she couldn’t sleep.
Because she couldn’t get a certain face out of her mind. Orlando de Luca. Every time she closed her eyes she saw his face. His smile. That hot look in his eyes.
Which was crazy.
Right now she wasn’t in the market for a relationship. She knew she needed to get over Jeremy’s betrayal and move on with her life, but was having a holiday fling with a gorgeous man really the right way to do that? And anyway there must be some reason why Orlando was single.
She didn’t think it was a personality flaw—the way he’d worked with her was nothing like the way Jeremy worked, being so charming that you didn’t realise until it was too late that he’d taken the credit for everything. Orlando was genuine. A nice guy, as well as one of the most attractive he’d ever met.
So why? He’d said he’d worked as a paediatrician then turned to family medicine. So was he still building his career and putting his love life on hold until he was where he wanted to be? Was he the sort who was dedicated to his career and didn’t want the commitment to a relationship? In that case he would be the perfect fling—and maybe she should call him…
But not until after her meeting tomorrow. Her stomach tightened with nerves. What would Bartolomeo Conti be like? He’d sounded nice, on the phone. The photograph he’d emailed to her was that of a man in his mid-fifties with a charming smile. But she knew firsthand that charm often covered something far less pleasant. And her mother hadn’t stayed with Bartolomeo. So was the man who might be her father a snake beneath the smile? Or was she judging him unfairly?
Finally, Eleanor fell asleep; the next morning, the alarm woke her, and by the time she’d showered her stomach was in knots. She couldn’t face even the usual light Italian breakfast of a crumbly pastry, just a frothy cappuccino—and she checked her watch what turned out to be every thirty seconds to make sure she wasn’t going to be late.
After one last glance in the mirror in her room to check she looked respectable, she headed for the hotel lounge. The second she walked in, a tall man stood up and waved to her. She recognised him instantly from the photo he’d emailed her—just as he’d clearly recognised her.
A moment of panic. What did she call him? ‘Signor Conti?’
‘Bartolomeo,’ he corrected. ‘And I hope you will let me call you Eleanor.’ He enveloped her in a hug. ‘Thank you so much for coming to see me—and all this way, from London.’
‘Prego.’
He looked delighted that she’d made the effort to speak his language. ‘We are both early.’ His smile turned slightly wry. ‘I slept badly.’
‘Me, too,’ she admitted.
He put his hands on her shoulders and looked closely at her. ‘I thought it from your photo, and now I know for sure. You look so much like my Costanza. Constance Firth,’ he corrected, ‘the woman I fell in love with, thirty years ago.’ He added softly, ‘But your colouring is all mine.’
Constance Forrest had been fair-haired and Tim Forrest had had sandy hair; both had been blue-eyed. What were the chances of them producing a brown-eyed, dark-haired child—one with olive skin that didn’t burn, rather than an English rose? Whereas Bartolomeo Conti, the man whose initial had been at the bottom of the love letter she’d found among her mother’s things, had hair, skin and eyes the same colour as her own. Coincidence? Or was he her biological father?
‘Have you had breakfast, Eleanor?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I was too nervous to eat.’
‘Me, too. Let’s go and have a late breakfast and watch the world go by.’
He took her to a little caffè-bar and ordered them both coffee and sfogliatelle. ‘You will like these, Eleanor—they are a Neapolitan speciality. Sweet pastry shaped like a shell and filled with sweetened ricotta cheese and candied orange rind.’ His smile was full of memories. ‘I bought these for your mamma, the first time we went to a caffè together.’
She had so many questions. But they had time.
‘I thought you might like to see these,’ Eleanor said when they’d sat down, handing him an envelope.
Bartolomeo leafed through them. ‘Yes, this is how I remember my Costanza,’ he said softly. ‘And she grew into a very, very beautiful woman. This one of her in the garden…’ There was a catch in his voice. ‘And this is you as a bambina?’ He smiled. ‘You look so much like my sisters Luisella and Federica when they were bambini. Those dimples…May I borrow these to make copies?’
‘Keep them. I did this set for you,’ Eleanor explained.
He reached over the table and hugged her. ‘I never thought I would be blessed with children. And now…’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘And now it seems I have a daughter. A daughter I would very much like to get to know. If your papà does not mind?’
She appreciated the fact he’d asked. Even though strictly speaking it didn’t matter any more. ‘Dad had a stroke the year after I graduated as a doctor.’ Though at least Tim Forrest had been there for her graduation. He’d shared that particular triumph with her. ‘There’s only me now.’
‘You are alone in the world?’ Bartolomeo looked shocked. ‘What of Costanza’s famiglia? Her mother, her father?’
‘I never knew them.’
He frowned. ‘Are you telling me they disowned Costanza because she had you when she was not married?’
Eleanor shook her head. ‘I don’t really know anything about them. The only grandparents I remember were dad’s parents, but he was twenty years older than Mum and they died when I was in my early teens.’ She’d often wondered about her grandparents but hadn’t wanted to hurt her mother by asking. And, thirty years ago, being pregnant and unmarried had still had a bit of a stigma. So maybe Bartolomeo’s theory was right. ‘You really had no idea I existed?’
‘None,’ he said firmly. ‘Had I known my Costanza was carrying my baby, I would have flown straight to England and married her.’
‘So what happened?’ She needed to know. Why had her mother gone back to England alone?
Bartolomeo sighed. ‘I don’t come out of it very well, but I want to be honest with you from the start. I fell in love with your mother, but I wasn’t really free to do so.’ He looked awkward. ‘I wasn’t formally betrothed to Mariella, the daughter of my father’s business partner, but we’d grown up together and our families both expected us to get married. Except then I met Costanza. She was on holiday. It was springtime. I drove past her and caught her in a shower from a puddle. I stopped and took her for a coffee to apologise and that was it. Love at first sight.’
Something she didn’t believe in—in her view, you had to get to know someone properly first—so why couldn’t she get Orlando de Luca out of her head?
Memories softened Bartolomeo’s face. ‘Your mother was so warm, so vibrant—nothing like the cool English rose I thought she would be when I first heard her accent. She made me laugh, and I fell in love with her smile. We were inseparable in the days after that. Everything happened very fast, and I knew I wanted to marry her. I told my parents that I could not marry Mariella, that I wanted my bright English girl. And it was made very clear to me that I would have to choose between my family and Costanza.’
‘So you chose your family.’ Eleanor could understand that. She would’ve hated being cut off from her parents.
‘Not at all. I told them if they were going to insist I had to choose, then I would choose my Costanza.’ Bartolomeo’s face tightened. ‘But she had already made the decision for me. I went to her hotel and she was gone. She’d left me a letter, saying she would not come between me and my family. She was going back to England and she wasn’t going to see me again. And I was to marry Mariella, as everyone expected, and be happy.’
Which