The Moretti Heir (10 page)

His father was seated at the desk in front of the iMac computer and his mother was perched on the desk next to it. They were both staring at the screen.

“Ciao, figlio,”
his mother said. “Your papa is trying to show me the Moretti Motors Web site…have you seen it?”

“Not yet. What is the problem, Papa?” Marco asked as he walked into the room. “
Mamma e Papa,
this is Virginia Festa. Virginia, my parents—Gio and Phila.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Virginia said.

“We’re pleased to meet you, too, Virginia,” his mother replied. Phila gave Marco a hug and a kiss and ran her hand over his hair the way she always did. He hugged his mother close for a minute and then leaned over his father’s shoulder to see what the problem was. To say that Gio Moretti wasn’t too tech-savvy was a major understatement.

“
Ciao,
Virginia,” Gio said. “This is on the company intranet, and I think I entered the proper password.…”

“Let me see what you typed in,” Marco said, working over his father’s shoulder. His mother drew Virginia aside and they began to talk quietly.

He’d always been aware that his parents were special. They had that something that just always made him happy to be with them.

That didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten into his fair share of trouble as a teen, but he’d always been aware that his parents had a bedrock of love for him and his brothers.

Virginia’s cell phone rang and she excused herself to answer it. Even though she was on sabbatical from her work as a college professor of anthropology, she had students sometimes call to ask for her expert opinion. He was impressed by her knowledge and the rapport she had with her colleagues and students.

“She’s a nice girl, Marco. I didn’t expect that.”

“What did you expect, Mamma?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted to make sure you were okay and that this girl wasn’t taking advantage of you,” Phila said.

Gio got up from the computer and wrapped an arm around Phila’s shoulder. “Antonio told us about the spy and Dom’s suspicions, so we thought it was time to meet this girl.”

“So you came to Monte Carlo?”

“Well, that, and I promised your mother a week at sea on our yacht.”

“Marco, we are concerned about you and your brothers.” Phila said.

“Don’t be. We are big boys.”

“I know that. How is the curse-breaking going?”

“Mamma, are you asking about my love life?”

She blushed and smacked his arm. “No, I’m not. I really don’t want to see you bring a child into this world without loving the mother.”

He watched his father hug his mother. “Tell us more about Virginia. Why does she want to end the curse? Cassia certainly never wanted to.”

“How do you know that?”

“Nonno went to her when he was in his fifties and tried to rebuild the trust that had been broken. But she refused.”

Marco didn’t know that Lorenzo had done that. “I don’t know about Cassia, but Virginia said that the women in her family have been doomed to live solitary lives devoid of love. She thinks if she has my child, the Morettis and the Festas will be free.”

His mother walked over to him. “Do you like her?”

“Mamma, of course I do. She’s very smart and sexy.”

“Good. Will you two stay together after the baby?”

“I don’t think so, Mamma. Remember, she believes that we can’t fall in love, or the curse won’t be lifted.”

“I don’t like that,” Gio said. “We want a chance to know this grandchild of ours.”

“I will have joint custody of the child, so you two will be able to see the baby.”

“How will that work? It’s silly to have a child, knowing that you aren’t going to stay with the mother,” Phila said. “Have you thought this through, Marco?”

“
Sì,
Mamma. I have thought about it a lot. Having a child is the thing that will break the curse.”

“Are you sure that Virginia isn’t interested in the Moretti fortune?”

“No, Mrs. Moretti, I’m not interested in Marco’s money,” Virginia said as she came back into the room.

His parents turned to face her. “This just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” Phila said.

“Mrs. Moretti, if there were another way to break the curse, I’d do it. But this is the only thing there is.”

Phila put her hands on her hips as she looked at Virginia. “How did you figure this out? When Marco told us about this plan, I thought it was crazy.”

“Well…my grandmother and mother both lost their men before they could marry. Both of them were pregnant at the time their lovers died, and both of them never loved again.”

“I’m sorry to hear of such heartbreakingly lonely lives,” Gio said. “But how did you reach the conclusion that having Marco’s baby will fix this?”

“I studied the Strega lore that Cassia used to curse Lorenzo. There is more to love curses than just making it so the lover of the one spurned doesn’t fall in love again. It has a backlash on the lover placing the curse.”

Virginia explained her reasoning to his parents. Her body seemed to vibrate with passion as she stated her belief.

“Until the curse in broken, Festa descendants will have no happiness in love. And I’m tired of being alone. The only way to fix this is for me to have a Moretti baby.”

Which she thought was silly. Marco wasn’t the kind of man who’d let any woman hurt him. He was careful to make sure that she was only allowed to participate in his life in two areas—in bed, where he made love to her, and in public, in front of the camera, where he made it seem as if she were his newest plaything—which she guessed she was.

The trip to Canada had been pleasant. She’d enjoyed being in Montreal, and Marco had taken two days out of his schedule to visit her home on Long Island. They’d made love in her bed in the small bedroom of the house she’d grown up in, before heading back to France, where they were now. It was the end of June and they were in Magny-Cours for the Grand Prix de France.

They were south of Paris and she liked the area. The race fans were sophisticated and some of them were cordial to her. Others thought she was distracting Marco and made no bones about wanting her to leave him to racing.

They were staying in a chateau owned by a friend of Marco, Tristan Sabina. The chateau was like something out of a fairy tale and the Loire Valley was charming.

Yet Virginia couldn’t relax. She’d been feeling a bit nauseous for the last few days, and this morning had thrown up after Marco left for the track to take his practice runs.

She suspected she might be pregnant. She’d asked Vincent to get a pregnancy test for her. She was both hopeful and frightened to learn the result.

She was falling more in love with Marco each day. It was the little things he did, things that she knew probably meant nothing to him. Little things such as finding a book of poems by Robert Frost, who she loved. Or sitting on the balcony late at night and talking about the constellations and the legends that surrounded them.

She’d ordered a book of Russian legends off the Internet for him, and it was supposed to be delivered today. She knew he’d enjoy it, and that gave her pleasure.

A part of her knew that what they had wasn’t real. But this quiet time together was nice.

There was a knock on the door of the suite. She walked across the marble floor, loving the life she was living. She had to stop for a minute and remind herself that she wasn’t dreaming. That she was really here in France.

She opened the door to find Vincent standing there. “
Ciao,
Vincent.”

“
Ciao,
Miss Virginia. You have a guest waiting downstairs.”

“Who is it?”

“Miss Elena.”

Keke’s fiancée. They hadn’t spoken since Spain, when Elena had warned her to watch herself around Marco.

“I’ll be right down to see her. Where is she?”

“I asked her to wait in the courtyard. I know you like to be outside.”

“
Grazie,
Vincent.”

Vincent left and Virginia took a quick minute to fix her hair and make sure she looked presentable. It was hard to feel confident in her looks when she was in the same room as the former
Sports Illustrated
model. But Virginia decided she wasn’t going to let Elena’s looks intimidate her.

She went downstairs and stepped out into the courtyard. It was a huge landscaped area complete with a hedge maze. She saw Elena sitting on a bench a few feet away. The other woman turned and smiled at her as she approached.

“Thank you for seeing me.”

“You’re welcome. Why are you here?”

“Two reasons.”

Virginia was a little leery of hearing them. “And they are?”

“Well, first I want to apologize. I was worried about Marco and I shouldn’t have followed you like I did when we were in Catalunya.”

“That was okay. I think it’s great that you care so deeply for Marco.”

Elena smiled at her. “I don’t have a lot of friends, because I’m a bit…well, Keke says I have a forceful personality, but others have called me a bitch, and I’m sure I came off that way to you.”

She smiled at the other woman, thinking that Elena was actually a very nice woman who cared deeply for the people she called friends.

“You didn’t. Please don’t worry anymore about what was said in Spain.”

“Good. The other reason I’m here is to see if you want to sit with me at the race this weekend.”

“Um…I’m not sure I’ll be attending.”

“I think it bothers Marco that you aren’t there. When Keke and I talked about it, I realized that you might not feel comfortable with the other wives and girlfriends because you don’t know anyone…so I wanted to invite you to sit with me.”

“I’d like that, but to be honest I can’t stand it when Marco is racing. I keep worrying that he’s going to lose control of the car and crash.”

“I worry about the same thing with Keke, but these men of ours, they know what they are doing. They’ve both been driving fast all their lives. I have a feeling the only place they feel alive is behind the wheel.”

Virginia kept up the small talk with Elena, but a part of her mind was on the fact that Elena had named her real fear. That Marco would never be able to love anything other than the speed he found on the racetrack.

Tonight, when he came out to the courtyard where he was meeting Virginia, he saw that the table was set for four and not two. There was a wrapped package with his name on it and a note in Virginia’s handwriting that told him she was waiting for him inside the maze.

This villa had been his grandparents’. And though he barely remembered his Nonna Moretti, he had happy memories of the time that he’d spent here as a boy. His brothers and he would spend endless hours at the Grand Prix track, and his parents—who never seemed interested in racing—would actually attend the races here, even though Nonno had long since stopped racing.

“Virginia,
mi’angela,
where are you?” he asked. The maze in this garden was familiar to him, and he knew there were many hidden benches and places to get lost. As a child, when his brothers were ganging up on him, he’d come out here and hide. He’d had his last conversation with his grandfather in this garden, on a bench in the center, near the fountain that was topped with a statue of Nonno Lorenzo’s prized Moretti Vallerio open-wheel race car.

“Come and find me.” Virginia’s voice came from farther up the path. It was soft, and he heard a hint of laughter in the tone.

“Aren’t we a little old for hide-and-seek?” he asked, but continued down the path toward the center of the maze.

“Are we?” she asked. Again her voice came from farther up the trail, but this time it sounded as if it came from the left.

Usually, he didn’t like to play games. His life wasn’t the kind where he often had time for these kinds of amusements, but with Virginia he was finding he was a different man.

No longer the driven Formula One driver who was focused on speed and winning.

“I had hoped to make love to my woman, but if you prefer playing childish games…”

She giggled. And he smiled. From what he’d come to know of Virginia, she’d had too little happiness in her life. And as silly as he thought this game was, he didn’t mind doing this for her.

Plus, he was intrigued. She’d gotten him a gift and he wanted to find her and learn what it was. He’d never received a gift from a lover when it wasn’t a holiday or his birthday.

What had she gotten him? And why?

“Marco…” she called softly, and he realized she’d stopped moving.

“Yes?”

“You’re supposed to say ‘Polo.’”

“Why?”

“It’s a hiding game that kids play in the pool.”

He was certain he had narrowed down her location. But wasn’t ready to end the game yet. “But it is also my name.”

“I know. I was wondering if you’d played that game as a child,” she said.

He smiled to himself, realizing that she’d forgotten the rules of her own game. Perhaps she’d even forgotten that she was hiding from him.

He stepped around a bougainvillea bush and onto the cobblestone path that led to a small alcove near the back of the walled garden and maze.

“No, I spent most of my time watching
Speed Racer
and building race cars in the garage with my brothers.”

“Cars? Why am I not surprised?” she asked, but her voice had moved again.

“Were you distracting me,
mi’angela?
”

“Sì!”

There was a kind of joy in her voice that he hadn’t experienced in his own life in so long. He realized suddenly that winning another Grand Prix championship wasn’t going to bring him that joy. This was what was missing from his life. He wasn’t lonely. How could he be with a family the size of his? But he had forgotten how much
fun
driving used to be. Back when winning a race meant something more than another notch on his place in history. And maybe winning the record-breaking championship would restore his joy for driving, but…what if it didn’t?

For so long, he’d had all of his hopes on the fact that racing would always be in his blood, but he was finding that maybe that wasn’t so.

He didn’t say anything else—and pushed those thoughts from his mind. They wouldn’t serve him well tonight, or at tomorrow’s race.

He stood quietly and listened, slowly sorting out the sounds of the fountains in the garden and the sounds of his own breath.

He heard the small scrapping of shoes against cobblestone and realized that Virginia was moving again.

He pivoted in the direction in which he thought he’d heard her, but the path was empty.

He started in that direction, when he felt the air change behind him and her arms come around him, her hands covering his eyes. He felt the brush of her breasts against his back as she rose onto her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “Guess who?”

He reached up and caught her hands in his, drew them down to his mouth where he kissed them as he turned to face her. Staring down at her, he realized that the joy he’d been searching for was right here. A feeling he’d previously experienced only when pulling gs as he went through the turns on the racetrack swamped him, and he realized that he had fallen for this woman.

Virginia was in a good mood, having decided to just enjoy the time she had with Marco. But although he kissed her with all the passion he usually showed, there was something dark and brooding about him as she looked up into his eyes.

She realized then that life seldom went as planned. She
knew
that, she thought with disgust.
Hadn’t she learned anything during her childhood?

“Why are you hiding in the garden?”

“I wanted a chance to be alone with you before Keke and Elena arrived for dinner.”

“You invited my friends for dinner?”

“Yes. Is that okay?”

“Sure, I’m just surprised. You haven’t seemed too interested in any part of my racing life.”

“I didn’t want you to think I was just after you for the attention that follows you around,” she said. “I saw a special on television once, about some women who hired photographers to follow them out when they went clubbing so that they’d look famous.”

Marco rolled his eyes. “Was this in Europe?”

“No, the U.S. But still, people do like the attention.”

“But you don’t.”

“No,” she said, taking his hand and leading him around the corner in the path to where she’d set up an ice bucket with a bottle of champagne.

“What’s this?”

“I really wanted this night to be memorable for both of us because, well…” How was she going to say that she was pregnant and there was no longer a need for them to stay together? She’d never had a problem finding the right words. Never had any problem saying what was on her mind, and she’d never cared what the consequences were, but tonight…she didn’t want her time with Marco to end.

And she had set this up—as
what?
She started to feel very vulnerable and a bit stupid. He was going to see through the night she’d planned and realize that she wanted to stay with him.

What was wrong with her? Where was the clear-headed reasoning she’d always had when it came to anything in her love life?

“What are you trying to say?”

She shrugged and realized she didn’t want to say anything about the baby just yet.

“Let’s have something to drink.” She knew that drinking alcohol wasn’t recommended for pregnant women, so she planned to have just a sip of the champagne.

“Are we celebrating something?” he asked.

She wondered if he already suspected that she was pregnant. She’d been nauseous for the last ten days or so.

“I want to toast the qualifying time you posted today. I think you made a new track record.”

“Yes, I did. But that is what they pay me for.”

She arched one eyebrow at him. “Really.”

“Well, that is what Antonio always says. That I’m paid to be the best so that the world will speak the name of Moretti the way they talk about Lamborghini or Andretti.”

“I think your brother is making light of your accomplishments. They should be praising you for doing your job so well. And we will definitely toast your new record.”

Marco drew her over to the champagne stand. He poured the drink into the glasses by the bucket for both of them and offered one to her. “To fulfilling our duty.”

“Yes.” She tapped her glass to his and took a small sip, letting the sparkling wine sit on her tongue until the bubbles dissolved. In this part of the world, the champagne was good. Even labels she hadn’t heard of before were exquisite.

“I noticed a package with my name on it….”

She smiled at him. “I got you a little something. It’s kind of a thank-you for the gift of these days we’ve spent together.”

“I have enjoyed our time together, too. In fact,” he said, drawing her over to the marble bench, “sit down, Virginia.”

She loved the way he said her name, the emphasis he put on the different syllables and the way that his accent made her name sound exotic. It made her feel like she was something more than just plain old Virginia Festa.

She sat down and Marco settled onto the bench next to her. She set her champagne flute on the bench and turned to face him.

He took her hands in his, and she wondered if this was going to be it. The point where he acknowledged that they really had no reason left for staying together.

A knot formed in the pit of her stomach and she almost jumped up and walked away. No matter what he said to her, there was no happy way for the relationship to end for her. Breaking the curse had seemed simple and straightforward when she’d plotted it out. But the reality of Marco had changed everything. He had ripped away her safety net and left her vulnerable. Because as she looked up into his deep, chocolate eyes, she knew that she never wanted to leave him. She never wanted to be anywhere other than by his side.

In childhood, she’d believed that once the curse was lifted from her she’d find a good man, fall in love and live happily ever after. She knew now that wasn’t the case. She was never going to meet another man like Marco. And she’d already given him her heart.…

Why didn’t falling in love make this right?
She had truly believed that love made the impossible possible.

“Why do you look at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m about to do something hurtful to you. I don’t like it when you are sad, Virginia.”

“I’m not sad,” she said. And she wasn’t. She was bittersweet, she thought. “What were you going to say?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “Stay with me until the end of the race season. I know we said you would stay until there was a child, but regardless of any pregnancy I would like for you to continue traveling and living with me until October.”

“I’d like that.” She took a deep breath. “Um…I took a pregnancy test today, Marco.”

He stilled. “Why didn’t you tell me this right away?”

“I couldn’t find the words,” she said. “I am pregnant.”

He smiled at her. “Excellent. Then that means we are on our way to breaking the curse.”

“It also means we don’t have a reason to stay together,” she said.

“I want you to stay with me. We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” she said. “Does this mean we won’t be lovers still?”

He shook his head. “I don’t want the life we’ve had to change. We can live together until the child is born, and then we will begin our agreed custody.”

Virginia felt like she’d gotten a reprieve and that there was now a bit of hope for the future—for a real future with her and Marco and the tiny spark of life within her womb.