Now, however, Sophia had done her worst and put him in a bind. She knew that he had never, not once, introduced any woman to Flora. On principle, he abhorred the idea of his daughter becoming fond of any woman who was not going to be on the scene for longer than five minutes. That was something he had always made clear, to allay any fears of the very thing Sophia had now decided to use against him.
His relationship with Flora was sacrosanct and that was how he liked it. No threat of any woman thinking that there was awife and mother substitutevacancy in need of being filled and no potential for Flora to get too attached to anyone.
As far as Alessandro was concerned, one failed marriage was enough to put him off the institution for the rest of his life.
Sophia was well aware of that and would have known that, key to chalet or no key to chalet, he would have stuck to the playbook and not introduced Georgie to Flora.
But circumstances had conspired to rouse her jealousy and malice.
She had misjudged his intentions badly, only realising what was afoot when it was too late for her to catch a flight back to New York. She had found herself with an ex-husband who was no longer prepared to indulge her because she was the mother of his child and she hadn’t liked that. Nor was he interested in rekindling anything at all with her. She hadn’t liked that either. Sign the papers or stringent controls would be placed on her extravagant spending. In return, she had been forced to allow him, in writing, unfettered access to his daughter with a schedule decided in advance rather than occasional access depending on her variable moods.
And then to have met Georgie…unexpected and upsetting the apple cart when it came to all the relationships he had had since their divorce. Georgie with the keys to his chalet, Georgie who had stocked the fridge with food, Georgie who was so physically different from all those women he’d dated in the past.
Sophia had reacted accordingly and now…
Alessandro brought the croissants to the table and sat facing Georgie, who tactfully said nothing.
‘You’ve been caught up in something,’ he began, ‘that has nothing to do with you. It was just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘I think I got that.’
‘You’re wondering what’s going on.’
‘I am, although, of course, if you don’t want to say anything then that’s fine. Perhaps it’s a case of the less I know, the safer I am?’
‘This isn’t a movie about the Mafia, Georgie.’ His eyebrows shot up and he shote her a sudden amused smile. ‘I hadn’t expected to find anyone here.’ Alessandro stated the obvious and raked his fingers through his hair.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Least of all a woman.’
He broke the tension with the shadow of a smile.
‘My divorce hasn’t been the most…agreeable. A short marriage followed by a bitter divorce. Sophia was pregnant when we married. We were both young and, if I’m honest, we would never have married if she hadn’t been pregnant, but there’s no point arguing with the past. Lately, things have become complicated and, essentially, I came out here with Sophia and two lawyers in tow so that certain…difficulties could be put to bed.’
‘You mean the documents that needed signing?’
‘I mean the documents that needed signing,’ Alessandro agreed. There was no way that he could avoid a complete explanation of a very personal situation and it occurred to him that this was a place he had never visited. He had never discussed his private life with any of the women he had dated in the past and many of them had tried hard to entice him into sharing confidences.
But his past…if the bare bones were there somewhere on the Internet, then the flesh on those bones remained locked behind closed doors.
He looked at Georgie, young, fresh faced and curious, and he suddenly felt a thousand years old. He seldom delved back into the past but now he thought about the poverty in which he’d been brought up, abandoned by his father before he could walk and raised single-handedly by his mother, who had broken her back making sure that he got out of the impoverished Italian quarter near the Bronx where he had been brought up.
She’d drummed into him the importance of education because without it he would be stuck where he was for good, going down the same road as many of his friends would.
It had been a life of struggle with eyes to the bigger prize. Brains, drive and ruthless determination had given him the wings to fly and to get what he wanted, but along the way he’d lost the very thing he was looking at now. Curiosity, openness, a fundamental faith that life would be kind. He was thirty-two but every second of the hard road he had travelled was embedded inside his soul like a prong of steel.
‘I have a child,’ he said bluntly and watched as she stared at him with wide-eyed shock. ‘You look surprised. People do. It’s not that uncommon.’
‘Yes… I kind of thought…from what you said just then and no, of course people have kids, I realise it’s not some big surprise…but…’
‘But what?’
‘But you don’tlooklike a dad.’
‘Should I take that as a compliment?’
‘Maybe not,’ Georgie blurted with unflattering honesty. She thought of her own dad. Bespectacled, clever, genial. Always ready to listen to whichever of his daughters had something to moan about. He mowed the lawn, took the bins out on a Monday, allowed her mum to chivvy him into wearing clothes he didn’t want to wear because they weren’t comfy enough.
