The Italian Demands His Heirs
Page 17
‘My head’s fine,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I’m just a little...overwhelmed. I never imagined having this conversation, to be honest.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘You never imagined I would one day wish to know my son?’
Annah didn’t like how that question made her insides twist, as if she had some reason to feel guilty. It made her want to push back. ‘You haven’t met my son. What makes you so certain he’s yours?’
‘I’ve seen his birth certificate. And photos.’
Annah blinked. Photos of Ethan? How? She was always so careful. She only used social media for business and she never posted photos of her or Ethan online.
Luca slid his hands into the pockets of his expensive-looking coat. With his dark looks, his lean, broad-shouldered physique and his stylish attire, he wouldn’t have looked out of place on a catwalk in Paris or Milan. In Hollyfield, he looked about as alien as Annah had felt the first time she and Chloe had driven into the quaint country village.
‘Your son was born at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital exactly thirty-six weeks and five days after you and I spent a night together in London,’ he said. ‘I’m no expert on pregnancy, but I can do the math. Unless you slept with another man around the same time who looks remarkably like me, or you were already pregnant by immaculate conception when we met...’ he paused just long enough for Annah’s face to flame at his reference to how innocent she’d been ‘...I am reasonably confident without the aid of a DNA test—which I’m not ruling out, by the way—that Ethan Sinclair is not only your son but my son, as well.’
She glared at him, hating that she had no comeback to any of that. ‘What photos?’ she said instead.
He hesitated for a beat. ‘Surveillance photos.’
Annah sucked in a breath. ‘You’ve been having us watched?’ Her voice rose in horror. Did he have photos of her, too? The sense of violation made her stomach roil.
‘Not me.’
‘Then who?’ she demanded.
His jaw hardened. ‘My father.’
A chill ran up her spine. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said tightly.
She shook her head, confused. ‘Haven’t you asked him?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because he’s dead.’
Copyright © 2019 by Angela Bissell
ISBN-13: 9781488044366
The Italian Demands His Heirs
First North American publication 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Lynne Graham
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 22 Adelaide St. West, 40th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com