Modern Romance March 2019 5-8

‘The woman was with him.’

‘His wife.’ Ivo emphasised the word as an image flashed into his head, probably not even accurate.

He’d only met the woman his brother had walked away from his own family for once, and that had been fourteen years ago. Her eyes probably hadn’t been that blue, but the memory of that vivid colour had stayed with him even after the resentment towards Samantha Henderson had faded. Samantha was, after all, responsible for robbing Ivo of the big brother he had worshipped and the future he had dreamt of.

Not immediately, Bruno was coming to get him, he had promised, tears on his cheeks as he, Ivo, had begged his brother not to leave. How long had it taken him to realise that Bruno was never coming back?

Fool, mocked the derisive voice in his head as he thought of his younger self waiting, believing. Bruno had said what Ivo had wanted to hear. In truth, he’d never intended coming back for him; he had deserted him.

The people in Ivo’s life had a habit of doing that: first his father, then Bruno. A person who invited that sort of pain and disillusion had to be a fool, and Ivo was no fool.

In a world obsessed with pairing people off, he had learnt that, far from being a deficiency, being alone was a strength. He never intended to be in a position where someone else had the power to inflict that sort of pain. He was not looking for love; love exaggerated men’s weaknesses, left a man less than whole.

To this point it hadn’t been difficult to avoid the infection of love, any more difficult than walking away from sexual encounters. The compartments in his life remained unpolluted by love, but loyalty was another thing.

His grandfather never demanded love but he did demand loyalty and Ivo considered he had earned it. The only person who had ever been there for him was Salvatore; a man who didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t. The old man was a devil, but he didn’t hide behind a saint’s mask.

Bruno had been his favourite grandson.

His heir.

Ivo, who’d worshipped his brother, had been fine with that.

There had always been an expectation that Ivo would one day rebel, and, growing up, his occasional failures, while not going unpunished, were almost expected. It was whispered that he was like his father; that he had inherited the same weakness.

Ivo had heard the whispers, gritted his teeth and determined that he would prove them all wrong. It was not news to him that his father was weak, because only a weak man would take his own life and leave two motherless sons behind because he couldn’t live without the woman he loved.

His mother must have been special, Bruno always said she was, but Ivo didn’t really remember his mother at all. He didn’t allow himself to remember his father; instead he despised him.

For his brother it had always been different—he was the golden boy. Not easy—the bar had been set high for the heir to his grandfather’s empire and failure was not tolerated, and he’d lived up to expectations, which was perhaps why, when he’d finally challenged Salvatore, the consequences had been so extreme.

Salvatore had already had a bride picked out for his heir. It would be a profitable union, as the woman was the only child and heir of a man almost as wealthy as the Grecos and with an equally proud lineage, which for his grandfather was almost as important. He was fond of speaking of bloodlines and pointing out the proof that the Grecos, who could trace their bloodlines back centuries, were among the elite of Europe.

Ivo had been fifteen when his brother had walked away to be with the woman he loved. He’d finally realised when the brother he idolised had not returned for him that the whispers had been wrong all along. Ivo hadn’t been the one who had inherited their father’s weakness; Bruno was the one that couldn’t live without the woman he loved.

But Bruno could live without honour, and his little brother.

His older brother had betrayed him but, even so, Bruno had been living out there somewhere, some place cold and bleak, a Scottish island, but now he wasn’t.

It didn’t seem possible.

‘Nobody informed you?’ He pressed a finger to the groove between his dark brows, struggling to make sense of what he was hearing.

His grandfather’s bushy brows lifted. ‘Obviously I was informed, by your brother’s solicitor. Oh, and the woman’s sister sent a letter, handwritten,’ he added with a contemptuous snort. ‘Barely legible.’

Ivo shook his head and felt anger separate itself out from the multi-layered raw emotions churning in his belly. Tangled as they were with the irrational guilt he refused to acknowledge, the physical effort of keeping the toxic mixture in check sent fine tremors through his lean body.

‘You knew?’ A muscle along his jaw clenched and quivered as the old man simply shrugged in confirmation, feeding the flame of fury inside him. He could feel it building. None of his feelings showed on his face but there was ice in his voice when he pressed his point. ‘And you did not see fit to share that information with me, until now?’

There was the slightest edge of defiance in Salvatore’s voice as he met his grandson’s eyes and bit out, ‘What would have been the point, Bruno?’

The muscles along Ivo’s jawline quivered. His grandfather seemed unaware of what he had called him, his heavy eyelids lowered over dark flame-lit eyes.

‘It did not occur to you that I might want to go to the funeral?’ Would he have...? Well, he’d never know now, he concluded with bitter irony.

‘No, it didn’t. You had your closure all those years ago when he stopped being your brother, and...’ Eyes that held no expression flickered as he scanned his grandson’s face. ‘You’re not a hypocrite.’ He arched a brow, his lip curling in mild mocking contempt as he threw out the challenge. ‘Are you?’

Ivo’s head came up slowly, his almond-shaped dark eyes resting without expression on his grandfather’s face. The surge of colour that had highlighted the slashing curves of his razor-edged cheekbones had receded. The normal vibrant olive glow had been overwhelmed by a waxy pallor that gave his features the sepia cast of an old photo; his features were utterly still. Only the nerve spasmodically clenching to the right of his clamped bloodless lips a sign of life.

He shook his head in an attitude of someone expecting to wake up. ‘Bruno contacted me eighteen months ago. He wanted to meet up.’ Ivo, staring blankly into middle distance, did not see the look of anger that crossed his grandfather’s face. He was too consumed with the guilt clawing low in his belly.

‘You met up with him?’

Ivo turned his head, the bleakness in his eyes profound. If the love he’d felt for his brother really had died when he hadn’t come back, should he be feeling this sort of pain now?

Pushing the question away, he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. A man took responsibility for his actions. ‘No, I didn’t.’

A decision that he might never forgive himself for now. His brother had reached out and he had rejected him, and why? Because he had carried the anger and resentment of a youth into adulthood, because he wanted to punish Bruno?

Self-contempt quivered queasily in his belly, guilt and regret adding to the toxic sensation. The fact was he could have forgiven the desertion but he could never have forgiven the lie that had kept hope alive.

‘I thought he’d given up on that,’ the old man mused, dragging a hand over the grey stubble on his chin.

‘Given up?’

‘Bruno kept away after I took out the injunction, but the letters carried on for... Well, they stopped too...’ Salvatore frowned. ‘When was that...? No matter, they stopped after the lawyers made it clear that if he contacted you again I’d disinherit the pair of you and it would be his responsibility.’

A hand pressed against the dull throb in his head as Ivo struggled to make sense of what he was hearing. ‘He came back for me?’

Salvatore snorted. ‘Wanted guardianship, would you believe it?’

His expression invited Ivo to share his contempt at the idea, but Ivo was in no condition to share anything. Bruno hadn’t lied, he hadn’t deserted him.

‘He came back.’

Salvatore gave an impatient click of his fingers. ‘As if any court would have granted him access with his conviction.’

‘Conviction?’

‘I don’t suppose you would know but your brother dabbled a bit. He fell in with a bad crowd at school and was caught with a small amount...easy enough to brush under the carpet but the record remained.’

‘Drugs? Bruno?’ No inkling of this youthful scandal had ever reached Ivo’s ears; how much else had he been protected from?

He had given up on his brother but his brother had never given up on him! The discovery left a bitter-sweet taste in his mouth.

Salvatore’s comments suggested that Bruno had not just come back, he had fought, reaching out again, but this time Ivo was the one who had walked away! Ivo sat there as the guilt closed in on him, wrapping its wire tendrils around him like a cage.

He had barely begun to process this reversal of everything he had believed when his grandfather landed another shock.

‘The child—’

Ivo’s head whipped around. ‘What child?’

‘Your brother had a son, a baby, he’s...’ He stabbed the air in an impatient gesture. ‘It doesn’t matter what they’ve called him... This is why I need you to go to Scotland, to the Isle of Skye—presumably you know that’s where your brother has been living in some shack...probably no electricity and running water. I want you to fetch back the child. He belongs here with us—the father may have been a fool and his mother...’ With a curl of his lip he dismissed Samantha. ‘But the child is a Greco—he has a heritage.’

‘How...?’ Ivo’s heavy lids half lowered as he swallowed to alleviate the emotional constriction in his throat. ‘How did they die?’ he finally managed to push out harshly.

‘A climbing accident, they were roped together apparently. A witness at the inquest said they heard him begging her to cut the line, but she didn’t—’ For the first time Ivo imagined he heard emotion in his grandfather’s voice as he added harshly, ‘Ivo always had a reckless streak.’ His grandfather’s eyes drifted closed.

‘Bruno always loved the mountains,’ Ivo said softly. The gentle emphasis he placed on his brother’s name seemed to pass over his grandfather’s head.

He opened his eyes. ‘That’s what I just said! And look where it led...’ he intoned bitterly. ‘If he hadn’t climbed he’d never have met that girl... A potter, living in a hovel.’

A slight exaggeration but Samantha had seemed a million miles from the perfectly groomed models and society women his brother had previously dated.

Love at first sight, Bruno had said.

As if he’d had no choice in the matter! Ivo hadn’t believed that then or now. It was the excuse of a weak man, the man he had no intention of ever being.

There was always a choice.

Suddenly the mantra he lived his life by had less conviction.

‘I have spoken to the lawyers but there is no way to break the will.’

‘So there’s a will—what does it say?’ Ivo struggled to express interest he did not feel. All he could think about was Bruno and the fact that he had not betrayed him out of choice. Bruno had fought for him, admittedly against stacked odds, but he had fought nonetheless.

‘Not relevant.’

It struck Ivo as very relevant but he said nothing. He was thinking about the son that Bruno had left behind; the child he could not desert. He had turned his back on his brother but he wouldn’t turn his back on his nephew!

‘They were young, the young never expect to die, and this Henderson woman...the sister...’

Ivo hadn’t known there was a sister, but then why should he? ‘Does she have a name?’

‘Something Scottish... Fiona or, no, Flora, I think.’

‘And she is the child’s legal guardian?’ Ivo found himself clinging to the knowledge that Bruno had a son; that a part of him lived on. Perhaps one day it would be a comfort, one day when the pain of loss was not so raw and his sense of guilt not so corrosive. What he needed to focus on now was not the guilt, but the fatherless child. It’s not about you, Ivo, he reminded himself with a humourless half-smile.

His grandfather brought his fist down onto the desk top with a force that made the wood vibrate and drew a wince from his lips. ‘It’s ludicrous. She has...is...nothing!’ he spat out contemptuously.

‘You want to be a part of this child’s life, maybe you should learn to say her name,’ Ivo suggested mildly.

‘I do not want her to be a part of this child’s life. That family is responsible for me losing my grandson.’

That was certainly one way of looking at it and it was the one way Ivo had been encouraged to look at it. A way he still found he was reluctant to relinquish.

‘Well, how is no compromise working for you so far, Grandfather? Maybe you should be realistic and settle for what you can get.’

Salvatore’s eyes narrowed. ‘Is that the lesson in life you have learnt? Settling?’ he snarled with withering contempt. ‘I made her a perfectly reasonable offer—generous! She refused.’

‘You offered to buy the child?’ Dio, this got worse. His grandfather seemed to have lost the subtlety and cunning he was famed for. ‘And you are surprised she refused?’

‘Oh, I know what this is about. She’s barren, can’t have a baby of her own, so she’s going to cling onto this one for dear life,’ Salvatore brooded darkly. ‘The letter she sent said it all...sentimental twaddle, inviting me to visit him there. I do not want that family in the child’s life. They took him from...’

The old man’s voice quivered; his eyes grew glassy and blank. The result of anger, or grief?

Or just the simple fact someone had thwarted him?

Whatever had put the quiver in his voice, it made the old man swallow and turn away. This rare visual evidence of vulnerability, the sudden appearance of frailty, struck deep, bringing the memory to the surface of the day when Salvatore had been strong. When he had rescued him from that room and the lifeless father Ivo had tried to awaken, even in his childish ignorance trying to push some of the pills that had spilled from one of the empty bottles past his father’s cold lips, believing that the medicine would make him better. Not understanding until much later that the pills had been his father’s weapon of choice.

Salvatore wanted to rescue this baby just as he had rescued Ivo. For Salvatore it was all about bloodlines!

Are you in any position to sneer? demanded the voice in Ivo’s head. For you, it’s all about assuaging your guilt.

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug of acknowledgement; granted, neither motivation was particularly noble, but then the Grecos were not renowned for their nobility. His jaw stiffened—they were known for getting what they wanted, though.

Ivo stilled as the belated shocked recognition slid through him: he wanted to bring up this child, this part of Bruno who remained.

He gave them both a moment to recover before responding.

‘Should I ask if this information is out in the public domain, or have you accessed this woman’s private medical records?’

The older man responded to the dry question with a shrug and a sour look.

Ivo did not pursue it. He wasn’t that bothered about the red lines Salvatore had gleefully crossed. The fact was that, guilt aside, and with a determination to make up for rejecting his brother, there was a part of him that could identify with his motivation.

It was not something he felt the need to apologise for. Ivo possessed an Italian’s pride in his culture and language, a pride he knew his brother had shared, and thinking of Bruno’s son missing out on this part of his heritage drew a dizzying number of intersecting red lines in his head. Ivo’s loyalty to his name was unquestioning, it went cell deep, which was why his brother’s defection had hurt so much. Bruno had rejected everything they had been brought up to respect.

But he had not rejected him; Bruno had come back for him.

The regret and guilt that he would never now have a chance to thank his brother were so powerful he could taste the metallic tang like blood on his tongue. He focused instead on the wrongness that the child that shared his DNA was out there somewhere, knowing nothing of his history.

He had a debt to repay to his brother, and he would. Giving his nephew the sort of upbringing he and Bruno had not had would be his atonement.

His grandfather seemed fully recovered, delivering an irritated scowl. ‘We need leverage, but she’s done nothing.’

‘By that I presume you mean she has no skeletons?’

‘There is the suggestion of an affair with some footballer, but he wasn’t married at the time.’

‘So what do you expect me to do, kidnap the child?’

‘Yes,’ would have been less shocking than the reply he received.

‘I expect you to marry the woman, and bring the child home here. The lawyers say that will give you legal rights. It should make it simple to gain custody after the divorce.’

Ivo’s moment of gobsmacked incredulity found release in laughter. When was the last time he’d laughed in his grandfather’s presence? he wondered as he listened to the sound...rusty, as though he was out of practice. For some reason he could hear the sound of his brother’s laughter in his head, too. When Bruno had left he had taken the laughter with him.

‘Have you finished?’ Salvatore asked, when the room fell silent.

There had been a time when the icy disdain had tied his stomach in knots of tension but that time was long gone. ‘You appear to have given this some thought.’

‘You trying to tell me you couldn’t make her fall in love if you wanted to?’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Ivo said drily as he got to his feet to place both hands on the desk before leaning forward and saying slowly, ‘I don’t want to.’

He had reached the door when his grandfather’s words reached him.

‘I’m dying and I want you to bring my great-grandson here. Do you really want your brother’s son to be brought up by a stranger, never hearing his own language? Never having the advantages that being a Greco brings? Are you that selfish?’

Ivo turned slowly, his dark eyes sweeping his grandfather’s lined face. Yes, he did look old. ‘Is that true?’

‘You think I’d lie about such a thing?’

‘Yes,’ Ivo responded without hesitation.

The old man laughed and looked quite pleased, clearly taking the comment as a compliment. ‘I would like to retain a little dignity in what is a very undignified process. I have no intention of boring you with the unpleasant details, but I am dying, and I want to see the boy. Will you do that for me?’

Ivo’s chest lifted as he released the breath held in his chest. ‘I make no promises,’ he said, while making a promise to himself—there was no way in the world he would hand over a baby to Salvatore, but he would bring this child home and he would protect him from the full force of Salvatore’s frequently toxic influence, just as Bruno had protected him.

His grandfather smiled. ‘I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Bruno.’

CHAPTER TWO

FLORA TIPTOED STEALTHILY down the stairs, wincing as the board beneath her feet creaked. She froze, balanced on one foot, only releasing the breath held in her chest in a sigh of shuddering relief when there was no sound of baby sobs from upstairs.

Her mum said her grandson was teething, but then she also said that Jamie was an easy baby.

After the past few weeks Flora was of the opinion that easy babies were fictional creatures much like elves, or unicorns, only they slept less.

Flora could vaguely remember what sleep was. She had begun to feel increasingly nostalgic for a time when her idea of a bad night was tossing and turning for half an hour before she drifted off.

Now she could sleep standing up; she had slept standing up!

Sami had made it look so easy. Flora’s blue eyes filled with unshed tears and she blinked hard as she choked out her sister’s name in a forlorn whisper. She was so focused on the image in her head of her smiling sister and the physical pain of loss that it took her a few moments to register the cold.

Very cold, cold she hadn’t noticed upstairs, but then walking several miles up and down the cheerily furnished nursery wearing a groove in the carpet while jiggling the cranky baby and humming an irritating jingle advertising a deodorant—not a very appropriate lullaby but she couldn’t get the darned thing out of her head—was one way to keep warm.

She shivered, and gathered the thick cardigan she had put on over her sweater tightly around her. Nepotism aside, she was proud of her very first project as a qualified architect. The conversion of the derelict stone steading her sister and brother-in-law had decided to convert into their home and business, a restaurant with rooms, had won her a mention, though no glittering prize, in a prestigious competition.

Heating and insulation had been a priority in the brief and normally it was warm and cosy, not to mention wildly ecologically efficient with its state-of-the-art heating system, triple glazing that muffled the sound of the storm outside, and a roof of solar panels, but tonight the cold draughts seemed to have discovered ways inside.

She didn’t realise there was more involved than the storm raging outside and some uninsulated nooks and crannies until she brushed past one of the tall modernist column radiators and, instead of feeling comforting heat, her fingers made contact with metal that was stone cold.

She groaned and tried not to think of the missed boiler service she had deemed a reasonable economy, because everything seemed to be working fine and anyway it was state-of-the-art, didn’t that mean something?

Easy with the clarity of hindsight to recognise a classic case of false economy.

She allowed herself a self-pitying sniff or three before squaring her slender shoulders. Right, Flora, beat yourself up tomorrow and call the heating guy—right now stop whining and make the best of it.

She considered her immediate options. Retreating to the small private living room, an oak-framed extension with incredible views over the water to the mainland, wasn’t one because she’d not got around to lighting the wood burner in there earlier and, with the underfloor heating off and a wall of glass, it would be even colder than in here.

So maybe the best move was make a hot-water bottle, put the spare heaters in the nursery and climb into bed. It might only be eight-thirty but her body clock was so out of sync thanks to chronic sleep deprivation that it didn’t really matter—yes, that was definitely a plan.

So, first things first, the heater in the nursery then make herself a hot-water bottle. Her thick wool socks made no sound on the stone floor of the reception-area-cum-lounge and informal bar space while there was a perceptible increase in the volume of the storm raging outside.

Her shiver this time was for anyone unlucky enough not to have several feet of solid stone between them and the elements. Continuing to switch off lights as she went—at least they still had electricity—she fished her mobile from the pocket of her snug-fitting jeans. With a sigh she slid it back—there hadn’t been a signal since lunchtime and a couple of hours later the landline had gone too. It wasn’t being cut off that was worrying Flora, it was her inability to contact her mother.

Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have been concerned about her parent; under normal circumstances her mother would be here helping to run the place and look after baby Jamie, while continuing to run her own pottery business. Multitasking was Grace Henderson’s middle name and Flora wished she had a fraction of her resourceful parent’s energy.