Nicola, oblivious to the tension crackling around her and blithely unaware that she was the focus of his intense concentration, began opening the parcels, her face softening into pleasure as she held up the stuffed Winnie the Pooh bear for them all to see, then the little stack of books, which she looked at one by one, turning each over in her hand until Riccardo muttered uncomfortably, ‘I wasn’t too sure what you liked and what you did not.’
‘Thank you very much.’ The almond-shaped eyes were now very curious indeed. ‘I love them. Aunty Jules can read one to me tonight,’ she added politely, her eyes flicking for support from Julia as she became attuned to the undercurrents zinging through the room.
When Jeannette spoke the strange scenario was broken, thankfully, and then, with tea and pudding and the necessary bustling around the kitchen, something approaching normality was achieved.
Jeannette chatted happily to Riccardo, leaving Julia free to say as little as possible by way of direct address, although her eyes drifted back to him with unnerving regularity. She watched the way he sat in the chair, his long fingers curled around the cup of tea her mother had made for him, his lithe body inclined towards his daughter. The kitchen was warm and he had removed his jumper so that now he simply wore a green and white checked short-sleeved shirt that exposed powerful, swarthy forearms liberally sprinkled with dark hair. Everything about him redefined the word male. How gorgeous he and Caroline must have looked together, she thought. He was so tall and dark and forceful and she had been just the opposite, small and blonde and exquisitely pretty. Just the sort of woman a man like Riccardo Fabbrini would be attracted to, Julia thought. Not a timid brown sparrow like herself.
She dragged her attention back to what was happening around her and only realised the time when her mother rose to leave.
‘Will I see you again?’ Nicola asked shortly after Jeannette had left, pausing by the kitchen door with her small hand in Julia’s, ready for her routine of bath and bed. ‘Are you and Aunty Jules going out together?’
The innocent question hung thickly in the air. Of course Nicola must have wondered what this strange man, whose resemblance to her she had either not noticed or else only subconsciously acknowledged, was doing in the house. And she had overheard her mother insinuating more than once how nice it would be if Julia could find herself a nice boyfriend and think about settling down before all the nice men were snapped up. Nicola had put two and two together and was now asking whether they came to four.
Julia quickly tried to work out how she could disabuse her niece of this notion without her denial leading to other questions, such as why a perfect stranger who was not going out with her had arrived armed with presents for a child he had never seen.
‘Yes, we are, as a matter of fact, little one,’ Riccardo said smoothly, before Julia could intervene. He countered her shocked look at him with a bland smile that challenged her to refute him. ‘We are most certainly going out.’ This time the smile sent a chill of apprehension racing down her spine. It was a smile loaded with intent.
‘It’s time for your bath,’ Julia told Nicola in a breathless voice.
‘And you’ll read me a story?’
‘I will,’ Riccardo intervened, ‘if you would like.’
‘I would rather Aunty Jules. She always reads to me now.’
Only Julia caught the grimness of his expression as their eyes tangled, and she shivered. She would let none of her own apprehension show for Nicola to see, and she didn’t, but by the time she returned to the kitchen her seething temper at his casual exploitation of the situation was on the verge of reaching boiling point.
She steamed into the kitchen to find him lounging on one of the kitchen chairs, flicking through Nicola’s drawing book, with a glass of wine in his hand. He looked up as soon as she stormed in, in no way apparently intimidated by the light of fire in her eyes.
‘Would you care to tell me what the hell you were playing at? Telling Nicola that you and I were going out? How dare you?’
‘Why don’t you go and pour yourself something to drink and calm your frayed nerves?’
His dark eyes were unreadable. Gone was that glimpse of a man no longer in control of his situation. All that hesitation he had displayed in the company of his daughter had vanished. Every inch of him now breathed self-assurance.
Julia wondered how she could have softened towards him, even momentarily. The only drink she wanted to pour was not down her throat but over his arrogant head!
‘If my nerves are frayed then you’re the reason!’ Julia sat down opposite him and his utter composure only served to fire her up more. ‘What did you think you were doing, telling Nicola that you and I…that you and I were going out together!’
He took his time answering. He inspected the pale gold liquid in his glass, then tilted it to his lips so that he could swallow another mouthful.
‘Did you think that you were going to have things all your own way?’ he asked softly. ‘You suggested that I don’t tell my own daughter who I am because it might destabilise her and she is already coping with the loss of her mother and your brother.’ He found that he could not bring himself to refer to Martin in any other way. ‘I respected that decision, but tell me this…how am I supposed to put in an appearance without her wondering who the hell I am? And why am I showing such a disproportionate interest in her when I am nothing to you?’
‘She’s five years old! She’s hardly going to sit down and analyse the situation!’
‘She might be five years old but she is not a fool!’ He leaned forward, his mouth a thin line of ruthless determination. ‘She was clever enough to ask me exactly who I was! What do you suggest I tell her? The plumber? And I will be back to pay another visit to take care of the leak? Oh, and by the way, I shall return with more presents? Do you imagine that she would have fallen for something like that?’
‘I would have thought of something!’ Julia snapped back. ‘Eventually. When I thought the time was right.’
‘Well, perhaps I am not prepared to play your waiting game, Miss Nash. No, Julia. Now that you and I are going out together.’
‘We are not going out together!’ The way he had said her name. Like a caress. It had stolen over her heated skin and something else had thudded through her. It was something Julia had no intention of focusing on. Instead, she rose to her feet, muttering under her breath, and poured herself a glass of wine.
‘And by the way,’ she ranted, one hand on her hip, the other holding her full glass, ‘make yourself at home, why don’t you? Just waltz along and help yourself to the drinks!’
Riccardo looked at her and felt his lips begin to twitch into a smile. The picture she presented! All ruffled outrage, cheeks flushed, her rimless spectacles glinting furiously in the light, five foot three of womanly fury. He had seen many women and in many different lights, but this sort of outspoken fury, unrelated to anything sexual, was a first.
‘Are you going to sit down and listen to what I have to say or are you going to stand there exploding?’
‘Has anyone told you that you, Mr Fabbrini, are an arrogant swine?’
Riccardo carefully considered the question. ‘No, but then you might want to remember that perhaps my arrogance has to do with the situation you have thrust upon me.’
Julia muttered again, but sat down and drank a long, soothing mouthful of her wine.
‘I have to get to know my daughter. Gradually. For that, I have to have a reason to visit her, if you don’t want her to know who I am. What better way to visit on a regular basis than in the guise of your lover?’
Julia felt a steady heat begin to pulse in her veins. His eyes roved lazily over her flushed face.
‘That way, I can get to know her. I can be allowed the chance to know my own daughter. To bring her the presents I have been denied the pleasure of doing for five years, to hold her hand in mine, to receive her trust. Because she loves and trusts you and it might make it easier for her to accept me through you.’
His deep, slightly accented voice washed over Julia, filling the corners of her body like incense. She was dimly aware that he was being reasonable.
‘And it is not as though I am competing with anyone else,’ he finished smoothly, dipping his eyes so that his long lashes drooped against his cheek. ‘Is it?’
‘That’s not the point,’ Julia said stubbornly.
‘No, but it makes things a lot easier. It’s a nice house,’ he said, looking around the kitchen. ‘Nothing at all like the house we shared.’
Julia followed his eyes but said nothing. The house he had shared with Caroline had been, according to her descriptions of it, a show home. A place designed for the sumptuous entertaining of important people.
‘It’s very comfortable and homely,’ he mused. ‘A family home.’
‘Are you surprised?’
‘Surprised because Caroline never seemed interested in homeliness. She always preferred the trappings of wealth.’
Julia laughed and he looked at her narrowly.
‘Care to share the joke?’
‘The joke is,’ Julia said sardonically, ‘that Caroline hated the trappings of wealth.’
A dull flush crept into his face. He felt like someone on the edge of some impossibly big secret, a secret that everyone knew about but had managed to keep from him. ‘According to you,’ he said coolly, and Julia raised her eyebrows.
‘According to Caroline, actually. She loathed the army of interior designers who spent weeks swarming through your mansion. When she and Martin bought this house she chose everything herself. From the colours of the paint on the walls to the shade of every tie-back in every room. How on earth could you have lived with someone, been married to them, and not have realised that what they truly wanted was a cottage in the country, and if not the cottage in the country then at least an unpretentious family house in the city?’
‘I don’t appreciate being patronised, Julia. You’ll have to be aware of that if this relationship of ours is to stay the course.’
‘We don’t have a relationship, as I’ve already told you. And I’ll be as patronising as I like. You might be able to give orders to all your minions, but I’m afraid I’m not open to being ordered about.’
Riccardo carefully placed his empty wine glass in front of him and proceeded to relax in the chair, hands behind his head. He looked at Julia with interest. Funny, but when she was still she gave the appearance of someone serene, something in the calm set of her features and the way she seemed to observe without comment would lead anyone to assume that she was as placid as a lake. But there were times when she spoke and her face was alive with animation. Like now. Like earlier on, when she had stormed into the kitchen, all fire and brimstone.
His eyes dropped from their interested inspection of her face to the swell of her breasts, just visible under the sexless shirt. His interest became somewhat less dispassionate and he straightened up to conceal an inappropriate stirring in his loins.
‘Is it any wonder your mother is tearing her hair out at the prospect of you finding a man?’ Riccardo drawled, pulling the tiger’s tail. He felt a sudden thrill of excitement when she stood up and came across to where he was sitting. She leaned towards him, quivering with aggression, her face pink with anger, hands firmly placed on her boyish hips.
‘My mother is not tearing her hair out at the prospect of me finding a man,’ Julia hissed. ‘And I utterly resent you voicing opinions on my private life, about which you know absolutely nothing! You met me for the first time yesterday and don’t you dare think that you are somehow entitled to shoot your mouth off as though you know me. You don’t know me and you never will!’
‘Never say never,’ Riccardo informed her silkily. He knew that he was pushing her to the limits of her patience. After what he had been through, that in itself should have been a source of immense satisfaction, but there was something else. He was enjoying her open display of temper. He wondered what she would do if he really gave her something to get worked up about. If he pulled her towards him and kissed her. Covered that angry mouth with his own. He imagined that she would fight him, but then what? Melt? And if she did melt, how would that feel?
‘I think it’s time you left, Mr Fabbrini.’
‘The name is Riccardo. Use it.’
‘Or else what?’
‘You don’t want to lay down any gauntlets for me,’ he said softly and watched her grey eyes hesitate as she wondered whether to continue the argument. She backed away, leaning against the kitchen counter, waiting for him to stand up and leave.
‘To all intents and purposes, you and I are now an item. Are we not, Julia?’
There he went again. Saying her name in that velvety, caressing voice. He was doing it deliberately. Laughing at her. And he talked about her patronising him!
‘If you think it would help you in getting to know your daughter then I shall oblige, but…’
‘But…?’
‘But don’t think that that gives you any rights over me…’
‘Rights? What kind of rights?’
Julia didn’t know what kind of rights. She knew what she wanted to say but she just couldn’t find the words, so she glared impotently at him.
‘It’s time you left. I have to work tomorrow and I don’t want to be late.’
‘It’s…’ Riccardo calmly consulted his watch ‘…eight-forty-five. Surely not even a primary-school teacher with an over-developed sense of duty could call that late. And what about dinner?’
‘What about dinner!’
‘Perhaps we should have some.’ Perversely, now that the object of his visit had retired to bed, instead of rushing to leave, to clear out of the company of this woman whom he had seen from the outset as a conspirator in his ex-wife’s plot to deceive him, he wanted to prolong his stay.
Aside from anything else, he had no intention of being seen to be malleable. She might be able to call the shots, for the time being, as far as his daughter was concerned, but there her temporary power ended.
‘I want to find out about Nicola,’ he inserted when she made no move to abandon her mutinous stance by the kitchen counter. ‘I know nothing about her and I have a lot of catching up to do.’
‘What sort of things do you want to know about?’ Julia asked distantly, and he stood up and moved across to her with such speed that she was barely aware of his intent until he was standing directly in front of her, caging her in with his hands, his face dark with sudden anger.
‘What do you think? Why don’t you use your imagination and figure it out? Pretend for a moment that you’re in my shoes. Wouldn’t you have just a little shadow of curiosity about your child?’
Julia was finding it difficult to breathe, never mind pretend anything. His face was so close to hers that a sudden movement would involve physical contact of the most disastrous kind.
‘All right,’ she said weakly. ‘I’ll…do something for us to eat and you can ask me any questions you like…’ He didn’t move and she was formulating a polite way of telling him that cooking was an impossibility while she was being held hostage against a kitchen counter, when he suddenly reached out with one hand and removed her spectacles.
Without them, Julia felt hideously vulnerable. She blinked rapidly. ‘What are you d-doing?’ she stammered.
Riccardo didn’t know what he was doing. He had wanted to see her eyes without the barrier of her glasses. They were a pure shade of grey and without her spectacles concealing them were fringed with thick, long lashes. He stared at them and then abruptly pushed himself away, while she turned and immediately re-armed herself with her glasses.
‘When did she start school?’ he asked gruffly, sitting back down, shaken by the realisation that he had wanted to kiss that quivering mouth of hers again. He reminded himself that, aside from being on the opposite side of the fence, she was not the sort of woman he was attracted to. ‘Does she enjoy it? Does she have friends?’
Julia breathed deeply and
began answering his questions while she rummaged in the cupboard for a saucepan and busied herself with chopping mushrooms and onions, efficiently preparing a light pasta dinner for them. Something that could be cooked and eaten within the hour, after which he would have no excuse to stay. His presence in the kitchen was wreaking havoc with her normally very unruffled nervous system and the sooner he cleared out the better.
‘And was she happy?’ he asked when his plate had been deposited in front of him and he had poured them both another glass of wine. ‘Here? With Caroline and your brother? Did she ever ask about me?’
Julia glanced across the table to him. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t living under the same roof, so I don’t know what questions she asked or didn’t ask about you.’
‘And you didn’t have any thoughts on the matter?’ he pressed on mercilessly. ‘The three of you were perfectly content to erase my existence? What about your brother? Did he share the same cavalier attitude?’
‘We’ve been through all this,’ Julia said tightly.
‘And we’ll go through it again. Tell me.’
‘Caroline felt as if she was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,’ Julia sighed, closing her knife and fork and propping her chin on the palm of her hand. ‘You want to make her out to have been without any morals, but she was afraid that if you knew about the pregnancy, about the baby, you would take Nicola away from her. She said that you were fiercely family-oriented, that you came from a big, close family and that the thought of sharing the up-bringing of your child with another man would have been unacceptable to you. And Martin loved her. He agreed because he only ever wanted what made her happy. I know you don’t want to hear any of this, but you did ask.’
‘Was she that scared of me?’ he asked and Julia hesitated, not knowing whether he really wanted an answer or whether he had just been thinking aloud, turning over the thought in his mind.
‘Answer me!’ he commanded, which was Julia’s cue to spring to her feet and begin clearing away the dishes.
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