Behind the Castello Doors (16 page)

‘Yes.’ Cesario’s voice was suddenly terse. He drained the brandy in his glass and glanced briefly at the photo. ‘That’s Nicolo.’

A second photo was of Nicolo and a dark haired woman. Beth stared at her, certain from the expression of fierce adoration in the woman’s eyes as she looked at the child that she was Raffaella. ‘Your wife was very beautiful.’

‘Yes, I suppose she was.’ His indifference was chilling.

Beth swallowed, compelled to try to unlock the secrets of his past. ‘You told me that you didn’t love her. If that was so, why did you marry her?’

He turned his head and fixed her with a narrow stare.
As the seconds ticked by she was sure she had overstepped an invisible boundary, that she had been too intrusive and he would refuse to answer. He reached for the bottle of brandy, refilled his glass and downed half its contents in one swallow.

‘It was a business arrangement—a merger between our two families, Piras and Cossu, which resulted in the formation of the largest and most successful private bank in Italy. I was brought up to believe that power is everything,’ he said harshly, when he saw her shocked expression. ‘Marriage to Raffaella Cossu was an opportunity that I knew would give me a level of power even my father would find impressive.’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘In my arrogance I did not understand that everything comes at a price. I was taught by my father that emotions are a weakness and love is a failing—something that afflicts lesser men but never a Piras.’

Cesario took another swig of his drink and felt the burn of fiery heat at the back of his throat. He knew from experience that temporary oblivion from the demons which haunted him could be found in a bottle of spirits. There had been times since Nicolo’s death when the only way he’d been able to cope with his grief had been to seek solace in alcohol. He had never revealed his pain. Not even to his closest friends.
Old habits die hard
, he thought grimly. The lessons from his childhood were deeply ingrained.

But tonight, for the first time since he was a small boy, he could not control his emotions. Something was building inside him: a need, almost a desperation to voice his feelings and release the pain that scourged his soul. It was Beth, he thought savagely. She had cast a spell on him with her slanting green eyes and made him feel things he did not want to feel. But her inherent gentleness was something
he had never experienced before. He had witnessed her compassion, and he sensed that if he told her about Nicolo she would not judge him.

‘Was Raffaella in love with you?’ she asked softly, intuitively.

It was time to be honest and face up to the mistakes of his past. ‘Perhaps,’ he acknowledged heavily, ‘in the early days of our marriage. But at the time I did not know it. She never spoke of her feelings, and it suited me to assume she was content with the relationship we had, based on friendship and respect. Love was an alien emotion to me—something I had been taught to deride. I did not know that I was capable of feeling it until I held my newborn son for the first time and finally understood that there is no greater power than love.’

He drained his glass and moved to the window to stare out at the crescent moon, suspended like a silver sickle against the black sky. ‘I would have died for Nicolo,’ he said roughly. ‘He was my purpose in life, my reason for being, and nothing else mattered—not power or wealth, not the bank. I loved my boy beyond reason. What I failed to understand was that Raffaella loved Nicolo just as deeply.’

‘Allegra Ricci said that you sent Raffaella away and refused to allow her to see Nicolo.’

‘That’s not true. Raffaella had an affair and wanted to leave me for her lover. I can’t blame her. I couldn’t give her the marriage she wanted or deserved,’ Cesario admitted grimly. ‘But I couldn’t let her take our son. The idea of living apart from him, of being sidelined in his life while another man took on the role of father to him, tore me apart. I was willing to share custody. I had been separated from my own mother at a young age, and I considered it vital that Nicolo spent an equal amount of time
with his mother as with me. However, I felt it was better for his main home to be the Castello del Falco. Raffaella didn’t agree, and was desperate for him to live with her. Our relationship disintegrated and the rows grew more acrimonious.’

Cesario’s voice rasped in his throat. ‘After a particularly bad confrontation Raffaella snatched Nicolo and fled with him. It had been raining, and she probably drove too fast.’ He delivered the words in a tightly controlled monotone. ‘I heard the crash—it’s a sound that still haunts my dreams. I guessed what had happened. As I ran, I prayed I was wrong. But my worst fears became a nightmare when I saw that the car had skidded off the road and ploughed down the side of the mountain.’

He heard Beth draw a sharp breath, but now that he had opened the floodgates the words kept on coming in an unstoppable tide. ‘I managed to climb down, hanging onto rocks, tree roots. The car had flipped over and landed on its roof. I saw instantly that Raffaella was dead, but Nicolo … I prayed he was still alive.’

‘Dear God,’ Beth whispered. She wanted to walk over to Cesario and take his hand, offer him what comfort she could. But something told her he needed to relive his agonising memories, that this was perhaps the first time since the accident that he had talked about what had happened that day.

‘I had to smash the window with my bare hands to get him out. I didn’t even feel the broken glass slice open my face.’ He ran his hand over his scar and his voice dropped to a harsh whisper, as if his throat had been scraped raw with sandpaper. ‘I was like a madman. I was frantic to save my boy, to hold him in my arms and see his smile, to
hear him call me
Papà.
But he had gone.’ His voice shook. ‘My son was dead.’

Tears were running down Beth’s cheeks, but she brushed them away as she flew across the room and halted in front of Cesario. It tore her heart to see his hard-boned face ravaged with pain. How could she have believed him to be unemotional? She knew now that his way of dealing with the devastation of losing his son had been to bury his emotions deep inside him. But tonight his agony was raw and exposed, and impelled by a desire to try to comfort him she slipped her arms around his waist and held him tightly, willing him to believe that she understood his grief.

For a moment he stiffened, but then he put his arms around her and held her, and Beth felt some of the terrible tension that gripped him slowly ease.

‘The accident was my fault,’ he said roughly.

‘No! How can you say that? Raffaella—’

‘Raffaella was torn between her feelings for the man she had fallen in love with and her love for her son. For Nicolo’s sake I should have tried harder to reach an agreement with her on how we could share his upbringing, instead of forcing her into a desperate act that had such tragic consequences.’

He stepped away from her and walked over to the desk to pour another glass of brandy before sinking onto the sofa. He tugged her down beside him, curving an arm around her shoulders as if he needed the physical contact.

‘The party to celebrate the opening of the English subsidiary of the Piras-Cossu Bank in London last year was on the anniversary of the date Nicolo died. I didn’t want to go, but I had a duty to attend.’ Cesario swirled the amber liquid around in his glass. ‘It wasn’t the first time I’d turned to alcohol to numb my mind. God knows how much I drank
that night.’ He grimaced. ‘It shames me to admit I have no memory of Melanie Stewart. The DNA test will prove if I slept with her. If it is true, then I cannot condone my behaviour and I regret that I clearly did not treat her with consideration and respect.’

‘I don’t think anyone could blame you for drinking too much when you were grieving for your little boy,’ Beth said gently. ‘Sometimes the only way to cope with painful memories is to try to block them out.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat. ‘I think Mel would have understood.’ Just as
she
understood, she thought with fierce compassion. Cesario hadn’t behaved with deliberate disregard for Mel. He had been suffering that night in London, tortured with grief for the son he had adored.

Her heart clenched when she saw the betraying dampness on his eyelashes. It hurt her to see this formidable, strong man suddenly so vulnerable, and she felt guilty that she was intruding on his privacy. ‘I’ll go,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure you must want to be alone.’

Cesario looked into Beth’s soft green eyes and felt the hard knot in his chest loosen a little. He had been alone for the past four years and had mourned his son the only way he knew how—by ignoring his pain and never revealing his emotions. He couldn’t explain why he had opened up to a woman he barely knew, but in a strange way he felt he had known Beth for ever, and he trusted her more than he had ever trusted another human being.

Dio!
Where had that thought come from? he wondered.

Her silky hair felt soft against his cheek and smelled of lemons. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He could still taste the acrid burn of tears in his throat, but talking about Nicolo had given him a curious sense of release.

He pulled Beth closer. ‘Stay a while?’ he said gruffly.
And a sense of peace settled over him as she rested her head on his shoulder and they sat in silence, sharing an empathy that went deeper than words.

Cesario had returned to the castle. Beth heard the sound of the helicopter as she watched the first pink streaks of dawn spread across the sky. Her heart lifted at the prospect of seeing him again, but she also felt apprehensive.

It was three days since she had woken at the apartment in Rome and discovered that she had slept in the red evening dress she had worn to the ballet. She’d realised she must have fallen asleep on the sofa in Cesario’s study and he had carried her to her room. The maid had informed her that he had already gone to the Piras-Cossu Bank, and that he had arranged for her to fly back to the Castello del Falco with Sophie and Luisa Moretti.

She’d wondered if he had been deliberately avoiding her—if perhaps he regretted revealing his emotions to her. After all, he had been brought up to hide his feelings, and had been taught by his father that for Piras men, emotions were a sign of weakness.

Too restless to remain in bed, she jumped up and pulled open her wardrobe. The new clothes she had discovered hanging there when she had returned from Rome were definitely something she would bring up with Cesario. The red dress had been necessary for her to wear to the theatre, but she could not accept all these beautiful designer outfits, she thought wistfully as she ran her hand over the silk and satin and softest cashmere, in pretty rainbow colours that were such a contrast to the dull clothes she had brought to Sardinia.

For now, she
had
to choose something from the extensive selection. Her own clothes had disappeared and the
maid Carlotta looked blank every time Beth asked her what had happened to them. Taking a pale blue wraparound dress from its hanger, she walked into the bathroom and emerged fifteen minutes later, having showered and dressed and blasted her hair with the drier.

Sophie had fed at 5:00 a.m. and would sleep soundly for several hours. The early-morning sunshine beckoned as Beth crept out of the nursery and walked quickly through the silent castle, crossing the entrance hall to the front door that opened onto the courtyard.

The sky was a clear forget-me-not blue, promising another warm spring day, although the mountain peaks on the horizon were hidden by clouds. Beth had intended to sit in the gardens at the rear of the castle, but the sound of horse’s hooves on cobblestones made her glance over her shoulder, and her breath snagged in her throat when she saw Cesario riding across the courtyard.

Dressed entirely in black, his long, tousled hair gleaming like a raven’s wing in the sunlight, he looked as she imagined his medieval ancestors must have done—especially with his falcon, Gratia, perched on his shoulder. His hard-boned face was inscrutable, and the scar running down his cheek pulled at the corner of his eye, giving him a narrowed gaze that hid his thoughts.

He halted in front of her, and she wondered despairingly if she would ever break free from the spell he had cast on her. ‘You’re back,’ she greeted him, flushing when she realised the inanity of the statement. ‘I meant. I didn’t know how long you would be in Rome.’

Cesario took pity on her, intrigued that she had clearly felt the same rush of pleasure that had swept like wildfire through his veins when he had caught sight of her poised like a slender wraith on the castle steps.

‘Thanks to technology I am able to work mainly from the castle, but it was necessary for me to stay in the city for the last couple of days to deal with matters that required my personal attention.’ He studied her speculatively. ‘I’ve just been up to the chapel. I’m guessing it was you who put flowers on Nicolo’s grave?’

‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind that I put them on Raffaella’s too?’ She looked at him uncertainly. ‘I can’t help but feel sad for her. She died so young and in such tragic circumstances.’

‘Why should I mind?’ he said quietly. ‘I know all about your soft heart, Beth Granger. I hear that in my absence your stray dog has made himself at home in the castle and follows you around like a faithful shadow.’

Despite his stern tone, Cesario did not seem annoyed. There was something different about him, Beth mused. He seemed more relaxed and at peace with himself. He smiled, causing her heart to miss a beat. It was the first time she had seen him smile with his eyes as well as his mouth, and the frank sensuality in his gaze filled her with a yearning so intense that it felt like a clawing sensation in the pit of her stomach.

‘Come with me?’ he said, stretching his hand down to her. ‘There is no place more beautiful in the world than the mountains on a clear morning.’

‘I’m not dressed for riding,’ she whispered, catching her breath when he lifted her effortlessly and placed her on the saddle in front of him.

‘Perhaps not, but you look very beautiful,
cara mia.
The dress suits you.’