by Various
‘I have nothing to say to you,’ Annie said defensively as she stood.
Luc regarded her through narrowed lids, noting the dark shadows beneath her eyes, and the pallor of her cheeks, no doubt both a result of Annie’s lack of sleep the night before.
Luc hadn’t slept at all the previous night either, his thoughts still deeply troubled despite the long walk he had taken outside in the fresh air. Annie’s anguish as she lay beside him, dry-eyed but obviously deeply upset, had only added to that inner turmoil.
Only Luc’s total physical awareness of Annie, and the knowledge that she would no doubt refuse any comfort he might offer, had prevented him from getting up from his own bed to lie beside her and take her in his arms.
That, and the doubt that he could control his awareness of her enough to offer her only comfort!
Even now, wearing a black T-shirt and fitted black jeans that did little to flatter her pallor or heavily tired eyes, Annie was still the most desirable woman Luc had ever known.
His mouth tightened. ‘But I have a few things I wish to say to you,’ he told her firmly.
She shrugged. ‘I have already told my mother that it’s your intention to apply for legal custody of Oliver.’
‘I have no intention of applying for custody of Oliver,’ Luc bit out.
Annie eyed him scathingly. ‘You still think you can force me into marrying you?’
‘No, I no longer think that either,’ he acknowledged tautly.
Her eyes widened. ‘Then—’
‘Would you mind leaving us, Mrs Williams?’ Luc asked again softly.
‘Not at all.’ Tilly rose gracefully to her feet. ‘I’ll only be in the laundry room, darling,’ she reassured Annie warmly as she left, closing the door quietly behind her.
Leaving Luc as the sole focus of her daughter’s frowning blue eyes.
Chapter Twelve
‘BUT I don’t understand,’ Annie said, looking puzzled.
Luc had said that he no longer intended applying for custody of Oliver and that he wasn’t going to force Annie into marrying him either. So what was he going to do? Surely he didn’t just expect the two of them to come and live with him in Rome?
He gave a rueful shrug. ‘Tell me, Annie, how would you have felt, reacted, when we met again at Lake Garda, if there had been no Oliver to…complicate things, shall we say?’
Her cheeks flushed warmly. ‘Even without Oliver, you would still have considered me one of the notorious Balfour sisters,’ she reminded him.
Luc’s jaw tightened. ‘I asked how you, not I, would have felt about us meeting again if Oliver had not been a consideration.’
Exactly as she had felt even knowing of Oliver’s existence; she had fallen in love with Luc all over again! No. Annie had realised that she had never actually ever stopped loving him…
She spread out her hands in denial. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t envisage a world where Oliver doesn’t exist.’
Luc drew in a harsh breath as Annie’s words hit him with the force of a blow to the chest. It had only been a matter of hours since Luc first looked at his son, but he could no longer imagine a world where Oliver did not exist either. Just as he could not imagine a world without Annie Balfour in it.
‘He truly is an adorable child.’
‘Yes, he is,’ Annie confirmed huskily.
‘All your own doing.’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find there were more people than me involved in that. Tilly. Oscar. My sisters,’ she elaborated with a challenging look as Luc looked at her enquiringly.
Luc knew that Annie was right to feel the way that she did; he had judged all of those people, all of Annie’s family, on the headlines that so often appeared about them in the newspapers.
But he had been wrong about Annie, and having now met Tilly Williams, he knew he had also been wrong concerning his assumptions about her; the chances were that he had also misjudged Oscar Balfour and his many daughters too.
He smiled. ‘I am proud to call Oliver my son.’
‘And so you should be!’ Annie reproved indignantly.
That tigress protecting her cub again…
‘You still have not answered my original question,’ Luc reminded her.
‘How would I have felt about meeting you again at Lake Garda if I hadn’t become pregnant four and a half years ago?’ Annie repeated drily. ‘Hmm, let’s see.’ Her expression was rather mocking as she seemed to give the question some thought. ‘I meet a wild and sexy Italian on the ski slopes—’
‘Wild and sexy?’ Luc choked, with a pained wince.
‘Wild and sexy,’ Annie repeated firmly, knowing that was exactly how Luc had appeared to her all those years ago. ‘We ski down the mountain together. He invites me back to his chalet for some food and schnapps. We end up spending the night together. We part the following day having agreed to meet up again for dinner that evening. And then—poof!—this wild and sexy Italian does a disappearing act on me.’ Her voice hardened angrily as she recalled her humiliation when Luc hadn’t met her that evening as planned. When she had sat alone in the restaurant for more than an hour, sure that Luc would join her at any moment, and that he had just been unavoidably detained.
He had been unavoidably detained for four and a half years!
Luc frowned darkly. ‘There was a very good reason why I did not meet you for dinner that evening—’
‘Oh, I’m sure that there was,’ Annie scorned, two bright spots of angry colour in her previously pale cheeks. ‘Maybe you needed to wash your hair? Or there was something on the television you wanted to watch? Or maybe you just decided to move on to someone who was more of a challenge!’ she accused, more than a little disgusted with herself.
Annie still burned with embarrassment every time she so much as thought about how easy a conquest she had been for Luc. A few sexy smiles, a caress, a kiss or two, and she had been putty in his hands!
She shook her head to clear the unpleasant thoughts from it. ‘How would I have felt about seeing that man again a few years later? Exactly the same way I felt when I saw you again two days ago, Luc—I wanted to punch you on your arrogant nose!’
Luc drew in a swift breath, knowing he deserved Annie’s condemnation, that his behaviour had been utterly disgraceful. Even more so than he could ever have imagined when a child had resulted from their night together. A child that Annie had taken complete responsibility for. That she’d had no choice but to take responsibility for when Luc had disappeared so completely!
His jaw tightened. ‘I owe you an explanation for the way I left so abruptly that day without leaving a message at the restaurant.’
‘It’s way too late for explanations!’ she scoffed. ‘So what if you had turned up for dinner that evening, Luc?’ she continued impatiently as he would have protested. ‘At most we might have had a few days’ holiday fling before I had to return to England. Or we might have just met up again that evening and decided we didn’t like each other enough to even bother with that.’ She shrugged. ‘Your method of ending things may have been a little callous, but on reflection your instinct not to continue the relationship was probably the correct one.’
Luc had asked for Annie’s honesty, and he had absolutely no doubt he was getting it! ‘If I had not left so suddenly you may at least have had the name of your baby’s father!’ he ground out.
‘A name, maybe,’ she accepted coolly. ‘But knowing your name was Luca de Salvatore wouldn’t have made any difference to the decisions I made once I discovered I was pregnant.’
Luc’s eyes narrowed. ‘You still would not have told me?’
Annie knew how angry Luc was by the way his English had become more clipped and accented. ‘I still wouldn’t have told you,’ she said truthfully.
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Luc!’ She made an impatient movement. ‘This! This is why I wouldn’t have told you! Because if I had, we would just have ended up having this same argument four years ago instead o
f now. You demanding that I marry you or you’ll attempt to take Oliver away from me. I say attempt, because I have absolutely no intention of allowing you to win that particular battle,’ she told him defiantly. ‘Just as I won’t marry a man just because he’s the father of my child.’
It was the answer that Luc had expected. The only answer he could expect, when to Annie he would never be more than just the father of her child.
He lowered his lids to guard his expression. ‘When we first met you were in the final year of an English degree—’
‘I don’t remember telling you that,’ Annie cut in suspiciously.
‘No.’ Luc’s mouth twisted. ‘I knew no more about you then either than your first name and that you had a sexy unicorn tattoo on your lower back.’
‘Then how? You’ve had me investigated!’ Annie ignored the unicorn remark as her indignation rose. ‘You hired some sleazy private investigator to tell you every little detail of my life!’ The angry colour returned to her cheeks.
Luc winced. ‘My assistant provided the necessary information, not a sleazy investigator.’
‘It’s the why rather than the who that interests me!’ she challenged. ‘Were you looking for something to use against me in a custody battle, Luc? Because if you were, then I can assure you that you were wasting your time! I—’
‘I have told you there will be no custody battle, Annie,’ Luc interrupted quickly.
‘Because you still think you can bully me into marrying you!’ she exclaimed.
Luc gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘No, you have finally convinced me of your determination concerning that subject also.’
Annie paced the room restlessly. ‘Then why did you have me investigated, Luc? Why were you asking me about my degree? What possible relevance can any of that have on the here and now?’
He shrugged muscled shoulders. ‘I was curious as to what you would have done with that degree if you had not had Oliver.’
‘Why were you?’ She eyed him suspiciously.
Luc sighed his impatience. ‘We would progress further with this conversation if you stopped being so defensive.’
‘Defensive is how you make me feel, Luc,’ she admitted heavily.
Luc was well aware of that. Just as he was aware that Annie had good reason to feel the way she did after his behaviour over these past two days.
‘Could we perhaps just sit down for a few moments, take a couple of deep breaths and then talk calmly together like the two adults that we are?’ he asked reasonably.
Could they? Somehow Annie doubted that very much. There was too much history between them, both past and present, for either of them to remain calm for very long.
‘We can try,’ she allowed grudgingly as she subsided into one of the armchairs.
‘That is all that I ask,’ Luc said ruefully as he did the same. ‘What was your purpose in taking an English degree? I cannot believe it was with the intention of working for your father.’
‘Hardly,’ Annie drawled drily. ‘No—’ she rested her head back against the chair ‘—I wanted to teach, and maybe become the twenty-first-century Jane Austen in my spare time.’
Luc raised surprised brows. ‘Teach and write?’
Annie glanced across at him. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed shortly. ‘But instead my father has decided it’s now time to groom me into becoming part of the upper management of his business empire.’ She gave a horrified grimace.
‘You have a natural talent for it, I believe.’ Luc nodded. ‘I have already implemented the deficiencies you noted at my hotel in Lake Garda,’ he explained at Annie’s questioning look.
Her eyes widened. ‘You have?’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘I talked with the manager yesterday.’
‘Oh.’
‘But having a natural talent for something does not mean it is what you should do,’ Luc continued. ‘Oliver told me that you do not like going away on business for your father.’
‘Did he?’ Annie gave an affectionate smile at the thought of her young son. ‘He’s right, of course. Oh, I have no doubts that I’m more than capable of doing the job—’
‘But?’
‘But—’ she gave a weary sigh ‘—it really wasn’t what I envisaged for my future when I was eighteen.’
‘I am sure that at eighteen you did not envisage becoming a single mother by the age of twenty-one either!’ Luc pointed out.
Annie calmly met the dark glitter of his gaze. ‘I have never regretted having Oliver, Luc. Not even for a moment,’ she added for emphasis.
No, Luc didn’t believe that she had. ‘What if you could have both?’ he asked softly. ‘If you could be a mother to Oliver but still fulfil your own dreams of teaching and writing at the same time?’
‘Which I could do by marrying you, no doubt,’ Annie said knowingly.
‘No doubt.’ Luc gave a humourless smile. ‘But we have already ruled that out, have we not?’
‘I have, yes, but I’m still not sure you have.’
Luc could hear the wariness in her tone. A wariness he well deserved. ‘Annie, I went to London to see my English lawyer this morning, in order to have him draw up the necessary custody documents—’
‘I knew it!’ She stood suddenly, her gaze accusing as she glared down at him. ‘This was what you’ve been planning, isn’t it? Have me investigated, find something you can use against me—although I have no idea what that could be when I’ve lived like a nun for the past four years—and then force me into signing the papers that give you custody of Oliver! Well, I’m not signing anything, Luc. Not now! Not ever!’ She clenched her hands to hide the way they were shaking.
Luc had no doubt as to the depth of Annie’s anger. He could see it in the furious glitter of her blue eyes, the flush to her cheeks and the stubborn set to her chin.
Just as he was aware of a slight lifting of the heaviness inside him at the knowledge that Annie had ‘lived like a nun’ these past years. Although her behaviour yesterday afternoon when they’d returned from their motorbike ride could not exactly have been deemed nunlike.
‘As usual you have chosen to misunderstand me.’ He sighed.
‘Somehow I doubt that!’ she argued.
Luc gave a weary shake of his head. ‘The documents I am having drawn up do not involve my taking Oliver from you but instead give you full custody of him, with reasonable visiting rights for me, when and if you, as his mother, allow it.’
Annie stared at him. Completely stunned. Her mind had gone utterly blank.
‘They will also make financial provision for both you and Oliver, so that you do not feel you have to work at anything if you do not wish to do so,’ Luc added evenly.
What?
‘I don’t understand,’ Annie finally managed to stutter, looking dazed.
Luc raised an eyebrow. ‘I am going to financially provide for both you and Oliver rather than fight you for custody of him.’
‘Why?’ she asked, still eyeing him warily.
‘Because it is the right thing to do,’ Luc said through gritted teeth. ‘Because I no longer believe I have the right to take Oliver from you.’ He flexed tense shoulders. ‘Until I saw Oliver yesterday he was not quite real to me as a person in his own right. A little boy with feelings and needs of his own. Watching the two of you together, that special bond that you both have, understanding the sacrifices that you have made in your own life since he was born, I realised that I have no right to even attempt to take him away from you.’ His expression was bleak. ‘That I gave up that right four and a half years ago when I disappeared so abruptly out of your life and left you alone to cope with the results of our night together.’
Emotions warred deep within Annie. Feelings of elation that Luc no longer wanted to even try to take Oliver from her, let alone force her into marrying him. Followed by the intense pain of knowing that Luc’s capitulation meant he was going to walk out of her life for a second time, the only contact they had in future years when he came to c
ollect Oliver or return him to her.
Years when Annie would have to stand back and watch Luc marry someone else. Have children with someone else. Grow old with someone else. Love someone else…
She swallowed hard. ‘You said you had a good reason for disappearing that day four and a half years ago?’ she recalled huskily.
‘I considered it a good reason at the time,’ he acknowledged. ‘But not an acceptable one when compared to what you have suffered because your “wild and sexy” Italian lover was also a very selfish one!’
‘Hey, I’ve never considered myself to have suffered because I chose to have Oliver,’ Annie chided him. ‘Nothing can compare to the privilege I feel at being his mother. He has been the biggest joy, the most wonderful experience, of my entire life.’
Once again Luc experienced that ache in his chest at the knowledge of Annie’s unconditional love for Oliver. For his son, and not for him.
‘Perhaps,’ he began hoarsely, ‘once we have dealt with the legalities of Oliver’s custody, you might consider having dinner with me one evening?’
Her eyes widened. ‘You want us to have dinner together?’ she echoed slightly incredulously.
Luc held her gaze as he nodded. ‘I would like that very much, yes.’
Annie felt somewhat punch-drunk as she was hit with one surprise after another. She had only just begun to believe that Luc was no longer going to fight her for custody of Oliver, or force her into a loveless marriage, and now he sounded as if he were asking her out on a date!
‘Why didn’t you meet me for dinner that night?’ she probed slowly.
Luc drew in a harsh breath. ‘What can I say? You were right to describe me as being wild then. Not only wild but deeply irresponsible too,’ he added honestly. ‘As I have told you, it was an irresponsibility that ultimately resulted in my almost ruining my father’s business empire. It did result in my father’s near-fatal heart attack,’ he added bleakly.