the beach. With every success that came our way they hated us more—just as we hated them.’
‘You’re a real estate agent?’ Ainslie checked, wondering why that made him smile.
‘I’m a property developer. I buy homes like this one—beautiful homes the world over—and I retain the exterior, gut the interior, and turn them into flats.’
‘Ouch!’ Ainslie winced, staring around at this vast lounge, the size of a ballroom, at the ornate cornices and the marble mantelpiece over the dreamy fireplace, loath to think of it being destroyed.
‘Of course we try to retain as many original features as possible!’ He gave an ironic smile.
‘Philistine.’
‘Perhaps!’ Elijah conceded. ‘Maria, too, fell in love with this place.’
‘And she fell in love with Rico too?’
After the longest time he nodded, that single gesture telling her he would reveal more.
‘Not till years later. I was furious—so too was his family. None of us went to the wedding…’ He closed his eyes in regret. ‘She still worked for me, supported her husband. I kept pointing out that he wasn’t working, but slowly I started to see that they were for real. They had to be real. Because in spite of what had happened—with all that his brother had done—still she loved Rico. So we started speaking again, and then I realised how hard things were for them. Rico’s family blamed Maria for what had happened to them, for the slur to Marco’s name. They said that she had asked for it, that it had been her coming on to him…’
‘She was thirteen!’
‘Easier for them to blame her than change him. Rico is a mechanic, and his family ran the car repair place in the village, so he couldn’t work. I knew they couldn’t stay in the village—there was too much bad blood, too many slurs for them to ever make a real go of it. I suggested they move in here for a while—Maria spoke some English. I had purchased the place furnished, and I said she could oversee the plans, help with the architects and inspections till it was ready to get off the ground. It never did.’ He smiled as he said it. ‘The renovations started—only not the ones I had intended—Rico found work straight away, and they settled right in. I would often come to visit…’
‘You were living in London?’
‘No, I am mainly in Italy. But I am here once or twice a month, and every time I came here I noticed it had become more and more their home—a few new cushions for the couches, a rug here and there. And then when she got pregnant Maria started talking about a mural in the nursery. I gave in when Guido was born. I knew that they loved each other completely, and as a belated wedding gift I decided to sign the place over to them.’
‘Some wedding gift!’
‘Oh, it was to be their Christmas present too!’
Ainslie smiled at the faint joke. She knew nothing about property prices, save that London was fiercely expensive. She’d thought Gemma and Angus lived in luxury, but this house, right in the heart of London, was just stunning. Under any other circumstances she’d have paid to enter and be gazing at this lounge from behind a red rope! Ainslie gulped, staring over at the man sitting beside her on the couch. And under any other circumstances she’d be gazing at him on the silver screen, or in a glossy magazine.
Effortlessly stunning, he was quite simply the most beautiful man she had ever witnessed in the flesh. The features that had first dazzled her on the tube merited closer inspection now.
His jet hair was thick and glossy, and there was a slightly depraved look to his piercing blue eyes—but that could, Ainslie conceded, be more born of exhaustion than excess. His very straight Roman nose was a proud feature. All his features were wonderful in their own right, yet combined they were stunning. But what moved Ainslie most, what exalted him from good-looking to stunning, were the full lips of his mouth—the curve of them when he smiled. It was a mouth that softened his features, a mouth that flexed around his expressive language, a mouth that drew you closer, that held your attention when he spoke.
‘It felt right that she have this house. Right that I could take care of her still. She’s my sister—was my sister…’ His voice husked, his mouth struggling with the correction.
‘She still is…’ Ainslie said softly. ‘Always will be.’
‘This place was their home. It is right that it’s Guido’s home now.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I don’t know.’ He stared into the bottom of his near-empty glass as if he were trying to gaze into a crystal ball. ‘Marco and his wife, Dina, have never seen him, have played no part in his life, and yet now Rico and Maria are dead they say they want to be involved.’
‘Were you involved?’
‘I’ve never babysat, never changed his nappy…’ Elijah answered. ‘But I spoke with my sister on the phone most days. As I said, I’m in London once or maybe twice a month, and I normally stopped by. I was—am—a part of his life. It just never entered my head it would be to this extent.’
‘It might be the same for Marco and Dina,’ Ainslie offered. ‘Maybe they’ve had a shock? Maybe they’ve realised…?’ Her voice trailed off as he shook his head.
‘I don’t trust them.’ He drained the last dregs before continuing, ‘I don’t want that man near my nephew—he is the last person Maria would want for him. I know people can change, and I know that it was a long time ago. But some things—well, they are too hard to excuse or forgive.’
‘There’s no one else?’
‘No one apart from one reprobate uncle who likes to burn the candle at both ends and has an appalling track record with women.’
‘Oh!’ Ainslie blinked, rather liking the sound of him. ‘Where’s he, then?’
‘You’re looking at him.’ He even managed to laugh, but it faded quickly. ‘The trouble is, as wrong as I think Marco and Dina would be for him, I don’t trust that I am right for Guido either. I don’t have a lifestyle that really fits in with raising a child. I can provide for him, I can give him the best of everything…’
But he deserved so much more than that, and they both knew it.
‘It might be time to grow up, I guess!’ Elijah said, putting down his glass and standing. ‘Either that or try and find a way to put aside lifelong rivalries and remember it isn’t a patch on the beach we’re fighting over any more.’
‘You’ll work it out.’
‘Just not tonight…’
They shuffled through the house and up the stairs.
‘This is a guest room,’ Elijah announced. ‘And there’s another one here.’ Elijah pushed open another door. ‘You can choose.’
‘I don’t care…’
Ainslie shrugged, so he chose for her, depositing her backpack in a pretty yellow and white room that was to be her home for tonight.
‘I’ll just check on Guido.’
They both did.
Stood in his parents’ bedroom and peered into his cot. His flushed face was paler now, his thumb was in his mouth and his bottom was in the air, and tears welled in Ainslie’s eyes as she stared down at him. Safe and warm but suddenly alone, without the two people who would have loved him the most. The vast bed in the room looked horribly empty as they crept out.
‘Will we wake up?’ As he turned to go he thought better of it. ‘Who will wake up to Guido?’
And it was a very sensible question. Babies who woke in the night wouldn’t usually be factored in to Elijah Vanaldi’s agenda. Little whimpers of distress wouldn’t necessarily jerk a man like him from slumber.