Modern Romance February 2020 Books 5-8. Natalie Anderson

nurse was halfway through administering it, with her usual lecture of letting the lotion sink into the skin before Orla dressed, when there was a loud rap on the door adjoining the nurse’s room with Finn’s. To Orla’s horror, the door couldn’t have been shut properly for the weight of the knock caused it to swing open.

      Tonino stood in the doorway, his hand raised. When he saw the nurse, he immediately burst into a flurry of Sicilian that died on his tongue when he caught sight of a frozen Orla.

      The nurse seemed to sense her horror and immediately stepped between them, acting as a barrier so Orla could wrap the robe back around herself and hurry out of the room, cheeks flaming with humiliation.

      Tonino wished he’d chosen to drive. It would have given him something to concentrate on.

      Instead he sat in the back of his limousine trying to forget that his lover had frozen in horror at him seeing her in her underwear.

      It was the closest he’d come to seeing her naked in four years. She’d run from the room like a frightened rabbit.

      So much for the progress he’d believed they were making.

      Things had been good between them. For the first time in for ever he’d shunned staying at his hotels during his business travels, keen to return home to his son and his son’s mother.

      Her frightened rabbit eyes had brought him crashing back to earth. There had been such fear in them that he’d barely registered her lack of clothing or looked at the scars she kept hidden from him.

      Orla did not trust him.

      She would allow the nurse to see her scars but allowing the man she shared a bed with every night to see them? Not a chance. They made love constantly, but she always kept her top half clothed.

      ‘Do your parents know Finn was conceived with the woman you ended things with Sophia for?’ she asked shortly after Finn fell asleep to the motion of the car.

      He paused a moment before answering. Now was not the time for an argument. Not when they had to deal with his family. He needed to keep his anger contained. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t discussed it with them.’

      ‘What about when you met with your mother yesterday?’ After his early return home from work, he’d taken Finn out to meet his mother. It was the first time they had done anything without Orla and it had felt strange not having her with them.

      ‘It wasn’t mentioned.’ Their meeting in a beach café had been the warmest exchange between them in four years. His mother had taken one look at Finn’s huge brown eyes and visibly softened. Her unabashed delight at meeting her grandson had almost—almost—made Tonino soften too.

      Orla’s words about forgiveness had played in his head. At first, he’d dismissed it out of hand but her comment about him having his father’s temper had played on his mind too. There was truth in it.

      It had taken months for things to settle down into the semblance of normality between Tonino and his parents but, though they all went through the motions of being a family, things had never been the same. There had always been a frisson of ice between them. Embraces were perfunctory. Kisses did not connect with cheeks. For that, he had always blamed them.

      Maybe it was time to look at his own actions and put himself in their shoes. He’d caused the end of a great friendship and, like it or not, he’d brought shame on them both.

      He despised the selfishness of their reaction but for the first time he accepted Orla’s observation that it had been provoked by anger; a rush of blood to the head. When he’d effectively gone into hiding by practically chaining Orla to his bed and disconnecting his doorbell and turning his phone off, it had given his parents time for their fury to percolate. When he’d re-emerged, all their fury had blasted at him like a solar flare.

      Shattered from Orla’s desertion, he’d fired back at them. All the pain her leaving had caused him, he’d thrown onto his parents’ shoulders.

      He’d been an idiot, he acknowledged grimly.

      ‘Your family can do rudimentary maths.’ Orla’s lyrical brogue cut through his thoughts. ‘They will know Finn’s conception coincided with your engagement ending. What if they take against him for it?’

      ‘Why on earth would they do that?’ he asked, astonished she would even suggest such a thing.

      She stared out of the window. ‘People have a habit of blaming children for the sins of their parents.’

      ‘Are you talking generally or from experience?’

      ‘Both. Dante was tarnished because of our father’s gambling problem and womanising. Those things were nothing to do with him and completely beyond his control, yet he almost lost a business deal because of it.’

      ‘And you? Have you had something similar happen?’

      Turning her head to look at him, she said simply, ‘My conception is something that’s hung over me my entire life.’

      Unsure if she was joking—hoping she was joking—he responded with a bemused, ‘It’s the twenty-first century.’

      ‘That doesn’t mean everyone has twenty-first-century ideals, especially in the village I grew up in. I was a walking reminder of my mother’s shame—or should I say, her lack of it?’ She gave a laugh that contained no humour at all.

      ‘Should she have felt shame?’ he asked curiously. He despised Orla’s mother for abandoning her daughters and grandson when they needed her most, but it wasn’t like Orla to be judgemental. ‘She wasn’t the married party in the affair. Salvatore was.’

      ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged in a helpless fashion and sighed. ‘I used to know. It was all very cut and dried when I was a child. I had the mummy who went on holiday to Sicily and came home knocked up by a married man. Everyone knew I was the product of an affair.’ She sighed again and rested her head back. ‘I get it now, why you didn’t tell me who you really were. It was similar to my reasons for not telling you I was Salvatore Moncada’s illegitimate daughter. I didn’t want you having any preconceived thoughts about me or for you to think I was easy like my mother.’

      ‘I would never think that.’

      ‘I know that now.’ She caught his eye and smiled sadly. ‘I’m really glad your mother has been so kind to Finn and that she wants a relationship with him, and I know I’m being selfish but I can’t help worry about how your family will feel about me. I mean, you said the other week that reputation matters to them. Do they know who I am?’

      ‘Yes. Believe it or not, the fact you’re Dante Moncada’s sister and half Sicilian works in your favour.’

      Her nose wrinkled. ‘Really?’

      He gave a short burst of humourless laughter. ‘Really. You have the required pedigree.’

      ‘I’m not a dog,’ she said, visibly affronted.

      ‘Obviously,’ he answered wryly. ‘But trust me on this; you have nothing to worry about with my family. They’ve been so worried that I’ll never settle down and produce grandchildren that they wouldn’t care if you were part of the Cosa Nostra.’

      ‘Charming!’ she said with a roll of her eyes. ‘Is that why you never settled down after Sophia? To punish your family for not supporting you?’

      Her question threw him.

      Had he been punishing them? Punishing his parents for destroying his trust in the unconditional love he’d always taken for granted by not attempting to understand his feelings?

      Didn’t he bear some responsibility for it too?

      He remembered seeing his father’s face go red with fury when he’d broken the news and feeling his