Harlequin Romance March 2021 Box Set Cara Colter (the mitten read aloud TXT) 📖

or was it six? To say nothing of the series of uniformly lovely girlfriends who seemed to accompany him between marital adventures.

‘I see.’

‘I don’t think you do, not this time, Matteo. Claudine is different. She’s nearly my age with children of her own and a thriving business. She likes me, she may even love me, but she doesn’t respect me. And maybe she has good reason not to. It’s made me take a good long hard look at myself, realise I need to make some changes.’

‘By getting arrested for bribery?’

His father laughed. ‘As I said, that was an unfortunate misunderstanding. It’s all been cleared up now. Look. We need to figure out the best place for me to be. I’m not quite ready for nine-to-five, but surely I could be of use. I have a lot of connections; people do seem to think I’m charming, you know. Besides, my brain may be a bit rusty but every school report I ever had said I had a lot of potential, I just chose not to use it. Maybe it’s time I did use it. What do you think, Matteo? Could we be a team?’

Matteo picked up his coffee and took a sip. He was wary where his father was concerned, wary of his whims and his passions. Could this time really be different? Was he really ready to start again—and if so was Matteo ready to give him a chance? Give them a chance?

‘We’ll see. Let’s talk once we know this arrest business has really been cleared up and things aren’t quite so fraught.’ He managed to resist adding, See if you’re still interested in a few weeks’ time.

Silence descended for a while, unusual for his father, who was usually a fount of small talk. Finally his father sighed. ‘I know it’s up to me to apologise, it’s up to me to make things up to you. I let you down badly when you were a child—and just because I was barely more than a child myself then that doesn’t make it okay.’

Taken completely aback, Matteo had no idea how to respond. While he was still figuring out a reply his father spoke again. ‘Have you seen your mother at all while you’ve been in Italy?’

Matteo knew that his parents spoke more to each other than they did to him and had always found that disconcerting. ‘I haven’t had time.’

‘You blame her more than you blame me, don’t you?’

This was such an unexpectedly insightful thing for his father to say that again Matteo could only sit and stare. ‘I don’t blame either of you for anything. Things are what they are.’

‘We weren’t good parents to you, I know that. We were just so young and wild, our lifestyles so excessive. We lived for the moment, which is fine at twenty-one, but not when you have a year-old child needing you to grow up. It seemed easier—and admittedly more fun—to leave you with your nanny, and at your grandfather’s, to ignore our responsibilities, but it wasn’t right. Matteo, you should know that when we split up your mother did want you. Your grandfather…’ He hesitated. ‘I don’t know if I am doing the right thing telling you this. I promised your mother long ago I wouldn’t, but you have a right to know. Your mother wanted you, but your grandfather persuaded her to give me custody, which meant giving him custody. He said he’d take her to court, that he had evidence that she was unfit to care for you and he would make that public and she would never see you again. Or she could give in and have you for a few weeks during the summer. It took a long time for her to recover from that; she went off the rails badly for a while, as you know, which, of course, justified your grandfather’s point of view as far as he was concerned. But he wasn’t worried about your well-being; he was just determined to hang on to his Harrington heir.’

Suddenly half-remembered memories began to make some kind of sense. His mother’s silences and tears, overheard snippets of conversation, his grandfather’s jeers. And with that sense came the beginnings of a peace of mind he hadn’t even realised he craved.

‘But why?’ Matteo managed.

‘I suppose you were his chance to try again. I was never good enough for him; he made that clear my whole life. He’d washed his hands of me totally by the time I was eighteen. But with you he got to try again—and I allowed him, despite knowing that he wasn’t exactly paternal. I should never have let that happen. I’m sorry.’

Matteo stared at his father in disbelief. His mother had wanted him all along? His grandfather had kept him from her. This changed everything he thought he knew about his life, about who he thought he was.

‘Why did no one ever tell me this before?’

His father shrugged. ‘I wanted to, but your mother didn’t want to come between you and your grandfather. She said you’d made your choice when she remarried and she tried to get you back. She was stronger then, prepared to go to court, no matter what was thrown at her—it helped, of course, that her husband was influential. But you didn’t want to live with her; you made it clear that you blamed her for leaving you and that you were bonded with your grandfather. She said it would break your heart if you knew what your grandfather had done; she put your happiness first. But you’re no longer a child and you need to know the truth. So call her, Matteo. Go back to that lovely wife of yours, spend some time in Italy and call your mother.’

Matteo didn’t ask how his father knew that he had been in Italy; his father always knew more than he expected.

‘Your mother was sorry not to have been invited to your wedding,’ his father added, ‘not to have met your wife. I think