Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Baby

‘Of course not. But he’s told me to keep on your right side, and while he thinks that’s what I’m doing he won’t make a fuss about me coming here. Aren’t I clever?’

‘You’re a cunning little witch.’

‘I’m only putting Dad’s own theory into practice. He says when you think someone’s acting for you they’re always pursuing their own agenda. Well, you’re my agenda, so come here and let me get on your right side.’

She took his hand and he went with her, unresisting, because neither then nor later could he deny her anything. It was to be the ruin of both of them.

‘Damn you, Luca! You duped me.’

Luca Montese’s face showed no relenting. ‘Nonsense! You sleepwalked into this without checking.’

‘I thought I could trust you.’

‘More fool you. I warned you not to trust me, and goodness knows how many of my enemies warned you.’

The man glaring across the desk was in a fury at the thought of the money he’d coveted and lost. His name was-well, no matter. He was the latest in a long line of men who had thought they could put one over on Luca Montese, and found that they were wrong.

‘We were supposed to be in this together,’ he snapped.

‘No. You thought you’d use me as a tool. I was to get the information, then you planned to make a deal behind my back. You should have been more suspicious. When you think a man’s acting for you he’s always pursuing his own agenda.’

Then a strange thing happened.

As Luca said the words a feeling of malaise came over him, so strong that he had to take a deep breath. It was as though the world had changed in a moment from a place where he was in control to a place where everything was strange and threatening.

‘Get out!’ he said curtly. ‘I’ll send you a cheque to cover your expenses.’

The man left fast, relieved simply to recover his expenses, which was more than anyone had got out of Luca for years. He wondered if the monster was losing his touch.

Left alone, Luca held himself still for a long time. The walls seemed to converge on him and suddenly he couldn’t breathe.

When you think a man’s acting for you he’s always pursuing his own agenda.

The words had come so naturally that he’d never doubted they were his own. Yet they had carried a sweetness so unbearable that it had almost destroyed him.

He was choking. He got up and opened the window, but the terrifying memory wouldn’t go away.

She had said it, and then she had pulled him down on the bed and loved him until his head was spinning. And he had loved her in return, making her a gift of everything that was in him, heart, body and soul, everything he was or hoped to be.

And that had been his mistake.

It was a mistake he’d never made again in the fifteen years since, when he had piled up money and power. He’d commanded his heart to harden until he could feel nothing, and he had been a success in that, as in everything else.

Now something frightening was happening. More and more the past was calling, tempting him back to a time when he was alive to feeling. But if he worked hard he reckoned he could kill it.

Only one person did not tread carefully when Luca was around, and that was Sonia, his personal assistant. Middle-aged, cool and efficient, she viewed her employer with eyes that were half motherly, half cynical. She was the only person he totally trusted, and with whom he could discuss his personal life.

‘Don’t waste time brooding,’ she advised him over a drink that evening. ‘You always said it was a weakness. You’ve got your divorce, so forget it, and marry again.’

‘Never!’ he snapped. ‘Another barren marriage for people to snicker at? No, thank you.’

‘Who says it’ll be barren? Just because you didn’t have a child by Drusilla doesn’t mean a thing. Some couples are like that. They can’t have a baby together, but each of them can have a baby by somebody else. Nobody knows why it happens, but it does.

‘This hairdresser is her “somebody else”. Now you have to find yours. It shouldn’t be hard. You’re an attractive man.’

He grinned. ‘Not like you to pay me compliments. Normally, according to you, I’m an impossible so-and-so with an ego the size of St Peter’s dome and-I forget the others but I’m sure you remember them.’

‘Selfish, monstrous and intolerable,’ she supplied without hesitation. ‘I’ve called you all those things and I don’t take back one word.’

‘You’re probably right.’

‘But it doesn’t stop you being attractive, and there are millions of women out there.’

He was silent for so long that she wondered if she’d offended him.

‘It could work the other way too, couldn’t it?’ he said at last.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Suppose there weren’t millions of women? Suppose there was only one woman with whom I had any hope of having children?’

‘I’ve never heard of it working that way round.’

‘But it might,’ he persisted.

‘Then you’d have to find her, and it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

‘Not if you knew who she was.’

Understanding dawned.

‘You’ve already made your mind up, haven’t you? Luca, you don’t believe this because it’s true, you believe it because you want to. It’s rather comforting to know that you can be as irrational as the rest of us.’ She regarded him curiously. ‘She must have been very special.’

‘Yes,’ he said heavily. ‘She was special.’

He was a man of action. A few phone calls and a representative of the best private-enquiry firm that money could buy was in his office next morning.

‘Rebecca Solway,’ he said, speaking curtly to hide the fact that his stomach was churning. ‘Her father was Frank Solway, owner of the Belleto estate in Tuscany.

‘Find her. I don’t care what it costs, but find her .’

It was a successful evening. Philip Steyne, chairman of the bank, treated Rebecca with honour, and was clearly as impressed as Danvers had hoped he would be. When Rebecca left them for a moment Steyne said,

‘Congratulations, Jordan. She’ll do the bank credit. When can we expect the announcement?’

‘Any day, I hope. Nothing’s been said precisely, but of course she understands where we’re heading.’

‘Well, in good banking it pays to be precise,’ observed Steyne with a grin. ‘Don’t take too long.’

When Rebecca returned he said, ‘Rebecca, let me have the benefit of your expertise. You’re a quarter Italian, right?’

‘Yes, my father’s mother came from Tuscany.’

‘And you speak the language?’

She gave him her cleverest smile, a little bit teasing, but not too much. This was Danvers’ boss.

‘Which language do you mean? There’s la madre lingua , the official language that they use on radio and television, and in government. But there are also the regional dialects, which are languages in themselves. I speak la madre lingua , and Tuscan.’

‘I’m impressed. Actually Tuscan might be handy. This firm has its head office in Rome, but I believe it started in Tuscany, and it’s all over the world now.’

‘Firm?’

‘Raditore Inc. Property, finance, finger in every pie. Suddenly it’s buying a huge block of shares in the Allingham, and the bank’s interested in closer contact. I propose a dinner party at my house-you, Danvers, their top brass. Let’s see what there is to be gained from them.’

Driving her home, Danvers was lyrical in his praise.

‘You really impressed the old man tonight, darling.’

‘Good. I’m glad I was a help to you.’

She answered mechanically and he shot her a quick sideways look, thinking that this was the second time she’d been in a funny mood and he hoped it wasn’t going to become a habit.