Trapped By Vialli's Vows. Chantelle Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ Then a memory from her childhood, when she had seen her mother searching the pockets of her father’s jacket for proof that he was seeing another woman, made her feel sickened with herself. Leandro had never given her a reason not to trust him. She could not bear the idea that she might have inherited her mother’s suspicious nature, and she hurried back into the bedroom and thrust his phone at him as if it had burned her hand.

      She followed him over to the door and her soft heart ached with sympathy when he pushed his hair back from his brow in a weary gesture.

      ‘You must be tired after travelling from a different time zone. I hope your friend is okay.’

      ‘Thanks.’ He bent his head and brushed his mouth across hers.

      She responded instantly, her lips softening and clinging just a little when he tried to break the kiss. He hesitated, and looked at her with an odd expression on his face. Marnie sensed he was about to say something, but then the moment passed and the connection she had felt with him shattered as he turned and strode down the hall.

      * * *

      Leandro’s driver opened the car door for him before stowing his suitcase in the boot. ‘The pilot has the plane ready, sir. It’s a busy night for you—off abroad again only a few hours after you arrived back in England.’

      ‘You’re telling me,’ Leandro muttered.

      As the car pulled away from the kerb he leaned his head against the back of the seat and took a deep breath. God, he hoped Henry was all right. A suspected broken collarbone, the headmaster of Henry’s school in Paris had said on the phone. Apparently the boy had been on an adventure hiking trip with some classmates and had slipped and fallen down a steep gully. Due to the remote location, it had taken a few hours to transport Henry to a hospital in Paris.

      Henry’s injury wasn’t life-threatening, but Leandro knew it must be incredibly painful. He remembered that he had dislocated his collarbone playing rugby when he was about twelve and it had been agony. His father had been away on a business trip and his mother had been performing somewhere else in the world, so he had been left on his own at the hospital to receive treatment for his injury before one of his father’s staff had collected him and taken him back to the penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue that had never felt like a home to Leandro.

      He hated the thought of Henry being in pain and maybe feeling scared and alone. Nicole was abroad, which was why the school had phoned Leandro—he was listed as an emergency contact for Henry. He suspected that his ex-wife only allowed him to maintain a relationship with Henry because it suited her, he thought cynically.

      Leandro’s thoughts turned to Marnie. He could not explain why he had felt an urge to tell her that the friend he was rushing to visit in Paris was a ten-year-old boy whom his ex-wife had led him to believe was his son for six years. But the desire to confide in Marnie had only lasted for a few moments, before his brain had taken charge and reminded him that he had never shared personal information with any of his previous mistresses, so why would he with her?

      He deliberately did not bring his emotions into his affairs. Just because his affair with Marnie had lasted longer than his affairs with previous mistresses it held no significance. She did not mean anything to him, he assured himself. But the concern in her eyes as he had been about to walk out of the door had got to him.

      He wondered if she would understand that he had felt as though his heart had been ripped out when he’d learned that he wasn’t Henry’s father.

      His jaw clenched. How could Marnie—how could anyone—comprehend what it felt like to bring a child up for six years, to love that child more than anything else in life, and then discover from a DNA test that the boy you had believed was yours was actually another man’s son?

      Leandro guessed the grief he felt was similar to the pain of bereavement. He had lost his child—lost his role as a father. He’d promised Henry that they would always be friends, but nothing could alter the painful truth that the child he had cradled as a newborn baby in his arms had no biological connection to him.

      Aboard his private jet, Leandro phoned Henry’s headmaster and was reassured by the news that an X-ray had shown that the boy did not have any broken bones. Arriving in Paris, he drove straight to the hospital and was escorted to the private room where Henry was lying in bed. He was deathly pale, but managed a grin when he saw Leandro.

      ‘Papa. My shoulder hurts.’

      Leandro felt a knife blade twist in his heart. ‘We decided you would call me Leo instead of Papa,’ he reminded Henry gently. ‘I’ve spoken to the doctor and he said your collarbone isn’t broken, but you have sprained the ligaments in your shoulder. There is not a lot that can be done to treat the injury—you just have to rest it and give it time to heal. You can be discharged and I’ll take you back to the apartment for the rest of the weekend, if your mother agrees.’

      ‘Cool. Can we have pizza for dinner?’

      ‘I’m glad your appetite hasn’t been affected,’ Leandro said drily.

      ‘Maman is on holiday in Barbados, with my real father, so Monsieur Bergier phoned you. I knew you would come.’ Henry’s expression clouded. ‘I wish you were my papa, Leo.’

      The knife in Leandro’s heart cut deeper. ‘We’ll always be best buddies. That will never change.’ He rearranged Henry’s pillows. ‘The painkillers the nurse gave you should start working soon, so try and sleep while I go and phone your mother. I expect she is worried about you.’

      ‘I don’t suppose she is,’ Henry said matter-of-factly. ‘She and Dominic will be having too much of a nice time on holiday to think about me.’

      ‘That’s not true.’ Leandro gritted his teeth and forced himself to go on. ‘Your mother and...and father care about you very much.’

      He stepped out of the room and swore savagely beneath his breath. Nicole had told Henry six months ago that Dominic Chilton was his real father, but instead of choosing to spend time with the boy, as a family, she and her lover had gone on a month’s holiday to the Caribbean.

      Leandro hated feeling helpless, but he could not protect Henry from his mother’s casual approach to parenting. He remembered how rejected he had felt when he was a boy and his mother had failed to turn up when she was supposed to visit him—either because she had forgotten or because she was too busy. Disappointment and hurt that neither of his parents had much time for him had been constant features of his childhood, and his concern that Henry felt the same sense of abandonment meant that Leandro had to bite back his anger when he spoke to his ex-wife.

      ‘There’s no reason for me to rush back to Paris if Henry’s injury is not serious,’ Nicole stated. ‘Dominic and I only arrived in St Lucia a few days ago, and it’s the first chance I’ve had to relax and enjoy a break.’

      It was on the tip of Leandro’s tongue to ask Nicole what she needed a break from, when her life consisted of shopping and beauty salon appointments. But he was bitterly aware that he had no legal rights to Henry, and that if he antagonised Nicole she could prevent him from maintaining a relationship with the boy. She would not care that Henry had declared that he wanted to stay in regular contact with ‘Uncle Leandro’.

      The hatred Leandro had felt for his ex-wife when he had discovered how she had deceived him had turned to contempt, and he only half listened to her whining that Dominic was facing demands for a huge divorce settlement from his wife. His thoughts strayed to Marnie, and he was struck by the contrasting СКАЧАТЬ