Page 37 of Italian Baby Shock

‘Those are my parents,’ he said. ‘Giovanni and Bianca Donati. They married for love by all accounts, not that you’d know it in the end.’ He put his hands in his pockets, still staring up at the portrait. ‘I don’t remember a time when they weren’t fighting. My first memory was of them arguing about whether I should have a nanny or not. My father insisted that I should, while my mother insisted that I shouldn’t, that I had her. Mama was intense about her opinions, hated to conform, harboured grudges and never admitted she was wrong, while my father was proud and rigid and fanatical about traditions.Compromisewasn’t a word either of them understood. They spent an entire month arguing about it. Papa kept hiring nannies and Mama kept sending them away until she eventually got her way.’

Lark folded her arms, watching him.

‘Then came my schooling. Papa wanted me to go to the boarding school he attended, Mama refused to let me go. She wanted to teach me herself. They argued about that on and off for six months, until eventually Papa hired tutors for me at home. That wasn’t good enough for Mama and she continuedto complain about it both to me and to Papa. She didn’t like it when I was given riding lessons at six either. She thought I was too young and she and Papa had a shouting match about it. Papa won that round too.’

A sense of foreboding crept through Lark. This was not going to end well she could feel it.

‘Papa had a business trip to London not long after that, and so my mother took me to America without telling him for a fun “holiday”. He found out and was furious that she hadn’t told him and that we went without security. She accused him of stifling me, he accused her of being lax and not putting my safety first, and so it continued. For some reason I became the thing they argued about almost constantly, and because they couldn’t let anything go, it escalated.

I fell off my horse one day—it wasn’t anything major—but Mama ordered my riding lessons to stop, and when Papa told her she was overreacting, it blew up into this huge screaming match. She demanded a divorce, but he refused, so she retaliated by waiting until he was on another business trip, then walking out and taking me with her.’ Cesare’s blue gaze came to hers and there was something in his blue eyes she didn’t recognise. ‘Donati staff found out and alerted Papa. He arrived at the airport in Rome just as we were about to go through security and he stopped us. Mama didn’t care that we were in a public place, she screamed at him and he shouted back, while I was pulled between them.’

Lark’s chest tightened. ‘How old were you?’

‘Eight.’

God. Eight and caught between shouting, screaming parents. She couldn’t imagine how awful that must have been for him.

‘Oh, Cesare,’ she said softly.

‘You think that’s bad?’ He smiled, but there was no amusement in it. ‘Just wait. It gets worse. Papa took me homeand refused to let her see me, telling her that he was happy for her to leave, but she wasn’t taking me with her. Mama of course couldn’t let that go. She always hated it when Papa won. So she told him the only way she was leaving was with me, and stayed. She camped out in one wing of the palazzo, arguing with him constantly, insisting that I be allowed to see her, that he was cruel to keep a mother from her child, etcetera, etcetera.’ Cesare turned back to the portrait, his expression bitter. ‘Eventually she wore him down and he allowed her supervised visits with me, but that only enraged her more. She didn’t consider it a victory, telling me that he was a terrible father and didn’t I want to be with her? That she loved me more than he ever would.’

Cesare paused a moment and she could see the tension in his tall figure, could feel it thread through her too, a crawling, aching dread.

‘I was ten by then and one day she turned up for a scheduled visit after my riding class. We were going to have a picnic, she said, and somehow she managed to send the staff member who was supposed to be supervising us away. I hadn’t seen her for about two weeks and I was...reluctant to go with her. She could never leave the subject of her grudge with Papa alone, and I always felt as if it was my fault somehow, especially since all they fought about was me. Anyway, that day she was...happy and seemed excited to see me, so I went on her picnic. We had it beside the river and there was delicious food. She poured me an orange juice from a thermos and gave it to me. Told me to drink the whole thing.’

His voice had become colder and Lark felt herself get colder too, the dread tightening.

‘I started feeling dizzy and sick, and very sleepy, so I lay down, and she stroked my hair telling me that soon we’d be together and free of him. My last memory before I blacked out is of myfather suddenly arriving and shouting, and her screaming back, and when I woke up, I was in hospital.’

Lark caught her breath in shock. ‘What happened?’

Cesare glanced at her once again. ‘Mama wanted to punish Papa once and for all and had poisoned the orange juice. Apparently she’d planned to poison me then herself. But the staff member she’d sent away went straight to Papa and he found us before she could drink the rest of the juice. He’d brought a gun and when he found out what she’d done, he shot her. Then he shot himself.’

Lark stared at him, horrified. She’d thought her childhood had been pretty bad, but that was nothing in comparison with his. That his own mother had tried to kill him and herself... Then his father shooting her...

‘Cesare,’ she began faintly yet again, only to stop, because she couldn’t think of a word to say.

‘Yes,’ he said, the word full of bitterness. ‘What kind of response can you to make to that? It’s almost farcical in its dramatics, don’t you think? But then that’s the Donati family way. Our history is full people shooting, stabbing or poisoning people we don’t like. It’s a history of self-involvement. Of selfishness. Of putting our feelings ahead of anyone else’s including our children’s.’ He gave a laugh that was utterly cold and cynical sounding. ‘It wasn’t exactly the world’s most loving environment as you can imagine.’

Lark’s mouth was dry, her chest tight. She felt almost crushed by the weight of a terrible sympathy for him, for a little boy caught between two self-involved individuals who’d cared more about their grudges than for their son.

At least her mother had cared. She’d escaped her marriage because she’d wanted to keep Lark safe.

Sure, but let her fear and paranoia make things difficult for you. You weren’t allowed any bad feelings either, because it upset her.

Lark shoved the thought aside. That might be true, but if it hadn’t been for Lark then her mother would never have had to run at all; she was not forgetting that.

Anyway, this wasn’t about her. This was about Cesare.

She wanted to cross the room to where he stood and put her arms around him, give him some kind of comfort because it was the only thing she could think of to do.

It was a horrible story, a terrible one, and no child should ever have to experience their own parent trying to harm them the way he had. No child should ever have to think that it was their fault either, and from what he said, it was clear that part of him still blamed himself.

She took a step towards him, but he’d turned back to the painting, going over to the fireplace and putting his hands on the mantelpiece, staring up at the portrait. And there was something about his posture now, a subtle change in tension that kept her frozen where she was.

He didn’t seem bitter now. He seemed furious.

‘Anyway,’ he went on. ‘For years I ignored what they did to me. My aunt cared for me until I reached my majority, but she wasn’t exactly a loving caregiver either. She died two years ago and it was then that I decided I was done with the Donati legacy. That I was going to burn it to the ground, break it up, sell everything and donate the proceeds to charity.’

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