the hairs to stand on the back of her neck.
“That is if you’re willing, and if you’re able to leave your work, of course. Pietra told me you’ve spent time with Nicky, which means you’re not a complete stranger to him like I am.”
The world stilled while she almost fainted from shock. Her parents looked equally nonplussed.
His gaze continued to bore into hers. She felt its disturbing penetration to the marrow of her bones. “How would you feel about helping me with our nephew until he’s used to his new home? Your mother’s right. I know nothing about babies.”
He knew exactly how Julie felt about it!
Not by one flicker of those dark lashes did he give away the fact that she’d paid a visit to his hotel room earlier. His discretion was only eclipsed by his cunning.
A shiver ran up her spine. To turn him down now would prove to him she hadn’t meant what she’d said. Yet to tell him she’d like the nanny job meant putting herself in a position where he’d exact retribution at some later time for her meltdown in his hotel room. Julie hadn’t known real fear until this moment.
“I love Nicky,” she said quietly. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. Resigning from my job will be no problem.” He already knew that. For some inexplicable reason he’d decided to grant her the wish of her heart. “Before we knew about the will, I’d planned to take care of my nephew.”
“I think it’s a terrific idea,” came her father’s heartfelt comment. “Don’t you, Margaret?”
“I … I suppose it is. I’m just having a hard time comprehending it.”
A faint smile of satisfaction broke the corner of Massimo’s hard, sensuous mouth. Julie had made a surreptitious study of it. The description seemed a contradiction in terms, yet both applied.
To her parents it might look like he was truly relieved someone else close to Nicky would share the burden with him. Julie knew differently.
“Pietra told me you have an important position with a software company in San Francisco—” he kept speaking to her. “Perhaps they’ll give you a leave of absence. If not, you won’t need to worry. I’ll be paying you considerably more for your time.”
She swallowed hard, unable to credit what she was hearing.
His eyes swerved to her parents who were still visibly stunned. “Naturally my home will be yours whenever you wish to visit Nicky. Come often and stay as long as you want. On holidays I’ll bring him to California and Hawaii. Nicky needs his grandparents. For his sake, we’ll make it work.”
The magic words.
Julie’s mother teared up. Her father patted him on the shoulder. “Indeed we will.”
Once more Massimo turned to Julie. “Pietra mentioned a boyfriend. He’s welcome at the villa, too. Anytime he wants to fly over to see you.”
She’d told him that relationship had ended, but he’d thrown that in for effect to make everything sound convincing. Nothing escaped his steel-trap mind. Within minutes he’d accomplished what Julie hadn’t thought possible—
He’d silenced her mother and reassured her parents they hadn’t lost Nicky. In the process he’d caught Julie before her life hit rock bottom, but she knew in her bones he meant to extract a price for the accusations she’d hurtled at him.
She looked down at the baby, who was finally asleep again. Knowing she’d be traveling to Italy with him took away some of the sting of the will’s contents. Enough to help her get through the graveside services they had facing them.
But in its place an indefinable fear had taken hold and wouldn’t let go.
THE spacious well-lit Di Rocche jet with its panoramic windows could hold fourteen passengers plus the crew. Once they’d taken off, and the lights from San Francisco receded into the night, Julie was scarcely aware of Massimo’s rather austere, well-dressed cousins, who did business in the aft conference compartment.
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