“Basta!” his father exclaimed. Belle knew what it meant.
“Mi dispiace, Papà,” he answered with sarcasm. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Pia and I have other things to do.” He strode off the patio with an unhappy wife in pursuit.
“Don’t look alarmed,” Sullisto advised Belle the minute they were gone. “Your mother and I discussed it last night. There’s no right way to handle a situation like this. We didn’t expect them home until later, but since he walked in on us, we felt it was better to let Dante know up front. When he and Pia have talked about it, he’ll apologize for his bad behavior.”
Belle got up from the table. “For you to welcome me into your home leaves me thrilled and speechless, but I’m afraid the shock of hearing your plan to adopt me was too great for Dante. I’m not so much alarmed as sad, Sullisto. It’s because my adoptive brother, Cliff, had the exact same reaction when Nadine brought me to their house from the orphanage. He was unprepared for it.”
“But it’s not quite the same thing,” Sullisto impressed upon her. “You’re flesh of Luciana’s flesh. Dante is flesh of mine. Both of you are beloved to me and your mother.” His words touched her to the core. “The difference lies in the fact that Dante’s not a teenage boy. He’s a grown man who’s married, with expectations of raising a family of his own. Your being brought into the family has no bearing on his life except to enrich it.”
“E-even so—” her voice faltered “—he has lived under your roof all his life and has sustained a huge shock that will impact your family and create gossip. If it’s all right with you, I would feel much better if the two of you had the rest of the day to be alone with him and his wife. They’re going to need to talk about this.”
With an anxious glance at Leon, Belle implored him with her eyes to help her out of this, and prayed he got the message. “Since Concetta is ready for a nap, I’ll go back to the villa with Leon.” She leaned over to kiss her mother, then Sullisto. “Thank you for this wonderful morning. I don’t deserve the gift of love you’ve showered on me. You have no idea how much I love both of you. Call me later.”
Leon had already lifted the baby from the high chair and was ready to go. They left the palazzo and she climbed in the back of the sedan to help him fasten Concetta in the car seat. Rufo hopped in and lay down.
Belle kissed the baby’s nose. “You were such a good girl this morning, you deserve a treat.” She reached in her bag and pulled out her lipstick. The baby grabbed the tube and immediately put it in her mouth. It kept her occupied during the drive.
* * *
If Belle hadn’t made the suggestion to escape, Leon would have insisted they leave the palazzo immediately. The shattered look on Dante’s face had revealed what Leon had always suspected.
Like a volcano slowly building magma, his quiet, subdued brother had hidden his feelings beneath a facade. But today they had erupted into the stratosphere, exposing remembered pain and fresh new hurt.
“When we get back to the villa, I’ll ask Talia to put the baby to bed so you and I can talk about what’s happened.”
“I can’t bear that I’ve brought all this on. It’s disrupting your life and everyone else’s. I didn’t want to hurt Mother’s feelings by leaving so fast, but when I saw poor Dante’s eyes...” Belle buried her face in her hands.
“You can be sure she and Papà understood. Dante finally reacted to years of suppressed pain. His behavior wasn’t directed at you. It’s been coming on since the day our father told us he was getting married again.”
“I feel so sorry for him.”
So did Leon. He eyed her through the rearview mirror. “Do you have a swimming costume?”
She blinked. “Yes.”
“Good. When you’ve changed back at the house, meet me on the patio and we’ll go down to the beach. We both need to channel our negative energy into something physical.”
Belle nodded. “You’re reading my mind again. A swim is exactly what I crave.”
“In that case, you’ll want a beach towel. There are half a dozen on the closet shelf in the guest bathroom.”
“Thank you.”
The drive didn’t take long. When they entered the villa he showered his loving daughter with kisses before turning her over to Talia. Once upstairs in his room he changed into his black swimming trunks.
His last task was to phone Berto and tell him he wouldn’t be coming in to work. Unless there was an emergency, Leon was taking time off until tomorrow. On his way out the door he grabbed a towel.
It didn’t surprise him to find Belle in bare feet, waiting for him on the patio. The woman needed to talk. He could sense her urgency when their eyes met.
She’d swept her hair on top of her head, revealing the lovely stem of her neck. As he was coming to learn, every style suited her. The pink earrings still winked at him. His gaze fell lower. He knew there was a bathing suit underneath the short, wispy beach jacket covering her shapely body. It was hard not to stare at her elegant legs, half covered by the towel she was holding.
“I’m glad you suggested this, Leon. Like you, I’m anxious for some exercise before I lose it. Let’s go.”
Lose it was right. Dante’s behavior at the table had cut like a knife.
Together they descended the steps to the sand. She removed her jacket and threw it on top of her towel before running into the water. He caught only a glimpse of the mini print blue-and-white bikini, but with her in it he felt a rise in his own body temperature despite the sorrow weighing him down.
“The sea feels like a bathtub,” she cried in delight while treading water. He decided it had been a good idea to come out here. They both needed the distraction. Her dark sapphire eyes dazzled him with light.
He swam closer. “You’ve come to Rimini when the temperature is in the eighties.”
“No wonder the city is a magnet for beach lovers. This is heaven!” For the next hour she kept her pain hidden. While she bobbed and dived, he swam lazy circles around her.
Leon held back bringing up the obvious until they’d left the water and stretched out on their towels. He lay on his stomach so he could look at her. She’d done the same. Belle had no idea how much her innate modesty appealed to him. It didn’t matter how ruthlessly he tried to find things about her he didn’t like in order to fight his attraction. He couldn’t come up with one.
“What’s going on in that intelligent mind of yours?”
“Flattery will get you nowhere,” she said in a dampening voice, “especially when we both know you’ve been able to read me like a book so far.”
He turned on his side. “Not this time.”
She let out a troubled sigh. “I learned a lot after living with Cliff for those eight years. Whether justified or not, he felt betrayed by his parents. The family should have gotten professional counseling to help him. When I saw Dante’s expression, he reminded me so much of Cliff, I got a pain in my stomach.”
“The news definitely shook him.”
“It was more than that, Leon.” Slowly she sat up and looped her arms around her raised knees. “All I saw was the little boy who a long time ago fell apart at the loss of his mother. Your father said he’s a grown man now, with a wife, and can handle it, but I’m afraid Dante’s world has come crashing down on him again.”
Leon nodded slowly. “If I don’t miss my guess, his turmoil came from the fact that Papà wants to adopt you. Call it jealousy if you like. He and I suffered a great deal in our youth over his remarriage.”
“Now he’s reliving it. He sees how devoted your father is to