Page 28 of Italian Baby Shock

‘Absolutely not.’ Cesare reached the door of his study, turned and paced back to his desk. ‘I know the outcome already.’

‘I see,’ Aristophanes said. ‘So what is this call in aid of?’

Cesare let out a breath. ‘I want to bring her back to Italy. She’s a Donati and she needs to be with me. However...’ He paused. ‘Her mother will have something to say about it.’

And Larkwouldhave something to say about it. And it probably wouldn’t be good.

Still, he’d decided what he wanted and what he wanted he got. Also, he hadn’t seen the inside of Lark’s little flat, but he’d seen the outside and while it seemed decent enough, if small, it wasn’t a suitable place for his child to grow up in. There was no garden for a start, nowhere for a little girl to run around in and play.

And you know all about how a child should grow up?

He knew enough. A child shouldn’t grow up in the shadow of his parents’ brutal war of a marriage. A pawn to be used to punish and undermine each other. A weapon to be used in a war caused by love turned into toxic obsession.

It was his father Giovanni’s cheating that had started it. Cesare had been about five then, and his mother, Bianca, had then demanded a divorce after she’d found out. But Giovanni had refused. He wouldn’t be the first Donati in history to divorce and anyway, Bianca had to stay and care for her child. Cesare needed a mother.

Bianca had been furious, but she’d stayed and things had been all right for a little while. Back then Cesare had loved his mother and had tried to be good for her in case his behaviour set off one of her rapid mood swings. She’d told him he was her good boy, her most loving son. That they needed to leave, to escape his father, who didn’t love him the way she loved him. He’d believed her and so when she’d packed him a bag and held out a hand, he’d taken it and together they’d escaped.

It had seemed an exciting adventure, a chance to be with his lovely mother who’d sworn she’d protect him from his terrible father.

Then Giovanni had caught up with them, and he’d been furious. He’d dragged Cesare away by force, while his mother had screamed in rage, and taken him back to the palazzo. The next day Giovanni had told his son that he’d been worried for him, afraid for his safety, because his mother was sick. Thatshe’d lied to him, that she didn’t care about him. But Giovanni did. He loved Cesare. He was his heir after all. Oh, and he wasn’t allowed to see Bianca again.

If Bianca had known what was good for her, she should have left then, but she couldn’t stand that Giovanni had won this particular battle. Forgiveness had never been part of her makeup and so she’d stayed at the palazzo, living in a separate wing like a ghost, haunting her husband every chance she got.

She would leave little notes around the palazzo for Cesare, telling him that she was staying there for him, that she could never leave him, that Giovanni was intent on punishing her by keeping Cesare from her. But they couldn’t let him win, she’d said. Cesare should be ready, because one day she would come for him and they’d finally leave for good.

Giovanni found one of the notes and told Cesare furiously that he was to burn them. That his mother was only telling him these things to hurt him, that the only thing she cared about was punishing Giovanni.

His father had been a proud man, arrogant and stiff-necked, and rigid. And he’d expected his son to be the same, and Cesare had tried. He’d hated the fight between his parents and he’d thought that if he was good enough for both of them, then somehow this terrible war would finally end.

But it didn’t. It only escalated.

Giovanni tried to get Bianca removed from the house, but she refused to go. One day she turned up after one of Cesare’s riding lessons at the stables, and he’d been so pleased to see her. When she said she’d brought them a little picnic, he’d gone with her without hesitation.

She’d taken him to one of his favourite spots on the grassy bank beside the river that ran through the palazzo’s ground, and poured him a cup of some special drink she had in a thermos.‘Drink it all, my darling,’ she’d told him, drinking some herself. ‘Drink it all and you can be with Mama for ever and ever.’

There had been a feverish light in her eyes and she’d seemed jumpy and tense, but he’d wanted to be a good boy for her, so he’d swallowed the whole cup. Then the world seemed to spin and he’d started feeling horribly sick.

His last memories of that day were of lying on the blanket Bianca had laid out and hearing his father’s voice shouting angrily and his mother screaming back.

Then he’d blacked out and woken in hospital, where doctors stood around his bed, looking grim. He’d had no idea what happened, other than that he’d been very sick, and still was.

A day later, a stern-looking woman had appeared at his bedside. She was his aunt and she was there to look after him, because his parents had died.

Later, he’d found out that his mother had tried to poison him and herself that day beside the river, because she’d wanted to punish his father once and for all. The only reason he was alive was due to his father discovering that Bianca had taken him from his riding lesson and so he’d gone to find her. No one knew exactly what had happened then, but the facts were that his mother had died from a gunshot wound and his father the same.

The theory was, he’d killed her before shooting himself.

He certainly hadn’t cared that his son had been poisoned and only saved by one of the stable hands who’d come to investigate the gunshots.

They’d told him they cared about him, that they loved him, but he knew then that his only importance was as a way to hurt each other. That no matter how good a son he’d been to both of them, hoping it would help them, it hadn’t. Nothing he’d done had mattered at all. And if that was the case, then what was the point of being good? Of caring about other people, when no one had cared about him?

No, he had only himself to answer to and why not? Why not accept the legacy his parents had left him? They were dead and gone, leaving him alone, and so why shouldn’t he rip his father’s precious legacy apart? Erase the memory of his mother?

That the best thing he could do with a family like his was to raze it then salt the earth, so that nothing ever grew from its poisoned soil again.

Except now there was Maya, who wasn’t poisonous or toxic. Who’d been brought up by a mother who’d loved her and that was all she’d ever known. It had to stay that way.

‘Cesare?’ Aristophanes asked in bored tones. ‘You’ve been quiet for an awfully long time. What were you saying about the mother?’

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