A Savage Betrayal

‘Absolutely everything I have ever done with you has gone wrong. What the hell did you feel like when I suddenly sacked you after that night we shared?’ he demanded unsteadily.

‘Pretty much the way you felt when Sandro gave you that file. Shattered.’

‘And when you found out you were pregnant?’ he prompted tautly.

‘Multiply shattered by ten.’

‘How the heck can you joke about it?’

‘Because it’s a long time ago and I know you tried to find me, even though you thought I had betrayed you.’

‘Since I now know you were not partying,’ he phrased, his mouth compressed with strain, ‘and I wouldn’t ask while we were in Sicily because I was scared you would tell me what I would have thought were more lies, it’s time you told me how you did manage.’

She did, quietly and unemotionally. Cesare still looked devastated by guilt and she wished he hadn’t bothered raising that particular subject. He was carrying enough of a burden in that field.

When she’d finished he cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘That scar…’ he began. ‘Was that from having Susie?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Why?’

‘I ought to have been there. You might have died,’ he muttered unevenly.

‘Rubbish. It’s a very common procedure,’ Mina informed him bracingly. ‘I didn’t even have to be knocked out.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was conscious when she was born. They just put up a sheet…’

Cesare looked at her in unconcealed horror. ‘Conscious?’ he echoed, turning an alarmingly pasty colour, moistening his lips and swaying. ‘Dio…that’s medieval…’

Then, under her astonished scrutiny, Cesare collapsed down in a large heap on the Persian rug. He had passed out.

Mina loosened his tie and unbuttoned his jacket, torn between laughter and tears. Something told her that he would not have been a great deal of use at Susie’s delivery. He swam back to the land of the living, blinking rapidly, sheepish as hell.

‘I didn’t feel a single twinge,’ Mina assured him.

He was anything but convinced. ‘To do that to you when you were still awake,’ he mumbled with a sick shudder.

‘I think you’re dead on your feet. You should be in bed.’

He sat up. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look it.’ Mina took charge, feeling immensely superior, which was a bit mean but excusable. The sight of Cesare turning white to the gills and folding up would be an image she would never forget.

‘I told you, I’m fine, and we still have a lot to talk about,’ he argued as she pushed him towards the stairs.

‘Tomorrow.’

‘I can’t wait that long. Where did you put Susie?’

He tiptoed into the dark bedroom and gazed down at his daughter. ‘Did she miss me?’

‘Loads,’ Mina whispered from the doorway

‘She ties my heart up in knots,’ he muttered jerkily.