Catherine Spencer - The Brabanti Baby

“Yes,” she said. “We both love Nicola and want what’s best for her.”

“Well, I can hardly take issue with that, can I?” He took her hands and drew her up to stand beside him. Her head barely reached his shoulder. “I’d like to look in on my daughter before I leave. Will you come with me?”

Together, they went through to the nursery. A lamp glowed on the dresser, filling the room with soft light. Nicola lay on her back in the crib, with her little arms spread-eagled and her tiny fists curled.

Bracing his hands on the crib rail, Gabriel watched her, his eyes hooded, his expression unreadable. “Will she sleep through until morning?”

“No. She’ll need to be fed again around midnight, and again between two and three.”

“Then I should be shot for keeping you up so late.” He touched her arm. “Tomorrow, you must rest. I’ll spend an hour with her after breakfast, before I leave for my office, and another in the late afternoon when I return home. Otherwise, Beryl will look after her.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll be fine. I’m used to shift work.”

They were standing close together, speaking in whispers, the way parents might, and the intimacy of it all shimmered between them like a live thing. “I suspect,” he said, his gaze burning into hers, “that you’re also used to picking up the slack for others, regardless of what it might cost you.”

“I do what has to be done, but I’m no saint.”

“Nor am I,” he said, and the way he looked at her made her stomach turn over. “Nor am I. You’d do well to remember that.”

WASHED by moonlight, the villa lay at peace. Even the faint cry of the infant upstairs had at last dwindled into sleepy silence. Only he, plagued by misgivings, paced the length of his ground floor study and watched the night slip toward morning.

A three-quarter full bottle of Jack Daniels, something he’d cultivated a taste for during his years at Harvard, stood on the desk, an empty glass beside it. Not even the bourbon could soothe his uneasiness tonight. After the evening just past, his suspicion that Marcia was up to no good had crystallized into certainty.

Their marriage might have lasted less than a year but in that time he’d come to know her well. She was secretive and sly and selfish; a bold-faced liar unhindered by scruples, and completely dedicated to furthering her own interests. And the cousin, Eve, knew it, even though she played her part well, turning her wide-eyed gaze on him and feigning ignorance of the true state of affairs.

She was lying, too, albeit by omission, but exposing her deception would be easy. Under that spirited front she put on, she was vulnerable—and very, very susceptible. He’d noticed how her pulse had raced, how she’d flushed, when he touched her. When they’d stood close together by the baby’s crib, he’d seen the agitated rise and fall of her breasts under her robe, and the way his gaze had held her hypnotized.

Unlike her cousin, Eve Caldwell’s experience of men was limited. He wouldn’t have to work too hard to uncover her secrets and seduce her into becoming his ally.

The realization should have calmed his restlessness and made sleep possible at last. Instead, it left a burning distaste in his mouth which the bourbon couldn’t begin to combat. To have to sink to his ex-wife’s contemptible level of subterfuge in order to ensure his daughter’s welfare offended his sense of decency.

But, a man had to do what a man had to do, and casualties were inevitable in war. Too bad that, in this instance, Marcia had put her cousin directly in the line of fire, and made her the victim. It wasn’t fair. But then, the power struggle resulting from a marriage gone sour never was.

For the next few days, Eve took Nicola to visit Gabriel at the appointed time, and he dutifully went through the routine of holding his daughter on his lap, inquiring about her welfare, and handing her back with patent relief when the hour was up.

Eve really wondered why he even bothered with the little thing, he was so uneasy around her. She’d expected better of him. He was from Italy, a country where the “bambino” reigned supreme. For heaven’s sake, cuddle her close! she felt like scolding him. Treat her as if she’s your own flesh and blood, instead of a stray you found on your doorstep!

By the end of the first week, however, she noticed he was growing more comfortable around his infant daughter. Once or twice, she caught a hint of real affection in his eyes, of real pleasure in the smile he bestowed on Nicola.

Apart from those times, Eve rarely saw him. She took breakfast and lunch alone in her suite, and when a business crisis of some kind kept him away from home four evenings in a row, she dined alone, too.

Yet whenever she and Gabriel did happen to be in the same room together, the atmosphere between them crackled with a tension that had nothing to do with hostility. Even though the context of their conversations revolved entirely around Nicola and was entirely appropriate, Eve read a different kind of message when his glance happened to collide with hers. The promise in his blue eyes made her forget to be cautious; his smile made her dizzy.

Sometimes, in passing the baby back and forth, their hands would touch. He made such contact seem meaningless, accidental, nonthreatening. But it left her feeling exposed, hungry, breathless. She was filled with a sense of anticipation; of something thrilling about to happen.

All that changed on Tuesday, at the beginning of her second week there. At seven-thirty, Beryl showed up with a pot of coffee and insisted on taking over in the nursery.

“After the time you’ve had, you’ll be needing this,” she told Eve, swirling cream into a china mug, and topping it up with the rich, aromatic brew. “I heard the baby crying again around two this morning. She sounded colicky, poor little mite.”

“I’m sorry she kept you awake, as well,” Eve said. “You must be wishing you’d put me in another part of the house where sound doesn’t travel so easily.”

“Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who walked the floor with her half the night. Take your coffee outside and get a breath of fresh air, why don’t you?”

Stepping out onto her bedroom balcony, Eve breathed in a sigh of sheer pleasure. Except for the lacy black projection of the oriole windows, the limestone walls of the villa rose up, tinted vanilla by the sun. The garden, lush with tropical flowers and trees, sloped down to a crescent of pale sand beyond which lay the deep blue sweep of the Mediterranean.

High overhead, too high for it to disturb the birdsong from a large aviary of finches built into the face of a rock wall, a silver jet streaked across the clear sky, leaving behind a narrow vapor trail. Closer at hand, in the suite behind her, she could hear Beryl crooning to Nicola.

A moment later, the housekeeper appeared in the doorway, with Nicola swaddled in a towel. “By the way, I forgot to tell you that Signor Brabanti asked me to hold off serving breakfast until nine o’clock, and wants you and Nicola to join him.”

Ignoring the little leap of her pulse, Eve said, “He’s leaving for the office later than usual, then?”

“He’s not going to the office at all. He’s taking the day off to be with you.”

There was no ignoring her body’s reaction to that piece of news. Her heart almost jumped out of her chest. “But can he do that? I thought there were problems at work, and he was needed there.”

“He can do whatever he likes, love. He’s the boss.”

Well, of course he was! The idea that he’d be anyone’s underling was laughable—and the prospect of spending the day with him, little short of alarming!