Carole Mortimer - Men of Power

Though deferential to Massimo and very correct with her family throughout the service and afterward, for the most part they kept to themselves.

From the little Massimo had told her, Dante was thirty-nine and Lazio forty-two. Both were married and had children. His forty-four-year-old cousin, Sansone, hadn’t come. He, too, had children, one of them in college. All of them held responsible positions within the company.

So many stern males who had no time for Pietra must have been daunting to her. She’d only been eight to Massimo’s thirteen when they’d lost their parents.

Massimo talked off and on with his brown-haired cousins, but for the most part he stayed in the berthable cabin with her and Nicky. An alarming prospect because she never knew at what moment he was going to pull off the gloves. Her anxiety while she waited made her feverish.

Hopefully, with Nicky right next to them, she didn’t have to worry about it during the flight. Up to now the baby had been pretty good all things considered. But after refueling in New York for the last leg of the flight to Milan, he’d started to fuss.

Julie didn’t think he could be hungry again. With a steward aboard to bring their meals and heat his bottles, she’d never known such luxury.

Everything had been provided for her and the baby’s comfort.

Luckily his rash had improved. A few more days using the special cream and the last of the redness would be gone.

This was the first time she and Massimo had been on their own with Nicky. Until they’d boarded the jet, Julie’s mother and father had taken turns tending the baby. She knew their hearts were broken at the thought of him leaving the country.

Though Massimo possessed a commanding air of authority that would be intimidating to most people, he hadn’t tried to interfere or take over with her parents, for which Julie had been grateful. Pain clung to all of them like a dark mist. The airport scene represented the end of the Marchant family the way they’d always known it. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Not for Massimo, either, she had to concede.

Whatever the true nature of their relationship, a drunk driver had killed Pietra, the person closest to him. He’d been uprooted from his work to return to a place where he didn’t want to go, to take on a baby he didn’t know.

Even if he was Nicky’s uncle and already felt a bond with him, by virtue of them being family, to take on guardianship of him overnight had to be a daunting prospect. Yet he’d done it without hesitation.

Pietra had idolized her brother. Though Julie was suspicious of his motives when it came to her, she could understand the reason for his sister’s adoration.

While other people stood around in a crisis wringing their hands, Massimo saw what needed doing and did it with the ease of urbane sophistication any male would kill to possess. Julie’s father had welcomed Massimo’s help with all the decisions.

She tried to imagine Brent in similar circumstances and couldn’t. No matter his age, Massimo would have handled everything with unmatchable mastery.

Because he was a man.

While Shawn had been in Italy on business for the winery, he’d told Julie he’d seen the Di Rocche logo everywhere. It meant rock, a symbol for something solid, unshakeable. The Di Rocche family could have coined it after Massimo. He was the rock you could instinctively count on.

Pietra had counted on him. So had Shawn, who must have been convinced of his brother-in-law’s underlying integrity, otherwise he wouldn’t have considered giving him legal custody of Nicky should the unthinkable happen.

To everyone’s horror it had happened. Lives had been forever changed, especially Nicky’s. He would never know his parents. Life could be so unfair. Julie swallowed another sob.

Maybe the baby sensed her overwhelming sadness and that’s why he started to cry in earnest. Throughout her contemplation of the incredibly attractive man seated across from her, he’d worked himself up.

“What do you suppose is wrong?” Massimo asked, ever attentive despite the fatigue lines etching his hard-boned features. The steward had just cleared away their breakfast trays.

She was tempted to reply that the baby wanted Shawn and Pietra, but of course he knew that. Instead she said, “He might need to burp, but I imagine he’s missing his own bed.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“It would take a big hammock for a man your size,” she said without thinking.

His lips twisted. “You’ve watched too many Indiana Jones films. These days we use cots.” He got to his feet and reached for Nicky. “You need a break. I’ll take him for a walk. Hopefully it will distract him.”

The baby looked so tiny in his uncle’s arms. Julie glanced away in an effort to block out the sight of his well-defined chest covered in a pearl-gray cotton sweater.

The open neck revealed a tanned column of throat. She could tell there was a fine dusting of hair, as well. His sleeves were pulled up to the elbows, revealing the hard sinews of his forearms.

Expelling a controlled breath, she decided now would be a good time to use the restroom. Her hair needed a good brushing. She could refresh her lipstick.

When she returned to her seat a few minutes later, she was surprised to discover he’d come back. Nicky lay facedown across his powerful thighs encased in expensive-looking charcoal trousers. Using a bronzed hand to rub the baby’s back, Massimo had managed to quiet him.

“I should have thought of that. I’m jealous.”

One corner of his so very male mouth curved, causing her pulse to race. Since she’d first met him outside his hotel room, it had been doing that on a regular basis despite her reservations about him.

“We can thank Dante. He told me to try it.”

“How old are his children?”

“Fourteen and seventeen. I presume having been a father twice, it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you’ve learned, you never forget.”

“Did all your cousins marry young?”

His black eyes flickered over her. “My uncle insisted on it. Their wives were handpicked.”

“Judging from your bachelor status, you were the only one not afraid of him.”

“He wasn’t my father. Though the strictures of Uncle Aldo’s household could be daunting, to a certain degree I was able to get away with being a nonconformist. Much to my cousins’ chagrin,” he added on a more sober note.

“Like what, for instance?” Her curiosity was going to get the better of her.

“He believes an unmarried man past twenty-one is a menace to society.”

“Uh-oh. Did your aunt have any say in the matter?”

“None. It didn’t help that she was sickly throughout their marriage and needed waiting on. She died a year after Pietra and I went to live with them.”

How completely different from Julie’s family, where her mother’s need to be in charge had eventually beaten down her father.

“I thought it was the other way around in Italian households.”

He studied her through shuttered eyes. “You watch too many made-for-TV movies.”

“According to you I watch too many movies period.”

His brief white smile caused her insides to dissolve. “I’ll concede the point.”

“Was Pietra a rebel, too?’

“Afraid so. She took after me,” he admitted ruefully. “No one was going to do her choosing for her. I wasn’t surprised when she told me she’d fallen in love with Shawn.”

Julie’s throat swelled. “Pietra was the best thing that ever happened to my brother. They didn’t have very long together, but they were two of the happiest people I’ve ever seen. She wasn’t intimidated by our mother.”

“Our uncle did a good job of preparing her in that department.” His remarks kept hinting at a dark history.