Chapter Seventeen
Simone hadn’t anticipated the sense of complete peace that settled over her. Carlo finally knew. She let her hands slip from where they’d clutched his shirt and dropped her head to his chest.
The whole day she’d worked through the downpour of emotions the calls with her mother and Gabi had triggered. She’d been holding herself together by her nails for the past few days, since Carlo had told her he’d looked for her four years ago. Speaking to her mother had caused all the pieces of what had happened to slot into place.
She’d always wished there had been a reasonable explanation for why he’d dumped her. She’d always wondered how she could have been so wrong about his feelings for her, their feelings for each other, that he would have just dropped her without a word of explanation. Even without knowing about the pregnancy he had searched for her, and that was more than enough for her to let go of the past.
But despite thinking it over the whole afternoon, she hadn’t been ready to tell him about Sarah. She’d been dead set against telling him since his arrival four days ago, and getting her mind around everything that had happened had been exhausting. When she’d seen him standing in the light on the deck, his dark eyes determined, his body set to pounce, waiting for her, she’d known she would tell him.
When he’d touched her, his hands on her breasts feeding her desire like oxygen fueled fire, his lips on her skin setting a smoldering trail upon her body, it had been the notion of him, and the knowledge that she wanted all of him, that had tipped the scale.
The only way she could ever have him was if he knew about Sarah. Sarah was the link that bound them, but that link could also break them. He’d never been angry with her before, but in the tremors that ran through his body as he took the shock of her revelation…of course he’d be angry and she’d have to deal with the consequences of his anger.
****
For Carlo the world had stopped. He groped for the railing as Simone’s hands fell to her sides, unbalancing him physically. He leaned into her, reeling.
“Simone?” He mouthed her name, not sure if she even heard him for he wasn’t sure he’d actually spoken.
She didn’t answer him, and after a moment he exhaled, taking her face in his hands. Her eyes fluttered open, her cheeks wet and warm underneath his fingers, which trembled uncontrollably.
“I—” He broke off when every truth shone from her eyes. He believed her, and that was probably the worst of all. This was real.
He bit down on his lip, for something heavy and unyielding stirred deep in his gut. Running his hands down her neck to her shoulders, he gripped tighter. “We have a daughter?” The words sounded alien. Unreal. “Four years down the fucking line and you tell me we have a daughter?” He had no control over the heat that surged from deep within him. His hands shook and the warmth spread to his neck and higher.
The unmasked fear in her eyes made him drop his hands to the railing, pinning her between him and the balustrade.
“Why didn’t you return my calls?” It was one thing not to have called him because she didn’t want to be with him anymore. But this…he felt stripped of some fundamental human right. He’d always sensed he’d left a part of him behind in Dar es Salaam, but he’d never thought of it being something physical, another being, a child he had brought to life with her.
He hissed out a breath. Nothing made sense. “Why didn’t you let me know?” It was the least she could have done, but he bit back the sarcastic retort.
Tears welled afresh in her eyes, and he cursed under his breath. “Fuck, Simone. I know it was ten weeks, but surely a baby justified one call back.” He shook his head. “Just one call.”
“I never knew you phoned,” she whispered, and the agony in her eyes tore at him.
The heaviness shifted and jolted against the walls of his stomach. Something else had stood between them four years ago. It hadn’t only been him and those accursed ten weeks when he had been coming to grips with his dad dying.
He’d be damned if he didn’t get the reason out of her right now. He raked his hands through his hair, the simmering heat in him ready to boil over. “How is it possible that you didn’t know I phoned?” He breathed heavily to calm his anger. “I phoned at least three times before I gave up.”
She stood trembling before him, but she didn’t drop her gaze. “I—” She choked up. “I spoke to my mom this morning. She never told me you phoned. She thought the call was just someone from the company. She thought you were phoning from Carlevaro Air. Your name—”
He cursed in Italian, balling his fists. She reached for him, took his fists in her cold hands, her fingers clasping around his wrists. “If I’d known you phoned, I would have told you. But it took so long I…could no longer wait.” She dropped her gaze. “There might be a scrap of paper with your name and number floating somewhere in my mom’s house.”
The weight in his chest squeezed so hard, he could burst. Blood rushed in his veins, and he shook her off to press his fingers to his temples. “A misplaced scrap of fucking paper,” he hissed out. “Couldn’t she have told you, after the third call?” What the hell had been wrong with the woman? “I thought you no longer wanted anything to do with me when I heard nothing from you.”
“I wasn’t speaking to her at the time. I didn’t stay with my mom.”
He dropped his hands to his sides. “Where were you then?” It dawned on him that he’d deserted her, pregnant. Instead of trying harder to find her, he’d given up. “Was the pregnancy the reason why you left Carlevaro Air in the first place?”
“I had no choice.” She blinked at the tears that hovered. “The contract they offered me at the end of my probation didn’t allow for maternity leave or pregnancy.”
He closed his eyes, the reality drilling into him. A new anger rose in him. He would have been able to make all her troubles go away, but he’d given up any chance of control when he’d failed to give her his full name, and that mistake had been his.
“I never signed the contract and returned home instead, unsure of what to do. I looked for you…but my mom wanted to know why I’d come home.” She paused. “We were fighting all the time,” she said in a hollow voice.
She shook her head, dropped her gaze away from his intense scrutiny. “My mom was crazy mad. Her every prediction had come true. She said my life was ruined.” She paused. “And when I couldn’t find you, I was unable to explain where…who the father was—” She stalled. “She wanted me to have an abortion.”
It was as if his blood drained out of his body to pool at his feet.
“I had to go away…I couldn’t live with her for a week, never mind the rest of the pregnancy.” She exhaled slowly. “She didn’t want me in the house; she’d never wanted me.” Her hands were gripping the balustrade. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get rid of the baby, not when she was made…the way she was.”
He sucked in a desperate breath. She was made in love. It was the unspoken truth. The words that had always remained unsaid between them. He’d never felt about anybody else the way he’d felt about Simone. He’d been madly in love with her but had been too much of an idiot to admit it at the time. Four years had taught him that. He suddenly felt old, as if he’d lived more than three times worth of life the past four years.
“Where did you go?” Dio. It was too much. He’d left her pregnant and she’d had nowhere safe to go. A thousand times he had criticized Angelo, a thousand times he had forgiven Julia every sin, but this. It outshone them all. Every thought stabbed and his shame was nauseating.
“I found a temp job in Cape Town and sat it out. I have some friends there who took me in. Flight school connections, who were good to me.” She swallowed. “I went home to have Sarah, and then…I asked Peppe if he would consider employing me again. And he did.” She looked up at him. “So, I came back.”
They stared at each other in silence as he tried to make sense of it.
Below them, guests strolled past with an askari on their way to dinner. They spoke Italian and he turned to listen to the voices that rose from the path. He cursed under his breath. “It’s Natalia and Dino.”
She buried her face in her hands and he shoved his hands into his pockets, listening for the couple to pass.
Fuck. “They’re looking for you. Wondering if you want to join us for dinner.” He took a deep breath as Natalia’s light footstep trotted up the wooden stairs.
Her gaze pleaded. “I can’t,” she mouthed.
Neither can I. He didn’t step away from her, but lifted his gaze to where Natalia’s head appeared.
Natalia’s eyes widened when she saw him. She froze in her steps, gave them one all-consuming stare, and then mouthed a “scusi.” She turned on her heel and descended the stairs, speaking rapidly in Italian to Dino.
He waited for their footsteps to dull with distance, staring at Simone who had slumped against the balustrade, her eyes closed, pale as death.
“She told Dino you’re not here, and that I’m probably already at the restaurant,” he said, letting go of a sigh. Natalia’s interruption, as unwanted as it had been, had given him a minute to collect himself. He was not the temper-losing kind, but fuck, he was furious at himself, for having deserted Simone, and at her mother.
Anger would solve nothing. He paced the deck once, then unfurled his fists and stretched his fingers in release.
Simone had turned away from him. “I need to sit down,” she said softly, as she fumbled for the room key in her trouser pocket. He scanned her face and regret burned like acid through him. He took the key from her trembling hands, unlocked the glass door and ushered her in. Once inside, he switched on the lamp in the corner of the lounge.
When he straightened she stood by the sofa, eyeing him warily. He said nothing, and she slumped down, clasping a throw pillow to her chest. “What now?”
“Who is looking after her?” He made a hopeless gesture with his hands. He sure as hell hoped she wasn’t staying with Simone’s mother.
“I have a nanny in Dar that has been taking care of her ever since…ever since I returned to work here three years ago.”
“A nanny?” he spat out. Dio. A fucking nanny, ready to fuck up his child, just like Angelo had been fucked up. It was possibly even worse than her mother.
He stared at her across the length of the lounge. “We’ll go to Dar es Salaam,” he said, but there was a sharp edge to his voice he couldn’t help. “And I’ll meet my daughter.” He swallowed a curse. “What…did you call her?”
She hesitated, her fingers cramping the corners of the pillow. “Sarah…Sarah Carla Levin.”
Her words winded him. “You remembered? You remembered my mother’s name? From the one time we spoke about her?” Her words were unbearable. She’d named their daughter, honoring his mother, and had given her his own name…even after she thought he’d abandoned her. He had to turn away from her, from her gaze that was no longer guarded, as it had been the past few days.
He strode to the glass doors leading to the back verandah. He needed to get out, back into the open air and away from the suffocating pressure on his chest, but the reflection in the sliding glass door made him pause. Simone sat in the soft light of the lamp, drained, but no longer bewildered as she had been since that first morning. The calculating glances she’d been shooting at him from that first day were gone too. Yet there was something he couldn’t place in everything that had happened the last few days. He kept staring at her reflection. She wiped at her cheeks, slumped back and closed her eyes.
****
Simone leaned back and relief whispered through her. She sighed deeply. It had been the right thing to do. She’d told him everything, but now, with his back to her, the enormity of what she’d done flooded her. She crossed her arms over her chest; cold spread down her limbs.
She tossed the pillow to the side and hugged her legs up to her chest. He wanted to go to Dar es Salaam, and that was what she’d wanted, to be with Sarah.
When he turned to face her again he didn’t step closer, but his gaze burnt through her, analyzing, calculating. It sent prickles over her skin that had nothing to do with what he’d done to her earlier on the deck, what he could do to her with a mere whispering breath on her skin.
She’d played all her cards, and in doing so she’d left herself and Sarah exposed and vulnerable. Carlo could seize control in so many ways. She wasn’t ready for any of it. She ached to be with Sarah, but to let him in…the knot swelled in her throat. It was what she wanted more than anything, but on what basis? She would rather not have him in Sarah’s life at all if it was going to be a one-off. Or a constant in and out, with some vague commitment and money to smooth the sharp edges.
“We can’t fly now,” she said, hesitantly looking up at him. It was dark, the flight would be uninsured, and she needed time to think.
She’d blurted out the truth about Sarah’s existence because she couldn’t keep their daughter to herself anymore, but now…she hadn’t thought beyond what had passed years ago and how it had ruined their relationship.
“We’ll fly first thing tomorrow morning.” He stepped toward her, but she put up her hand to stop him from coming any closer.
“Carlo, I—” She broke off. “I don’t want to rush into something we’ll regret.”
Her words were so laden that the room filled with them and every unsaid word that could find a space to breathe.
He paled even more and a twitch took up residence in the line of his jaw. “Regret? Four fucking years, Simone. That’s a shitload to regret.”
She couldn’t let him barge in on Sarah, but Carlo would want to meet her. Her pulse sped up as he checked his watch…he would be in Dar es Salaam now if it were possible.
“I want my daughter. Here. Now,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “What were you expecting?”
She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. She hadn’t foreseen that he would be waiting for her tonight. She hadn’t planned anything beyond the decision to tell him about Sarah. And that decision she’d only made in the past hour, whilst on the game drive. When she’d do that hadn’t been something she had narrowed down to the hour.
One thing she hadn’t bargained on was flying out so soon. She could fly every route blindfolded, and no one would know that better than Carlo. He could override the insurance situation if he wanted to, and her heartbeat pitched in panic. Her fears, borne from her own past, shot to the surface. She closed her eyes, in silent prayer. “Don’t take her from me,” she whispered. “Please.”
There was not a sound, not a breath, and when she opened her eyes he’d frozen on the spot, his eyes wide and horrified.
“Dio,” he grunted as he covered the space between them, towering over her. “Is that why you kept her a secret from me the past few days?” he spat out. “Do you think so little of me?”
She looked at him warily. His expression said it all; she had overstepped the boundary—her words had been a stab at his integrity. She couldn’t retract her words, and now that he knew her biggest fear, he could use it against her. “I did when you arrived four days ago.” She swallowed. “Before I knew you’d phoned.” She bit her lip because his expression didn’t soften. “I have no idea what to think, what to do anymore.”
He laughed, bitter, hard. “Stop thinking. You don’t need to do anything.” His voice chipped like ice, and her stomach cramped at his harsh, bitter tone. “Four years ago, you were happy to trust my lead. You’ll do the same now.”
The commands were so unlike him; he’d never spoken to her like that before. Her words had cut deep. He glared at her and seconds ticked past.
“Four years ago, I wasn’t a single mother with my daughter’s welfare at stake,” she bit back. She clenched her arms tighter around her legs, pursing her lips into a firm line. This was moving too fast. With Carlo would come the rest of the Carlevaro clan. She wasn’t ready to deal with them, never mind subject Sarah to a bunch of strangers who’d pull her in all directions. “I don’t want your family to know.”
He just stared at her, shaking his head with a scowl. “What Natalia doesn’t know she’ll soon figure out.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “You try and keep my daughter’s existence from Natalia.” He dropped his hands to his sides, unclenching his fingers. “What I don’t understand is why nobody said anything. No one. Not when I insisted on changing the schedule so that you would fly us non-stop for the next few weeks, not when I pried into your life with James King.” He paused. “Nobody said a word about you having a daughter.”
He stared at her, his eyes narrowing as the slow realization surfaced. He balled his fists and hissed a curse. “I’ll tell you what you can do.” He took a step toward her, almost menacing. “You can stop treating our child like some dirty secret.”
His words pierced her heart and she shrank.
Sarah was no dirty secret, and yet there was truth in what he’d said.
She rarely talked about Sarah at work and had kept her daughter to herself. It had been, deep down, one of the reasons she’d left for Cape Town when she’d told her mom she was pregnant. The whispers behind her back, the degrading looks from her friends in the small town where she’d grown up…she couldn’t stomach them. She had been the ambitious, snobbish pilot-girl who’d gotten knocked up by some random bloke who’d left her. Served her right.
She’d returned to Dar es Salaam, where she could live in anonymity, and everybody pretended they couldn’t care less. Even so, there had been rumors going around that Peppe had fathered Sarah.
She might have chosen to have Sarah, but she was no better than her mother. Coldness enveloped her at the insight. She was ashamed of having a child with a man who hadn’t cared enough to be around, who hadn’t respected her enough to marry her. But it was more than simple marriage vows or making an honest woman of her. It was the notion of forsaking all others for her in love like her father had never done for her mother. She dropped her face to her knees, wanting to hide the tears that burned behind her eyes.
Several minutes passed before he stepped toward her. A hand brushed her hair and she glanced up at him. His anger still brooded shallow in his eyes, trembled in his fingers that stroked her temple and cheek. He cupped her chin in his hand and his thumb traced over her bottom lip. “We seem to have lost all the ground between us, haven’t we, cara?” he asked, his voice tired. “There seems to be nothing left to salvage.”
Carlo was no random bloke. He held her so gently in a grip that could break her. His fingers were cold, but every gesture he made was controlled, measured, sure. Another shudder ran through her as he forced her to meet his gaze. “Go to bed, Simone. I’ll sort out our departure tomorrow morning.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. For a second, she thought he would bend over to kiss her, and in that moment, there was nothing she wanted more. But he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone.