Page 47 of Prognosis Baby Daddy

Ben noticed her getting quieter. ‘Penny for them,’ he said.

Katya glanced up toying with her food for a beat or two before eventually taking a bite. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, after she’d chewed and swallowed.

‘Katya,’ he said gently, ‘you can tell me anything.’

Katya wasn’t so sure about that. But he seemed to believe it anyway. She took a deep breath. ‘I was just thinking about the girl who broke your heart. You never talk about her. Or Mario.’

Ben swallowed his mouthful of food, surprisingly without choking. This was not what he’d been expecting. ‘It was a long time ago,’ he dismissed abruptly.

Just as she’d thought. She felt a nagging sense of regret that Ben didn’t think he could talk to her about his feelings over his brother’s death and the mystery woman who had broken his heart. He knew all her secrets now, all about her dirt-poor background, her mother’s neglect and the incident with Sophia.

Surely he should be able to tell the woman he made love to every night some of his past too?

‘Mario’s death wasn’t.’

‘Katya.’

She held up her hand. ‘Carmella commented today that this was the happiest she’d seen you since Bianca. I didn’t even know that was her name. I guess I suddenly realised that I don’t know much about you. Your past, your secrets. It seems odd to be...’ Katya chose her words carefully. ‘Living with you and not know you.’

‘You know me.’

Katya shook her head, the candle flame dancing in the light breeze. ‘I know the man you were when we were with MedSurg is very different to the man you are here, in Italy. I mean...you are the man you are today because of the things that have happened in your past.’

And you can’t love me because of her.

‘I’d just like to be able to understand, that’s all.’

Ben could see her sincerity – he could feel it. She wasn’t asking out of some ghoulish curiosity, she genuinely wanted to understand what made him tick. He sighed.

‘It’s hard for me to talk about Bianca. Or Mario. I was angry for so long. And proud. And then they died. And I was ashamed that I had rejected any attempts at reconciliation. Mario had tried. Bianca had tried. Mamma had tried.’

Katya frowned. So Bianca had died, too? She was confused. Were his ex and his brother not two separate issues? ‘I’m sorry,’ Katya said. ‘Bianca is dead, too? Were their deaths linked?’

Ben gave a bitter laugh. ‘You could say that.’ He saw her puzzled look and stopped being cryptic. He was so used to everyone knowing, he’d forgotten that she didn’t.

‘Bianca and I were engaged to be married. I was totally besotted with her. I was twenty-four...young, foolish. I found her and my brother together, in the clinic gardens. They were kissing. He had his hands on her...she was half-naked. That’s when I left Italy. I ran away as far as I could go and Bianca and Mario got married.’

‘Oh, Ben, how awful.’

Katya heard the emotion in his voice. She could only imagine how devastating such a betrayal must have been. Now she understood the estrangement Ben had talked about. Now she could see why he was sworn off love. He was obviously in no hurry to risk his heart again after it had been battered so soundly.

She, better than anyone, understood how things like that could affect you forever. And she knew that any hope she was harbouring that Ben might grow to love her would never come to fruition.

‘The irony is Mario and I were so close until then. Oh, we were rivals. In everything. We were always trying to best each other with the biggest and the best, the latest and the greatest. But it was good-natured. He was my older brother, there was only twelve months between us, I hero-worshipped him and our rivalry pushed me to be the best I could be. But he took our one-upmanship too far when he took Bianca.’

‘Did you...never speak to each other again?’

Ben shook his head. ‘He tried to extend an olive branch. They both did.’

‘Bianca was in the car crash with your brother?’

‘Yes.’ Ben nodded, his voice bleak. ‘I may not have respected him, may have wanted nothing to do with him, but I didn’t wish him dead. Either of them.’

Katya could see the truth of his words written all over his face. He was looking at her earnestly, his eyes begging her to understand. And she did. As much as she disliked and didn’t respect her mother, Katya knew she would be devastated when the inevitable happened.

No matter what, Olgah was the woman who had given her life.

‘It’s funny how a decade of hostility and self-righteousness can suddenly seem so churlish,’ he said quietly, mesmerised by the flame.

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