Salzano's Captive Bride. Daphne Clair

the thought of him being snatched away made her own heart ache unbearably. How much worse would it be for her sister?

      Marco said, “The boy is very young. I have a right—” apparently confirming her worst fear.

      “He has rights too! Who knows how a tiny baby feels about being torn from its mother’s arms, taken from everything he’s used to—what long-term effects it has?”

      “You are being melodramatic. I don’t mean to—”

      Amber ignored that. “You can’t possibly feel the same way they do. You’ve never even seen him.” Repeating all the arguments Azure had used to persuade her to go along with Marco’s mistaken identification of her sister.

      “That is why I’m here,” he said. “To see him. And should he be mine—”

      “He isn’t yours! If Azure hadn’t written that stupid letter you’d never have known he existed.”

      “If she didn’t want me to know, why did she write it?”

      Momentarily Amber closed her eyes. If only… But it was spilt milk now. “Her husband had gone, she thought forever, maybe to Australia or further, and he hadn’t paid the mortgage installment due on their house. Every cent they had—” Amber knew that hadn’t been much “—went into buying it. My parents helped, and they guaranteed the loan. If the bank foreclosed, they would have lost their home too.”

      His frown deepened. “It was foolish of them to do so.”

      Her voice sharpening at the criticism, she said, “Parents will do anything for their children. Or grandchildren. Even if they’re not lucky enough to have a family fortune.” Her father had retired and sold his country house and farm contracting business after a heart attack, moving into a small town house that ate up nearly all the proceeds. “You don’t know what it’s like not to have a lot of money. Or how it would feel to lose a child.”

      A spasm seemed to cross Marco’s harsh features. He took a moment to compose himself, rearrange his face into a grim mask. “You are wrong,” he said, his voice almost expressionless. “I have lost a child. My seven-year-old son died some years ago, along with his mother, my wife.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      AMBER’S breath stuck in her throat. She could feel her face going cold, then hot. Marco had been married? Had a child? Children, perhaps. “I’m so sorry,” she said, stricken. “I had no idea.”

      He shrugged, apparently in total control of himself. “How should you? Your sister and I did not talk about such private things during our brief…liaison. But the day we met was the anniversary of their deaths.” Only a slight thickening of his voice suggested emotion. “I had been persuaded by friends to join them for the festival. They meant well, but I was not in the mood, and when we became parted I had no desire to find them and continue celebrating. Instead I kept drinking on my own. A mistake. And continued to drink with your sister—more than I realised at the time. Another mistake.”

      “I’m sorry,” Amber said again, “about your family. Do you—did you and your wife have other children?”

      “No. She had a difficult pregnancy and the birth was also not easy. I was not willing to see her suffer like that again. But the boy…” His tone softened, and in his eyes Amber saw both pleasure and pain. “The boy was remarkably healthy, quick to learn, but also loving, affectionate, like his mother. And always laughing.” He stopped, and his hand went to his heart for a moment before dropping to the table.

      “No,” he amended, shaking his head, “that is not true of any child. Sometimes he wept—even roared.” Briefly amusement mingled with sorrow in the dark eyes. “He had a temper, like his father.” The beautiful male mouth curved self-deprecatingly at the admission. “But that is how I remember him. Laughing.”

      Amber was unable to speak. This aspect of Marco Salzano she would never have expected. A loving, grieving father.

      Marco picked up his glass and drained it, then turned to signal a waiter for more. “What about you?” he asked, nodding at her half-empty glass.

      Amber shook her head, and took a couple of tacos to hide her reaction. They seemed to lodge in her throat so she drank some more wine. She didn’t feel she could ask how Marco’s son and his wife had died. An accident?

      He had banished the sadness from his eyes. Now they were neutral, all emotion hidden. Obviously he wanted to dismiss the subject.

      But didn’t this change everything?

      A man who had lost his only child and then thought he’d been presented with another wasn’t simply selfish and possessive. His insistence on seeing the little boy was understandable.