The Secret Kept from the Italian

‘Ella? Is that her name?’

Maisie lifted a chin, torn between wishing she hadn’t mentioned her daughter’s name and knowing that all of this was painfully necessary. ‘Yes.’

‘Ella,’ Antonio repeated softly. An emotion flashed across his face, too quickly for Maisie to discern what it was, and then he swung away so he was staring at the twinkling lights of the city, his back to her.

‘She can spend half the year with me, and half the year with you.’

Maisie’s heart started to splinter. ‘Half the year? You’d deprive me of my child for six months?’

‘I can ask you the same.’

‘Antonio, you work full-time. You travel the world. How on earth would you care for her, especially when she’s so small?’ Terror dug its poisonous claws into Maisie’s heart and held on. She couldn’t let this happen, and yet how could she fight it? Antonio was Ella’s father, and he was far more powerful than she was. She couldn’t fight him, but she would try with everything she had.

Antonio didn’t answer her breathless question, and desperation made Maisie press the point. ‘It’s not reasonable. You’d have to hire a nanny, when she could be with her mother, the person who loves her most—’

‘You work.’

‘Only the occasional evening, and Max looks after her.’

‘Max?’

Was she imagining the needle-like note of jealousy that had entered his voice? ‘My brother. You remember I told you about him? Or did he not make the cut of what you choose to remember and to forget?’

‘I remember you talking about your brother.’ He turned away, seeming to want to close the conversation.

‘And I remember you talking about yours,’ Maisie said, compelled to a painful honesty she hadn’t expected either to give or receive. Not now, with their history so fraught and fragmented. Yet for one brief, breathless moment she remembered how close she’d felt to him, how emotionally connected. Had it all been a mirage? A lie?

‘Don’t.’ Antonio’s voice was rough, his body angled away from her. ‘Let’s not talk about that. The past is exactly that. We need to focus on the future.’

‘So you said, but we can’t make these kinds of life-changing decisions in the course of one evening.’ Maisie took a steadying breath, willing the panic she’d felt swimming through her mind to recede a little.

Antonio knew about his daughter and, despite the fear she still felt, it was, in some ways, a relief. No more wondering. No more hiding the truth. It was out, and now they both had to deal with it. She’d see that as a good thing when she’d recovered from the shock. She’d have to.

‘Maybe not in the course of an evening,’ Antonio said levelly as he turned around to face her, ‘but soon. I leave for Milan in three days.’

Maisie only just stopped herself from rolling her eyes. ‘And finding out you have a daughter won’t keep you from changing your plans? What a great start.’

His mouth compressed, his eyes turning flinty. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘It seems like it is.’

‘I’m not going to argue with you about this now,’ Antonio said, his tone growing impatient. ‘You’re right, in that we can’t discuss or decide everything tonight.’

‘Exactly.’ Maisie exhaled in relief. At least they were in agreement about that.

‘I’ll escort you home, then pick you up in the morning to continue our discussion.’

That made him sound a little bit like her jailer. ‘Is that really necessary—?’

‘Yes.’ Antonio cut her off. ‘It is.’ He slid his mobile phone out of his breast pocket and thumbed a quick text. ‘My car will be waiting outside.’

‘I’m supposed to work until the party is over...’

‘The party is over,’ Antonio said flatly, and Maisie was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about the dinner downstairs. Yes, the party was over. But what came next?

* * *

Maisie didn’t say a word as she and Antonio rode down in the lift together. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, trying to assess her mood. Would she be compliant? Would she fight? And, most importantly, what the hell did he really want?