Convenient Brides Page 17

  “I didn’t think you’d notice,” she said meekly. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”

  Stunned, he stared at her, noting for the first time how crumpled her clothing was. Her eyes were shadowed, empty of life, her face so pale, her skin was almost transparent. Approaching her cautiously, he said, “Dio, Caroline, where did you spend the night?”

  “I went to Manziana, to the villa on the lake.”

  “Our villa?”

  “Yours and your children’s,” she corrected him.

  “They’re your children, too, for God’s sake! You’re their mother.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I gave them life, but that’s not enough to make me their mother.”

  He raked a frustrated hand through his hair. “What are you saying, Caroline? That you’re walking out on them again, because you can’t stand having to be second-best to your sister?”

  “I’m walking away. There’s a difference.”

  “Then please explain it to me.”

  “Although it kills me to leave them, at this point I think the best thing I can do for my children is to go back to the States.”

  “Caroline—!”

  “Listen to me, Paolo. Right now, they need you and your parents far more than they need me. They need the security you’ve always brought to their lives—the routine of the familiar. They need to know that regardless of what happens down the line between you and me, their lives have regained the kind of stability they lost when Vanessa and Ermanno died. As things presently stand, I can’t give them that, dearly though I’d like to.”

  And dearly though he’d have liked to argue the point, in his heart Paolo had to agree with her. First things first. The children took priority. “Why couldn’t we both have shown such wisdom sooner?” he muttered.

  “Well, better late than never,” she said, showing far more acceptance than he was able to command. “So I take it you agree that I should go?”

  “Would it make any difference if I said no?”

  She smiled, a faded imitation of the kind of warm, open smile he was used to, and shook her head. “No.”

  “Then I agree. When do you plan to leave?”

  “As soon as possible. Today, if it can be arranged.”

  “Well, go if you must, but know this—you and I are not finished.”

  “I hope not.”

  “We’ll keep in touch.”

  “Yes, please! I want to know how the children are—how you are.”

  He touched her face, stroking his hand down her cheek and along her jaw. “Same here,” he returned thickly.

  She left that afternoon, and spent the long hours between Rome and San Francisco endlessly reliving the pain of her final good byes. Lidia’s tears and hugs and murmured sympathy. Salvatore, so gray in the face, she’d been ashamed that she’d hadn’t seen for herself that he was not a well man. The children, their gazes darting between her and Paolo, as if they feared they were to blame for things not working out.

  “Are you really going back to America?” Gina asked, not sounding quite as pleased about the idea as Callie thought she would.

  “Yes.” Aching to take her daughter in her arms and never let her go, Callie made do with a brief hug and knew the feel of her child’s warm, sweet little body would forever remain imprinted on her heart. “It’s time, sweetheart.”

  Clemente had tugged at her sleeve. “Does that mean we’ll never see you again?”

  She’d exchanged teary glances with Lidia. “Oh, no! I’ll be back often to visit, and if ever you decide you want to come to see me, all you have to do is let me know the date and time, and I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Gina pulled away, her lip quivering, her glare defiant. “Sometimes, you really make me want to cry, and don’t you know you’re not supposed to do that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And that’s why I’m leaving, because I don’t want to make anyone cry anymore.”

  “We should get going now, if you don’t want to miss your flight,” Paolo murmured at her elbow, sensitive to the emotional storm about to burst. Over her objections, he’d insisted on driving her to the airport.

  Misty-eyed, she hugged Lidia again, and pressed a last kiss on her children’s foreheads. Then, half-blinded by tears, she turned to Salvatore. “Goodbye, Signor Rainero, and good luck with your surgery,” she said, her voice shaking. “I really do wish you the very best.”

  He cleared his throat and half made a move toward her. “You don’t have to leave because of me, Caroline.”

  “I’m not,” she told him. “I’m leaving because of me.”

  Nor did it end there. She had to get through that last scene at the airport, with Paolo. “Don’t come inside with me,” she said, as he drew up in front of the international departure building, and practically fell out of his car in an effort to escape before she flung herself at him and sobbed all over his starched white shirt.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he retorted, and tossed the keys to the nearest parking valet. “I’ll come with you to collect your boarding pass, and walk you as far as the security gate.”

  The first-class ticket he’d reserved made short work of checking in, but saying goodbye…? There was no quick and easy way to do that, not when he stood there, his gaze searching her face, and hers devouring his. Not when his mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile and he reached out to tuck a wisp of hair behind her ear.

  And oh, most especially not when his hand slid around the back of her head and he inched forward for a kiss that should have brushed fleetingly against her cheek, but instead landed on her lips and lingered there, excruciating in its sweetness.

  “Remember what I said before, tesoro. This is not the end, it’s merely a time-out,” he murmured, his dark brown gaze scouring her face.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said, making no attempt to stem the tears. “But I came from a broken home. I know what it’s like to live with parents who put up with each other for the sake of their children. And it’s not true what the so-called experts say. A bad marriage isn’t better than no marriage at all. It taints everything it touches, especially the children. So unless we can both make the right kind of commitment to each other…”

  “We can,” he said. “It’s just going to take time. Once the children have come to terms with everything—”

  “You must board now if you wish to make your flight, signorina,” the attendant at the desk interrupted. “The pilot has been cleared for take-off and we’re about to close the gate to the aircraft.”

  Callie nodded and turned to Paolo one last time. “See you,” she said, the smile she almost managed dissolving into tearful misery.

  “Si,” he replied, and when she went to walk away, reached for her one last time. “See you, too, my Caroline.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  WE’LL keep in touch, Paolo had said, on that last afternoon in Rome, but apart from a brief email to acknowledge hers telling him she’d arrived home safely, she didn’t hear from him again, and eventually stopped waiting for the phone to ring, or another message to arrive. Better to stay busy and pick up the threads of her old life, than yearn for a new one that might never come to pass.

  So she flung herself into her work, staying at the office long after everyone else left, and sometimes bringing projects home with her. Then, almost a month after she left Italy, she was called to Minneapolis to supervise a hotel restoration.

  She stayed a week, and arrived home too late on the Friday night to do anything but fall into bed, exhausted. The next morning, she awoke just after eight to the kind of warm, sunny early December day that made San Francisco the envy of so many other cities throughout North America. But for her, the sun never really shone anymore.

  A day for catching up, she decided morosely, wrapping a towel around her wet hair after she stepped out of the shower, then slapping a mud pack over her face and throat, before wandering to the kitchen to scrounge up something to eat. Not that she was hungry, which was just as wel
l, because nothing too appetizing awaited her. The refrigerator was empty, apart from half a loaf, the limp remains of a head of lettuce, and a block of cheese suspiciously green around the edges.

  First on her to-do list, once she was dressed and fit to be seen in public? A trip to the supermarket, followed by a walk down to Fisherman’s Wharf where one of the restaurants might possibly tempt her to eat lunch. Shopping in Union Square for a shower gift for a colleague’s forthcoming wedding. Picking up a movie to watch that evening, when she curled up by herself on the couch, in front of the fire.

  Oh, yes, and checking her mail and messages, just in case he’d been in touch. Any chore, no matter how small, to distract her from the gaping, aching hole in her heart that never seemed able to heal.

  She’d plugged in the coffee maker and popped bread in the toaster, while waiting for the mask to work its magic, when the doorbell rang. Peeking from her living-room window, she could see nothing in the street immediately below her front entrance, although a black Lincoln was parked illegally at the curb, a few houses away.

  The morning paper must have arrived, she concluded. She stopped delivery during her absence, and asked for it to be resumed today. Tightening the belt holding her terry cloth robe closed, she picked her way past her still-unpacked suitcase and downstairs to the foyer.

  She slid back the lock, opened the front door just wide enough to reach out one arm and grab the paper, and almost fainted at the sight awaiting her. Two little faces peered back. Faces she hadn’t thought to see again for a very long time, and even then, not wreathed in shy smiles.

  “Gina…Clemente…?” she croaked, afraid she was caught up in a cruel dream.

  “Hello, Zia Momma,” they chorused, looking so mightily pleased with themselves that, for all that she was too shocked to think straight, she knew they’d rehearsed the greeting ahead of time. Then, taking a second look at her, they nudged each other in the ribs and subsided into a fit of giggles.

  Fairly sagging against the door frame, she pressed a fist to her racing heart. “What in the world are you doing here?”

  “Well, you said we could visit you whenever we wanted, so we did,” Gina said, as if only an idiot would fail to see the logic of such a move. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

  She dragged the door wider and gestured weakly. “Of course. But how—who brought you?”

  “I did,” the deep, dark Mediterranean voice that had haunted her night and day for the last month, supplied. “May I come in, too?”

  She recoiled in horror. “Paolo?”

  “Well, I didn’t expect you’d roll out the red carpet,” he said, his trademark charming smile not quite as poised as usual, “but I hoped you’d be at least a little pleased to see me.”

  “I’m wearing a towel on my head!” she squeaked. “I’ve got a mud pack slathered all over my face! Why would I be pleased to see anyone, let alone you, looking the way I do?”

  “You’re beautiful in my eyes, Caroline,” he said, following the children into her foyer and closing the door, “although you ought to know your cosmetic clay is cracking badly. Perhaps you shouldn’t be talking until it’s finished cooking, and satisfy yourself with just listening to us, instead.”

  “I wasn’t expecting company!”

  “You mean, you didn’t get my message, telling you we’d be stopping by?” He shrugged philosophically. “Oh, well, too late now. We’re already here. I’d kiss you hello, but this doesn’t seem the most appropriate moment to do so. Close your mouth, darling. You’re beginning to drool.”

  Thoroughly restored to his usual in-charge self again, he pushed her ahead of him up the stairs, and somehow she made it all the way without tripping over her feet, even though her pulse was racing so fast, it left her dizzy.

  “Please make yourselves at home and excuse me a moment,” she managed, showing her three guests into the living room, and promptly fled to her en suite bathroom.

  Her children were here, and they were smiling at her!

  Paolo had called her “darling!” He’d never called her “darling” before!

  And, oh dear heaven, when she most needed to put on her best face, she looked like a reject from a bad Halloween party! Although she had no memory of doing so, she’d started to cry, and her tears had left soggy ravines in her blue mud pack.

  Appalled, she splashed cold water over the offending mask, and wiped it away with a facecloth. Whipped off the towel and dragged a comb through her hair. At least it had enough natural bounce not to hang in rats’ tails around her face.

  No time for makeup, she decided, afraid if she took too long to get ready, Paolo might grow tired of waiting. A spritz of cologne would have to do. And clothes, of course—underwear, a pair of pale green linen slacks, and a cream cashmere sweater she’d bought at Nordstrom’s and never bothered to wear, because she’d had no one to dress up for.

  “I poured us both coffee,” Paolo said, handing her a steaming mug when she returned to find him and the children in her kitchen. “Sit down, darling, before you fall down.”

  Darling, again!

  “Thank you.” She seized the mug gratefully. She needed fortifying. Badly! “I’m sorry I can’t offer you cookies, or something, but my cupboards are rather bare right now,” she told the children, aware they were watching her as if they thought she might suddenly sprout two heads. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have stocked up—”

  “I’ll take us all out for breakfast later,” Paolo said. “But we have business to discuss first. A proposition we’d like to put to you.” He cocked an eyebrow at the twins. “Which one of you would like to begin?”

  After a pause, Clemente cleared his throat. “I will.”

  “Well, get on with it then,” Gina prompted, when he seemed unable to decide what to say next. “It’s really easy. Just ask her if she’ll come back home with us.”

  Callie’s heart quite literally stopped. For the longest second in recorded history, she hung suspended between heaven and earth, unsure where she was going to end up.

  “Will you?” her son finally asked, timidly. “We’ve talked about it a lot, and we really wish you’d say yes. We didn’t think we would, but we miss you. And now that we’ve had time to think about it some more, we don’t mind that you’re our mother. It’s really quite all right, in fact.”

  “Except you’re only our Other Mother,” Gina put in. “You can’t take our real mommy’s place.”

  “No,” Callie whispered, those damnable tears threatening again. “I know I never could, nor would I wish to. No one can ever replace your mommy. She was much too special, to all of us.” She chanced a look at Paolo, who leaned against the kitchen counter, his face impassive. “But as far as my coming to live with you—”

  “You might as well,” her pragmatic little daughter piped up. “Zio Poppa says the house is way too big for just the three of us.”

  “Poppa?” Surprised, she looked his way again.

  He gave another shrug. “They’re coming around, Caroline. They’re ready to deal with the truth.”

  “Is that why you brought them to me?”

  “Not entirely. I have my own agenda, too.” He drained his mug and set it on the counter. “Is there someplace the kids can entertain themselves with something on television, so that you and I can have a little privacy?”

  “There’s a set in the living room, and although I can’t swear to it from personal experience, my married friends tell me their children love Saturday morning cartoons.”

  “Good enough.” With a sweeping motion, he herded the childrentothelivingroom,andwasbackwithinminutes.Alone.

  “Do you care for more coffee?” she asked, suddenly not sure she was ready to hear what he had to say.

  “No,” he said, closing in on her. “I don’t need coffee, but I very much need to do this.”

  He kissed her, then. At length. With his whole heart. With tenderness and restrained passion and a promise of better things to come.

/>   “Ah, Caroline,” he murmured, when they both surfaced for air. “I’ve waited much too long to do that. And even longer to beg your forgiveness, and tell you that I cannot live with-out you.”

  Afraid to burst the bubble of hope taking shape all around her, she said, “The children are too much of a handful?”

  “No, tesoro. The children are exactly what they’re supposed to be. Impossible to predict, not always easy to please, and thoroughly adorable. But my being only half the equation they need leaves me too often at a loss.”

  Disappointment, cold and damp as a San Francisco fog, clouded the clear surface of that magical bubble. “If you’re here because you can’t manage them on your own, the solu-tion’s pretty straightforward. Hire a nanny.”

  “If that’s all it would take to ease the ache in my heart, I would. But my problem runs much deeper. Learning to be a father occupies me well enough during the day, but the long, empty hours of the nights, Caroline, are when a man must look into his heart and accept the truth that’s been lurking there for weeks.”

  “You need a woman.”

  “I need you.”

  “Because my being the children’s birth mother makes me the best candidate for the job? We’ve gone that route once already, Paolo,” she said, the disappointment swirling around her now so thick and black it almost choked her, “and look how it ended.”

  He dragged his fingers through his hair, more beside himself than she’d ever thought to see him. “Caroline, mio amore, I’m here to beg your forgiveness.”

  He had tears in his eyes, she realized. They sparkled like diamonds, touching her so deeply that her heart turned over.

  Shame tinting his words, he went on, “I seduced you and cast you aside without a second thought, even knowing, as I did by then, that you were an innocent, no more able to match a man of my experience than the babies you eventually bore because of me.”