Doris O'Connor (11 page)

“
You were the red-head he met in
that club. God, Kitty, if only you knew.”

“
If only she knew what? Rich, what
on earth are you talking about? Do you know this guy or
something?"

Kitty felt a trickle of icy foreboding snake
its way up her spine at the expression on Richard’s
face.

“
Do I know him? Alex and I went to
school together. I practically lived at the Giovanni’s when I was a
child. They are one tight-knit unit and one of our firm’s best
clients. Mamma Giovanni is as hard as nails, and she was in our
office only yesterday with Alex. I can’t tell you why. How I wish I
could, but hell. Kitty, get yourself a bloody good solicitor;
you’re going to need it.”

Chapter Twelve

Alex sat slumped in his chair, staring at the
piece of paper the solicitor had just handed him. The result of the
DNA test his mother had insisted on. Noah was his! But then he’d
known that, hadn’t he? Noah had looked so familiar from the first
minute he had seen him, and had he not felt an instant connection
with the little guy? He had put it down to Noah reminding him of
Kitty. He had her eyes, after all.
Hell, Kitty, how could you do
this to me?

He screwed the piece of paper up in his hand,
his face grim as he got up and started pacing round the solicitor’s
office.

“
Is everything all right, Mr.
Giovanni? Was this not the news you were expecting?”

Robert Johnson, one of the senior partners of
Parkins Solicitors looked between Alex and his mother, who beamed
from ear to ear.

“
Considering how this child was
conceived, we could certainly not be sure that the child was his. I
mean, the woman is clearly of loose morals, and—”

“
Mamma, that’s not the way it was.
I told you! And I didn’t need this damn test; you
insisted.”

“
Well, of course I insisted. That
boy is going to inherit the family business one day, though how he
can be expected to run it is beyond me. What with him not being
normal and all that. Surely she must have done something wrong when
she was pregnant.”

“
Mrs. Giovanni—”

“
Mother!”
Alex and Robert
spoke at the same time.

“
Well, what else can you expect of
a woman like her?”

Alex groaned to himself; sometimes his mother
lived in the dark ages.

“
What exactly is that supposed to
mean, Mamma? You don’t even know her.”

Stella stood up, too, hands on hips, glaring
at her son. Hell, he knew
that
look, but it wasn’t going to
work this time. He wasn’t hanging onto her apron strings anymore,
and it was time she knew that.

“
I know enough about her to know
that she was the reason you broke off with Irene, and don’t try to
deny it. I was the one who had to comfort the girl when you just
upped and left. And yes, she told me about the miscarriage. Though
why neither one of you had the decency to tell me that I was going
to become a grandmother is beyond me.”

“
Irene and I were over a long time
before I went to Amsterdam, Mamma. That night just made me realize
that. Had she not lost that baby, we would have only been together
out of family duty, Mamma. Hardly the basis for a lasting
marriage!”

“
Poppycock, boy. Family is
everything
. You’re a Giovanni, the last direct male in the
line, and you need a son. Irene would have given you strong,
healthy boys, but no, you had to go off and impregnate that
red-head. “

“
She has a name, Mamma!”

“
Oh, I’m sure there are plenty of
names for a woman like her!”

“
Urm, Mrs. Giovanni,” Robert said.
“Perhaps now is not the best time for this discussion.”

Stella turned her ice cold blue eyes on the
solicitor, and Alex had to smile in spite of everything when the
man visibly swallowed and put his hands up in defeat.

“
On the contrary, Robert. I think
now is the perfect time for this discussion! That woman has my
grandson, and I’m going to make sure you get him off
her!”

****

Alex closed his eyes in disgust, remembering
that earlier scene. He should never have told his mother about
Noah. But once he’d gotten his head round the idea that he had a
son, well, he just had to tell her. They had all been robbed of too
much time with him already.

Oh Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, why did
you not tell me? She is going to lynch you.

“
Hey, man, good to see
you.”

Alex looked up and forced his lips into a
semblance of a smile at seeing Richard, one of his oldest friends.
Richard smiled at him before sitting down on the empty barstool
next to Alex.

“
Looks like you could do with
another one of those.” Richard said, gesturing to one of the four
empty beer bottles in front of Alex.

“
Yeah, I guess. Been one hell of a
day.”

Richard mouthed “two more” to the buxom bar
maid who was making eyes at Alex. The two bottles appeared in
record time, the barmaid’s hand lingering on Alex’s as she handed
him his. He looked up briefly, shook his head, and, her smile
fading, she busied herself with the empty glasses.

“
I gather today’s meeting didn’t go
too well? Robert seemed rather put out.”

“
Yeah, well, you know my mother.
She’s on the warpath, asking for the impossible, as usual. Problem
is, she usually gets it, steamrolling over everyone in the
process.”

“
Everyone being the red-head that
had you all in a tizzy four years ago and still has now from the
look of things?”

Alex glanced at his friend, noticing the tense
way Rich was holding his own beer bottle.

“
Yeah, but what’s up with you?
Trouble in paradise?”

As if,
Alex thought to himself. He had
never actually met Richard’s wife. He had been out of the country
for their wedding, drinking himself into blissful oblivion,
following the debacle in Amsterdam and Irene’s miscarriage. He’d
felt the worst kind of bastard at the time and couldn’t be around
all that happily-ever-after that was Richard. Every time he
mentioned his Emy he got that totally besotted look in his face. It
had been even worse when the twins arrived, and they hadn’t managed
much contact since then, bar the odd phone call. Until he’d bumped
into Richard the first time his mother had dragged him to Parkins
Solicitors to force Kitty to agree to the DNA test.

He took another long swig of the beer bottle,
not really tasting it, as he recalled the heated telephone call
he’d had with Kitty.

His gut had clenched when he’d heard the
wariness in her voice

“
What do you want,
Alex?”

“
I want a DNA test. … Kitty, are
you there?”

“
I’m here, just shutting the door
on Noah, hang on. I’ll be right back, sweetheart, just need to take
this phone call.”

There was the sound of a door being shut, and
then she was back.

“
What the fuck did you just ask of
me?”

“
You heard me, Kitty. Don’t make me
repeat myself.”

“
Oh, I heard you all right! It’s
nice to know how little you think of me. I told you he was yours.
That ought to be enough.”

“
You also told me you rang me, when
you didn’t. Why should I believe a liar?”

“
For fuck’s sake, Giovanni, I’m not
lying. I rang you! How dare you call me a liar? How dare you
suggest Noah isn’t yours? I’m not some whoring strumpet who can’t
remember who got her pregnant!”

“
I only have your word on that, and
if the shoe fits.”

He flinched, recalling her sharp intake of
breath down the phone. He knew he’d gone too far, and her voice had
held a world of hurt, mixed in with her furious reply.

“
Thanks so much for telling me what
you really think of me, Alex. You can shove the test results, when
they come, where the sun doesn’t shine. Noah is your son. Too bad
you’ll never get to see him again.”

He wasn’t proud of himself for all but having
called the mother of his son a whore.
Christ, I have a son
.
Noah was really his, and he had so blown it with Kitty.

Richard’s tense voice shook him out of his
internal musings.

“
You should have come to the
wedding, Alex. All of this could have been avoided.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
If this whole thing wasn’t so
serious, it would be laughable really. Your red-head, Kitty, she is
Emy’s best friend and was her bridesmaid at the
wedding.”

Alex almost choked on the swig of beer he’d
just taken.
“What?”

“
I know, talk of cosmic bad timing,
eh? We had no idea who Noah’s dad was. She never said, and, boy,
did Emy try to wheedle it out of her. As did I. I was going to sue
the bastard for child support, but she wouldn’t budge, said she
didn’t know who he was.”

Alex grimaced at that. “Guess that’s why it
says father unknown on the birth certificate. Though, to be fair,
she didn’t know my last name. Hell, I didn’t know her name at all.
Guess we were both a bit crazy that night.”

“
It gets you like that sometimes.
You know when you meet the one.”

Alex did choke then. What was Richard
suggesting? “Hardly, Rich. I mean the sex was awesome, but that
doesn’t mean I fell in love with her, hell no.”

“
Didn’t you, mate? You do remember
the state you were in, don’t you? The frantic phone
calls?”

Alex shook his head, remembering his state of
mind all too well. The guilt about Irene, the confusion about
Kitty’s behavior, and then Irene dropping that bombshell that she
was pregnant. Hell, it’d been a crazy few weeks.

“
Well, whatever I may have felt
then, seems Kitty certainly didn’t feel the same way, did she?
Otherwise she would have told me about the baby.”

“
But she did tell you.”

Alex just snorted at that.

“
Alex, I have known Kitty a very
long time, and the one thing she isn’t, is a liar. If she said she
phoned you, then she did. If you didn’t get her message then maybe
you should ask yourself why!”

“
Meaning what exactly?”

“
I don’t know, Alex. But she
doesn’t deserve your wrath, and she certainly doesn’t deserve your
mother and my firm breathing down her neck. Was your mother really
going to accuse her of child abuse?”

Alex groaned and shook his head. “Yeah, she
tried that one. Robert and I shot her down, of course.”

“
I should hope so too. Bloody hell,
Alex. Kitty is not is a bad mother, quite the opposite. If you’d
seen her back then. Noah came early, and he was really poorly,
needed an op on his heart. Breast milk helped him to recover so
much faster, and she had such trouble getting him to feed. But they
struggled on, and it’s done him the world of good. Down’s babies
and children really benefit from breastfeeding long term. He
certainly has had far more colds over the last three months, since
he weaned, than he ever did before. And besides Em only stopped
feeding the twins when she fell pregnant with the new baby, or
rather they stopped. Sorry am rabbitting on, but Emy and Kitty feel
really strongly about all this, so well, guess I’ve become a bit of
a lactivist myself.”

Alex had to smile. Rich looked embarrassed and
righteous all at the same time. “I get it, Rich, I do. However,
Mamma is determined to get her hands on Noah.”

“
Never gonna happen, mate, and
what’s more Kitty is going to hate you for it. You know that.
Really hate you. Her solicitor is a friend of mine, and he is gonna
help her fight you and your mother every step of the way. You want
my advice? Back off. Custody issues get messy, and he can drag this
out for a long time. You’re not even named on the birth
certificate. You have no rights at the minute.”

Alex knew that, of course. He had heard this
earlier from Richard’s colleague, and this was one of the reasons
his mum had gone ballistic. This was all such a mess.

“
What do you suggest I do then,
Rich? I can’t fight mum and Kitty at the same time.”

“
Alex, just talk to Kitty. She is
not an ogre. She wouldn’t keep you from Noah, if you asked her.
Supervised visits only, I should think, but it’s a start, right?
I’ve been talking to Emy, and you could meet at our place, you know
as buffer. I probably shouldn’t say this. Emy will kill me, but
Kitty, she’s a mess, a real mess, mate.”

****

Kitty was in danger of breaking every last bit
of crockery she owned, the way she was banging things around in the
kitchen.
Damn the blasted man to hell and back. DNA test, my
foot.
She looked at the results and snorted. Of course he was
Noah’s dad. To think he had had the audacity to force her into this
test. He wanted custody, did he?
Hah, over my dead body
. She
had managed perfectly well without him and his interfering family
for the last four years. Noah was hers and hers alone and Alex
would rot in hell before she would let him see Noah. Not after
this.
Supervised visits, no flipping way.
She had bitten
Emy’s head off when she had suggested they could use her
house.