Chapter Eighteen
Carlo shoved his fists into his pockets as he strode down the stairs. He’d been grinding his jaw so hard his teeth ached. He wanted to beat the anger and helplessness out of his being. He should have walked away after the first spurt of anger, after the shock of Simone’s revelation, but he hadn’t gotten himself that far. Something had rooted him to the spot, forcing him to stay and draw everything out of her.
He had a daughter.
And her name was Sarah.
His gut twisted and he had to pause, looking back down the path that led to Simone’s room. He’d rushed down the walkway to get away from Simone, with her inherent distrust. But there was the bigger picture and he finally understood. She’d given up on him, thinking he wouldn’t be back. As if those six weeks they’d had together had meant nothing.
He hadn’t even asked if she had a photo of their daughter. Did she look like Simone? All golden curls and sea green eyes, wide with wonder, a smile playing at her lips. Simone as he’d known her.
He dragged his hands down his face, inhaling deeply in and out into his palms. He couldn’t go back now, not with his shock and anger still scorching, her fear over what he was going to do to her, to their daughter, blatant as daylight in her eyes.
Did she think he was some kind of monster? That he would tear them apart? Fuck. Maybe he was. His anger at not having known, for having missed so much, was so intense it ate him from the inside out.
He passed the stairs that led to the room he was to share with Angelo. Natalia’s expression had said everything as she’d seen them on the deck together. The final puzzle piece had slotted into place, the reason why her incessant matchmaking had been unsuccessful. She’d finally recognized in Simone the mystery woman he’d been pining over for the past few years. Natalia with her romantic, idealistic, perfect life, wanting to create the same for the three orphaned Carlevaro children. And all of them so fucked up in their own special way.
He grunted and shook his head with a heavy sigh. Except that Natalia had never been able to have her own children, despite every treatment available. The heartache of several miscarriages and infertility had nearly torn her and Dino apart.
And here he was, a father, and not even aware of it. He couldn’t stop Natalia from talking to Simone directly, but he took a slow breath…Simone was right. For all that she’d kept her daughter—their daughter—quiet, his family couldn’t know. Not yet. He still needed to get his own head around the situation.
Four years ago he’d tried his best to do the right thing for his dad, family and the business, but in the end, he’d failed Simone and their daughter. Any second chances he’d hoped to have with her had been stalled by her revelation. He couldn’t deal with his family too, a bunch of spectators that would howl their opinions from the sidelines.
He stopped as the path led into the reception area and the guest lounge. Beyond the lounge his family waited in the dining room. They expected his surface-calm presence, sure and steadfast. He wavered as he gathered his thoughts, consciously compartmentalizing his emotions. Avoiding his family for dinner would raise suspicions, and he would rather sit through half an hour of torture than a full cross-examination for being missing in action.
He raked his hands through his hair with a deep sigh. At first light, he and Simone would leave for Dar es Salaam. He had to make up some excuse. The others must find their own way to Ruaha. Once in Dar es Salaam, he would know more, and would take action on the information he had.
One thing was certain—he wasn’t leaving his daughter in the hands of a nanny for a minute longer than needed.
When he walked into the dining room he spotted Dino, Natalia and Angelo already eating.
Natalia met his gaze briefly, not revealing anything as she took up her wine glass for a cautious sip.
Dino waved for him to sit down. “Sorry, we started without you, but it has been a long day.” He lifted a finger to call a waiter.
You have no idea. “No problem.” He sat down, trying to avoid Angelo’s piercing gaze.
“Julia is looking for you,” Angelo said. “She phoned me. She’s been trying to get hold of you but you didn’t answer.”
Automatically he felt for his phone in his pockets. Fuck. He’d switched it off and had left it on the coffee table on the deck of Simone’s room. “I must have left it in the office. I got busy with some things.”
The waiter stood closer and he ordered the main course, skipping the rest of the five courses on offer. Dino poured him some wine.
“Was it urgent?” Carlo asked Angelo, grateful to have a topic of conversation. “Did she say what it was about?”
“No, just that you must phone her back as soon as possible.”
Angelo’s gaze burnt on his face, then dropped to his hands, which were trembling slightly. He took a deep sip of his wine.
“What’s eating you, Carlo?” Angelo asked as if he could see straight into his mind and heart.
It was strange to be on the receiving end of that question for once. “Nothing much. I did some calculations earlier with Simone. We need to fly to Dar tomorrow to refuel.” He couldn’t look up, and turned his wineglass around and around. “We won’t be back tomorrow. I was hoping to fly directly to Ruaha from here. This means we lose a day.”
“We should fit in the Mara while we are on this side of the world,” Natalia said. “One less flight, and it would feel less rushed. It wouldn’t matter much if you miss one lodge. Makes more sense, don’t you agree, Dino?”
She glanced at Dino, but she was consciously rescuing him from a sticky situation.
Dino shrugged. “Sure. I know you wanted to get to Ruaha as soon as possible, Carlo.”
“One day won’t make a difference,” Natalia said. She made a comment on the food that arrived at that moment and Carlo sighed at the reprieve. He ate in haste, the excuse of having to phone Julia too convenient to linger.
He didn’t want to go back to Simone’s room to get his phone because they both needed some breathing space. Instead he continued to the lodge’s back office, where he’d claimed to have left his phone.
He knew Julia’s number by heart. He called her a couple of times a day, even though she lived with him and worked in an office one floor down from his.
He walked in on Kevin, who was working on his laptop. “Mind if I make a quick call?”
“No problem,” Kevin said as he got up from his desk. He showed Carlo how to dial out to Italy and closed the office door as he left.
Julia answered in the middle of the second ring. “I visited Peppe.” She sighed deeply into the phone. “Dio, Carlo.”
He swallowed at the tone of her voice. “Did you get anything out of him? Does he remember Simone Levin?”
“He is getting better by the day, and there’s nothing wrong with his memory.” She breathed into the phone. “How much do you know about Simone?”
His pulse was starting to beat heavily. At least he now knew about their daughter. He couldn’t imagine hearing about her from anyone but Simone. “Just tell me what Peppe told you?”
“Peppe said she trained with you under probation, then when…Dad got sick, and you left, she was passed around the other pilots for the last of her training. She left abruptly, without any reason, never signing her fixed contract.” Julia paused, and he could hear her swallow. “When she asked him to have her job back with a baby in tow…he couldn’t turn her away.” She sniffed, and a slow chill crept down his back. “Peppe thought she’d been raped at the pilot’s digs. By one…or more of the pilots.”
His blood stalled and his chest tightened. God help him. It’s worth every cent to me not to be surrounded by a bunch of horny bastards who think all I’m good for is a quick fuck. As Simone’s words from several nights ago surfaced a shudder shot through him. She’d never said anything about the male pilots she’d lived with beyond that rude statement.
Surely she would have mentioned it tonight. After everything that had happened, that had been revealed between them, she couldn’t keep something like this from him.
“She never made a case.” Julia’s voice trembled. “Peppe said he knew she’d be safe with you, but once you’d left…” She broke off.
He closed his eyes, rubbing at his forehead. He was going to disappoint Peppe, who lived his life by the strictest of moral codes. Simone had been safe with him until he’d ditched her for ten long weeks. Probably the longest weeks of her life, as she searched for someone who hadn’t existed. Anger at his conceited idiocy surged again. If only he’d been upfront with her, if only she’d known Peppe was his uncle. He slumped over the desk. When exactly had he planned to tell her who he was?
Julia’s sharp inhale, verging on a sob, broke through to him. “Please, Carlo, tell me this type of thing hasn’t been happening at our properties?” Tears edged her voice, and his whole being felt like it had plummeted down an abyss. Julia had interpreted his silence as confirmation.
He wiped his hand down his face. To ask Julia to talk to Peppe, to draw this story from him, had been cruel in retrospect. But he hadn’t expected this. “No, I…I don’t think so.” He paused as his stomach churned. “I hope not.” Simone was the only female pilot currently at Carlevaro Air. “Not with Simone…as far as I know.” He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something had happened to her when he’d left her, alone and exposed.
Julia gave a shaky sigh. “Peppe no longer employed female pilots, as a rule. He never asked Simone about what had happened and she never brought anything up. She keeps to herself. Very private.”
“Yes.” What a can of worms. He’d never even considered something like that happening in the pilots’ digs. When he’d worked for Carlevaro Air there had been only three female pilots on the payroll. Thank God Simone no longer lived in the pilots’ digs.
“Please, can you…check if she is okay?” Julia’s voice hovered. “I know she is just an employee I’ve never met, but if you can somehow make sure—”
He closed his eyes. The opportunity to tell Julia about his aborted affair with Simone was staring him in the face. But he wasn’t ready to talk about his daughter. “Yes. I’ll see what I can get out of her.”
He pressed his thumb hard against his forehead and rubbed. Julia had been unhinged by her conversation with Peppe. He had no more capacity for worry, but Julia was alone in Rome, where she could pick up the phone and get any narcotic she wanted. “Where are you?”
“At work.”
He sighed. “What are you doing tonight?”
“Going home to pack for the Tusk Awards in London.”
Not that too. He’d forgotten about the Tusk Awards. “Are you going to be okay, Julia?”
She didn’t answer immediately. The old unease, which had been overshadowed by everything else these past few weeks, tap-tap-tapped inside him.
“Yes.”
He was supposed to travel with her to London for the awards ceremony at the end of the week. With everything else it had slipped off his radar. “Who are you taking with you to London?”
“No one.” She hesitated. “You always go everywhere with me.”
He dropped his forehead to his palm, suppressing a groan. “Call me, call Angelo…if you need to.” He visualized her face, but instead of her smooth olive coloring, her skin was gray, her mouth taut, and her brown eyes wild, desperate, almost black and begging as they had been the night she came to him for help.
He cursed silently. He couldn’t be everywhere at once. No matter what he did now, he couldn’t be there for Julia.
Just like he hadn’t been there for Simone. His own inadequacy was eating at him in short, sharp bites.
It seemed like a long time before she answered, “Okay.”
“Promise me you won’t cave in, cara.” He tried to be stern, but it sounded as if he begged.
“I won’t.” It was barely a whisper.
The weight of worry he’d had over Julia, which over the years had seemed to become lighter, yanked at him. He had no choice but to take her word. He rang off, wondering what shit storm he’d created.
****
Carlo stared blindly, rerunning the conversations he’d had with Simone and Julia through his mind. Simone had never implied that she’d been raped. Nothing she’d said, nothing in her bearing, had hinted at there being anything that she hadn’t been willing to share with him that night.
When he’d kissed her, there had been nothing between them except the secret of their daughter. As she’d kissed him back, there had been no hesitation that would have given him pause.
When Kevin knocked on the door an hour later he shrugged an apology. He arranged with Kevin for a vehicle to take them to the airstrip at dawn and left the office, taking the path leading to the rooms, exhausted.
He couldn’t reverse the clock. He couldn’t redirect all his anger and resentment toward anybody else, especially not Simone. He’d left Carlevaro Air assuming that she would sign her contract and would be there when he returned. Which he had never done, something he hadn’t foreseen at the time. That he had been to blame for her situation left him pulsing with a permanent ache.
Would she forgive the harsh words he’d uttered when he’d lost it earlier that evening? Those words about their child being a dirty secret? His behavior had been unpardonable, given that Simone was a single mother, who’d received zero support from him for the past four years. No amount of money he could hand over now could wash away that guilt.
Eventually, he took the path to her room with a sense of purpose. He’d have to make the best of the situation. Never hurt Simone again. And be the best father he could be. Better late than never.
When he reached her chalet, he took the stairs quietly. The light on the deck shone softer, and he found his phone where he’d left it. As he pocketed it he glanced into her room.
The glass doors were closed, but she hadn’t drawn the curtains. From where he stood, he peered past the lounge to the bed at the end of the room. The bedside lamp cast a soft glow on her back. She seemed asleep. He knocked softly on the door, not knowing what he would say, what he would do if she turned around and told him to fuck off, forever. He deserved that, more than anything else.
She didn’t stir. He tried the door and it opened without a creak. She hadn’t locked it when he’d left, and he stepped inside, feeling indecisive. She stirred, pulling her legs higher to her chest. Light played on her skin with the movement of her shoulder blades. She wore a white camisole top and matching sleeping shorts with her hair fanning over the cushion and her shoulder. Already his blood stirred at the thought of her, with her long naked legs, her creamy skin soft and warm against his. As if she read his mind she shuddered, but didn’t wake up.
He moved closer. She was his; she’d always been his. He felt as if he had some right to be there, although he had none. He stopped next to the bed and stared at her. Her fingers had relaxed around her dated cell phone, and a cluster of tissues had escaped from her other hand.
Edging around the bed to the other side, his gaze caressed the curve of her hips. Her breasts rested tight against the silk, her areolas visible through the light fabric. The shadows playing over her body made heat flare within him, and he shoved his hands into his pockets to stop himself from reaching out to her.
For the first time since seeing her again, he could tell she was at peace. Combing his hands through his hair, he sighed. She’d been exhausted and now he understood why. She hadn’t been able to sleep while he’d been in the vicinity. Every jolt and hitch of her shoulders, every haunted glance suddenly made sense, and relief poured from deep inside him. She’d been hiding their daughter from him, and not something sinister.
He slipped her phone from her fingers, gathered the tissues and put them on the bedside table. He nudged the duvet from the opposite corner and folded it over her, forming it into a warm cocoon. He burned to lie down and settle her into his arms, nestling her against his chest where she should be. But it would be artificial. Too much was still raw, and he doubted she would want him there.
Tomorrow was going to be a hell of a day. And Simone, for all that she was asleep, was probably gathering her strength for a parental battle of historical proportions. He let the last of his anger slip from him. He would take her lead in this, for she had, after all, been the only parent his daughter had ever known.
He might be a father, but if he were honest with himself the idea petrified him. His few male friends who had ventured into fatherhood had done so with a plan, and a wait of at least nine months, during which they’d gotten used to the idea. Increasing life insurance, updating wills, buying everything babies needed, and being subjected to their partner’s pregnancy-induced mood swings. Being catapulted into fatherhood wasn’t something he was going to get to grips with overnight.
For a moment he let his hand hover over her head, just shy of touching her blonde curls. Involuntarily his thoughts jumped back to Julia. When their dad had fallen ill, Julia had been unable to deal with the grief and had fallen deep into heroin addiction. Four years down the line and he still didn’t know exactly what Julia had been through, but her reaction to her conversation with Peppe made him retract his hand.
He switched off the lamp and left the room, letting Simone be.