Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynne Graham

  ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Luca gritted.

  ‘I’m fine. I won’t be fainting again, trust me. I’m as strong as an ox.’

  ‘Repeat, you’re not going anywhere. You don’t get to drop a bombshell in my life and then tell me that you’re going to walk away as though nothing’s happened.’

  ‘I don’t like the word bombshell.’

  ‘And I’m not particularly in love with the notion of being a daddy in nine months’ time, but there we have it. You’re going to sit back down and we’re going to discuss what happens next in this scenario.’ His eyes involuntarily flickered to her stomach.

  Fatherhood had always been something vague on the horizon. Naturally, he would have a child, preferably a son. It would all be part of the destiny lying in wait for him. Marriage to Isabella and the uniting of two great Italian families. Then a child, an heir to the throne, so to speak. Like him, Isabella would do what was expected and nothing beyond that. They were both very well aware of the circumstances of their individual situations and accepting of it. They were on the same page when it came to their future.

  All pre-planned, laid out with precision. No room for emotion. It was the way he liked it anyway. He didn’t believe in getting carried away. Love, and all the disorderly chaos it entailed, had never been for him. He’d seen too much and witnessed too much. Nothing good ever came from yielding to emotion and allowing it to carry you away until you became a helpless object, drifting wherever it decided to take you. His father had allowed emotion to dictate his life. His ex-wives…the constant upheavals…the shouting and crying and then the vindictiveness born from relationships gone sour. Too much.

  And then his mother. He thought of his mother. He thought of the hole she had left in his father’s life. And in his own. He would never revisit any situation that could put him in that distressing and vulnerable place again. If he could control his emotions, he could control his life. Control. That was what Isabella would bring to the table. He knew where he stood with her.

  The woman looking at him in stubborn silence was the very opposite of Isabella. She’d brought out something in him that had been free and reckless and unchained and there was no place for that man here, in Italy. That man belonged back in Cornwall.

  Did she think that she would find that man again? If so, she was very much mistaken. The Luca Baresi who lived here was not that man, which didn’t mean that he could cheerfully send her on her way, not now that she had lit that fuse under him, a fuse that would spark a fire that would gobble up everything he knew and every plan he had ever made.

  ‘I told you—’ Cordelia began.

  ‘I heard every word you said,’ he murmured smoothly, ‘and now you’re going to hear every word I have to say.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘FIRST OF ALL I will need to have the pregnancy confirmed. I have a trusted doctor.’

  ‘I don’t see the point. I’m not lying and I don’t want anything from you. If you choose to disbelieve me, then that’s okay. I will have done what I came to do and I’ll leave here with a clear conscience.’ She burned with curiosity about this woman he had chosen to be his future wife. Were they lovers? She didn’t want to let her mind drift down those disturbing paths but she couldn’t block out images of him with another woman. Her hormones were all over the place and just thinking those thoughts brought the sting of tears to her eyes.

  ‘Provided there is a confirmed pregnancy, the announcement of our marriage will…not be a straightforward affair.’

  Cordelia’s mouth fell open and she stared at him in astonishment. He didn’t notice. He was frowning, thinking, calculating. She realised that he was working out how to deal with the mess that had landed on his lap.

  But marriage?

  ‘I will have to convene a family meeting,’ he continued, still seemingly oblivious to her gaping incredulity. He was thinking aloud and she could have been a potted plant in the corner of the room for all the attention he was paying to her. She was a problem that had to be addressed and he was in the process of addressing it.

  ‘“Convene a family meeting”?’ she asked, when in fact the question on the tip of her tongue was, Marriage? Are you insane? What on earth are you talking about?

  ‘Firstly, I will, of course, have to break the news to my father.’

  It struck Luca that his father was probably not going to hit the roof, contrary to what everyone else might expect. He knew his father. Giovanni Baresi, like the entire Russo clan, of whom Isabella was one of four daughters, expected him to marry into the other great Italian winery. Celebrations might not be afoot just yet but once the expected announcement was made, and everyone knew that that time was just round the corner because neither he nor Isabella were getting any younger, then preparations would move swiftly and smoothly. The wedding of the decade would be arranged with the exquisite perfection of a highly organised military campaign.

  His father had talked about this arranged marriage recently, before departing on his extended holiday. There had been pressure but the pressure had been slight.

  An arranged marriage. What suited him from an emotional point of view, not to mention financial point of view, was, deep down, anathema to a man like Giovanni Baresi, who had always enjoyed the highs and lows of an emotional-roller-coaster personal life. His great love had died too young but that had not stopped him from searching for its replacement in every unsuitable nook and cranny.

  It had been enough to turn Luca off the whole messy business of falling in love for ever, which was something he suspected his father had never really understood.

  So to have the news broken to him that his son had got a girl pregnant because he had been careless, had behaved out of character, would probably bring a sheen to the old man’s eyes.

  Luca would have to quench any romantic visions his father might have with brutal finality.

  Then he would have to break the glad tidings to Isabella and finally to her parents.

  Then the whole world would know and another, different life would begin for him.

  He thought of Cornwall and the free, wild girl without make-up and he wondered how she would cope with life in Italy. He concluded, before that thought could go anywhere, that she would cope just fine because she would have limitless supplies of money and that always oiled the nuts and bolts of any discomfort.

  He focused on her and narrowed his eyes because she was hardly looking as though she’d won the lottery.

  ‘This won’t be running along the normal lines,’ he informed her with clipped gravity. ‘There is a lot of unravelling that will have to take place. Unpicking expectations will always be a nightmare and expectations about my eventual nuptials with Isabella have long been embedded. Naturally, there will be disappointment all round. Tell me, how did your father take the news?’

  Cordelia hadn’t managed to squeeze a word out. Her head was buzzing. She felt as though she’d been whipped into some other parallel universe, the rules of which she didn’t know and the scenery was not one with which she was familiar.

  ‘My father?’ she parroted weakly, clinging to the one thing he’d said that made any sense.

  ‘Was he…surprised? I don’t suppose…’ Luca had the grace to flush ‘…it was what might have been expected of you.’

  ‘He…he doesn’t know.’ She blushed and looked away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Luca said gruffly and her eyes shot towards him.

  She heard the rough sincerity in his voice and for a split second remembered the guy she had given herself to. He hadn’t been this cold-eyed stranger. He’d been the guy who had just told her that he was sorry.

  ‘Don’t be. Things happen. You can’t always predict the future.’ She cleared her throat. His gaze on her was making her uncomfortable, reminding her of sensations that were no longer appropriate. She sternly told herself that it was precisely because of how
he had made her feel that she had ended up here.

  ‘Actually,’ Luca confessed, ‘I’ve always prided myself on being able to do just that.’

  ‘In which case, I should be the one apologising.’

  ‘For leading me astray?’ His eyebrows shot up and the taut cast of his features relaxed into something approaching a smile. ‘As they say, it takes two to tango and I was very much a willing dance partner.’

  A sudden sense of danger rippled through her. The hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end and there was a tingle between her legs, a shameful feminine awareness that felt utterly inappropriate given the circumstances.

  ‘I…’ She cleared her throat to get a grip and directed her thoughts to her poor dad, who had been handed over to the safekeeping of his arch nemesis, Doris. ‘I plan on telling him when I…get back…’

  ‘This situation is pretty messy for both of us, isn’t it?’ Luca said quietly. ‘How did you manage to get away? I was under the impression that he had quite a hold over you.’

  Cordelia shot Luca a wry look from under her lashes. When they weren’t talking about the pregnancy, she could feel herself noticeably relax even though asking about her father wasn’t so much changing the subject as circling around it.

  ‘I…it’s a long story.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘One of the women in the village happened to be in the very same chemist’s a million miles away from home where I went to buy a…er…test. I didn’t want to be spotted by anyone I knew and there was no way I could go to the local pharmacy, not unless I wanted the news to be shouted from the rooftops before I got to the end of the street.’

  ‘And as luck would have it…?’

  Cordelia nodded. Their eyes met and for a few seconds, neither looked away. Her heart was thumping like a sledgehammer and a fine perspiration had broken out all over her. She wanted to tear her eyes away but she couldn’t and, in fact, he was the one to break eye contact, a dark flush spreading over his high cheekbones as he did so.

  ‘As luck would have it,’ she repeated breathlessly. She sucked in some air and steadied herself. ‘The thing is, Doris isn’t just any old nosey parker. She’s had her eye on teaming up with Dad for ages, years, and she used the opportunity when she realised what was going on to nudge her way past the front door.’

  ‘Surely you could have laughed and told her that it was for someone else.’

  ‘I could have but I guess I just wasn’t thinking straight at the time. I was so nervous. Petrified, as a matter of fact.’

  Luca didn’t say anything. He’d made a deal of his own life being irrevocably altered. He’d used expressions that she had found objectionable. Yet she, likewise, was facing the same life-changing event but had risen above the negativity to a place of acceptance.

  Right now, he didn’t feel great about himself but how was he to suspect, when she walked through that door, the reason for her sudden appearance? And it was perfectly understandable, surely, if he happened to be a bit tactless in his summary of the situation, given the fact that he had had zero time to digest what she had come to tell him.

  And yet…

  Something about the purity of her gaze and the wrenching honesty of her approach shamed him.

  ‘There’s no need to be petrified,’ he murmured as he settled into the idea of a different life from the one to which he had resigned himself.

  For one split second, he felt something that almost resembled elation, then it was gone, replaced by a far more prosaic take on what was unfolding in front of him. The horror, he had to admit, had subsided. He could only conclude that this was what was meant by thinking on your feet and adapting to a situation that had sprung from nowhere and wasn’t going to go away. There would be consequences, not least the financial ones that would have benefited the union of two great wine-producing houses, but he would face those down and, more importantly, he would do so without grudging resentment. He would man up. He was good at that. He’d been doing it since he was a kid, when his mother had died and he’d been left in a wilderness.

  ‘At least, not now.’

  ‘You mean…’ The weird marriage conversation began replaying in her head and she stared at him.

  ‘Tomorrow, I will begin the process of breaking the news to all parties concerned.’

  ‘Luca, no.’ Cordelia felt that she had to interject before he got carried away. ‘I didn’t come here looking for…for that kind of solution.’ She thought of the mysterious, wonderfully suited fiancée he had conveniently failed to tell her about and, just in case he started getting all the wrong ideas, added, ‘We both agreed that what we had was just something that happened in the moment. We both agreed that we weren’t, fundamentally, suited to one another. I know things have changed with this…situation…but it doesn’t mean that we have to start thinking about getting hitched, because we don’t. I am very happy for our child to have an ongoing relationship with you, which doesn’t mean that I have to as well. And marrying you isn’t going to do anything for my apprehension levels. You’re not a knight in shining armour riding in on a white stallion to save me.’

  ‘Cara, there is no option, I’m afraid.’

  Cordelia stared at him and wondered how she’d managed to miss just how old-fashioned he must be, because no one in this day and age thought that a pregnancy had to be accompanied by a walk down the aisle.

  Even in the village where she lived, Marsha Hall had had her baby out of wedlock and not too many eyebrows had been raised.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Maybe in your world,’ he said gently, ‘it is acceptable for a woman to have a baby while simultaneously relegating the father of the baby to the nearest wayside bin, but that’s not how it works in my world.’

  ‘Whoever said anything about wayside bins?’ Cordelia questioned faintly.

  ‘Provided, of course, that everything checks out, you will be having my baby and my baby will become the heir to…’ he looked around him in the manner of a warrior casually surveying the fruit of his many conquests ‘…all of this. As an only child, it fell upon me to take up the mantle of responsibility, to do as duty dictated, and so it will be for my son. Or daughter, of course.’

  ‘Sorry, but there are two of us involved in this equation, Luca. This child isn’t exclusively yours and it’s not a given that his or her future is to patiently do as told because that’s what duty demands! Besides…’ she narrowed shrewd eyes on his lean, handsome face ‘…weren’t you trying to run away from all that wonderful duty of yours when you got caught out in that storm?’

  Luca had the grace to flush. ‘I don’t like the term run away.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Cordelia clicked her tongue impatiently.

  ‘I was having a bit of time out from my responsibilities. Everyone needs a holiday now and again.’

  ‘It wasn’t a holiday, Luca. Holidays are those things people take when they want to kick back and, most of the time, they don’t involve doing a disappearing act from the rest of the world and then faking their identity so that they don’t get caught out. Holidays are things that are booked in advance and everyone knows about them.’

  ‘Since when did you get so argumentative?’

  ‘Do you want to think about any child of yours being so harnessed to a yoke of responsibility that the only way to escape it is to disappear on a boat in the middle of the ocean where there are no prying eyes and no one telling them what needs to be done next?’

  ‘There is a lot of exaggeration in that statement,’ Luca said stiffly.

  ‘I don’t have the same aims as you, Luca, and I don’t like to think that any child of mine would have the same aims as you.’

  ‘We’re going to be married, Cordelia. My child…our child is going to be born into the Baresi family.’

  ‘You’re not being reasonable.’ Cordelia
could hear the slight tremor in her voice. She had come here to deliver a message. She hadn’t dwelled on what the outcome of that message might be. Maybe, deep down, she had romantically dreamed of him telling her how much he’d missed her, welcoming the news about the baby, seeing it as an opportunity to resume what they had so prematurely brought to an end. She would, naturally, express misgivings. After all, he had walked away from her without looking back, but he would persist and she would succumb.

  Admittedly, the daydreams had been unbelievably rosy hued, but even in those rosy-hued daydreams she had never thought that he would propose to her and certainly not a proposal as an arrangement, not unlike the nature of the one he had earmarked for his childhood sweetheart, if that was what she had been. He had been ready to marry for money, whichever way you looked at it, but then she had come along with news of a pregnancy and now he was ready to marry for the sake of the baby.

  Luca Baresi did marriages of convenience but he didn’t do marriages based on love and that was what her hungry, romantic heart craved. Since when had it ever been her dream to be someone’s convenient bride?

  ‘When I marry,’ she murmured huskily, ‘I want it to be for love.’

  ‘Life is full of unfulfilled dreams.’ Luca shrugged. ‘I find it pays to adhere strictly to reality. You will have to break the news to your father and I will understand if you want to do so face to face, but can I trust you to return to Cornwall and not refuse to come back here? Probably not, which is why I will be more than happy to make arrangements for him to join us out here.’ Luca paused. ‘Rest assured he will travel in the very best possible style.’

  ‘He can’t leave his work!’ Cordelia gasped. ‘Nor would he want to!’