Catherine Spencer - The Brabanti Baby

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, non-threatening. But it left her feeling exposed, hungry and breathless. She was filled with a sense of anticipation—of something thrilling about to happen.

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CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

BE CAREFUL and establish your rights from the start, because Gabriel Brabanti is a shark, and given half a chance, he’ll eat you alive. There’s no middle ground with him, ever. It’s his way, or the highway—and I chose the highway!

Her cousin’s warning ringing ominously through her mind, Eve took a firmer grip on the infant seat holding her niece, and paused in the entrance to the Gerolama Cassar Executive Arrival Lounge at Luqa, Malta’s International Airport.

One among the select group waiting to welcome passengers flying in from Amsterdam was the man himself, Marcia’s ex-husband and the father of sweet Nicola Jane, whose birth hadn’t ranked high enough on his list of priorities for him to attend it in person. Instead, almost four months after the fact, he’d summoned mother and child to visit him, half a world away from Manhattan.

But had Marcia cooperated? Heavens, no! Marcia only ever did what she wanted, and she wanted easy, convenient, glamorous. And the rest, the untidy stuff? She palmed that off on to someone else, a fact Eve was so well aware of that she had only herself to blame if she didn’t like her present difficult situation.

It had begun innocently enough—and wasn’t that typical!—with a call from Marcia one evening, when the air-conditioning in Eve’s Chicago apartment had failed yet again, her clothes were sticking to her like wet tissue paper, and her resilience sat at an all-time low.

“How are you, Evie?” Marcia had cooed effusively. “I miss you! It’s been too long since we spoke!”

But the preliminaries had soon given way to the real reason for her call. Gabriel Brabanti was flexing his paternal muscles and demanding visitation rights.

“And there’s no way I’m putting in a command appearance just because His Highness ordered it,” Marcia had spat, her tone changing from sweet to steely, and echoing indignantly over the speakerphone she insisted on using so that Jason, her new husband, could be part of the conversation. “As far as I’m concerned, I never received his letter.”

“I don’t see how you’re going to pull that off,” Eve had pointed out. “You just finished saying he had it delivered by courier to the agency, which means you had to sign for it.”

“I don’t care! The almighty Signor Brabanti can go to hell! He might be a rich Italian living in Malta and wielding a lot of clout there, but he’s a nobody in New York.”

Eve heard the rustle of paper, then Jason spoke. “Might be best to cater to him, buttercup. From the tone of this letter, he means business. Either you go to him, which gives you the choice of making the visit short and sweet, or he comes here and hangs around as long as he pleases—and we don’t want that, now do we?”

“If you think my showing up with Nicola will put an end to his demands,” she’d replied, “you’re dreaming, honey. They’re just the beginning, mark my words.”

A pause, then Jason’s voice again. “What’s your take on all this, Eve?”

Wishing she’d let her answering service pick up a message, because becoming embroiled in the permanent crisis which best defined Marcia’s life inevitably wound up costing her more than she could afford, Eve said, “From what you’ve told me, I have to agree with Jason, Marcia. Either you make the trip to Malta, or Gabriel will come to you. It’s your call. Either way, he’s obviously determined to see his baby and frankly, he has every right to do so.”

She hadn’t needed to be there in person to know that Marcia’s mouth had taken on the mulish pout she’d perfected before she turned four. It had announced itself in her petulant reply. “Then you can be the one to take her to him, because I won’t have him hanging around here, and I absolutely will not go back to Malta. And before you turn me down, Eve, let me remind you who came to Chicago to look after your smelly old cat and water your plants, the last time you spent a month lolling around on the Mexican Riviera.”

“For heaven’s sake, that was five years ago and Fidelio’s been dead nearly two—and he didn’t smell, at least no more than you would if you were almost a hundred and forty years old in human years! As for the plants, you managed to kill off every one!”

“Nevertheless, you owe me.”

Eve had been sorely tempted to remind her cousin that, at the time, she’d been desperate to leave New York until the heat died down, after she’d become altogether too friendly with a client whose wife hadn’t looked kindly on his wandering eye. But unwilling to shatter Jason’s illusions about his brand-new wife, she’d made do with a firm, “I’m well aware that the rare favor you do for someone else invariably comes with a hefty price tag, Marcia. But if you think I’m about to take your baby off your hands and—”

“Why not?” Marcia shot back. “You’re forever saying you want to meet her. Well, here’s your chance to put your money where your mouth is, and do some serious bonding.”

“You’re out of your mind!”

Apparently Eve hadn’t been the only one who thought so. Even Jason, who had no real stake in any of this, added a shocked protest. “That’s going a bit far, buttercup!”

“So’s my traipsing off to Malta at a time when your career’s at a critical point and you need me around to protect your interests. Who do you think matters more to me, Jason: you or Gabriel?”

“Well,” he’d said, “when you put it that way…”

“What other way is there?” Marcia had replied blithely. “Come on, Eve, be a sport! You of all people know how hard it’s going to be dragging a baby from one small town to another in the kind of sweltering heat and humidity we get here in the summer.”

“Taking a child out of the country involves a bit more than presenting a plane ticket,” Eve objected. “There’s the small matter of a passport and parental permission. Or are you expecting me to smuggle her aboard in my carry-on bag?”

“I’ll make sure you’ve got all the necessary documentation. You just concentrate on Nicola and make sure she knows her mommy loves her.”

“And how do I do that, exactly?”

“You’ll figure out a way. It’s not as if I’m handing her over to some inexperienced stranger, after all. You’re a nurse. You deal with babies and children all the time.” Marcia had paused for a breath before winding up for her final argument. “Think about it, Eve! You’ve taken a leave of absence because you’re burned out from working twenty-four seven in that flea pit you call a clinic. You need a vacation worse than anyone else I know. And I’m presenting you with the chance for a luxurious holiday on an exotic island in the Mediterranean. Whatever other opinion I hold of my unlamented ex-husband, I’m the first to admit he never settles for anything less than the best, so you’ll travel first class all the way, and be waited on hand and foot while you’re a guest in his house. You’d have to be some sort of fool to turn down an offer like that.”