Claiming His One-Night Baby. Michelle Smart
JAW CLENCHED, HIS heart pounding an irregular beat in his chest, Matteo Manaserro watched the coffin being lowered into the consecrated ground of Castello Miniato’s private cemetery.
Surrounding the open earth stood hundreds of Pieta Pellegrini’s loved ones, friends, family, colleagues, even some heads of state, with their security details standing back at a discreet distance, all there to say a final goodbye to a man who had been respected the world over for his philanthropic endeavours.
Vanessa Pellegrini, Pieta’s mother, who had buried her husband, Fabio, in the adjoining plot only a year ago, stepped forward, supported by her daughter Francesca. Both women clutched red roses. Francesca turned around to extend a hand to Natasha, Pieta’s widow, who was staring blankly at the wooden box like an ashen-faced statue. The breeze that had filled the early-autumn air had dropped, magnifying the statue effect. Not a single strand of her tumbling honey-blonde hair moved.
She lifted her dry eyes and blinked, the motion seeming to clear her thoughts as she grabbed Francesca’s hand and joined the sobbing women.
Together, the three Pellegrini women threw their roses onto the coffin.
Matteo forced stale air from his lungs and focused his attention anywhere but on the widow.
This was a day to say goodbye, to mourn and then celebrate a man who deserved to be mourned and celebrated. This was not a day to stare at the widow and think how beautiful she looked even in grief. Or think how badly he wanted to take hold of her shoulders and...
Daniele, Pieta’s brother, shifted beside him. It was their turn.
Goodbye, Pieta, my cousin, my friend. Thank you for everything. I will miss you.
Once the immediate family—in which Matteo was included—had thrown their roses on the coffin, it was time for the other mourners to follow suit.
Striving to keep his features neutral, he watched his parents step forward to pay their last respects to their nephew. They didn’t look at him, their son, but he knew his father sensed him watching.
Matteo hadn’t exchanged a word with them since he’d legally changed his surname five years ago in the weeks that had followed the death of his own brother.
So much death.
So many funerals.
So much grief.
Too much pain.
When the burial was over and the priest led the mourners into the castello for the wake, Matteo hung back to visit a grave on the next row.
The marble headstone had a simple etching.
Roberto Pellegrini
Beloved son
No mention of him being a beloved brother.
Generations of Pellegrinis and their descendants were buried here, going back six centuries. At twenty-eight, Roberto was the youngest to have been buried in fifty years.
Matteo crouched down and touched the headstone. ‘Hello, Roberto. Sorry I haven’t visited you in a while. I’ve been busy.’ He laughed harshly. In the five years since his brother’s death he’d visited the grave only a handful of times. Not a day passed when he didn’t think of him. Not an hour passed when he didn’t feel the loss.
‘Listen to me justifying myself. Again. You know I hate to see you here. I love you and I miss you. I just wanted you to know that.’
Blinking back moistness from his eyes, his heart aching, his head pounding, Matteo dragged himself to the castello to join the others.
A huge bar had been set up in the state room for the wake. Matteo had booked himself into a hotel in Pisa for the next couple of days but figured one small glass of bourbon wouldn’t put him over the limit. His hotel room had a fully stocked minibar for him to drink dry when he got there. He would stay as long as was decent then leave.
He’d taken only a sip of his drink when Francesca appeared at his side.
He embraced her tightly. ‘How are you holding up?’ He’d been thirteen when his uncle Fabio and his wife, Vanessa, had taken him into their home. Francesca had been a baby. He’d been there when she’d taken her first steps, been in the audience for her first school music recital—she’d murdered the trumpet—and had beamed with the pride of a big brother only a few months ago at her graduation.
She shrugged and rubbed his arm. ‘I need you to come with me. There’s something we need to discuss.’
Following her up a cold corridor—the ancient castello needed a fortune’s worth of modernisation—they entered Fabio Pellegrini’s old office, which, from the musty smell, hadn’t been used since the motor neurone disease that eventually killed him had really taken its hold on him.
A moment later Daniele appeared at the door with Natasha right behind him.
Startled blue eyes found his and quickly looked away as Francesca closed the door and indicated they should all sit round the oval table.
Matteo inhaled deeply and swore to himself.
This was the last thing he needed, to be stuck in close confines with her, the woman who had played him like a violin, letting him believe she had genuine feelings for him and could see a future for them, when all along she’d been playing his cousin too.
It seemed she had been with him every minute of that day, always in the periphery of his vision even when he’d blinked her away. Now she sat opposite him, close enough that if he were to reach over the table he would be able to stroke her deceitful face.
She shouldn’t be wearing black. She should be wearing scarlet.
He despised that she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen and that the years had only added to it.