Page 24 of Back to Claim His Italian Heir
He hesitated, before answering carefully, ‘Considering I walked into your wedding, is it not at least a little understandable why I might need some tangible proof?’
She blew out a breath. ‘I explained about Will and me,’ she reminded him, trying to sound as reasonable as he was. ‘How we were friends. I didn’t have a ton of options, you know, Nico—’
‘I do know that.’ A weary sigh escaped him as he rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Emma, trust me, I do know. At least, I understand. I had no idea my cousin acted the way he did until you told me about it, and he certainly didn’t give that impression to me, but I believe you. I’m... I’m not judging you, for wanting to marry Will, all things considered.’
Her eyebrows arched as she stared at him in disbelief. ‘Really? Because you certainly seemed to be right up until this very—’
‘I apologise.’ He spoke stiffly as he dropped his hand from his face. Now he didn’t look angry or annoyed, but weary. Vulnerable, even, although Emma tried to steel herself against feeling too much sympathy. Softer emotions were not for her, pregnancy hormones or not. ‘The truth is,’ Nico said, his voice a low rumble, ‘this paternity test was as much about me, as it was about you, if not...if not more so.’
‘What?’ Emma stared at him blankly. She had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
‘I felt that I have to be absolutely sure I’m the father of this baby,’ he continued, ‘because...’ He paused, took a breath, and then continued resolutely, ‘Because my father wasn’t sure about me.’
Emma gaped at him, shocked into silence. She had not been expectingthat. ‘What...?’ she finally said, not even sure what question she was trying to ask.
‘My father questioned my paternity,’ Nico explained tonelessly, not quite looking at her. ‘Although I only discovered that recently. He learned that he wasn’t actually my biological father fairly recently, as well, but as I said he always had his suspicions...and he made it known, in his own way, all through my childhood.’
Nico glanced away from the stunned look on Emma’s face, wishing he hadn’t admitted so much, and yet knowing he’d had to, for her sake. He couldn’t let her go on believing this had simply been about him not trusting her. It was himself he didn’t trust, if she could ever even understand that. He might have masked it as a distrust of her, it was true, but at its root this was about him. His vulnerability and insecurity, something he’d never wanted to admit to her, to anyone, yet for her sake he had to.
‘I didn’t know that,’ Emma said quietly, and somehow Nico managed to dredge up a wry smile.
‘I know you didn’t, because I never told you before.’
‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘there are a lot of things we don’t know about each other.’
‘We only knew each other a month,’ he agreed, which was another reason for the paternity test, although not nearly as pressing as the doubts that clamoured inside himself. He never wanted his own child to feel the way he had. He never wanted to have the doubts his father had had, although he hoped he would be a better man and not show it the way his father had, in a thousand tiny, cutting ways, over and over again through the years.
‘Why...?’ Emma asked slowly. ‘Why did your father have such doubts about you?’
‘Because my mother had an affair around the time I was conceived.’ He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to shift in his seat, because none of this was easy. Saying it all aloud brought back all of the painful memories, made him remember just how much they had hurt. His mother’s halting admission, on her deathbed, so he’d felt as if he were losing her in more ways than one. How she’d always suspected but never told him, never helped him to understand why his father had been cold to him his whole life. He remembered his father’s icily disdainful expression, his utter refusal to be moved. ‘I didn’t know about it until recently, as it happened,’ he told Emma. ‘I believe I told you my mother had died shortly before I met you?’
‘Yes, a few months before.’ Emma’s face was already softening in sympathy, and Nico found he had to look away.
‘She told me on her deathbed,’ he forced out. ‘She wanted to make it right somehow, but in some ways, I wish she’d never said a word, or maybe she’d told me a lot sooner, to help me to understand. I confronted my father, who admitted he had always had his doubts. I insisted we have a paternity test done as soon as possible, and so we did.’ He swallowed. ‘The results were conclusive. I was the product of an affair.’
He struggled not to close his eyes against the onslaught of that painful memory—his father’s hardened expression, the way he’d turned away, dismissing him utterly.‘I’ve always known, really.’
‘Oh, Nico.’ The gentle sorrow in her voice was nearly his undoing. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He shrugged. ‘In the end, it didn’t change very much. Considering the situation, I offered to step aside as CEO of Santini Enterprises. Antonio is his blood relation and he would be just as good at the job, and I have my own business interests as it is. It seemed logical, but my father refused.’ He let out a long, low breath. ‘He said he didn’t want to encourage speculation, which would be humiliating for him.’ It had always, Nico had realised then, been about his father’s pride. Not about him. Not even about Antonio, who had fumed at being passed over.
‘And your relationship?’ Emma asked after a moment. ‘With your father? Did that...?’
Nico shrugged. ‘It is what it is, what it has always been. Distant to the point of being non-existent, if I’m perfectly honest.’ He paused, wondering whether to admit more, then deciding Emma deserved it. ‘I tried to win his love when I was younger, did everything I could, but none of it was ever enough.’ Getting good grades, always on his best behaviour, waiting by the window for his father to come home...and then later, as an adult, working all hours God gave him to prove himself, without ever understanding that it was a Sisyphean task. That he would never, ever be able to prove himself to his father. ‘I stopped a long time ago,’ he told Emma, although it hadn’t been long enough. And even when he’d stopped trying, the feeling had persisted—that he wasn’t good enough, he wasn’t worthy of love. No, he wasn’t about to make those kinds of admissions to Emma right now. There was being honest, and then there was being stupid. Pathetic.
He’d told himself that at least he now knew why his father had always acted as if he didn’t love him. Surely that was better than always wondering, always trying and failing, again and again.
‘And your cousin?’ Emma asked after a moment, her tone turning probing yet cautious. ‘What about your relationship with him?’
Nico shrugged. ‘We were close when we were younger, as we’re both only children, and we were raised almost as brothers. Antonio is my father’s sister’s son, and she died when he was a teenager, so he came into our family.’ And his father loved Antonio more than he loved him, Nico knew. Antonio had Santini blood in his veins while he did not. Something else that shouldn’t hurt any more, all things considered, but it did. ‘Later, though, we grew apart, and more so when my paternity was revealed. Antonio wanted to step in as CEO, and my father refused.’
He turned to Emma, who was frowning, seeming lost in thought, her arms wrapped around her knees. ‘Why are you asking?’ he asked, because she was looking strangely hesitant and uncertain, as if she wanted to say more but wasn’t sure she dared. In response to his question, she only nibbled her lip. Didn’t speak. Unease deepened inside him, churning his gut. ‘Emma?’
‘It’s...’ She hesitated, and Nico had that tickling sensation he’d had before, at the back of his brain, when he’d been trying to remember something that had been eluding him. Was it about Emma?Emma and Antonio?But she’d only met him after his alleged death, and Antonio had sent her off. Hadn’t he? Why was his mind spiralling out of control, into suspicion? What had he forgotten?
No, he needed to stop jumping to conclusions, fearing the worst because it had happened with his father. Not everyone was so untrustworthy, so unloving, and yet Emma...
Could he really trust her?