A retreat to the bedroom was out of the question, he’d only follow her there. She made her way out onto the pool deck and rang Ruby. She explained it all and Ruby set up a conference call with Natalie. Each supported her decision to return to Melbourne as scheduled. Just like last time, Alessandro had let her down. Her sisters had been there for her. She ordered a taxi to the airport and slipped the phone into her pocket. A chill within her heart ached.
“My son loves you, I know it in my heart,” Mamma Rinaldo said.
Katrina hadn’t seen or heard her approach but didn’t shift her gaze from the clear water of the swimming pool. Naturally Alessandro’s mother wanted her son to love Katrina, her grandchild’s mother, but that didn’t make it true.
“It’s not real. I can’t lie to you about us anymore, Mamma Rinaldo. He doesn’t love me but he does love our son and will do anything for him even pretend to want his mother. But I know… I know it’s impossible for him to want me. He never told you when we married. Wouldn’t he want to introduce the woman he loves to his mother?”
“But he did marry you. I know he wouldn’t have done that without love.”
“I don’t know why Alessandro married me. Perhaps he wanted to keep his pretty ballerina doll where he could have easy access to her. It’s as though I was a toy he could put aside and pick up again whenever he wanted. I wasn’t ever a real wife to him, and he was never a real husband.”
“I’ve never seen Alessandro so devoted. Not just to Alex but you, too. He cares so much about your comfort perhaps you don’t remember him taking care of you when you first came here. Such a man his Papà never was. He thinks he’s the same as his father, but he isn’t. My brother was afraid of him becoming the same. That’s old fashioned and wrong.”
He didn’t call or come to see me for two years. He’s only back in my life because of his son. “I can’t change the past and now it is best that we go home.”
“You aren’t the product of your family, Katrina. My family was wealthy, very wealthy. As a child I had servants and anything I could desire. My Papà lost all our money in a failed business. My poor brother had married a woman with a good dowry but he couldn’t afford to give me one. Alessandro’s father had a hard time finding a suitable bride among the Italian aristocracy because he was a terrible womanizer. My brother was too young to be my guardian, so I was raised in the convent. I fell in love with Alessandro’s Papà. The nuns tried to talk me out of it, but I wouldn’t be persuaded. He loved me but racing cars was his first love. My brother assumes Alessandro is the same as his Papà. He isn’t.”
“Mamma.” Alessandro strode out through the double doors, which had been left wide open. “Don’t upset yourself. You’ve met your grandchild and I’m sure Katrina will bring him to see you once she’s settled back in her role at the grand La Scala Ballet.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve gotten you a role at La Scala, once your knee is ready. Ballet comes first doesn’t it, bella? Now you can have the career you want and live in Milan and Alex can grow up here in Italy where he belongs.”
“No, Alessandro, you are wrong.” Mamma shook her hand at him.
“Mamma Rinaldo.” Katrina held the older lady’s shaking arm. “You mustn’t get upset. This is for Alessandro and me to work out. I promise, you won’t lose your grandson no matter what happens between Alessandro and me.”
“You think you know it all. I was like that when I was young, but I knew nothing. You have to listen to each other, what the other is saying, not what you think they’re saying.”
“Come Mamma, Maria is here to take you inside for your nap.”
The dear lady pursed her lips and shook her head side to side, but took the hand Maria offered. “Your future happiness is at stake. Don’t waste any more time.” Her hand pressed flat against the middle of her chest.
Maria cast a withering glance at Alessandro. “Andiamo Mamma, let them knock heads. You come and be at peace. Everything will be all right.” She turned and led the bowed-down lady away.
“You know I can’t stay here, not now. I can’t trust you. I’m not going to stay here for more than a minute to hear some made up an excuse to keep your son with you. We agreed I’d come here for a week. Bribing the La Scala into letting me dance for them is crazy.”
“Bribe? I never bought anyone or anything and I never will. La Scala wants you to dance for them because you’re a prima ballerina.”
“I have to go home. I’ve spoken to Ruby and she’s spoken with our eldest sister Natalie. They both agree that this visit has lasted long enough and that I need to get home. I can’t think here.”
“Just talk to La Scala Ballet Company. They have a plan for your return to them.”
“I can’t think about that. You overwhelm me, Alessandro.” She needed to put distance between him and herself. She would be calm again and able to think clearly. She left him standing next to the cool water and hurried inside to pack. She expected him to follow her. Alessandro wasn’t the kind of man to be dismissed but she hoped to gain a few moments to herself in the bedroom before he caught up.
Behind her Katrina heard Mamma call out. “I want to talk to you, Alessandro.”
“Not now, Mamma.”
“ Sì, it has to be now.”
She hoped he’d stay and talk to his mother. Tears welled in her eyes. The same vulnerability as when she was a fifteen-year-old standing in her biological father’s office gripped her. The first man who’d shown he didn’t love her. The first man who cared about his son but not her.
The wooden door closed behind her and she heard no more. She paced across the richly furnished sitting room. The floral fabric on gilt chairs and massive windows with decorative ceilings oppressed her. She longed for her bedroom in her inner city terrace house in Melbourne. She needed the sleek calming lines of her modern décor around her and the routine of going to the practice studio each day. She wanted to turn the clock back to when it was just her and Alex.
“I understand you want to go home, cara. But I have a problem with that.” He’d followed her. Her body reacted with the force of a landslide. His arms wrapped around her from behind. Weakness like spreading lava turned her limbs to lead. If he wanted to capture her and lock her up, she doubted she’d have the physical strength to do anything about it. She pushed out of his arms and he let her leave. Loneliness etched into her heart as his arms fell away. “I have to think, Alessandro. Please don’t try to use sex to keep me here.”
“I love you, Katrina. I really do. Don’t leave me again.”
Her heart pulsed as though she’d sprinted a hundred-meter dash. Her lungs ached for air. The bitter sweetness of hearing these words now burned. They were empty, a declaration of love from a desperate man about to lose his child couldn’t be believed.
“I can’t do this Alessandro, not now.”
She moved away, far enough so she could look at him from a safe distance. His face was ashen. It was real, he was gutted that she was taking Alex back to Australia before he could legally hold him here.
“You can come and visit. I promised your Mamma that she wouldn’t lose her grandchild and she won’t. You won’t lose your son, either. My promises are kept.
“I’ll set up Skype chats and Instagram lots of pictures for you between visits. When he’s older he can come and stay by himself.”
His jaw bone sharpened. “I won’t let you go.”
“I have a taxi booked. Now I need to get Alex ready and finish packing my bags. It should be here soon.”
“You’re not going anywhere without these.” He pulled two passports from his back pocket and fanned them like a winning pair of cards.
Her blood turned to white hot metal. “Give them to me.”
“No bella, we have to be a family, can’t you see that.”
“Family isn’t something you can force, Alessandro. Believe me, I know.”
“You haven’t even tried.”
“I can’t trust you! Do you think stealing our passports is going to change that?”
“You can’t trust men. But you can trust this. I’ll track you down where ever you go. The world is a small place for me and I’ll….”
“You’ll what?”
“I’ll find you and make you come back to me.”
“I’m calling the Australian Ballet lawyers, and then the Embassy. You won’t be able to keep me here.”
“Perhaps not you but my son is an Italian citizen because I have DNA proof that I’m his papà.”
“Don’t take him away from me.” Her legs turned to marshmallow and her throat closed. She clutched at a heavy black hole in her chest. The world began to swim as the air refused to leave her lungs. She staggered back as a cold trickle of sweat ran down her forehead and stung her eyes.
“Bella.” His worried face came up to hers. Fingers dug into her biceps, holding her upright.
“It’s all right. It’s all right. I won’t separate you from our son. I just want you both to stay.”
“I can’t. Not now, I can’t. You have to let us go.”
A cool façade came over his face. “Very well then.” He shoved the passports into her numb fingers. “Go then, get out.”
He let her walk out of the grand salon and up the ornately curved stairway. Something in her wished he’d stop her. Something stronger wanted to get to a place where she’d feel safe again. Each step made her knee ache a little more, by the time she reached the top it was killing her.
The first class lounge at Malpensa airport provided everything she needed to keep Alex comfortable before the flight. He’d been fractious, picking up on her mood. Finally, the announcement to board echoed from the loudspeakers. She gathered up their things and went to the boarding lounge. The First class queue stood back to let her go on first, because she had Alex. The boarding doors opened, the flight attendant checked her ticket and waved her through.
“Wait!” Alessandro’s voice echoed across the boarding lounge.
She turned around. Alessandro stood behind the barrier his hands outstretched, his face twisted with anguish. Everything she hoped for the first time she left Malpensa airport with her heart in tatters happened now. He’d followed her, to stop her from boarding the flight. Her heart rose into her throat. Hope fluttered to life but she crushed its burgeoning flight with cold stones of reality. It was the child in her arms he’d come for, not her. Her heart raced with fear that he’d stop them.
“Goodbye, Alessandro. We’ll see you if you come to Melbourne.”
“Papà,” said Alex. He pointed his finger and his face lit up.
The air froze in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. He’d called him Papà. She was taking her son away from his papà.
“Katrina, stay. Not because I force you to. Stay because you just might love me, too.”
“That was never the problem, Alessandro. I left the first time because I loved you. I’m leaving now for the same reason.” Her love wasn’t returned. Alex would grow up with his mother a pining shell of a woman if she gave in and lived a half life with a man who didn’t really want her. Somehow she made her legs move, and walked through the boarding doors.
“No, COME BACK …. Katrina?”
Tears wet her cheeks. Alex began to grizzle. The carpet in the hall seemed to be ten inches thick. It sapped her energy just to put one foot in front of the other, but she forced her feet to keep moving. The hostess took Alex from her arms when she reached the plane door.
“What’s wrong?”
“It was hard saying goodbye. Give me some time, I’ll be all right.”
“Oh, I see.” She nodded. “I’ll take you to your seat.”
The vacant hall beyond the boarding lounge doorway could have been Alessandro’s heart. When he’d come home two years ago and found her empty wardrobe and her thin gold band on the dressing table, he’d not let himself feel the emptiness that ached now in every blood cell. He’d shut it down with anger that also fueled his performance in F1 racing and successive World Championships.
His cara sposa had left again, this time with his bello baby boy in her arms. He stood alone in an airport lounge. Everything he really cared about had disappeared. He burned with anger at himself. He’d lost them both, not in the last two minutes, but two years ago. She was pregnant when he let her walk away without a fight. He hadn’t fought for her or the promise of the family they would one day have.
He’d been so stupid. At first he hoped she’d stop being angry and come back. He was too angry and proud to chase after her when she took off without even reading a text message. He didn’t deserve her and that’s why she boarded the flight with his son, she couldn’t trust him to be there when she needed him.
That night he’d callously left her alone, she’d gone out driving in an upset state looking for him in the rain. He’d been too proud to beg a woman to come home. She’d gone after him, three months pregnant and tried to find him and had been turned away. This time there hadn’t a shred of pride. He needed to go after her and beg her to believe him. The ticket hurriedly purchased so he could pass through customs was useless. Her flight was sold out; he’d bought a ticket to the first flight available. A short haul flight to Paris.
He had to find a way to commit to her that she could believe because she was the only one for him. His beautiful wife didn’t believe any man would ever really love her the way he did. He loved her with a passion so fierce it threatened to take over his life. He wanted it to take over. He wanted her to share it forever.
Maybe that’s why he let her go the first time. Maybe pride was an excuse to keep his feelings hidden. He wasn’t ready to acknowledge such a passion. He’d channeled it into racing. Loving this woman and their child made him feel more of a man than winning any championship had.
He stood there until the last passengers had boarded and the flight attendants closed the door. He wished more than hoped she’d have a change of mind and come back out again. She’d faltered for a second, when he called out to her. She’d looked back when she’d heard him. But then she left anyway. Black despair engulfed him when her shoulders hunched as she turned and walked faster away.
He threw the useless ticket into the bin as he made his way out of the Aeroporto Malpensa terminals and back to the car park. He drove to the Milano townhouse. The modern facade opened up. As he drove into the underground car park he began to hatch a plan.
Refreshed from his shower, he rang Janet in Melbourne. She was able to provide him with the information he required. A phone call to a well-known Melbourne fashion mogul followed. Next a call to his Mamma and after that he began making the necessary arrangements. It was 10 p.m. when Alessandro completed them. Exhausted, he turned out the light.
Alex had finished his breakfast and amused himself playing with a few block on the tray of his freshly wiped down high chair when Katrina heard Janet’s knock on the front door. The wall clock in the small kitchen showed 8.00 a.m. She was punctual as ever. Katrina undid his seat restraint and carried him to the front door.
She held Alex on her hip and the door wide open with her free hand. She was about to say come in but instead of Janet, standing in front of her was a very familiar looking man even though she’d never met him in person. Her mouth went dry as she recoiled, closing the door. He put his hand out and stopped the door swinging mid-arc.
“I think it’s time we met. I’m Alex’s uncle, Jarrod Bainbridge.”
Her half-brother standing on her front porch looked taller in person. Above six feet two inches at least. “I know who you are.”
“Please, can I come in?” He glanced at her but Alex took most of his focus. He smiled at him and Alex smiled back.
The urge to hug her half-brother but also slap his face warred within.
“Depends. Why now? What do you want?”
“I don’t want anything. I want to offer you something, for you and Alex.”
The creaking of the front gate drew Katrina’s attention to Janet coming in from next door.
“All right, Jarrod, you can come in. Just go down the hall to the lounge, I’ll be there in a minute.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
Katrina stepped aside to let him pass and he walked down the hall. Her brother was in her house. She’d dreaded it and wanted this with so much upset in the past that she’d wrapped all the emotion up like a tangled ball of wool and had refused to unpick it. Maybe he could offer her a place to start. Being Alex’s mother made her want to.
“Janet can you take Alex as is? I’ve got a sudden thing happening.”
“Sure, I’ve got a spare set of everything at my place.” She lifted Alex from Katrina’s arms. Her face seemed serious. “I recognized who that is, give him a hearing. Do it for you and Alex.”
“What do you know about this? Did he contact you?”
“No, he didn’t. Take the day off. I’ve got Alex for the day anyway. Let the Australian Ballet be second for once. Put yourself first today.”
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know for sure, but you have to go back into your house to find out.” She skipped down off the porch, down the path, and back into her house. Alex waved his hand back at Katrina, smiling so much that his cheeks plumped and made his eyes half close. He was no doubt happy to go and play with Janet.
The brother she’d never met paced the lounge room floor. The toys that had littered the floor had been put in the playpen in the corner.
“You didn’t need to clean up.”
“It’s better than twisting my ankle on a toy racing car.”
“You could sit down, that would be safe.”
“After you.”
She sat in her favorite armchair and he chose the seat opposite.
“You said you had something you wanted to give Alex and me.”
“Yes, I do. I just worry that you won’t want it.”
“Try me.”
“I’m your brother. Although growing up, I didn’t know but when I found out I came to meet you. Remember what happened?”
Of course she did. It wasn’t long after their father had died. “Yes. I remember.”
“Why didn’t you want to meet me?”
“Because…” This was hard. She didn’t want to trash the memory of his father.
“It wasn’t what your father wanted.”
“Is that why you refused the money, too?”
“I only wanted one thing from your father, to be recognized as his child. He refused. He died without giving me permission to call him my dad or you my brother. I made up my mind to stop wanting what I couldn’t have. That’s all.”
“He was wrong, Katrina. He didn’t have the right to keep you, my own sister from me, or your brother from you.”
“He mightn’t have had the right, but he had the means. He made it impossible for me to be in his or your life.” Shame like a double-sided blade sunk into the flesh of her back and pierced her heart. She’d been bought off and she remembered it like it was happening at this very moment. Jarrod looked a lot like his father. He had the same hawk-like nose and dark descending eyebrows. But the mouth was softer. Not thin and hard as his father’s had been when he’d laid down his ultimatum.
“I always thought, he was wrong to keep us apart. But since I had Alex and I know how a parent feels about their child, what they’ll do to protect them. I have a better understanding of his motives now.”
“Why didn’t you defy him and come and see me? What did he hold over you? It must have been something. I know my father.” Jarrod’s words held a thread of bitterness.
Katrina guessed he’d also been subjected to his father’s manipulating ways. Even so she didn’t want to reveal her shameful secret. All her fame and success at Ballet was bought. But when she made that bargain she hadn’t considered her future children. She hadn’t considered what the cost would be to her son. That making this kind of deal would echo through generations, hadn’t been contemplated at the age of thirteen. The enormity of it now, crushed her resistance to speaking out. She didn’t want this secret to hanging over Alex’s head, she needed to tell Jarrod. Let him know she wouldn’t be treated like that ever again.
“I wanted to be a dancer. Your father…”
“Our father.”
“Alright, our father paid for my tuition at the Australian Ballet School. He would stop paying if I…”
“Stop.” Jarrod stood up. He paced the room for a minute then came and bent down in front of her. He took both her hands in his. “I’m sorry.”
He was sorry. She’d let herself be bought and he was sorry.
“Don’t be. You didn’t do anything wrong. Not like me.”
“How old were you?”
“Thirteen.”
He sucked in a whistle of air. “Not long after your parents died in a car accident, right?”
“Yes.” An image of her mother and father bloodied and lifeless in the front seat accompanied a stab of pain that froze her lungs. Her knee had been trapped; she remembered screaming in pain as she was pulled from the wreck. She pushed the memories away. “Do we really need to go over this?”
“You’re my little sister and I haven’t been there for you. I didn’t know about this deal Dad made with you.” He stood and went back to his chair. His hands balled into fists. He breathed hard through his flared nostrils. “Katrina, you were a child, he should have been there for you. We all should have.”
She’d never really believed she deserved anything. But Alessandro’s mother had accepted the daughter her husband had fathered and raised her as her own. Maria had a loving older brother in Alessandro. Here was her own older brother wanting to be a part of her life and it wasn’t their father who stopped that now, but herself. Her own father had raised her even though she was the natural daughter of another man. Although he didn’t love her as he did her half-sisters, he’d been there trying to.
“I had convinced myself that your father was waiting for me to come to him so we could be together, when I found out about my biological heritage. I hoped I’d finally be wanted. The man who raised me knew I wasn’t his. He tried to love me but couldn’t help resenting my existence. When our father didn’t want me either, I took his money and hid the shame of my birth.”
“You haven’t done anything to be ashamed of. I’m here to offer you and Alex an apology. I don’t have any other siblings. You have your two sisters, but I don’t have anyone. I hope you’ll let me be a part of your lives and accept the apology my father should have given you. Would have given you if I’d found out about this during my life time.
“I believe, from the letter he left me, he denied you because he was afraid of losing my mother and me. Katrina I’m sorry for what he did, I’m sorry and I want to fix this. I want us to be family.”
“Why now Jarrod? Was it because of Alex being in the news recently?”
“Your husband called me yesterday.”
“Alessandro! What did he say?”
“He told me what Dad did to you and wanted me to step up and be the brother you need.”
“How dare he interfere, probably trying to score points. He wants his son to live in Italy and will do anything to get me to move there.”
“He did the right thing, calling me. For the record, I don’t think he’s trying to score points. I got the impression he’d given up on getting you to live in Italy. He said he’d let you down twice because of that he’d lost your trust. He wants to make sure your family is behind you.”
“I want Alex to be acknowledged by his family. I’d like to accept your apology but I don’t see how you could owe me one. Your Dad was trying to keep his family together.”
“Would you like me to give you a call in a couple of days?”
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
Jarrod Bainbridge, the fashion king of Melbourne, the darling of society pages and now, her brother.