by Annie West
But she sensed he wasn’t listening. He was absorbed in his own thoughts.
‘Leo? You called him—’
‘Leonardo. After your father.’ She hesitated, aware now of her sentimental folly in choosing a family name for her son. She’d wanted to give him a link to his paternal family, even though that family had roundly rejected him.
Had she secretly thought one day Alessandro might be pleased to have the baby named after the father he’d lost? How misguided she’d been. He looked as she imagined some aristocrat of old must have when confronted with a troublesome serf.
‘You dared to—’
‘I’m not ashamed of what I did,’ she bit out between clenched teeth. ‘Live with it, Alessandro!’
A muffled wail sounded. Immediately Carys spun round and hurried to the bedroom she shared with Leo. She refused to stay and be reviled by Alessandro Mattani of all men.
Moments later Leo was in her arms, a warm cuddly bundle smelling of baby powder and sunshine and little boy. Carys held him against her and shut her eyes, feeling the serenity and joy she always experienced holding him.
‘Mumum!’ He reached up and patted her face.
Carys nuzzled his soft cheek then held him away. ‘Hello, sweetie. Did you have a good day?’
His face split in a broad smile. ‘Mum!’ Then something over her shoulder caught his attention and he stared, his grin fading.
The skin on her neck prickled as she sensed Alessandro’s presence in the room. She didn’t have to turn to know he stood behind her.
She froze.
For so long she’d daydreamed about him coming to find her and Leo. He’d admit he’d been wrong and be devastated by the pain he’d caused. Carys would even find it in her heart to forgive him once he realised his true feelings for her and changed his ways. He’d take one look at Leo and his heart would melt like hers had when she’d first seen her son.
But that would never be.
There was no warmth in his heart for either of them.
Apprehension trickled like hot ice down her backbone. She couldn’t bear it if he took out his anger on Leo. She cuddled her son tighter, but he leaned sideways, craning to keep Alessandro in view.
‘Mumum!’
‘No, darling. Not mummy.’ For a split second she knew a hysterical urge to tell him it was daddy. But she wouldn’t invite Alessandro’s wrath.
She turned, shoulders braced and chin up, holding her baby close. If Alessandro dared make one more disparaging remark—
But she needn’t have worried. All trace of arrogance and anger had vanished. Instead her tormentor stood curiously still, arms loose at his sides. His brows were knitted and he stared at Leo as if he’d never seen a baby before.
Instinctively Carys cuddled her son nearer. She smoothed back his glossy dark hair, almost long enough to be cut. But Leo paid her no heed. He was busy gazing up at the man who refused to be called his father.
She remembered how Alessandro’s collar-length hair had once been like sable under her hands, just like Leo’s. Their eyes were the same too. Though Leo’s reminded her of a cheeky pixie’s, with their twinkle, and Alessandro’s showed no warmth at all. They might have been made of rock crystal.
She watched Alessandro’s hands clench. The tendons in his neck stretched taut.
And still he stared at Leo.
A shiver raced down her spine.
‘How old is he?’ Alessandro’s voice was curiously husky.
‘He had his first birthday six weeks ago.’
‘He was born early?’
‘No. He went to full term.’ Why all the questions?
Leo’s sudden movement took her by surprise. He wriggled in her arms and lunged forward with all his weight as if trying to swim across the gap between himself and Alessandro.
‘Mumum!’ His hands opened and closed as if trying to grasp the big man before him. But Alessandro didn’t move.
Carys felt her heart spasm at the sight of her little boy reaching for his father. He was doomed to disappointment.
Alessandro would never acknowledge him.
Would never love him. Or her.
Finally, after all this time, she shrugged off the last tarnished remnants of hope. The ache in her throat nearly choked her, but she felt freer than she had in almost two years. Surely, in time, the wounds would heal.
Meanwhile she had to protect Leo from the pain of knowing his dad didn’t want him. She’d make up for the lack of a father, she decided fiercely. Leo would never want for love or encouragement or kindness. Not like she had.
Her arms tightened and he wailed, turning accusing eyes on her. ‘Mum!’
‘Yes, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Are you hungry? Are you ready for something to eat?’ She took a step towards the door, studiously ignoring the tall man, standing as if riveted to the spot. ‘Let’s get you some food, shall we?’
It seemed a lifetime before Alessandro moved. Finally he stepped aside. ‘After you.’
Carys didn’t deign to respond.
She’d made it to the kitchen, Leo clamped safely on her hip, when a deep voice halted her in her tracks.
‘Tell me how you came to be pregnant.’
He had to be kidding!
She whirled round to find him only a metre away, his eyes glued to her son. The intensity of his gaze unnerved her and she stroked her palm protectively over Leo’s cheek.
‘Oh, come on, Alessandro!’ Her lips were stiff with fury. ‘I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing, but I’ve had enough. This stops now.’
Dark green eyes lifted to pinion hers. Banked heat flared in that hooded gaze. Instantly a coil of reaction twisted in the pit of her stomach. Fear and something else she refused to name.
‘No, Carys.’ His words fell like blows, slow and heavy. ‘It’s just starting.’
Abruptly he turned to pace the room, but not before she read the bleak emptiness in his eyes.
‘Because as far as I know for certain, we met for the first time last night.’
CHAPTER SIX
‘SO THAT’S it? We met in the Alps, where you had a job in a ski resort. We had an affair and I invited you back to my home.’ Alessandro kept his voice neutral, as emotionless as if he were reading a company report rather than repeating the most astonishing thing he’d heard in years.
The whole idea was absurd.
He’d never invited any woman to share his home. The only woman he could imagine living there was the woman he’d one day make his wife. A woman he hadn’t yet met.
He’d spent his adult years ensuring the women he dated understood he wasn’t interested in deep, meaningful relationships. That was just female-speak for snaring a rich man gullible enough to believe she wanted him for his character and personality!
‘We lived together, but it didn’t work out, and you came back to Australia,’ he continued, watching her avoid his gaze. ‘You discovered you were pregnant and you called my home repeatedly, eventually spoke to my stepmother and as a result, believed I wanted nothing further to do with you?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
Her offhand response fuelled the remnants of his earlier temper. Didn’t she realise how vital this was?
Alessandro’s fists clenched tight. He abhorred the need to share the fact of his memory loss with a stranger. Even a stranger with whom he’d once been intimate.
He’d been brought up never to show vulnerability, never to feel it. No wonder his discomfort now was marrow deep. His certainties, his sense of order, his grasp of the situation were far too shaky for a man accustomed to taking charge.
Still Carys didn’t look at him but busied herself feeding the tot in the high chair. Was it his imagination or was she taking far too long fussing with cloths and dishes?
Alessandro kept his eyes on her, rather than her son. Meeting those big green eyes so like his own made him uneasy. And the way the boy kept staring at him, surely that wasn’t normal.
The child wasn
’t his. He’d know if he had a son.
He’d always been careful about contraception. He would have children at the appropriate time, when he’d found a suitable bride. She’d be clever, chic, at home in his world, sexy. She wouldn’t bore him after two weeks as most females did.
The harsh overhead light caught rich colour as Carys bent her head and the child tugged a lock of burnished hair loose from her prim bun.
Something snagged in Alessandro’s chest, looking at her. And her son.
No!
He refused to feel anything except annoyance that her story didn’t trigger any memories. It was all still an infuriating blank.
She turned and lifted the baby high in her arms, her prim white blouse dragging taut with the movement.
Something plunged in the pit of Alessandro’s belly and heat spread in his lower body.
At least one thing was explained: his sense of possessiveness when he looked at Carys. She’d been his and, if her story was true, they’d shared a relationship unlike his usual liaisons. He’d desired her enough, trusted her enough, to install her in his own home.
Incredible! Yet it would be easy to check.
Had he planned to keep her as a long-term mistress? The idea fascinated him.
Watching the tight material of her skirt mould her thighs, the thin cotton of her blouse stretch over her breasts, the idea didn’t seem quite as absurd as it should.
If it weren’t for the baby, he’d be tempted to take up right now where they’d left off last night.
Sudden pain slashed behind his eyes and through his temple as he struggled to remember. The headache he’d fought in the car hovered. He was well now. Recovered. Only occasionally did the pain recur, a reminder of the past.
‘Are you all right?’ Smoky eyes held his. He dropped his hand from his temple and stretched his legs in front of him, shifting his weight on the lumpy sofa.
‘Perfectly.’ He paused, following the movement of a chubby little starfish hand that patted her breast then tugged at one of her buttons. A moment later she caught the baby’s hand in hers.
Alessandro raised his eyes. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, her lips barely parted.
‘You haven’t told me why we split up.’
The colour in her cheeks intensified. But not, he’d swear, with sexual awareness. Her nostrils pinched, and her lips firmed.
‘I don’t want to talk about this. There’s no point.’
‘Humour me,’ he murmured, leaning forward.
He wanted his pound of flesh. But what choice did she have? He looked as immovable as Uluru. Instinctively she knew he wouldn’t leave till his curiosity was satisfied.
Carys believed him about his missing memory. He looked so uncomfortable she knew it was a truth he didn’t want to share. She’d heard of such amnesia from her medico eldest brother. And it explained so much that had puzzled her. Like why Alessandro had come round the globe to find her.
What other reason could he have for going to such lengths? Especially since he’d dumped her so unceremoniously.
She bit her lip, glad she was the only one to remember every ignominious detail of that scene.
‘You don’t remember anything?’ Pointless to ask, given his patent lack of knowledge about her, about them. Yet it seemed impossible she’d been wiped totally from his memory.
Once they’d been close. Not just physically intimate, but close as soulmates, or so it had seemed.
How could all that just disappear completely?
Because what they’d shared was far less important to Alessandro than it had been to her?
‘My memory stops several months before my father’s death.’ His words were terse. She guessed he viewed amnesia as a weakness he should be able to master. ‘I don’t remember meeting you.’ His tone implied he still doubted what she’d told him. ‘Those months are blank. I don’t even remember driving before the accident. Just waking up in hospital.’
Slowly Carys lowered herself into the rocking chair. She let Leo stand on her thighs while she held his hands. It was a game he loved, marching on the spot.
Besides, it gave her a chance to rest her shaky legs. The shock of Alessandro’s revelations was a stunning blow. She still felt faintly nauseous and her limbs trembled, thinking of him injured seriously enough to cause amnesia.
‘You didn’t tell me how the accident happened.’ She paused, wondering if her concern was too obvious. But she had to know. She avoided staring at the scar reaching up to his temple. Instead she fixed her attention on a spot over his shoulder.
His shrug was fluid and easy.
‘I was driving to Milan. The car skidded in the wet when I swerved to avoid a driver on the wrong side of the road.’
On the way to the office, then. Of course. He preferred to drive himself, claiming it helped him sort out his priorities for the day’s business. From the rough timeline he’d mentioned, it must have happened soon after she left.
Had she thought, even for an instant, that her departure would disrupt his precious business schedule?
Her ridiculous naivety still stunned her.
‘And you’re all right?’ Her heart pounded, imagining the scene. Carys swallowed hard on a jagged splinter of regret and fear. ‘No other after-effects? No pain?’
No matter what she told herself, she hadn’t completely severed her feelings for this man. She should despise him for the way he’d treated her, yet her conflicting emotions weren’t so straightforward.
Carys refused to meet his intent gaze, choosing instead to watch Leo as he babbled to her.
‘I’m perfectly healthy.’
Alessandro paused so long she looked up. He stared straight into her eyes as if reading her hunger for every detail. Her need for reassurance. Eventually he continued, his clipped words indicating how little he cared to dwell on his injuries.
‘I was lucky. I had lacerations and a couple of fractures.’
At her hissed indrawn breath he shrugged. ‘I mended quickly. I was only in hospital a few weeks. The main concern was my memory loss.’ Darkening eyes bored into hers. ‘But the specialists say there’s nothing I can do about that except let nature take its course. There’s no other brain damage.’
Carys slumped back, only now acknowledging the full depth of her fears. Relief warred with a sense of unreality.
‘I see.’ This strange, constrained conversation didn’t seem real given the past they shared. But it gave Carys a little time to work through the implications of his news.
He mightn’t remember her, but last night in his suite he’d seduced her with a combustible passion that had sheared straight through every defence she’d painstakingly erected in the last two years.
How had he done that if he couldn’t even recall her?
Was he such an awesome lover he could make any woman feel the heady, mind-blowing certainty that she wanted nothing more than Alessandro Mattani, unbridled and consummately masculine? Were the intimacies she’d shared with him and always thought so special, the wondrous sensations, something he shared with countless women?
Her weakness mortified her.
‘And your wife?’ Carys failed to keep the bitterness from her voice as she choked out the word. ‘I assume she’s not with you?’
‘Wife?’ The single syllable slashed through the heavy atmosphere in the room. ‘You’re not saying I have a wife?’
Did she imagine it or had he paled? His lazy sprawl morphed into stark rigidity as he sat up, staring.
Carys hesitated. ‘You were single when I left, but you were seeing someone else, planning to marry her. Principessa Carlotta.’ She couldn’t prevent distaste colouring her voice.
Of course Alessandro would only marry one of his own, a rich, privileged aristocrat.
Carys swallowed bile as memories surged. Of how she’d obstinately disregarded his stepmother’s warnings about Alessandro’s intentions. And about her true, temporary place in his world. Of how she’d foolishly pinned her belief and
hopes on the tender passionate words he whispered in her ear. On the rapture of being with him, being loved by him.
No! Having sex with him. The love had been all on her side.
‘You seem to imply I did more than just see her.’ His tone was outraged; his eyes flashed a furious warning. ‘And that I did so while you and I were…together.’
If the cap fits, buddy. ‘So you did.’ Deliberately she turned away to focus on Leo, happily jouncing on her knees.
‘You’re mistaken.’ Alessandro didn’t raise his voice, but his whisper was lethally quiet, an unmistakeable warning. ‘I would never stoop to such despicable behaviour.’ Green eyes clashed with hers. They were so vibrant with indignation she expected to see sparks shoot from their depths.
‘I was there, remember.’ Carys took a slow breath, forcing down the rabid, useless jealousy that even now clawed to the surface. She concentrated on keeping her voice even. ‘And unlike you I have perfect recall.’
Silence. His stare would have stripped paint at twenty paces. It scoured her mercilessly.
Yet Carys refused to back down. He might believe he was incapable of such behaviour, but if his memory ever returned he was doomed to disillusionment.
‘I don’t need to remember to know the truth, Carys.’ He leaned forward, all semblance of relaxation gone. His voice echoed an unshakeable certainty. ‘No matter what you think you understand about that time, I would never betray one lover with another. Never have two lovers at the same time. It wouldn’t be honourable.’
Not honourable!
Carys suppressed an anguished laugh.
Was it honourable to have a lover share his bed but exclude her from the rest of his life because she wasn’t good enough for his aristocratic friends? To use her for temporary sex while he courted another woman?
Whatever had gone wrong between Alessandro and the principessa to prevent the marriage, that was exactly what he’d been up to.
Carys had simply been convenient, gullible, expendable.