CS-Dante's Twins Page 5

  No, if Carl Newbury was confronted, he’d fall back on what he apparently did best and attempt to blacken her reputation in the eyes of the man who was now her lover as well as her employer. And the worst of it was, the way she’d flown in the face of social convention since meeting Dante would merely add credence to the story the vice president would undoubtedly choose to tell.

  "I’ll slip through the garden and around to the back of the house," she offered, as she and Dante waded ashore. "We’ll attract less attention that way."

  "No, you won’t," he said grimly, picking up her towel and blotting the dripping ends of her hair. "Apart from the fact that it’s a bit late for damage control, there’s no way I’m allowing some sleazy Peeping Tom to dictate how you and I behave."

  He seduced her all over again with those words. "We were probably asking for trouble," she said softly, "but I can’t bring myself to regret a moment of what we’ve shared. Even if we could turn back the clock, I’d do the same thing again in a heartbeat"

  His fingers tightened around hers. "You’re sure?"

  ‘’ Absolutely. ’’

  He stopped then, and stared deep into her eyes. The morning air was drenched with the scent of flowers. From the breakfast buffet set up under a long canvas awning on the terrace, the aroma of coffee lost its battle with the perfume of the red jasmine growing up the walls of the house. The sea whispered on the shore in concert with the faint clack of palm fronds shifting in the breeze. But they all paled beside the intensity that turned Dante’s eyes the color of rare blue topaz, beside the heat of desire in his gaze as it scorched over her.

  "I think," he said at last, "that I will have to marry you."

  Her heart fluttered-—with pleasure, with panic, with uncertainty. "Marry me?" she echoed.

  Marriage was a major step, a union meant to last a lifetime. How could either of them make such a com-mitment after only four days? But the other side of the coin, the one that had led her to intimacy with a virtual stranger, stood firm, confident: this was the man she’d been born to love. How could she entertain a moment’s doubt in the face of such certainty?

  "l see no other solution," Dante said. "I have a com-pany to run, family and social obligations to honor, and suddenly they mean nothing without you there to share them with me. How do you account for that, Leila

  Connors—Lee? What sort of spell have you cast on me?" At a loss, she shook her head. How could she explain the unexplainable to him when it made no logical sense to her? They had met. It was as simple——and as com-plicated—as that. She had not been looking for love and she did not think he had, either. But her mother had been right all those years ago. Love wasn’t bound by the laws that governed the rational world. It simply walked in uninvited and took over a person’s life, regardless of whether or not the timing was convenient or appropriate or strictly according to protocol.

  "Will you marry me, Leila?" Dante persisted in a low voice. "Or do you think I’m a fool to ask?" She looked down at his hand clasped around hers. It was a strong hand, with the skin drawn taut over the sinew beneath, but its vigour lay less in its physical strength than in the spirit of its owner. She knew with a certainty that defied rational argument that this was a man who would not crumble in the face of adversity, who would not be coerced or pressured into taking the easy route out when life dealt unkindly with him. This was a man who would go toe-to—toe with the devil him-self rather than submit to evil or wrongdoing, a man a woman could dare to love without reservation.

  Still, ‘‘We met on Wednesday," she said, trying to be sensible for both of them, "and today is only Sunday."

  "I have been waiting for you my entire life," was all he said, but it was enough.

  "Yes," she said, her eyes misting over. "I feel that, too."

  "Then you’ll marry rne?"

  "Yes."

  He bent his head then and kissed her in full view of everyone lined up for the breakfast buffet. No doubt they were all agog. A few would take pleasure in her hap-piness, some would be shocked, and Carl Newbury would be outraged. But none of it mattered. Because, as her mother had promised, she had found the man who was the sun in her morning, the moon in her night. What more could any woman ask?

  Except for Carl Newbury who had business in New York and went there directly from the Caribbean, everyone else attending the seminar flew back to Vancouver the following Wednesday.

  The volume of work needing attention at the office was such that, for the first couple of weeks after their return, people had no time to gossip. Eventually and in-evitably, though, word of their romance leaked out and any thought she and Dante had entertained of keeping their liaison separate from their business lives was dashed.

  On the evening of the last Friday in February, he took her to dinner at an Italian restaurant noted as much for its tastefully intimate decor as its excellent cuisine. A fire burned in the hearth of what had once been a grand Victorian parlor. Sterling silver and crystal sparkled against the rich burgundy table linens. Slender white ta-pers flickered amid a bouquet of pale freesia.

  "I know we’d agreed to wait awhile before we went public with our plans," he said, as they waited for their main course to arrive, "but since we seem still to be the flavor of the month at Classic, I think we should let our families in on things before they hear about them from someone else."

  "I suppose you’re right," she said doubtfully. In truth, she’d cherished the privacy they’d enjoyed since coming home. The time alone together had enabled them to learn more about each other and cement the bond so quickly formed on Poinciana.

  Dante reached for her hand. "You don’t sound too sure. Are you concerned about how your mother and her cousin will react to the news?"

  Leila smiled. "Hardly. Cleo told me before I left for the Caribbean that I would meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger who’d sweep me off my feet."

  "Ah, yes," he said. "You did mention Cleo pretty well sets her clock by her Tarot cards. But what about your mother? You haven’t told me much about her be-yond the fact that she’s been widowed for over a year. Is she likely to think we’re nuts to be talking marriage on such short acquaintance?"

  "No. My mother’s been a rebel most of her life. Fifty years ago when all her friends were getting married, she wasn’t considered sufficiently docile to attract a hus-band. It wasn’t until she’d all but given up on the idea that, finally, she met a man who loved her for the way she was."

  "That was your father?"

  "Yes. She found her niche, then, hosting posh soirees and cultivating the arts. But she never felt obliged to abide by the rules other people set down. She always did things on her own terms."

  Dante laughed. "She sounds like a real character. I look forward to meeting her. But you’re much more con-servative. Do you take after your father?" She hoped not. "Some people think I resemble him in my quick grasp of languages and business sense, but I like to think I’m my own person."

  Dante was too perceptive by half. "You don’t much like talking about him, do you?"

  "No," she said. "Tell me more about your family, instead." She knew from earlier discussions that his par-ents were first generation Canadian, that his father’s family was Italian, his mother’s Russian, that Dante was the eldest of six children and all the rest were girls, and that his father, also, was dead. "How long has your mother been widowed?"

  "Sixteen years. I was twenty-one at the time."

  "And she never remarried?"

  "No. I more or less became the man of the house, the one my mother and sisters turned to for advice." How would all these women feel about being sup-planted in his affections by someone who was a stranger in every way, sharing none of their ethnic background and precious little of their Canadian culture, Leila won-dered.

  "Do you think your family will be pleased when you tell them?" she asked nervously.

  "My sisters will be over the moon and my mother’s likely to rush over to the church and light a candle to the patron saint of
matrimony," Dante assured her, turn-ing over her hand and pressing a kiss to the palm. "She’s been praying for years that I’d give her more grandchil-dren—as if the eleven she’s already got aren’t enough!" Children were another topic they’d discussed at length. "Well, sure," Dante had said, when she’d asked him if he wanted them. "Isn’t that what marriage and family is all about?" `

  "Yes," she’d said. "But let’s have more than one. Growing up an only child can be very lonely." It was a comfort to know her future mother—in-law would approve on that score, at least.

  "Before you’ve had time to learn all their names, my sisters will have you knee-deep in wedding plans," Dante promised, sensing her doubts hadn’t been entirely put to rest. "Julia will drag out the lace veil that every Rossi bride has worn since my grandmother made an honest man out of my grandfather. Annie will want to bake the cake. Christine will try to shanghai you into letting all my nieces be flower girls. And the fact that we’ve decided to enjoy our engagement and wait until the summer to get married won’t make a scrap of dif-ference. They’ll all still act as if everything has to be arranged by the middle of next week."

  Just hearing about them was overwhelming. Leila had enjoyed a privileged childhood, looked after by a nanny when she was very young and taught at home by a gov-erness until she was ten. After that she’d attended an exclusive private school and had never known the bois-terous kind of family interaction Dante spoke of so fondly. Would she ever fit in? she wondered.

  "Why don’t we bite the bullet and set aside next weekend as ‘meet the family’ time‘?" Dante suggested.

  "I know, once you’ve met them, you’ll feel better." Still, despite his reassurances, she was more than a little nervous when, a week the following Sunday shortly before four in the afternoon, he parked his car in the driveway of the old three-story house where he and his sisters had grown up. It was not in a particularly fash-ionable district by present day standards but the garden was large and lovingly tended and there was a park next door with iron benches where families could sit and watch their children at play.

  Pocketing the car keys, Dante turned to where she sat staring at the house. "Ready to face the firing squad, sweetheart?"

  "l suppose so." She attempted a laugh. She knew that he’d already broken the news of his upcoming wedding plans. But despite his assurance that the announcement had been received exactly as he’d predicted, Leila’s nerves were on edge. "It sounds ridiculous, I know, but my stomach’s in an uproar."

  The front door of the house opened then and, as if bent on testing her mettle, an assortment of children spilled down the steps and raced toward the car. Faces peered in the window, staring at her in unabashed curi-osity.

  "She’s pretty," a pigtailed girl declared.

  "She’s old," a taller boy who might have been her brother decided in mild disgust. ‘‘She won’t want to play football with us."

  "She’s here!" another child screamed, racing back toward the house. "Come and see, Mommy!" Too soon Leila found herself standing on the drive-way with bodies swarming around her. At her side, Dante perched a boy of about four on his shoulders and fended off another, perhaps a year older, who tried to climb his leg, while two girls grabbed at his knees. On a tide of children and noise, she found herself swept up the front steps to the house and into a foyer overflowing with yet more people. The introductions seemed to go on forever though they probably took no more than five minutes. She survived the friendly scru-tiny, even managed to smile and murmur hello. But the names"...!

  "You’ll get us all sorted out eventually," a brother-in—law with movie star good looks said. He had a diaper draped over one shoulder and was burping a baby. "It took me a month before I knew who was who and I still get them mixed up once in a while."

  "Because you’re a slow learner, Charles," one of the sisters informed him affectionately. ‘‘I warned Stephanie not to be taken in by a pretty face, but she wouldn’t listen."

  "He teaches high school physics, in case you’re won-dering," another man told Leila as the group flowed down a narrow hall toward the back of the house. "He’s probably the brainiest one of the lot of us, if truth be told."

  In passing, Leila noticed a small, stiffly formal living room which had the look of a place seldom used, and a dining room similarly furnished. But at the end of the hall was a huge kitchen-cum-family room, a new and obviously expensive addition to the original house and clearly the favorite spot for family gatherings.

  Copper pots and braids of garlic hung from an iron ceiling rack next to a massive range. Potted hyacinths filled the windowsill above the double porcelain sink. Custom cabinets lined the walls and formed the base of a center work island with a granite countertop.

  At the other end of the room a fireplace alight with crackling logs gave off a pleasant whiff of wood smoke. Grouped around it was an assortment of overstuffed chairs and sofas covered in chintz. Toys overflowed from a wicker trunk and a battered old upright piano, its top filled with framed photographs, occupied space be-side double French doors that led out to the back garden. Separating the working end of the room from the social area stood a long pine table set for dinner.

  "The boys have dragged Dante outside to toss a foot-ball around but don’t worry, he won’t abandon you for long in these temperatures, ’ the sister she thought might be Ellen told her, recognizing a lost soul when she saw one. "And this is nice because it gives us a chance to get acquainted without having the rowdies running wild the whole time. Leila, we were so thrilled when Mom told us the news."

  "But he forgot to mention how tiny you are," an-other—Annie, Christine‘?——complained good-naturedly.

  "Even before the babies were born, my waist was never that small."

  "You’ll make a lovely bride," someone else an-nounced, but it was Irene Rossi, Dante’s mother, the only woman Leila could positively identify, who

  warmed her heart the most.

  "And a beautiful daughter-in—law," she said, her smile and eyes so much like Dante’s that there could be no doubt of the family connection. "My son has made me a happy woman today. I am proud to welcome you to our family, Leila.”

  They were all so warm and welcoming that she forgot she’d ever worried about meeting them. When Dante finally reappeared, he found her stirring the meat sauce on the stove and chatting with her future in-laws about the kind of wedding she wanted.

  "That wasn’t too painful, was it‘?" he asked as he drove her home that night.

  "No," she sighed, so full of good pasta and home-baked fruit pie that she had to loosen the belt at her waist. "You have a wonderful family, Dante."

  "Yes," he said, turning left from Cambie Street and heading along Forty-First Avenue toward the west side.

  "There were times when we were growing up that I sometimes thought having sisters was a royal pain in the butt, but now that Mom’s alone I’m glad there are so many of us. The neighborhood has changed since we were kids. The people who lived on the street when we were growing up have moved away or died and the ones who’ve replaced them are a different breed—working couples, mainly, with hardly any who are stay-at-home mothers baking their own bread or exchanging recipes over coffee. I don’t know what Mom would do with her time if she didn’t have reason to cook up a storm once a week or baby-sit the grandchildren at the drop of a hat, especially during the winter when she can’t do much in the garden."

  ‘‘I know what you mean. Cleo’s a dear, but she’s lived alone most of her life and has become something of a recluse. Pm afraid my mother’s had a difficult time ad-justing since we moved here."

  "I’d never have guessed that, though I can see where she might find Vancouver a real backwater after the life she led in Singapore."

  But the day before, when Leila had introduced him to her mother and he’d taken them to lunch in Stanley Park, had been different. His charm and the interest he’d taken in her life history had brought about a small miracle in Maeve Connors-Lee. For a little while the
ghost of her old self had risen from its self-imposed exile.

  Completely bowled over, she’d so far reverted to the witty, entertaining person she’d once been that lunch had lasted well into the afternoon. But while Dante and her mother had enjoyed the occasion, Leila had found it hard to reconcile the lively woman sitting across from her with the sad, withdrawn relic she too often found waiting when she came home from work.

  "She did a good job of covering it up yesterday," she said, "but she’s never really recovered from losing my father. After his death she couldn’t bear to remain in Singapore. There were just too many reminders."

  "It’s nice to hear of a couple still so much in love after nearly thirty years."

  "I suppose it is," Leila said, pretending an interest in the passing scene as the car travelled north along McDonald and turned onto Point Grey Road. She and Dante had shared so much about their lives but she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to bring herself to speak openly about her father’s suicide and the subse-quent discovery that his debts so far outweighed his as-sets that nothing remained of the extravagant life-style he’d provided for his wife and daughter. Even after ev-erything had been sold, some creditors still had not been paid.

  Perhaps if he’d been a rogue Leila would have found it easier to talk about him, but until his death she’d al-ways seen him as such a paragon of a man: decent, de-pendable and strong. Unfortunately, he’d made a bad decision in his choice of business partner and that one error in judgment had ended up costing him not just his material wealth but his honor, his pride, his self-respect. And so he’d ended things without thought for those he left behind.

  At forty-two her mother would not have let such trag-edy or circumstance defeat her, but at seventy—one she’d been too frail in body and spirit to start over in a city where, for so many years, she’d been known as a leading light of Singapore society and the wife of a highly re-spected businessman. Instead she’d run——away from the headlines, the pity, the speculation—and back to the country where she’d been born and the only family she had left apart from her daughter.