by Lynne Graham
‘I won’t be your mistress, your kept woman, whatever you want to call it,’ she stated curtly. ‘I thought you cared about me—’
‘Santo Cielo...of course, I care about you! Stop dramatising the situation,’ Rocco whipped back round to rest his stunning dark gaze on her in cool challenge. ‘Be practical. Right now you’re as poor as a church mouse!’
Amber lost even more colour and studied her tightly linked hands.
‘No doubt if I was as poor as a church mouse and on the brink of being unemployed and homeless as well, you would offer to keep me!’ Rocco continued in a very specious argument, attempting to present the unacceptable in an acceptable guise.
‘You would starve sooner than take me up on the offer. Furthermore,’ she countered tightly, ‘you dug yourself into a hole when you phoned Harris Winton and screwed up my job security, so you can hardly walk away without having me on your conscience—’
‘Couldn’t I?’ Rocco shot her an exasperated appraisal. ‘I could have just handed you a cheque in compensation. Are you coming to London or not?’
She swallowed the thickness in her throat. ‘No...’
Rocco withdrew a gold pen from his jacket. ‘I’ll leave my phone number with you—’
‘No...’
‘I’m not about to grovel,’ Rocco grated.
‘You’re refusing even to discuss that newspaper story last year!’ Amber condemned.
‘If we talk about it, I might just wring your neck!’ Rocco sent her startled face a flashing look of censure. ‘I did not appreciate being publicly labelled a five-times-a-night stud—’
‘But I never said that...I didn’t make one tiny mention of even sleeping with you!’ Amber gasped strickenly.
‘So how come it was true?’ Rocco growled, unimpressed by that plea of innocence.
‘Lucky guess?’ she muttered chokily.
‘The day after that trash was printed, I walked into a Mayfair restaurant with a client and a bunch of city traders at the next table stood up and gave me a slow handclap.’ The banked-down rage in his stormy gaze at that unfortunate recollection flailed her.
Amber just cringed.
‘But I could have got over that...it was the sense of betrayal I couldn’t take,’ Rocco spelt out fiercely. ‘I trusted you. When you really care about someone, you’re loyal and you don’t discuss that person with anyone else!’
‘If you still believe that I would’ve discussed our intimacy with anybody, then get out of here because I don’t want you near me!’ Amber told him feverishly, but she was horribly impressed by his definition of caring.
‘If you can’t take the heat, you should have stayed out of the kitchen, tabbycat,’ Rocco responded with silken derision. ‘Don’t start thinking that giving me a great time in bed automatically wipes out what you did last year!’
Amber stood up on hollow legs. At that crack, an uneven laugh escaped her. ‘I am so much more forgiving than you are—’
‘What have you got to forgive?’
Just at that moment, Amber felt dead inside, as if he had killed all her feelings. ‘You didn’t love me enough. I can see that now...odd, how I refused to face that at the time. A man who really loved me would have given me the chance to explain myself.’
His darkly handsome features clenched. ‘Amber—’
Amber turned away. ‘Please leave—’
‘I haven’t got time for this right now,’ Rocco delivered, his tone sufficient to tell her that he wasn’t taking her seriously.
‘So go!’
‘You don’t mean that.’
Amber breathed in so deep, she marvelled that she didn’t explode and fizzle round the ceiling above him.
Rocco reached the door and spread fluid and confident hands. ‘You’ll be on the phone within twenty hours—’
Amber’s teeth gritted together.
‘You need me.’
‘No, I needed you eighteen months ago,’ Amber countered fiercely. ‘But I don’t need you now. I got by without you once and I will again. If I get in touch with you in the next few days, Rocco...I warn you, it won’t be about us.’
Rocco sent her a sudden vibrant grin of amusement. ‘I’ll see you in London, tabbycat.’
Only if she went, she wouldn’t be arriving alone, Amber thought heavily. She listened to the slam of the front door downstairs and hugged herself. He didn’t listen; he never listened to what he didn’t want to hear. It wasn’t that he had a huge ego. No, Rocco had something much harder to deflate: immense and boundless confidence. In addition, he had once been tremendous at second-guessing her every move. Only this time, he was miscalculating because there was a factor he didn’t know about. I would never set out to hurt you. Stinging tears burned her eyes. She felt even more alone than she had felt when she had finally appreciated that she was pregnant by a man who wouldn’t even take a phone call from her. Why, oh, why had she been such a fool as to imagine that the clock could be turned back when Rocco had never loved her in the first place?
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT WAS ironic that Harris Winton could not conceal his dismay when Amber went up to the house and tendered her resignation without notice early the following morning.
‘I’m not a media spy, Mr Winton, and I’m not leaving because I have some poison-pen article written either,’ Amber declared with wry humour and, now that she was leaving, not caring what opinion she left in her wake, continued, ‘Rocco gets a little carried away sometimes. I’m going because it no longer suits me to work here.’
After the turmoil of the night, a strange accepting calm settled over her as she drove over to her sister’s house. It had been a pretty awful job and she hated being so dependent on Opal and Neville’s charity and seeing so little of her son. Freddy was growing fast and he wouldn’t be a baby for much longer. It was time to make fresh choices and leave pride and personal feelings out of the question. The guy who had sworn he didn’t turn his back on his responsibilities was about to find out that he had. How he felt about that, she didn’t much care at that moment.
Opal was rarely taken by surprise. Reclining on a sofa in her elegant drawing room, looking very much like a fairy-tale princess with her flowing pale blonde hair and her exquisite face, she smiled with satisfaction when Amber announced that she had given up on gardening. ‘You can move back in here immediately. It was very convenient having you here as second in command with the children. It suited you too. You saw much more of Freddy.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve decided to move back to London.’ Amber drew in a deep breath as Opal’s fine brows elevated. ‘I’m going to tell Rocco about Freddy—’
Her sister sat up with a start. ‘Are you crazy?’
Amber would have much preferred not to admit that Rocco had been staying with the Wintons earlier that weekend but in the circumstances it wasn’t possible. As she completed her halting explanation about having ‘got talking’ with Rocco and certain fences having been partially mended, while refusing to indicate which fences, her sister wore her most cynical expression of freezing incredulity.
Opal then looked at her in outright disgust. ‘So Rocco Volpe just snaps his fingers and you throw up everything and go running—’
‘It’s not like that—’
‘Isn’t it? You didn’t tell him about Freddy and we both know why, don’t we? But what was the point of keeping quiet? The guy will laugh in your face if you try and pin a kid on him!’ Opal forecast.
Amber paled.
‘You’ll humiliate yourself for nothing. He’ll walk out on you and if you hear one more word from him, I guarantee it will be through his lawyer!’ Opal continued.
‘Maybe...but I’m doing what I should have done a year ago,’ Amber declared tightly. ‘Not for my sake, but for Freddy’s. I want the right to tell my son who hi
s father is and not have anybody laugh in my face or his.’
‘Tell me, are you imagining that Rocco will open his arms to your child and turn into Daddy of the Year?’ Opal demanded with total derision.
Amber studied her sister with hurt, bewildered eyes. ‘I don’t have any expectations at all. I don’t know how he’s likely to react. But I thought you’d think I was doing the right thing.’
‘You’re making yet another big mistake.’
‘I don’t think so.’ It took courage for Amber to stand up to her sister.
‘Why don’t you tell Amber the truth about why you feel the way you do, Opal?’ Neville had appeared in the doorway, his frank blue eyes pinned to the wife he adored with rare disapproval.
‘Stay out of this, Neville—’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’ The older man sighed. ‘You’re too prejudiced. The man who let you down was a married man—’
Amber stilled at that revelation and looked at her sister in astonishment. ‘The man you told me about, the commitment-phobe you were with for five years, was married to another woman?’
Twin highspots of furious colour now burned over Opal’s cheekbones.
‘And like most married men having an affair, he couldn’t run far enough when your sister told him she was expecting his child,’ Neville completed heavily.
‘Is this true?’ Amber questioned her rigid and silent sister. ‘You were pregnant?’
‘I miscarried...fortunately,’ Opal admitted curtly. ‘But those facts have no bearing on the advice I’ve given you.’
Amber could not have agreed with that appraisal. She had just seen in Opal’s rigid face the depth of her sister’s bitterness, her sister’s own memory of humiliation and rejection at the hands of the married man she had loved. Naturally that experience had coloured the forceful opinions which Opal had given Amber. ‘I’m sorry you got into a situation like that,’ she said awkwardly. ‘But I wish you had told me the whole story.’
Ten minutes later, Freddy crawling round her feet in pursuit of a wooden car, Amber called the number Rocco had left with her. She got an answering machine and all she could do was leave a message.
However, within an hour Rocco called her back. Having answered the phone, her still-frozen-faced sister extended the receiver to Amber as if it were an offensive weapon.
‘When do you want to travel?’ Rocco asked, disconcerting her with that prosaic opening question, for she had expected a variety of greetings and that had not been one of them.
‘The day you’re coming back,’ she said stiltedly. ‘But I’ll drive myself up—’
‘You sound terrified. You won’t regret this,’ Rocco swore huskily.
‘I think you will,’ Amber muttered tautly. ‘I’m just warning you...OK?’
‘When did I contrive to forget that you’re a pessimist, who nourishes negative expectations of anything new and different?’ Rocco loosed an extravagant sigh.
‘You haven’t even told me where we...’ She stumbled in dismay. ‘I mean, I’m going to stay—’
‘No, that’s why you have to be collected and you can’t drive yourself. I very much want to surprise you—’
‘I don’t like surprises.’
‘Within a week of Christmas, that is not good news, tabbycat.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ Amber told him woodenly.
‘Whatever you say,’ Rocco drawled with scrupulous politeness. ‘We’ll cancel Christmas too, shall we? Obviously you’re not in the mood for it either.’
‘Look, I’ve got to go,’ Amber muttered, blinking back hot tears and swallowing hard. ‘I’ll see you when you get back to London.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWO days later, a long, opulent limousine drew up to collect Amber from her sister’s home.
The uniformed chauffeur was somewhat disconcerted to be confronted with a disassembled cot, a baby seat, a buggy, two bulging suitcases and a laundry basket full of toys and other unavoidable essentials.
‘Will you get it all in?’ Amber asked anxiously.
‘Of course, madam.’
Before leaving for work, Neville had pressed a mobile phone on her. ‘I think you should’ve given Rocco fair warning of what’s coming. I’ll be working late at the car showroom tonight. If there’s a problem, wherever you are just call me and I’ll come and collect you and Freddy.’
Opal had been even blunter. ‘Don’t be surprised if Rocco takes one look at Freddy and slams the door in your face! I cannot credit that you are doing this. It’s insane...it’s like something a foolish teenager would do.’
Amber only began to question what she was doing and how she was doing it on the drive to London. That was when she recognised her own bitterness and her own seething desire and need to confront Rocco. It would have been more sensible to tell Rocco about Freddy without Freddy around. But then, in such circumstances, there really wasn’t a right or an easy way, was there?
When the limo headed for Holland Park and turned beneath an imposing arched gateway and came to a halt in front of a picturesque Georgian mansion set within lush lawned grounds, Amber at first assumed it was a hotel. Realising that it was a private residence, she was taken aback. Was this where Rocco now lived? Eighteen months ago, he had been living in a penthouse apartment, opulent and impressive if not remotely cosy, the perfect backdrop for a single male.
An older woman greeted her, introducing herself as the housekeeper. Freddy was much admired. Rocco had been held up in Rome, Amber was informed, and was not expected back before nine that evening. As it sank in on Amber that Rocco had had her brought to his own home, her nervous tension began increasing. Of course, it didn’t mean that he had plans for her to stay under the same roof for more than one night.
By eight, Freddy was tucked into his cot in a charming guest room and fast asleep after a more than usually active day. Almost an hour later, Amber heard a car pulling up outside. She was wearing a fitted burgundy skirt suit and high heels, her hair conditioned within an inch of its life to fall round her shoulders in shining waves. She wanted to knock him hard with what he had done to her life, but she definitely didn’t want him looking at her and thinking that dumping her again would be no great sacrifice.
Rocco strode through the door of the drawing room as Amber reached it. She had only a single enervating glimpse of his startlingly handsome dark features before he hauled her into his arms, clamped her to his big, powerful frame and crushed her startled mouth beneath his with a groan of uninhibited hunger.
That passionate onslaught knocked her sideways. The taste of him after a three-day-long fast was too much altogether for her self-discipline. Every prepared speech just went out of her head and she clung to him to stay upright on knees that had turned weak. As he sent his tongue delving between her readily parted lips to search out the moist, tender interior in explicit imitation of a much more intimate invasion, Amber’s temperature rocketed into outer space. Her whole body went into sensory overload in reaction, her breasts pushing against her bra, straining peaks pinching into taut, erect buds, a stirring desperate ache making her clench her trembling thighs together.
‘It’s a torment to stop and breathe, cara,’ Rocco growled against her reddened mouth, gazing down at her with smouldering golden eyes. ‘I just want to jump you like an animal. Three days can feel like half a lifetime, especially when I wasn’t sure until the very last minute that you would come here.’
‘Weren’t you?’ Blinking rapidly, Amber studied her clinging hands, which were pinned to his shoulders, and dragged them from him in an abrupt guilty motion, face burning.
‘I would’ve driven down to fetch you if you had backed out on me. In any case, I ought to meet your sister and her husband,’ Rocco stated without hesitation.
Amber stiffened and dropped her head at that unwelcom
e announcement. Why on earth did she have this terrible fear of Rocco meeting Opal? And then the answer she had long avoided out of her own reluctance to face it came to her. Opal would set out to charm and enchant and hog centre stage because Opal always did that with men. Neville’s adoration alone wasn’t enough to satisfy her sibling’s ego.
‘And right now,’ Rocco continued as she focused on him again, ‘there is nothing I want to do more than carry you upstairs and make mad, passionate love to you but—’
‘Rocco...’ Amber was back on track again and striving to muster the words for her big announcement, and then she just blundered on into it before she lost any more momentum. ‘When you ditched me, eighteen months back, I was pregnant!’
His black luxuriant lashes semi-screened his intent dark gaze, but his bone-structure had clenched hard. He stared at her with riveted attention. ‘You can’t have been—’
‘I was actually two months pregnant by then, but I’m afraid I had no idea. I was losing weight, I wasn’t eating properly or even sleeping enough, and my cycle had never been that regular. When we were still together, it didn’t even occur to me that I might be pregnant because I never had the time to stop and think and worry,’ Amber said in a driven rush. ‘My life then was just one mad whirl.’
Rocco had been listening to her with an intensity as great as the stunned light growing in his dark as midnight gaze. ‘Pregnant...’
It seemed to her that he could hardly bring himself to speak that word out loud and she could see for herself how appalled he was.
‘But you were taking the contraceptive pill,’ he continued hoarsely.
‘I had only been taking it for a couple of weeks,’ Amber reminded him uncomfortably. ‘And if you cast your mind back—’
‘I don’t need to have my mind cast back,’ Rocco interposed tautly, pacing over to the window to stare out at the street lights glowing behind the belt of trees surrounding the house, his wide back and powerful shoulders taut with strain beneath his tailored dove-grey suit jacket. ‘You warned me that the doctor had said you needed to take extra precautions. It was the middle of the night and I had nothing left to use and I said that it wasn’t that easy to get pregnant.’