by Anna Cleary
‘Work? At this hour?’
‘She’s a midwife. This week her shifts start at eleven. She likes to-’ She waved her hand impatiently. ‘Forget about that.’
Encountering sensual amusement in his dark eyes, she had the nervous realisation that she was about to deliver him a jolt that would wipe away his insouciance. He politely elevated his brows.
Despite her anxiety a false calm came over her, courtesy of a massive surge of adrenaline. She could do this. She had to, for Vivi’s sake.
Straightening her spine, she said in a steady voice, ‘As it happens, I have a child.’
Her quiet words seared the air like nuclear fission.
Alessandro grew very still, though something stirred in the dark depths of his eyes. The silence stretched. ‘Is that so? A child?’ He lowered his lashes, and when he glanced up again, his gaze had sharpened to a cool, wary probe. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t mention it sooner.’
All her muscles were tense. ‘I know. I would have, but, as I said, I found it impossible to contact you.’
Somehow his lean, powerful frame grew even more still, as though carved in ice. Then he blinked, echoing, ‘To contact me.’
She gazed wordlessly at him, her pulse drumming in her ears, and saw comprehension flood his eyes.
He closed them in disbelief. ‘Sacramento.’ He held up a hand as if to hold her at bay. ‘How-old is this child?’
‘Five.’
‘What are you saying? Are you trying to tell me it is-my child?’ The long, idle fingers on his glass tightened convulsively.
She met his gaze squarely. ‘Yes, Alessandro. She is.’
Alessandro felt a numb sensation in his chest. He searched her blue eyes for signs of faltering from her assertion, but they were steady and unwavering. A darker, more shadowy blue, perhaps. Troubled, even. But honest, true and definite.
‘But-’ He felt an urgent need to hold the news at a distance before he examined it closely. ‘You would have told me this.’ He gripped her arm. ‘Surely, you would have told me.’
‘I would have, if I could.’ One delicate eyebrow raised, she glanced down at his encircling fingers, and he released her arm at once. Shock. It must have been the shock. Almost unconsciously she rubbed the spot, then shrugged and spread her hands. ‘As I explained, you weren’t at Harvard when I called.’
‘No, I know, but-you knew I worked for Scala Enterprises. You could have phoned the head office. Sent a letter.’
‘I did send a letter to the office in Milan, where you’d worked before. Said you worked. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if any of the things you’d said were true.’ He flushed with anger, and she added, ‘You must realise, when I read about your wedding…’
His eyes flashed. ‘Ah, now I understand. That’s why you didn’t contact me. Because of Giulia.’
She felt her own anger rise. ‘Well, what do you expect? Would your bride have welcomed the news? Would you?’
‘Possibly not, not at that stage.’ His lean, handsome face had hardened to a stern, proud mask. ‘But you didn’t have the right to make that judgement. It was not up to you to decide what I should do in regards to a-a child.’
Her heart was thumping, her blood furiously eddying along her arteries like Rocky River rapids. ‘All right, then, what would you have done if you’d found out? Would you have wanted her in your life?’
He gazed at her, his eyes brimming with some fierce, dark emotion, and bit out, ‘You have no idea, do you? No idea.’
‘I don’t, no.’ She took a swallow of wine in hopes of calming her shaking voice. Not to reveal her excruciating fear. But driven by what she knew she must say, even if it meant offering up her darling, she said hoarsely, ‘So what now, then? Now that you know. Do you intend to participate in the parenting? Be her father?’
He looked stunned, as if such an idea had not even occurred to him. ‘Participate?’ He shook his head, growling, ‘How can I? My base is in Europe. I travel. Constantly. I do not…I am not the sort of man who…’ His eyes were glittering, his lean hands so expressive of his inner disturbance. ‘This needs to be considered. Of course you will need money. That is easy-no problem, but as for this-this parenting…What are you expecting? What do you want from me?’
‘Nothing.’
The blunt word erupted from the recess of fear in her heart with a sincerity that didn’t escape Alessandro, judging by the swift upshoot of his brows and a look in his eyes that suggested he was more than merely taken aback.
He looked as if he’d sustained another shock.
‘Sorry.’ She spoke rapidly, regretting her unfortunate outburst. ‘That sounded a bit blunt. I just want you to understand that it doesn’t have to be the end of your life as you know it.’ She evaded his eyes. ‘I’m not asking for anything from you. It’s probably not the same here as it is where you come from. People aren’t expected to make unwelcome marriages, so you can relax. You don’t have to rush me to the altar.’ He drew breath as if to speak, but she held up her hand to forestall him. ‘Just in case you’re wondering, you’ve got no chance.’ She summoned up the ghost of a smile. ‘It’s too late now, anyway. My reputation is already ruined.’ She stared down at her twisting hands. ‘We-like the way we are. Mum, me and Vivi.’
His stunned look receded. He sat in smouldering silence, a glint in his narrowed gaze, his mouth a grim sardonic line.
All at once he swallowed the last of his wine and rose to his feet. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
OUTSIDE, striding along the pavement with Lara at a pace in tune with his musings, Alessandro drew deeply of the night air, as if the chill might calm his desire to smash something. There were issues to be considered here, and he wasn’t likely to fight his way through if his blood was fired with unnecessary emotion.
He needed a cool, sharp brain. Illogically, Lara’s revealing response to his query had jabbed at him. He knew very well ‘nothing’ hadn’t meant nothing from him. It had meant nothing of him. He gritted his teeth. He shouldn’t allow himself to be bothered by that. He was over all that negative fallout from the past. So she’d made it clear she didn’t want him in her life-their lives-why did that have to make him feel so raw?
Obviously, from a rational viewpoint, no contact at all would be better for the child than meaningless attempts at an insincere relationship that could never develop. If her mother was happy to raise the infant without making any demands of him, it was surely a matter to celebrate.
And maybe the child would be better off. What would he have to offer a child?
He glanced at Lara’s slender jean-clad form hurrying along beside him and once again the wave of unreality engulfed him. Unbelievably, she’d been pregnant, made pregnant by him. He tried to imagine her swollen with his child, and felt a bizarre quickening of his pulse. For a crazy instant he wished he could have seen that, smoothed his hand over her round belly, felt the full, milk-laden breasts. He shook off the sensuous image. Dio, was he sick?
Only a few minutes ago he’d been lusting after her as though no time had ever elapsed, contemplating whizzing her back to the hotel and taking the erotic curves and hollows of her gorgeous body back into his glorious animal possession.
He felt his abdominal muscles clench in a silent groan of loss. Desire had to be the last thing on his mind now. She was a mother, while he was…
Sacramento. A father.
The irony of it. What sort of a father could he ever make, with his experience?
Scenes from the nightmare segment of his own childhood lurked in the corners of his mind, threatening to storm centre stage, until with a bracing of his will he banished them back to the hell where they belonged.
One thing he could be sure of. Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, the moral issues, the woman’s needs, he knew with all his heart that Fate had decreed some men should never be entrusted with the care and nurturing of little children. It was well documented that people behaved as parents as they t
hemselves had been raised.
Though…Some opposing instinct sprang forward to conflict with the sickening suggestion. Surely it could not always be the case. Who was to say he would follow the pattern of his stepfather, when it had been his life’s work to be the antithesis of that weak, violent man?
Would he ever be driven to vent his nightly rage and fury on a woman or a child? A little girl? He couldn’t imagine himself. He’d felt plenty of anger on occasion, even fury a couple of times, but he’d never experienced a need to damage and punish others.
Almost certainly, his instinct grasped at the assurance his mother had given him. He’d always held fast to her assertion that he took after his real father, that tall, gentle figure who was no more than a shadow on the edge of his memory.
But what if he were wrong? What if he’d absorbed the poison into his child’s soul?
‘Alessandro.’ He became aware of a tug at his sleeve. ‘Slow down a bit. Do you mind? I’m having to run to keep up.’ She smiled, though there was a ruefulness in her blue eyes, as if she guessed at his turmoil.
Impossible. She’d made it clear she hardly knew the slightest thing about him. If she had, if she knew how much he’d wanted her, yearned for her, would she have dismissed him so carelessly that long-ago summer?
He made a wry mental grimace. And here she was, doing it again.
Still, he slowed his steps and presented his cool, smooth face. ‘Sorry. I was forgetting. I’m…There’s-a lot to think of.’
‘I know. Look…Look, I’m sorry to have been so tactless in the telling of it. I know this must have come as a terrible shock.’
‘It is a shock, certainly.’ But terrible? Did it have to be? That maverick thought jumped out at him, glimmering, mysterious, and he shoved it to the back of his brain to dwell on later.
As though sensing the explosive nature of his silence, she continued a nervous stream of chatter, her words misting on the night air. ‘You’ll want to have the DNA testing done. I’m ready for that, of course, though you’d never have any doubt if you saw…’
He stopped still and held up his hand. ‘Please. If I’m to have minimal contact with this-situation, it’s better you don’t tell me any details about it.’
He felt himself flush, knowing he had sounded cold, inhuman even. He could sense her shock, but it was better for all their sakes if he didn’t have to think of the child as a person. Her eyes widened at his clipped tone, but then she nodded in hasty agreement.
A chill like ice settled in his chest. How ironic, that the woman he’d desired above all others was anxious only to see the last of him. ‘I’ll-investigate the testing procedure here and do my part separately,’ he said, a little less curtly. ‘I believe we can-co-ordinate the process.’
‘All right. Fine.’ She glanced at him in appeal. ‘Please, Sandro, don’t be so angry. You look like a thundercloud.’
Her use of his affectionate name stung like crazy, and brought all his resentment and outrage back to the surface. He expelled an incredulous breath and turned to her, flinging out his hands. ‘What do you expect, Lara? You have kept a child-My…My-’ He smote the air. ‘Hidden for five years. I am-’ He reefed a hand through his hair. ‘I am blown away. Of course it’s a shock. It’s a responsibility.’
‘Well, I think I know something about that.’ There was an emotional tremor in her voice.
He stopped and grabbed her arms, forcing her to face him. He could feel the life force pulsing through her slim, vibrant flesh. ‘This wasn’t how it had to have been, though, was it, tesoro? You could have had my support. If you’d wanted to…If you’d really tried you could have contacted me.’
‘I did really try. Do you think I wanted to be alone?’ Her mouth twisted and there was a vulnerable quiver in her voice. She lifted her hands and gave him a little push.
He turned away, unwilling to imagine the difficulties she must have endured, the hardships. Unwilling to acknowledge…Oh, Dio. He was flooded with the most excruciating guilt.
For an instant he covered his eyes with his hand, swamped by the damning images. Her beauty on that long-ago beach, his desire, her innocence…
He shook off the useless thoughts and forced them back behind the firewalls of his conscience.
‘All right, I’m sorry.’ Even he could hear the gruffness in his voice. He resumed his stride, and evaded her gaze, a violent chaos in his heart. Guilt and remorse for what he’d done, the trouble he’d made for her, and, undermining his anger, a treacherous sort of tenderness. If he once looked into her eyes he wouldn’t be able to resist touching her, holding her, and it could only lead to the pathway now forbidden for all eternity.
An honourable man did not seduce a woman, leave her pregnant, then seduce her all over again at the first opportunity. Especially after she’d rejected and dismissed him for the second time.
Regret speared through him for the passion he would never taste again. Per caritá. What had he ever done to deserve this?
He noticed they’d turned off the route they’d come, down behind the shops and cafés and galleries, and had plunged into a maze of leafy little personal streets. He was insanely tempted all at once to take her hand, feel her slim palm in friction with his, but he controlled himself. That would be too much like affection. Affection was not what he could afford. She had made her embargoes clear. She didn’t want him in her life. Not now, and never again.
They were passing what looked like a schoolyard, with painted swings and slides and childish paraphernalia. She turned her head, then paused as something inside the brick-and-iron fence caught her attention, causing him nearly to bump into her. The sudden proximity brought him an intoxicating whiff of her hair.
‘Oh, look,’ she said. ‘Damn. See that? They’ve forgotten to cover the sandpit.’
‘What?’
He hadn’t meant to growl. It was probably the unwelcome realisation of what the place symbolised. Six years ago she’d never have paid the slightest attention to something as mundane as a schoolyard. He supposed mothers cared about such things.
His lip made an involuntary curl, and he decided for his sanity’s sake to cull all thoughts of the situation from his mind. Concentrate on the here and now.
To make up for his impatience he made a polite display of peering into the dimly lit grounds with interest.
Across the playground, brick buildings loomed, grim and Victorian in the shadowy dark, lit by occasional security lights protruding from under their eaves. The yard looked ghostly, with shifting drifts of moonlight under big, spreading pines.
He followed her gaze and managed to determine a pale patch under the trees. Before he could make proper sense of it, she had lodged a toe onto the base of the fence, and was hoisting herself up onto the brick fence post. In another second she was down on the other side.
He had to admit, reluctantly swinging over after her a few resistant seconds later, she seemed as lithe and supple as she’d been six years before. No one would ever suspect she’d been swollen with child, as the saying went. The curve of her hips and long, slim legs still looked every bit as graceful in jeans. In fact, for a few seconds, when the feminine swell of her bottom had been deliciously defined as the fabric had tightened against her, he’d been reminded…Smooth and taut as a peach.
If only…If only his memory of seeing her nude weren’t still so sharp.
She cast him a glance over her shoulder, alluring as sin while at the same time innocent, and it struck at his memory with an almost visceral bittersweet punch.
It was just the way she’d looked at him that faraway summer. Exactly the way.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Look.’
In a few strides he caught up and stood beside her, bemusedly gazing down at a large rectangular depression filled with sand. ‘So?’
‘It should have its cover on. I s’pose the janitor must have forgotten.’ She glanced about her. ‘I think I know where they keep it. I’ll just run over and see if it’s there.’
He took off after her, cursing, wishing it had all been different. As they had been before, without complications. Why did she have to bother with schoolyards? Why couldn’t they just be lovers again, with the world on a string?
‘It’s around here,’ she called. ‘Do you mind giving me a hand?’
Perhaps it had been a mistake to kiss her in the brasserie. This was a school, hardly an erotic setting, but as he followed her into a shadowy alcove under a staircase in the deserted place the air suddenly sprang alive with sexual overtones. In spite of the taboo aspects of the occasion, echoes of rules and discipline and good behaviour, even worse, her now being a mother, that kiss simmered in his blood like a provocation.
Whatever she said, she couldn’t deny her response to it. She’d wanted him.
‘Oh, look, it’s here.’ She turned for an instant to glance at him, and the awareness in her eyes sparkled with as much promise and exhilaration as the bubbles in a fine prosecco. His heart rate quickened.
In the dull light cast by the security lamp he saw a wooden frame with a tarpaulin nailed across it, leaning against the rear wall.
She reached out to seize an end of it, then let it go at once with a little exclamation, sinking her teeth into her plump lower lip, then sucking at one of her fingers.
His blood stirred.
‘Here,’ he intervened, stepping forward to lift the modest frame from her, unavoidably brushing her with his body. Electricity thrilled through him, and he guessed she’d have felt the same little frisson.
‘Careful of splinters.’ There was huskiness in her voice, a sensual inflection she couldn’t conceal.
He carried the frame easily across the asphalt to the grassy spot where the sandpit lay under the pines. ‘You’re very public spirited,’ he observed. ‘It’s a fine night. Would it matter so much to have left it?’