Taken by the Highest Bidder
Sam blanched, hastily shook her head. “No. No. Cristiano and I are just friends.”
“But you will get married, right?” Gabby persisted.
“No, Gabby.” Sam’s tone sharpened even as her body prick-led with heat. This was getting really uncomfortable. “We’re going back to Monaco so you can return to school and we’re going to take care of some business. But there’s no wedding.”
Gabby frowned grumpily. “Why not? I like Cristiano better than Papa.”
“About that,” Sam said after a brief, and very awkward silence, “there’s something we need to tell you. Something about your father.”
“I know what it is,” Gabby answered.
“Um, no Gabriela, I don’t think you do.”
The girl sighed, leaned back in her chair, her small features set in lines of exasperation. “Papa’s not my real father.”
Sam nearly lost her balance. She put out a hand, braced herself on the door frame. “You know?”
Gabby smiled but the smile didn’t reach her eyes and for a moment she looked very small, and very young, every bit the vulnerable five-year-old. “I used to have a baby book. My mommy made it for me. But Papa Johann took it away.” Gabby hesitated and rare tears shone in her eyes. “The book said my real papa’s name is Enzo Bartolo. He’s a race car driver like Cristiano. But I never met him.”
If it were any other child, Sam would say this was a fit of imagination. Children as young as Gabriela couldn’t possibly keep facts straight, but Gabby had a mind and memory that was unlike any child’s she’d ever known.
But even suspending disbelief, Sam didn’t know what to say, or how to comfort Gabriela. The conversation had taken dramatic turns, sharp right, steep left, and now there was only silence and the sound of Gabriela breathing heavily.
Then Cristiano cleared his throat. “I met him, Gabby,” he said quietly. “I knew him.”
Gabby looked up at him, eyes bright with tears, touchingly hopeful. “You did?”
He nodded, picked up Gabby’s hand and kissed it. “I think you would have liked him a lot, Gabby. He was my father, too.”
The secrets, Sam thought later as they traveled to Manchester, the secrets and shadows each person kept buried inside…
It boggled her mind, the facts, the truth, the way things were.
Cristiano wasn’t Gabby’s father. He was her half-brother. Mercedes wasn’t Cristiano’s lover, but his father’s, Enzo’s, girlfriend. Enzo had never come forward to claim his daughter because he died, just months before Gabriela was born.
Sam closed her eyes, drew her arm even more closely around Gabriela who slept curled in her lap during the flight from Manchester back to Nice on Cristiano’s private jet.
Life was a series of events, cause and effect. One thing led to another, to another, and another. And as unbearable as it sounded, it also made sense.
Pregnant, alone and grieving, Mercedes ended up with Johann.
Did Enzo know he was going to be a father again before he died? Did Johann always know who Gabby’s real father was? Did Gabby remember her mother at all?
Sam opened her eyes at the sound of footsteps on the dense mushroom colored carpet. The jet had been furnished in shades of taupe and gray and Cristiano took a seat in one of the soft gray leather chairs opposite the leather sofa where Sam sat with Gabriela.
“We’re almost there,” he said, with a glance toward the window. “My driver’s waiting. We just need to decide where we want to go. My penthouse in Monte Carlo, or the villa in Cap Ferrat. It’s your decision.”
“I don’t know either.”
“One is a city apartment, and the other is my home on the peninsula.”
“Where do you think Gabby would like best?” Sam asked.
“The villa. It’s near the beach.”
They lapsed into silence as the flight attendant on board the jet approached to let them know that they’d soon begin their descent.
“Cristiano,” Sam said, as the flight attendant walked away. “What happened…and again yesterday…” She took a quick breath, needing to say what she needed to say before they landed and Gabriela woke. “That wasn’t anything, was it?”