‘The paper says he is Cesario Piras, billionaire owner of the Piras-Cossu Bank. He is Sophie’s father and she has a right to a huge maintenance allowance from him.’
Surely Mel couldn’t have made up the story that she had slept with Cesario? It wouldn’t have made sense for her to lie when a DNA test could prove paternity. But what if Mel hadn’t considered a DNA test? What if, seriously ill, perhaps even sensing that she did not have long to live, she had seen the picture of Cesario, remembered that he had been drinking heavily at the party, and guessed he wouldn’t remember anything of that night?
‘Unless what?’ Cesario demanded.
Beth’s mind reeled. Had Mel taken a desperate gamble to try and arrange financial security for her baby daughter by dishonestly claiming that Cesario was the father of her child? If so, it meant she had knowingly involved Beth in what amounted to a scam, with the intention of getting money from him.
No wonder he looked so grim, she thought sickly. From the coldness in his granite-grey gaze he clearly believed that Mel had lied, and that she had been part of the subterfuge.
‘Unless what?’ he said again.
His hooded gaze hid his thoughts, but Beth sensed he was angry.
‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘It’s obviously all been a huge mistake.’
She could not bear the hard look in his eyes when only a few minutes ago—before he’d had the call from the clinic—he had looked at her as if. as if he cared for her a little. She swallowed. Stupid thought. Of course he didn’t care for her; he simply enjoyed having sex with her. But now there was no reason for her to remain at the castle. Their affair would end, she would take Sophie back to East London, and within a short time Cesario would no doubt forget that either of them existed.
‘I don’t believe Mel lied,’ she said fiercely. ‘She was my best friend and we were always honest with each other. I don’t understand why she was so sure you were the father of her baby.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve always found it difficult to believe that I could have spent the night with a woman and have no memory at all of her. Now I know I didn’t sleep with Melanie Stewart. The results are indisputable. They show probability of my paternity to be nought percent—meaning it is one hundred percent certain that Sophie is not my child.’
The words settled like lead weights in Cesario’s chest. He did not have a daughter. The angelic little girl who was sleeping peacefully in the cot, blissfully unaware of the furore surrounding her, was not his.
He walked back across the room and stared down at Sophie. Beth was right; she had grown in the past two weeks. She was lying with her arms outstretched, the tiny fingers on one hand curled around the silk ribbon attached to her favourite teddy. Her pink cheeks were petal soft and her mass of dark hair still reminded him of Nicolo, even though he now knew that any resemblance between her and his son had been purely in his imagination.
Dio, he hadn’t expected to feel so gutted that she wasn’t his, he thought painfully. Sweet little Sophie, with her button-round eyes and gummy smile, was adorable. Only a person with a heart of stone could not love her—and he had discovered recently that his heart had the consistency of a marshmallow, he acknowledged derisively.
How vulnerable she was, this tiny child who would never know her real father or mother. She had a guardian, of course. He knew Beth loved Sophie. But Beth lived in a run-down tower block in a part of London where crime and drug dealing were rife. It was no place to bring up a child.
He could not allow them to go back there, Cesario thought adamantly. Sophie had slipped into his heart and helped ease the pain of losing his son. He wanted to protect her—and Beth too, he admitted. He hated the thought of her scraping a living and struggling to bring up her friend’s child on her own.
He would give her money, he brooded. He would set up a fund for Sophie and buy a house in England so that Beth could care for the baby in pleasant and safe surroundings. Although, knowing her stubborn pride, he would have his work cut out to persuade her to accept financial help from him, he thought ruefully.
There was no need for him to do more than offer his assistance. The child and her guardian were not his responsibility. So why did he hate the thought of Beth and Sophie leaving the castle? Why did he feel, Cesario thought savagely, that his heart had been torn from his chest and the happiness he’d felt these past few weeks was trickling away as fast as sand in an egg-timer?
CHAPTER TEN
AN HOUR later, Cesario found Beth in the master bedroom that they had shared since they had become lovers. She did not glance at him as he walked into the room, but continued to fold items of clothing and place them in her suitcase.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Packing, of course.’ Her tone suggested it was a perfectly reasonable activity. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to take a few of the things you bought me as I no longer have any of my own clothes. But I’ll reimburse you for them as soon as I find a job back in England.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t want you to pay for them.’ He frowned as the meaning of her words sank in. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’
She still avoided looking at him, and in frustration he spun her round and slid his hand beneath her chin to force her to meet his gaze. The shimmer of tears in her eyes made his insides clench. ‘You’re upset.’
‘Of course I’m upset that Sophie doesn’t have a father.’ She swallowed. ‘You would have been a wonderful daddy to her. But now she’ll grow up without a father, just as I did.’
Cesario’s enigmatic expression gave away nothing of his thoughts, but Beth could guess what was going on behind his cool grey stare and she hated the idea that he was judging her.
‘I know what you must be thinking,’ she cried wildly. ‘You think I brought Sophie to Sardinia to try and get money out of you. But I swear I only came because I believed Mel and I thought—if there was a chance that she was yours—Sophie deserved to know the identity of her father.’
‘I know that.’ His quiet statement stopped her in her tracks.
She stared at him uncertainly. ‘You don’t think I tried to con you because you’re wealthy?’
‘No.’ There was no doubt in his mind. ‘I’ve said before that I think you are utterly incapable of lying, cara.’
‘But … in the nursery you looked angry.’
‘I’m disappointed that Sophie isn’t mine,’ he admitted roughly. ‘I’m not good at showing my feelings—it’s not something I was ever encouraged to do.’ He sighed. ‘I think I understand the reason for the confusion. Did Mel actually show you the newspaper photo she said she’d recognised me from?’
Beth shook her head. ‘No. When I visited her in hospital she was excited that she had discovered who Sophie’s father was, but the cleaning staff had taken the paper away and I never saw it. But I believe Mel did see a photo,’ she insisted.
‘So do I—which is why I asked the PR department at Piras-Cossu to check the files for any articles about me or the bank that appeared in English newspapers in the first weeks of November last year. Sophie was born at the end of October, and you told me her mother died two weeks later, so Mel must have seen a photograph of the man she had slept with some time in those weeks.’ Cesario handed Beth a sheet of paper. ‘My PR people just faxed me this. Only one article about Piras-Cossu appeared in the English press during that time—and I’m sure this is what Mel saw.’
Beth stared at the copy of the newspaper page. Below the title High Street Bank Profits Soar was a photo of a group of men in suits who were clearly bank executives.
‘That’s you, in the centre of the picture.’ She frowned. ‘But—if you didn’t sleep with Mel why did she recognise you?’
‘I don’t think she did. I think she recognised someone else. Look at the list of names printed at the bottom of the photograph. They’ve been listed in the wrong order. The name beneath my picture is Richard Owen—who is actually the UK managing director of Piras-Cossu and is standing to the left
of me.’
‘And the name Cesario Piras is printed beneath the photo of the man on the right of you,’ Beth said slowly. She snatched a breath, feeling as though she had been winded as she studied the image of a young, good-looking man standing beside Cesario. ‘Anyone who looked at the photo would assume that this man was Cesario Piras. Did he attend the party in London a year ago? Could he be the man Mel spent the night with?’
‘He was certainly at the party,’ Cesario confirmed.
‘But that means he must be Sophie’s father. Mel didn’t know his name, but she thought she had discovered his identity from the newspaper, unaware that the paper had made a mistake. Oh, God, I can’t believe a stupid reporting error has caused so much confusion.’ She sank onto the bed, feeling sick as the implications sank in. ‘I’m so sorry. I should have made more checks before I brought Sophie here and accused you …’
She could not bear to look at Cesario. He had every right to be furious with her, she acknowledged bleakly. What a fool she had been. But she’d had no reason not to take what Mel had told her as the truth. And Mel hadn’t deliberately misled her—she’d made a mistake because of the misprint in the newspaper.
She tensed when Cesario sat down on the bed, but to her relief his voice held no anger. ‘You’re not to blame,’ he said quietly. ‘You were grieving for your best friend and trying to cope with a newborn baby. Mel had asked you to find her baby’s father and you were determined to carry out her last wishes.’
Beth stared back at the photo. ‘So who is this man who we think could be Sophie’s father?’
‘Luigi Santori—he was a junior executive at the bank and had been transferred to work at the London branch.’ Cesario grimaced. ‘He had a reputation for sleeping around, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he’d had a one-night stand with Mel.’
Something in Cesario’s tone made Beth dart him a puzzled look. ‘Why do you speak about him working for the bank in the past tense? Where is he now?’
‘He was killed in a motorbike accident three months ago.’
‘Oh, no …’ A chill ran through Beth. ‘Then Sophie is an orphan.’ For a moment she felt overwhelmed by the realisation that Sophie was entirely her responsibility. ‘Poor little girl,’ she whispered. ‘At least I had my mother until I was twelve. Sophie will never know either of her parents, and I am the only person she has to take care of her.’
‘That’s not true.’
Cesario jerked to his feet and walked over to the window, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets and his shoulders rigid with tension. ‘You could stay here—you and Sophie. And I could …’
To Beth’s frustration he did not finish the sentence. She stared at his back, wishing he would turn around so that she could see his face and maybe understand what he meant.
‘What could you do?’ she said at last, when the silence between them had stretched her nerves to snapping point. ‘I don’t understand. Sophie is not your child—so I’ll take her back to England and make a life for us.’
‘What kind of life can you give her, struggling to get by as a single mother and trying to juggle holding down a job with bringing up a child?’ Cesario demanded. He swung round. ‘I care for Sophie.’ It was so alien to him to express his feelings, but when Beth had said she planned to return to England it had struck him forcibly that he did not want to lose her or the baby girl who had filled the hole in his heart left by the loss of his son.
‘I could pay—’
‘No!’ Beth cut him off instantly.
‘For Sophie to have ballet lessons, holidays—all the things you wished for when you were a child and that you won’t be able to afford to give her on your own.’ He ignored her interruption. ‘Is your pride more important than Sophie’s welfare, Beth?’
‘No, but …’ She shook her head, trying to marshal her thoughts. ‘You don’t have to support me and Sophie. We are nothing to you.’
‘You know that’s not true. I have grown to love Sophie.’
Cesario felt like a blind man, trying to feel his way along a path he’d never travelled before. It was hard for him to expose his feelings, but at least talking about Sophie was easier than facing up to how he felt about Beth. He didn’t know how he felt; he just knew that he had found something with her that he’d never had with any other woman—and he wasn’t ready for their relationship to end.
‘What I’m suggesting is that I become Sophie’s joint guardian and that the two of you live here at the castle. I am a father without a child, and Sophie is a child without a father,’ he said deeply. ‘I want to be a part of her life.’
Beth stared at him, shaken by the strength of emotion in his voice. ‘What about me? You can’t mean you want me to stay here? But I will never leave Sophie. I intend to be a mother to her like I promised Mel.’
‘Why shouldn’t you stay here?’
Cesario strolled back over to the bed where Beth was still sitting. He no longer seemed tense, but beneath his indolent stance she sensed his formidable strength and a determined purpose that worried her almost as much as the glitter in his grey eyes. Her heart suddenly began to beat uncomfortably fast and she jumped up from the bed. She felt an urge to run from the room, from him, but before she could take a step he snaked his arm around her waist and pulled her against him.
‘Why not stay?’ he said again, his gaze locked with hers as if he could see into her soul. His voice dropped to a husky growl. ‘The passion we share is beyond anything I have ever experienced before. We both felt an overwhelming awareness of each other on the night you arrived at the castle and even though we both fought it ultimately we could not deny our mutual desire.’
He lifted a hand and smoothed her hair back from her face. ‘We have become friends as well as lovers these past weeks, haven’t we, cara?’ he murmured. ‘We both love Sophie. Let me take care of both of you and help you to give her the happy childhood that we were both denied.’
A hundred questions hurtled around Beth’s mind. How long did he want her and Sophie to stay at the Castello del Falco? Was he really offering the baby a home in Sardinia? What would his role in Sophie’s life actually be—a father figure, a benevolent uncle? She gnawed on her lip, tormented by uncertainty. What role would he expect her to play in his life? They were lovers now, but what would happen in the future when he tired of her as he surely would?
She sensed he was waiting for her to answer, but she was finding it hard to think straight when she was desperately conscious of his big, muscular body pressed so close to hers that she could feel the hard ridge of his arousal nudging between her thighs.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispered.
Cesario cupped her face in his hands. She had such a beautiful face. Even when he closed his eyes her features were imprinted on his mind: her slanting green eyes, the sweep of her long eyelashes, the gentle curve of her smile. He felt a rush of tenderness that seriously undermined his determination to cling to the belief that the reason he wanted Beth to stay with him was because they had great sex.
‘Do what your heart tells you,’ he found himself saying. He—who always followed his head and never listened to his heart. He slanted his lips over hers and kissed her, slowly and sweetly, making him ache inside. She opened her mouth beneath his and he groaned and crushed her to him, sliding his hand to her nape and gently tugging her head back so that he could plunder her lips with heated passion. He was aware that his heart was telling him something, but he was afraid to listen. He told himself that it was just desire he felt for her—just a sexual hunger that had ensnared him and seemed unlikely to fade any time soon.
He hooked his fingers beneath the straps of her top and dragged them down until her breasts spilled into his hands. Tenderly, almost reverently, he caressed the small rounded globes, and then he lifted her up so that he could take first one taut nipple and then its twin into his mouth, suckling her until she gasped his name.
Beth gave up trying to fight her need for Cesario to make lo
ve to her. This was where she wanted to be, in his arms, with his hands feverishly stripping them both of their clothes. He tumbled her down onto the bed and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down onto her and loving the feel of his naked skin on hers, the roughness of his chest hairs against the softness of her breasts.
He slid his hand between her legs and found her already wet and eager for him. Her soft smile shattered any hope he had of a slow, leisurely loving, and he slanted his mouth over hers at the same moment as he eased the swollen length of his arousal into the welcoming heat of her femininity.
He took her fast and hard, and yet with such tender consideration that Beth felt tears sting her eyes as she reached that magical place and her body convulsed in the throes of an exquisite climax. Cesario came almost simultaneously, unable to control the wildfire pleasure that he always experienced with Beth.
Afterwards they lay together in a tangle of limbs while their breathing gradually returned to normal. He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled at the sight of her flushed cheeks and softly swollen mouth.
‘So you’ll stay.’
It was a statement rather than a question, as if there had never been any doubt. But as Beth watched him stand up from the bed and stroll into the en-suite bathroom the reality of the situation caused a host of doubts to gather like black clouds in her mind. They hadn’t discussed the practicalities of her and Sophie living at the castle, but the more she thought about it the more pitfalls she could see.
‘I’ll need to find a job,’ she said when he walked back into the bedroom five minutes later, rubbing his wet hair on a towel. ‘I’m grateful for your offer to help support Sophie financially, but I’m responsible for her myself and I can’t allow you to keep me for.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, for however long I’m here.’ she finished uncertainly.
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