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CHAPTER SIX

WELL, YOU MADE a real screw-up of that, Vito reflected for the first tiiven him the smallest preparation for as to coo wrong had gone wrong He didn’t react well to surprises and the delivery of the Santa hat and the holly had seeot the wrong idea? His hard mouth compressed while he wondered about that note she had mentioned Had she left a note? He had looked in all the obvious places There had been nothing on the table or the door, and what did it matter noay?

What reallyhe was apparently a father…

That was aconcept but Vito was primarily ruled by his very shrewd brain and his first call was to his lawyer, ithin the hour put him into contact with a London-based specialist in family law Once all his questions had been answered, Vito was frowning at the realisation that he didn’t really have any rights over his own son Only hts He didn’t consult Apollo because he knew that his friend would start talking about de DNA tests but he and Apollo lived very different lives and Vito was confident that if Holly had given birth to a baby eight ht, it could only be his baby

He didn’t kno he felt about becoanised travel to Holly’s ho day and informed her by text of his planned visit, he phoned his mother to break the news

Concetta Zaffari’s delight at learning that she was a grandh her every word and then there were questions about Holly that Vito found hard to answer, and soether

‘Obviously you’ll be getting hed that his mother should even feel the need to say that Of course they would be getting iti a better parent than his own father had proved to be, although how to go about achieving that ambition he had no very clear idea

Holly did not respond to Vito’s text because it annoyed her Why did he assu to elo available at a ti shift the next day because it was a Saturday and Pixie was taking care of Angelo for her

As a result, when Vito arrived in his li been picked up froht him from London, he was taken aback to bea nap

‘Where’s Holly?’ he de down at the dionism towards him

‘At work’

‘Where?’

‘The supermarket fifty yards down the road,’ Pixie advanced reluctantly ‘You can wait in your car Her shift ends in an hour’

Infuriated that Holly hadn’t thought to warn hily, Vito strode down the road He was full of righteous indignation until he walked through the busy shop and caught a glih the aisles and pausing to restock shelves Tough is working as a shelf-stacker and never getting enough sleep Abruptly, he spun on his heel and strode back out of the busy shop again, sha forced to work so hard to survive

Vito would have argued that he had not been spoilt rotten, but he had been born rich and with a near-genius-level IQ, and phenoranted He had never had to struggle, never had tohe didn’t want to do and the sheer undeniable luxury of those realities about his life was finally sinking in on him With uncharacteristic patience he directed his driver to take him away from the street of tiny terraced houses where Holly lived to a hotel, where he had lunch while i without food, which didn’t improve his appetite