by Maggie Cox
‘Enough questions for now, I think.’
There was a definite tightening to Dante’s perfectly symmetrical jaw, and Anna clamped her teeth down on her lip, embarrassed at the flow of curiosity that had unstoppably rushed out. But frustration niggled her—because how were she and her daughter supposed to get to know him if he was so reluctant to reveal himself?
‘Why don’t you sit down? ‘ she suggested, awkward now.
Dropping down onto the couch, his expression relieved, Dante undid the single button on his tailored black jacket to reveal a midnight-blue cashmere sweater. The golden lights in his hair glinted fiercely beneath the soft glow of one of the nearby lamps, the odd silver strand here or there making him look mouthwateringly distinguished. As if she wasn’t already provocatively aware of his charismatic presence, the exotically eastern tones of his aftershave sensuously made a beeline into Anna’s solar plexus and caused a near meltdown.
‘Open the Barolo,’ he said casually, gesturing towards the bottle in her hands. ‘It’s a cold, rainy night outside and it will warm us up.’
His barely perceptible smile pierced her heart. Why did it seem so hard for him to relax? What was it about his past that still racked him with shadows? she mused.
‘Okay…I will.’
Briefly disappearing into the kitchen to locate the corkscrew, Anna was grateful for a few moments to herself. It was clear that the inflammatory attraction that had flared out of control that night five years ago had not dimmed one iota. At least not for her. To be frank, the realisation filled her with trepidation. How could she be clear-headed and wise and do the right thing for her and Tia if all Dante had to do was walk into a room to have her temperature shooting off the scale?
In the living room once more, she gladly gave the task of pouring the wine to him. Right then her hands weren’t anywhere near steady enough to do it without the possibility of spilling some. As she crossed the room to the single plump armchair, Anna felt Dante’s glance track her progress.
Before raising his glass to his lips, he asked, ‘Is the baby asleep?’
Charmed and taken aback that he should refer to Tia as ‘the baby’ with such affection in his voice, she knew her smile was unreserved. ‘Yes, she is.’
‘I’d like to look in on her before I go tonight.’
‘Of course.’
‘There’s so much about her I want to know. What food she likes, her favourite colour, the book she likes the most.’
His gaze seemed to take him away to distant shores for a moment, and Anna caught her breath as a merciless stab of guilt assailed her.
But before she could comment he continued, ‘We should have a toast. To Tia and her happy future.’
‘Tia and her happy future,’ she concurred a little huskily, her mouth drying, because she knew that the future was one of the most pertinent things they had to discuss tonight. What would it entail? Not just for her precious child, but for Anna herself now that Dante had reappeared?
Sipping at her wine, she allowed the alcohol to swim warmly into her blood for a moment, hoping it might relax her. ‘This is nice…it reminds me of violets somehow.’
‘You have a good nose. Barolo does have a bouquet of violets. You could have a new career in wine-tasting.’
‘Will I need a new career? ‘
‘Your interview wasn’t that bad.’
‘How comforting,’ she quipped, unable to hide the surge of annoyance that surfaced. ‘I’ve had no complaints about how I carry out my job so far.’
‘There’s no need to be defensive. You’ve nothing to fear from me, Anna. I certainly don’t have any plans to fire you from your job.’
To her alarm, Dante set his wine glass down on the coffee table and got to his feet. Then he was standing in front of her, his nearness making her feel quite lightheaded.
‘Put your wine down for a minute,’ he commanded quietly, voice low.
Captured by his hypnotic glance, Anna obeyed. He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
‘That dress you’re wearing hurts my eyes.’
Embarrassment made her want the floor to open up and swallow her.
‘I know it’s a bit dazzling, but I grabbed the first thing out of my wardrobe, to tell you the truth.’ She was fumbling for a foothold but couldn’t find one. Had his shoulders always been this wide…his chest this broad and strong? The male heat he emanated so—so drugging?
‘It’s dazzling not because of the riot of colour but because it’s on you. Dazzling like this glorious hair of yours.’ Capturing a handful of burnished copper silk between his fingers, Dante raised the fiery strands to his lips and kissed them.
Anna couldn’t move. It took every ounce of iron will she possessed not to give in to the overwhelming impulse to lay her head against his chest and wrap her arms round his waist. The intoxication of his presence almost made her forget why he was there…almost.
‘I am so glad you haven’t had it cut short since I saw you last.’
‘I—I wouldn’t do that. But, Dante—we—we need to talk,’ she murmured, her own voice sounding like a dazed stranger’s.
‘We can talk like we talked when we first met. Like this. Do you remember, Anna? ‘
The heat of his lips touched the side of her neck, searing the delicate skin there with an indelible brand. ‘I remember,’ she husked, her limbs turning to liquid silver. ‘But we should—We need to.’ A helpless little moan escaped her as Dante moved his lips up to her ear, his mouth planting a hot, devastatingly erotic kiss on her highly sensitive lobe. The molten heat that pooled in Anna’s centre threatened to make her lose her capacity to think at all.
‘What do we need to do?’
With a smile in his voice that was a seductive cocktail of fine malt whisky and luxurious honey, Dante settled his hands on her hips and firmly pulled her against him. The hard male contours encased in his fluidly elegant tailored suit and the suggestion of barely contained impressive masculine strength made Anna shiver. Mesmerised by the haze of longing in his burning gaze, she nervously swallowed. She yearned to succumb to the desire that was flowing with equal ardour through her veins, but an anguished moment of clarity returned, making her stiffen in his arms.
‘What did you mean when you said you weren’t going to fire me from my job? I don’t like the sound of that. It makes me feel like you potentially could fire me if you wanted to. I can’t say that fills me with confidence. not when I have a child to support, and depend on my job for a roof over our heads.’
There was a flash of impatience in his eyes.
‘The point is that you don’t need to depend on your job to sustain you, or for a roof over your heads! I meant it when I said we should marry. And when we’re married I’ll take care of you both.’
‘You make it sound so straightforward and easy. I’m not an investment you’re interested in, Dante. I’m a fully functioning independent human being with my own ideas and thoughts on lots of subjects—including marriage. It’s completely wrong of you to assume that I’d instantly give up everything I’ve worked so hard for to throw in my lot with a man I barely know. A man who only wants marriage because he’s discovered that the one-night stand that we had resulted in a child!’
He set Anna free with a muttered oath and stalked across the room, scraping his fingers through the dark blond strands of his previously groomed hair. His glare was blistering in its intensity. ‘What better reason to marry someone than because you made a child together? Tia deserves to have her father in her life. I want that for her and I want that for me—and as a “fully functioning independent human being” you have no right to deny us!’
‘I’m not saying I’d deny you. But marriage isn’t for me. I…’ She lowered her gaze to stare down at the floor, ‘I like my independence. I like the fact that my hard work has finally got me somewhere and now I have opportunities… I’m captain of my own ship and it’s a good feeling.’
‘So you like being captain of your own
ship—but do you honestly like being alone? Raising a child on your own is far from easy, no matter how many opportunities for advancing your career come your way. When the baby is ill do you welcome being her sole carer, with no one but yourself to rely upon to make the best decisions for her welfare? And when she’s ill what do you do if you can’t take time off work for fear of losing your job and your income? ‘
Moving back across the room towards her, Dante had that faraway look Anna had seen before in his eyes.
‘Once when I was five I had the measles…had it quite severely. My mother had no choice but to go out to her job in the evening—it was literally a matter of whether we ate or starved. She asked a close neighbour if I could stay with her for the evening, but the woman refused because she had five children of her own and didn’t want to risk them getting infected. My mother left me in bed. The neighbour promised to regularly check up on me while she was gone. I had a raging fever, and by the time my mother came home I was convulsing. We didn’t have a telephone. She ran with me through the night to a man she knew who owned a restaurant, and he called a doctor. If it weren’t for that I probably wouldn’t have made it.’
His tone bitterly rueful, he shook his head. ‘My mother went to hell and back that night. If she had had someone to help her, someone who cared equally for my welfare, she wouldn’t have suffered the torment and guilt that she did. And I have no intention of ever letting my daughter be in the precarious position I was…no matter what your assurances.’
Barely knowing how to answer him, Anna wept inside for the agony Dante and his mother must have endured that terrible night. It was the kind of nightmare scenario every mother dreaded.
Before she realised it her impulse to touch him, to comfort him in some way, overtook her, and she laid her hand against the side of his face. His skin was velvety warm, pulsing with the vibrant strength she’d detected earlier. ‘I love that you care for Tia so deeply already. But I’m lucky, Dante. I may be a single mum, but I have friends—people who really care for Tia—people who would help us at the drop of a hat.’
‘That may be so, but I have no intention of leaving my child’s well-being to the precarious fair-weather attention of mere friends! No matter how much you might trust them, Anna. So…’ He winced a little when she withdrew her hand, almost as if she’d struck him. ‘There’s only one solution to our dilemma, and I’ve already told you what that is. Now it’s just a matter of arranging things. The sooner the better, I think.’
Stroking her hands up and down her arms, Anna sensed their tremble.
‘I’m not getting married…I told you.’
‘Then regrettably, you’re pushing me into taking action I’d much rather not take,’ Dante retorted. ‘But I will take it if it means I can be with my daughter. I’ll go to court to get full custody of Tia.’
Was it only to her own hypersensitive hearing that her heartbeat sounded so deafeningly loud? Anna thought. She’d been musing on a mother’s worst nightmare but surely this was one of the most horrendous threats a woman could face? That her child’s estranged parent might sue for custody and take her away—maybe to live in another country entirely? Searching for compassion in Dante’s flint-like stare, worryingly, she found none.
‘No!’ she protested loudly, tears stinging the backs of her lids.
He lifted an eyebrow, but looked no less resolved on his course. ‘If you don’t want me to take such an action, then I suggest you stop putting obstacles in the way and agree to our marriage.’
‘That’s so disrespectful. You’d resort to something as low as blackmail to get your own way?’
‘I told you.’ His broad-shouldered shrug was unapologetic. ‘I’ll do anything I can to be with my daughter… the daughter you have so callously denied me knowledge of for four years because my so-called reputation made you believe I didn’t deserve to know about her. And you have the audacity to stand there and lecture me on respect!’
‘I didn’t keep her from you deliberately.’ Wanting to cry in frustration as well as pain, Anna stared pleadingly into the heartbreakingly handsome features of the well-dressed man in front of her. ‘Don’t you think I would have preferred to be in a good relationship with my baby’s father than be asked not to try and get in touch after we parted that night? I know it was a difficult time for you, but it didn’t exactly make me feel wanted to know that you could just walk away from me and never look back. And how do you think I felt when I discovered I was pregnant? Especially when it was the first time I—’ She bit her lip on what she’d been going to say and continued, ‘I was shocked, lonely, scared. I experienced every one of those states—but even taken together they don’t come near to describing how I felt.’
She noticed that Dante’s glance was quizzical.
‘It was the first time you…what, Anna?’
Backing up nervously, she reached for the glass of wine she’d left on the side-table near the armchair and drank some. She let the alcohol hit before raising her chin with a defiant air born of Dutch courage. Her dark eyes focused firmly on Dante.
‘It was the first time I’d slept with a man.’
The oath he swore was in Italian, and because she was shaky after revealing her news Anna returned her glass to the table, waiting for the tirade of disbelief that she was certain would explode towards her.
But when next he spoke Dante’s voice was surprisingly quiet, his words measured. ‘You were untouched when I took you into my bed…that’s what you’re telling me?’
‘I was. Couldn’t you tell I was no experienced seductress who made a habit of going to bed with male guests? I’d barely even been kissed before!’
‘Yet you were molten heat in my arms. Everywhere I touched you, you made me burn.’
Praying for some way to steady the deluge of emotion that tumbled forcefully through her, Anna despaired of ever feeling calm again when she saw the renewed flame of Dante’s desire sinfully reflected back at her… just as if it had never gone away. With a disparaging toss of her head, she answered, ‘I think I lost my mind a little that night. I would never usually behave in that way with a strange man…with any man for that matter.’
‘We lost our minds together, Anna.’ He sounded seductively accepting and non-judgmental. ‘And the result was little Tia. Can you regret such an outcome? ‘
‘Never.’
‘Then we have to deal with this situation like adults, instead of feuding children, and that means our daughter’s welfare takes priority.’
‘You mean…’ Anna surveyed him with a frown. ‘You mean you still believe marriage is the only answer? ‘
‘I do.’
‘If that’s the way you want to go, how about trying a trial period of living together first?’
‘Too uncertain—and it hardly represents the security I want for Tia.’
‘Surely that depends on how we deal with it? If we’re committed to making it work, then living together could be just as secure as marriage.’
‘No. That’s not what I want.’
‘And if I refuse? You’d really take me to court for custody?’
‘I would.’ His piercing glance was as unyielding as ice.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT DIDN’T exactly enhance his self-esteem or his pride, having to potentially resort to blackmail to persuade Anna to marry him, but since he had made the earth-shattering discovery that he was a father, Dante’s determination to help bring up his daughter was cast-iron. There was nothing the redheaded beauty could say that would deter him.
But in truth he was taken aback that she could so easily refuse him. He’d met plenty of women on his travels who considered him quite the catch.
Once upon a time his ex-wife Marisa had said those very words to him. ‘You’re quite a catch, Dante… It’s a wonder that you’ve been allowed to say free and single for this long…’
But that assertion by her had soon turned to ashes when she’d discovered that for her husband raw ambition came first an
d his most intimate relationship a very poor second. Even when his marriage had been in its dying stages he hadn’t sought to rescue it, or been able to express his emotions. Marisa had walked into the arms of another man and Dante had simply let her—if he was honest, feeling nothing but relief.
Now the greatest shock that he had ever received…the news that he was a father…reverberated doubly on learning that Anna had been a sexual innocent when he’d slept with her. It also made him remember the flicker of apprehension in her eyes when, for a few moments as she lay beneath him, he’d sensed definite tension in her slender frame. What must she have thought when he’d asked her to spend the night and then warned her not to expect anything else? Not a phone call, not even his real name—nothing! What an introduction to the world of adult relationships she’d had.
Fast forward five years on, and Dante knew that if he’d met Anna today he would never have let her go. not for all the million-dollar real estate in the world. With her gorgeous flame hair flowing unhindered over her shoulders and her brown eyes sparkling like fire-warmed brandy she was vivacious, pretty and completely unpretentious. Her eye-catching dress with its patent green belt highlighted how tiny her waist was, and the black leggings she wore cleaved lovingly to her long, model-slim legs.
Studying her now, he acknowledged that she made the blood pound through his veins like no other woman he’d ever met. So, even if she despised him for putting her in such a compromising position, he would endeavour not to disappoint her as he had disappointed his ex. He certainly wouldn’t give her cause to accuse him of ignoring her. He would also show her that he intended to be the best father to Tia that a child could have. She would not want for anything materially, and for as long as he lived Dante would dote on her. There would be no need for Anna to be lonely either, because he fully intended to keep her warm at nights and reintroduce her to the delight and pleasure of passionate lovemaking…
Having returned to the old-fashioned floral armchair, she now sat nursing her wine glass, her glance wary and resentful when it locked with his.