‘She’s always been inclined to be over-emotional and to overreact,’ he had told Falcon. ‘All I wanted to do—all I’ve ever wanted to do—is help her.’
‘There was no love lost between the three of us and Antonio.’
Falcon’s voice, his English perfect and unaccented, brought Annie back out of the past.
‘I will not seek to hide that fact from you—nor the fact that Antonio was our father’s favourite son. I can also assure you that Antonio’s choice of lifestyle was not ours. It could never have been and was never condoned by us.’
Annie looked at him, and then looked away again, her heart jumping as it always did whenever she had to think about Ollie’s conception. Falcon Leopardi was obviously trying to tell her that he and his brothers were not tarred with the same brush as their younger half-brother. His choice of the word ‘assure’ suggested that convincing her that his morals were very different from his half-brother was something he was determined to do. But why?’
‘As to what I want…’
He paused for so long that Annie looked at him again, hard fingers of uncertainty and unease tightening round her heart when she saw that he was looking at Ollie.
‘Before his death,’ Falcon continued, ‘Antonio told our father that there was a child. But he died before he could give more details. Such was the love our father felt for Antonio that he demanded that this child be traced. When no child could be found we assumed that laying claim to its existence had been another example of Antonio’s enjoyment of deceit.’
Falcon paused again. She’d kept her gazed fixed straight ahead of her whilst he was speaking, but he could see from the way her grip had tightened on the buggy how tense she was.
The tale of what had been done to her was one of breathtakingly callous cruelty that would fill any decent person with revulsion. The only merciful aspect of it was that she herself apparently had no recollection of what had occurred. There was no doubt in Falcon’s mind that the rape had been a deliberate act of punishment, intended to humiliate her—not conducted because Antonio had hoped to arouse her to passion and desire for him. That fitted in so well with everything Falcon knew about his half-brother’s warped personality.
‘Naturally, when it came to my knowledge that there might after all be a child, I had to find out the truth.’
He had stopped walking now, forcing Annie to do the same.
‘How…how did it come to your knowledge?’ She had to force the words out.
Falcon looked at her. He believed strongly in telling the truth. The truth, after all, was the only worthwhile foundation for anything that was worth having.
‘A friend of Antonio’s told me about your drink being spiked, about what he did, and I put two and two together.’
Annie had a childish desire to close her eyes, as though somehow by shutting everything out she could magically make herself disappear. Just to hear him say those words was as searingly humiliating as though she had been stripped naked in the street. Worse, because they ripped away her protection, laying bare her private shame.
‘I know you contacted Antonio to tell him of the birth of his son—’
‘No.’ Annie checked him immediately, her pride reasserting itself. ‘I didn’t contact him. I would never—It was my stepbrother who did that. I didn’t know about it until…until Colin told me that Antonio was denying that—that anything had happened.’
Falcon frowned. Was this perhaps the cause of the quarrel between them?
‘Your stepbrother didn’t mention anything about Antonio denying he had fathered your child when I spoke to him. He was most concerned about you, and asked me to keep him informed of any progress I might make in my search for you.’
Annie felt as though her heart had stopped beating.
She turned towards Falcon, imploring him. ‘You haven’t…you haven’t told him where I am, have you?’
Falcon’s frown deepened.
‘He told me that his sole aim is to help and protect you.’
To help and protect her, but not Ollie. Colin didn’t want anything to do with her baby, and if he had his way, Ollie would be removed from her life for ever.
How long did she have before Colin found her and started waging his relentless war to make her have Ollie adopted all over again? Panic clawed at her stomach. Everyone had always said how lucky she was to have such a devoted stepbrother, but they didn’t know him as she did.
‘He mustn’t know where we are.’
In her panic she had revealed more than was wise, Annie recognised as she saw the way Falcon Leopardi was watching her. He was waiting for her to elaborate, to give him a logical reason as to why she didn’t want Colin to find them.
‘Colin believes that it would be better if Ollie was adopted,’ she eventually managed to tell him.
Because he had not been able to get Antonio to pay up? Or because he felt it was the best option for the child? Falcon didn’t think he needed to spend much time considering the two options. Colin had asked him specifically if there were any assets likely to come to Oliver from Antonio’s estate or his family.
‘But you don’t agree with him?’ Falcon asked now.
‘No. I could never give him up. Never. Nothing and no one could ever make me do so.’
The passion in her expression and her voice changed her completely, bringing her suddenly to life, revealing the true perfection of her delicate beauty.
Falcon felt as though someone had suddenly punched him in the chest, rendering him unable to get his breath properly.
‘I agree that a child as young as Oliver needs his mother,’ he told her, as soon as he was back in control of himself. ‘However, your son is a Leopardi—and as such it is only right and proper that he grows up amongst his own family and his own people in his own country. It is my duty to Oliver and to my family to ensure that he is raised as a Leopardi—and that you, as his mother, are treated as the mother of a Leopardi should be treated. That is why I am here. To take you both back to Sicily with me.’
Annie stared at him. His talk of duty was a world apart from the world she knew. Such a word belonged to another time, a feudal ancient time, and yet somehow it resonated within her.
‘You want to take Ollie and me to Sicily—to live there?’ she asked unsteadily, spacing out the words to clarify them inside her own head and make sure she had not misunderstood him.
His ‘yes’was terse—like the brief inclination of his head.
‘But you have no proof that Ollie is—’
The look he was giving her caused her to go silent.
‘The evidence of his blood is quite plain to both of us,’ he told her. ‘You have seen it yourself.’ He paused and looked down at the stroller before looking back to her. ‘The child could be mine. He bears the Leopardi stamp quite clearly.’
His! Why did that assertion strike so compellingly into her heart?
‘He doesn’t look anything like Antonio.’ He was all she could manage to say.
‘No,’ Falcon agreed. ‘Antonio took after his mother, which I dare say is why our father loved him so much. He was obsessed by her, and that obsession killed our own mother and destroyed our childhood, depriving us of our father’s love and our mother’s presence. That will not happen to your child. In Sicily he will have you—his mother—the love and protection of his uncles, and the companionship of his cousins. He will be a Leopardi.’