LITMIR.BIZ

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I don’t know that?’ Julie demanded, goaded beyond endurance. ‘Do you think I don’t think about that every waking hour?’ Her eyes were burning with the emotion spilling through her. ‘Do you think I don’t wish more than anything else that his father were still alive? That he was here to care for and protect his son as I know he would?’

      ‘Antonio?’ Rocco eased his shoulders away from the wall on which he had been leaning. He didn’t want to admit her championing of his half-brother had hit a nerve that was more sensitive than he had known, causing pain to strike searingly into him. His dead half-brother didn’t deserve such loyalty, and she was a fool for giving it to a man who was so unworthy of it.

      ‘The only person my half-brother would ever protect is himself—and if you don’t know that then you didn’t know him very well.’ His voice was harsh and unkind, its contempt making Julie wince as he added, ‘But then of course you did not know him, did you? How long does it take, after all, to perform the act that created your child? Five minutes? He couldn’t even remember your—’

      Just in time Rocco caught himself back. It went against his own pride to tell her that Antonio hadn’t even been able to remember her name.

      Thank goodness he had interrupted her when he had, Julie thought sickly. Otherwise she would have said James’s name. She had been so caught up in her grief, but she couldn’t do that—not until she had some kind of assurance from Rocco that they would be returned safely to London.

      ‘Dr Vittorio, our family doctor, is coming tomorrow morning to take swabs from the child for DNA testing. Whilst he is here I shall ask him to take a look at you.’

      ‘There is nothing wrong with me.’

      The dark eyebrows slanted in ironic query. ‘You cannot climb a dozen stone steps without collapsing and you say there is nothing wrong with you? I beg to differ. Did you stay in touch with Antonio when you returned to England?’

      The question was casual enough, but it made Julie’s heart bound in fear.

      What exactly had Judy said about Antonio? Julie wondered frantically, trying to remember. Her sister had implied that she had told Antonio she was expecting Josh and he had not wanted to know. That was when she had decided to tell James that the baby she was carrying was his.

      ‘I informed him that I was carrying Josh, yes,’ Julie lied. ‘But he didn’t want to know.’ That at least was the truth.

      ‘And yet you have just claimed to me that he would have wanted to love and protect his child?’

      ‘As its father, I would hope he would have wanted to do that,’ she felt forced to say—even though the truth was that she had been talking about James, who had loved Josh so much, not Antonio.

      ‘As I have already told you, if the child turns out not to be my brother’s then you will be compensated for your time and the disruption caused to your life. You will be asked to sign a confidentially agreement never to discuss the matter with anyone—for which you will be paid.’

      Julie nodded her head, fighting back her natural instinct to say that she did not want any money. The appropriate time to announce that would be once the DNA results were known.

      ‘And that is all?’ she pressed him. ‘There is nothing else? No further conditions?’

      Rocco walked over to the bed and looked down at her.

      ‘If by that you are daring to imply that I or my brothers would want some kind of sexual payment from you, then let me tell you—’

      A sudden wail from the cot had them both looking over to it.

      ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ Julie protested tiredly. ‘You’ve woken Josh.’

      ‘Stay where you are. Maria will attend to him.’

      ‘No. He’s my child.’

      She was sliding her feet onto the floor, but Rocco was standing in front of her.

      ‘You are in no condition to look after him. Do you really want to risk dropping him again?’

      It was a low blow, and it hurt, but to her relief Josh stopped crying and seemed to have gone back off to sleep.

      Sleep. How she craved it herself right now.

      ‘It’s four o’clock. I suggest you try and get some sleep. Dr Vittorio will be here at ten to do the DNA tests. And, in answer to your question, no—there are no other conditions. All my brothers and I wish to do is fulfil our promise to our father to find Antonio’s child—if indeed such a child exists, and was not merely a figment of Antonio’s imagination. He was always very good at telling our father what he wanted to hear.’

      Long after Rocco had gone Julie lay awake, staring up at the tented silk ceiling of her vast bed, her head aching with too many conflicting thoughts.

      Family. What an emotive concept that was. She had always known that their parents preferred Judy, their firstborn, the clever, pretty and bright one, and that she had come a poor second in their affections. Not that they had ever been unkind to her. They hadn’t been like that. It was just that they had never been able to hide their joy and delight in Judy, or their mere tolerance of her.

      She had craved the closeness of a loving family all through her childhood and her teenage years. She had thought she had found it with James, whom she had met during her time at university.

      She had fallen in love with him, and she had loved his parents too, when he had taken her home with him to Newcastle to meet them. But then James had met Judy, and she had known immediately what was happening. Though the man Judy had stolen so easily had clearly not been dear to her, as she had cheated on James early into their relationship.

      Judy had betrayed them both, but at least Julie still had Josh.

      Had Judy and James and their parents lived Josh would have had a family—parents and grandparents, and a loving auntie in her—but they had not, and now all he had was her.

      If he should prove to be Antonio Leopardi’s child then he would still have a large extended family, with uncles, aunts and cousins, and of course his grandfather.

      Lying sleepless in the dark, Julie acknowledged that for Josh’s sake she should hope that he was a Leopardi.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘WELL, although it can’t be confirmed, of course, until I have the results of the blood tests, I am reasonably confident from what you have told me that the cause of your current symptoms is a shortage of iron.’

      Dr Vittorio’s diagnosis was delivered as he deftly released Julie’s arm from the pressure of the cuff he had put round it whilst he took blood samples from her. It left Julie feeling extremely relieved, but even more of a fraud than she had done before.

      Her intention to be up early to prove to Rocco how competent and capable she was had been well and truly sabotaged when she overslept, waking only when Maria had arrived carrying a tray containing a formidably hearty breakfast and wearing an equally formidable expression. What was worse was that she had made it clear that she intended to stand over Julie until every last scrap of food had been eaten.

      Julie could sense that Maria did not approve of her—and who could blame her, given what she must believe about her? To Maria she was a young woman who slept around and who didn’t even know who the father of her child really was.

      However much Maria might disapprove of her, though, Julie could not fault her care of Josh.

      Julie had been halfway through the poached eggs when Josh had woken up and started to cry, but before she had even had the chance to put down her knife and fork Maria had swung into action.

      By the time Julie had finished her breakfast Maria had, under Julie’s anxiously protective watch, changed, fed, bathed and dressed Josh, whilst explaining in her hesitant English that she was a mother of five children, a grandmother of twelve and

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