LITMIR.BIZ

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‘is to take my daughter back to where she belongs.’

      Mia’s eyes looked huge and dark in her face. ‘Which is where?’

      ‘Home. My villa in Tuscany. It is the perfect place to raise a child.’ As he said the words, he knew how much he meant them. His daughter would not have the kind of chaotic, unstable childhood he’d had, filled with strangers and strange places. She would have every need provided for, emotional and physical. And that required a home, with two parents fully involved in her life. He would not negotiate on any of those points, as a matter of principle and honour.

      Mia pressed her lips together; Alessandro saw the sheen of tears in her eyes, giving them a luminous quality. ‘And what are you expecting me to do? Just…just hand her over?’

      It took Alessandro a moment to realise what she thought, what she’d assumed—that he would take their daughter, and leave her here. Did she really think him such a monster? Had she thought he’d been threatening that? He felt both hurt and shamed by the idea.

      ‘No, of course not. I would never ask or expect such a thing. A child belongs with her mother as well as her father, especially one as young as ours.’ Ours. A ripple of shock went through him at the thought; he had a child. They did. He still couldn’t grasp it fully, the implications crashing over him in endless waves.

      ‘Then…’ Mia’s worried gaze scanned his face. ‘You want me to go with you?’ She sounded as if she could scarcely credit such a possibility.

      ‘Yes, of course I do.’ It had been obvious to Alessandro from the beginning, considering his own unfortunate background, and one he would never, ever wish on a child of his own. A child belonged with his or her parents. Always.

      He could see now from Mia’s stunned expression that she had not considered that. No wonder she’d been so hostile; she thought he’d been going to steal their child, as if he’d ever do such a despicable thing.

      Mia shook her head slowly. ‘Go with you…to Tuscany?’ she clarified, as if she still couldn’t believe it.

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘But…’ Mia continued to shake her head, as if she could not imagine such a thing coming to pass.

      ‘There is surely nothing keeping you here,’ Alessandro observed. ‘You’ve only lived here a year.’

      ‘As you know so well,’ she returned.

      ‘So I fail to see any problem.’

      ‘You just expect me to—to uproot myself yet again…’

      ‘For our child.’ As if on cue, a faint cry sounded through the flat, making them both still and stare at each other. The moment spun on, both of them frozen, and then she cried again. His daughter. ‘Where…where is she…?’ Alessandro began, barely able to form the words.

      Wordlessly Mia rose from the sofa and went down the hallway to the flat’s bedrooms. Alessandro followed, his heart starting to thud. His daughter.

      ‘Hello, darling.’ Mia’s voice had softened into an unfamiliar coo as she opened the door to a small bedroom decked out in pale grey and mint green. Alessandro stood in the doorway, transfixed, as Mia went to the cot and bent over it, then scooped up the tiny form that had been inside.

      She turned to Alessandro, the baby pressed to her shoulder, one hand cradling her head possessively. She was tiny, a mere scrap of humanity, and so very precious, bundled in a white velveteen sleepsuit.

      ‘This is Ella.’ Mia’s voice trembled. ‘Do you…do you want to hold her?’

       Hold her?

      Alarm warred with a deep longing. Alessandro stared at her for a moment, speechless and uncertain for what felt like the first time in his life.

      Did he want to hold her? Yes.

      Was he terrified? Yes.

      He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, not sure what to do. How did one hold a baby? He had no idea. He had never held one before.

      Mia walked towards him, still cradling their daughter. Ella. She came to stand in front of him, close enough that Alessandro was able to breathe in her achingly familiar scent of understated citrus. It assaulted his senses and made him remember far too many things.

      ‘Hold your arms out,’ Mia instructed, and Alessandro thrust both arms out stiffly in front of him. ‘Not like that,’ she said with a small smile, a surprising and strangely gratifying trace of laughter in her voice.

      ‘How?’ Alessandro demanded. ‘I don’t know what to do.’ This was a vulnerability he couldn’t hide. Knowledge he had never possessed.

      ‘Like this.’ Gently, holding Ella with one arm, she guided Alessandro’s own, manipulating his limbs as if he were a mannequin, until one arm was bent as if to cradle a football, the other arm to support it. ‘Now we just add the baby,’ she said softly, and before he knew what she was doing, she put Ella into his arms.

      He cradled her to him instinctively, pressing her tiny body gently against his chest as she snuffled into his neck. He breathed in the sweet, milky warmth of her as his heart contracted, expanded, and contracted again. He felt. It hurt.

      ‘That’s the way,’ Mia encouraged him. ‘You’ve got the hang of it now.’

      He felt like a complete novice, inexperienced, incapable, and if he were holding the most fragile and yet explosive thing possible—a cross between a stick of dynamite and a Ming vase.

      ‘I don’t want to hurt her,’ he confessed, undone by this child in his arms, this fragile, precious, impossible human being.

      ‘You aren’t hurting her,’ Mia assured him. Tears sparkled in her eyes and she blinked them back rapidly. ‘Trust me, she would let you know if you were.’

      ‘Does she cry? Is she…is she a good baby?’ He realised how much he wanted to know—all the details, all he’d missed. It didn’t matter now that he’d missed them or why he had, he just wanted to know.

      ‘She’s a wonderful baby, but she’s had her moments.’ The smile Mia gave him was weary, and he suddenly noticed how tired she looked. Realised how hard it must have been, to parent alone all these months…which was all the more reason for her to come to Tuscany with him, where she could have help, and comfort, and space.

      ‘You’ll come to Tuscany,’ he said, and it sounded like an order. Mia’s gentle, tired smile faltered as a familiar fire sparked in her eyes.

      ‘Alessandro, you can’t order me about…’

      ‘You’ll come,’ he insisted. ‘And Ella, too. You must.’ His voice was too strident, his manner too abrupt and autocratic. He knew that, and yet he couldn’t keep himself from it, because it was so very important. It was everything.

      He saw the remoteness enter Mia’s eyes, felt her coolness as she took Ella out of his arms, pressing her against her shoulder as she half turned away from him.

      ‘She needs a feed,’ she murmured, but it felt like an excuse. She slipped past him and went back to the main living area, leaving Alessandro no choice but to follow.

      When he came into the room, Mia was sitting back on the sofa, Ella brought to her breast, one tiny fist clutching a tendril of golden hair. Shock jolted through him at the sight of her feeding their daughter, the simple, pure rightness of it, followed by a rush of primal possessiveness that nearly felled him with its intensity, its sureness.

      This was his family. The family he’d never had himself, the family he hadn’t even realised he wanted. And he was never letting them go.

       CHAPTER

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