Read The Italian Surgeon's Christmas Miracle for Free Online Page B

Kyra said. ‘And we’re lucky. Some kids don’t even get a tree.’
    And some had so many beautiful new decorations, they had no use for a big box of older ones. Imagine how excited these girls would be if they had that whole box that had been left in the ward office. It wouldn’t be hard to pick it up and leave it on the doorstep here.
    The apparent brilliance of the idea was surprising. The strength of desire to follow it through was unsettling. What was he thinking? The cleaners had most likely taken the box away as rubbish by now and even if they hadn’t, all he’d achieve would be to give the impression that he wanted these children to stay here and enjoy Christmas. He could make sure they got a much better tree somewhere else. In their new home. A real spruce tree that had gifts beneath it and an angel on the top.
    The girls needed to be cuddled together for more than comfort. That fire would have to be well stoked for a long time to take the chill off this enormous room. He took note of a slightly damp smell, as well, as he slipped out.
    A peal of childish laughter drifted down the sweep of the staircase at the end of the hallway, but fortunately Luke could think of no reason he needed to go upstairs. Except that he felt curiously disappointed. Although he had seen enough to fuel the argument he knew was looming, he decided to check out the last downstairs room. Perhaps the distinct feeling of discomfort at what he was doing here would be relieved if he found something more personal to the previous owner of this house.
    Something that might rekindle the anger that had grown from the loneliness of being so different. Alone. Brought up isolated from parents or siblings. Unwanted to the extent that not even a spark of responsibility remained.
    He hit the jackpot through the door that opened beneath the staircase. Having turned on the light and instantly sensing that this room’s occupant had been absent for some time, Luke froze.
    This was it. Away from an upstairs inhabited by numerous women and children, this had been a man’s domain. The old brass bed had a maroon cover. A dark woollen dressing-gown hung on one of the brass knobs and a pair of well-used men’s slippers lay beneath it. A maroon colour, like the bedspread, the woollen toes of the slippers were a little frayed and the sheepskin lining squashed into an off-white felt. They could have been anyone’s slippers.
    Except they weren’t.
    These slippers had been worn by Giovanni Moretti.
    His father.
    Luke’s mouth was dry. He hadn’t expected anything like this. He’d grown up knowing that his father was a monster. Responsible for his mother’s death and too uncaring to think of his son. He had been an ogre until Luke had been old enough to start feeling angry. To start hating the man. Even then, he had always seemed larger than life. An enemy. A man powerful enough to ruin the lives of others.
    But huge, powerful, evil men did not wear slippers like this.
    They didn’t collect homeless children and get called ‘Uncle’ by everyone, either. His father had owned this house and presumably lived in London since he had been five years old, and he’d never made contact. Never remembered a birthday or sent a letter. And yet he’d left him this house.
    Why?
    To underline the fact that he had existed—close by—and hadn’t given a damn? To make sure Luke never forgot?
    As if he could!
    Luke could actually taste the bitterness that rose within him. Giovanni Moretti had cared about the children other people didn’t want, but he hadn’t cared about his own son.
    He was right to hate this man. To dismiss his life—and this room—with no more than a cursory look.
    A gaze that took in a plain dressing-table that had a brush and comb on its dusty surface and unframed photographs jammed into the frame around the large mirror. Snapshots of people. Dozens of them. Luke found his feet moving in much the same way as he’d been drawn towards Amy and Summer