of her sickness, and that she needed help, not blame— certainly not blame from her son.’