‘I have no intention of forcing you to do anything.’ He spoke firmly as he paced across the room towards the door. Her panic levels notched up. Was he about to walk out on her? She took a deep, calming breath as he turned and paced back towards her, stopping next to the desk and looking out of the window. ‘I want what’s best for you and the baby, but my business dictates I am based in New York. There I can give you both a lifestyle that will mean neither of you will ever want for anything. I can give you the kind of security you and the baby deserve.’
She stood up quickly, a little too quickly if the spinning of her head was anything to go by. She looked at his profile, at the firm set of his mouth, and wondered where the Marco she’d spent that week with had gone. This Marco was the hard-edged businessman she’d always known he was—she just hadn’t known what business that was and certainly hadn’t expected to come face to face with him again as part of her job.
‘You seriously expect me to go to New York?’ Her words were a croaky whisper, giving away just how scared she really was at this moment.
‘Yes. I want my child to be born there, to grow up there.’ He spoke without looking at her, as if she was inconsequential against what he wanted.
‘To live there?’
‘It’s not such a difficult concept.’ Marco said without looking at her.
‘That’s where you are wrong.’ Imogen finally found her strength, her will to fight. ‘You can’t just charge back into my life and demand that I leave my family behind and go to New York with you.’
Imogen had only recently explained to her mother and father about the baby. They’d been shocked, but, with the unwavering support they’d offered her all her life, they’d told her they would help her. They’d even suggested that she could return to live with them in the countryside surrounding Oxford if she needed to. How would they feel if she left for New York—with a man she barely knew?
Marco turned to face her, his eyes dark and unfathomable. His lips pressed together into a determined line and she couldn’t help remembering the pleasure they’d given as he’d kissed her. Not that there was any trace of desire or passion on his handsome face now.
‘As I said, it is not such a difficult concept. You are expecting my baby, are you not?’
Imogen swallowed hard. ‘Yes, I am, but if you doubt that, if you for one minute do not believe me, then walk away right now.’
She lifted her chin, straightened her spine, injecting strength she hadn’t known she possessed into her words. Just who did he think he was to come in here and demand she leave everyone and everything behind that she held dear?
His gaze locked with hers and she knew instantly that walking away was not something this man did. She’d issued him a challenge and he was going to take it on no matter what. He moved closer to her. Too close, as the scent of his aftershave opened up powerful memories of their time together on the island.
‘I don’t doubt that the child you carry is mine.’ His tone had gentled, lulling her into a false sense of security. ‘Neither do I expect you to turn your back on your life here.’
‘How can I not, when you expect me to move halfway around the world and give up everything? My job, friends, family?’
He moved a little closer, his expression intense. ‘You can have the pick of any job in my company, and your family and friends can visit you often. I also have a house in London and you may go there whenever you wish. A move would require changes, but not sacrifices.’
‘I just don’t know what it would do to my parents if I moved away, if I went to live in New York...’ She shook her head in disbelief as the sentence trailed off.
She’d had the perfect upbringing, been the much-loved and only daughter, and although they had never been well off she hadn’t gone without anything she needed. She just couldn’t turn her back on that, on her parents. For her, family was everything.
‘You have strong family connections?’ His voice hardened and became laced with suspicion.
‘Yes, I do.’ Imogen defended her family, his question feeling more like an attack, especially after their time on the island. He’d rushed to his father’s bedside and she assumed it meant family was important to him too.
‘And what of your new family?’ he demanded.
He moved one step closer and as she looked up at him she couldn’t help thinking of the time she’d wound her arms around his neck, plunged her fingers into his thick, dark hair and kissed him as if her life had depended on it. Annoyed at the pulse of desire which began deep inside her, she pushed the memory away. It didn’t belong with the Marco who stood in front of her now.
‘My new family?’ She tried to process his question, tried to understand what he meant.
‘Our family. You, me and the baby. Us.’
‘We’re not a family.’ She stepped back away from him, trying to lessen the thudding of her heart, the heat of need for this man. It was as if he was talking in code, or a foreign language she only understood bits of.
‘We will be, Imogen.’ He smiled at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
‘What are you saying, Marco? Because it seems to me that you are trying to make me feel guilty, trying to test my loyalty to my parents against my love for my baby.’
He took her hands in his and for a moment Imogen was back on the island, where she’d spent a week without a care in the world. She was back with the kind and considerate Marco who’d treated her like a princess and made her feel more special than anyone had ever done.
‘I want us to be a family, Imogen.’
Had her memories played havoc with her ability to hear correctly? Had they made her believe her deepest desire had come true? Marco wanted her. He wanted the baby and, more than that, he wanted them to be a family.
‘You want us to be a family?’ She whispered the question at him as she searched his eyes, searched their depths for the man she’d met five months ago.
‘You have what I need, and I can provide you with all you could want.’
Those last words jarred in her thoughts, reminding her of the predicament she was in, but it was his less than romantic declaration which had jolted her from her fantasy of Marco, the handsome man she’d had a holiday romance with, a week of total escape. She looked into his face, into his eyes, and saw nothing but cold determination.
‘I think you had better explain that reasoning, because what you’ve just said certainly isn’t going to make me say anything other than no.’
* * *
Marco looked at Imogen and knew he’d made a mistake. His snap decision to turn the news he’d just learnt into something that would solve his problems as well as Imogen’s hadn’t played out in the way he’d imagined it would.
‘The baby...’ He paused and tried again. ‘Our baby would continue my family name and, whilst being a father is not what I had planned, I will do my duty. I want our baby.’
As he said those words he knew it was true. He did want his baby, and he wanted to be very much part of its life. He wanted to try and be the kind of father he’d never known. He wanted to slam the door on his past shut once and for all.
She bit her lower lip, frowning at him in suspicion. ‘You really want our baby? To be part of its upbringing?’
He took advantage of her moment of doubt and brushed the backs of his fingers across her face. ‘Yes, Imogen. I want our baby, the baby we created that night on the island.’
He could see her again in his mind, abandoned to the pleasure of his touch, his kiss. He had no doubt it had been as wildly erotic for her as it had been for him. He wanted to be like that again with Imogen. The need was so far removed from what he’d always believed he wanted, he couldn’t yet completely understand it.
‘We can’t both bring up the baby, not when we live on opposite sides of the world.’
As Imogen spoke, his mind raced with the possibili
ty that finding out he was to be a father was the best thing that could have happened. The fact that Imogen was the mother, the woman he’d created that baby with, was even better. Despite neither of them being honest about who they were that week, it had been the week he’d been able to let go and be himself.
Everything had happened so fast. Less than an hour ago he’d been in the back of the limo being driven from London to Oxford. He’d just received the latest update on his father’s health from his sister and knew things were not looking good, that his medication hadn’t yet proved successful. He’d tried to feel some empathy for the man he’d believed to be his father all his life, the man he’d never been able to please, no matter what.
Now he knew why, and as he’d looked into Imogen’s pale face, seen the fear and trepidation as she’d confirmed she was carrying his child, he had an inkling of how Emilio, the man he’d always referred to as his father, must have felt. Emilio had known the child his fiancée—Marco’s mother, Mirella—carried could be his own brother’s, after their affair had come to light the night his brother had been killed in a road accident. Emilio had married Marco’s mother and claimed the baby as his, despite the truth that was revealed after the birth—and kept it secret from Marco until very recently.
Marco had no doubt the child Imogen carried was his, but his child had to be born a Silviano. This was his chance to find a way to finally please his family, to not be that disappointment his father had had to bear all these years.
‘We don’t have to live on opposite sides of the world, Imogen. Not if we get married.’ The words came slowly and purposefully from him, so calm, so emotionless, he briefly wondered if he’d actually said them aloud.
‘Married? You want us to get married?’ Imogen’s words confirmed he had spoken aloud. He had done the one thing he’d strived not to do all his adult life: ask a woman to marry him.
‘I want to be part of my child’s life. The child will always keep our lives entwined, and marriage would give us all more security.’ He let those words sink in, hoped they sounded romantic and genuine, hoped they would convince her that marriage was the best solution to the situation they now found themselves in. Surely if she valued family so much she wouldn’t want to be a single mother.
‘More security?’ The question in her voice made him realise she wanted more—deserved more. They had shared something special on the island and because of that Imogen deserved the truth.
‘The morning we left the island I had a call.’ He paused, seeing again Imogen standing beside the cabana as the sun had risen, her black evening dress looking sexier than ever in the dawn light. In that moment he’d wanted to stay locked away with her for ever, but the reality of his family life had intruded. He’d known he had to return to New York and do his duty, please his family. Then as his father’s health had rallied after the heart bypass operation he’d deferred the need to take life seriously, throwing himself into his work—and his leisure.
‘Yes—your father? Is he okay?’ She gasped, looking concerned and confused at the same time.
She remembered? It jolted him sharply, as did the concern in her eyes, the way she moved towards him, reaching out as if wanting to offer comfort.
‘Marco? Your father?’ she prompted, as his thoughts prevented him from continuing with the truth she had to know.
‘He is very ill. He had a triple heart bypass soon after I returned from New York and all was well for a while. Now it seems he has developed blood clots in his lungs because of the surgery and only time will tell if medication can deal with it.’
She placed her hand on his arm and looked into his eyes. The honesty and compassion in hers made him feel like a fraud. It also cut him to the very core, made him feel totally inadequate. She seemed to care more about his father, a man she’d never met, than he did. But what else was he supposed to feel when his father had emotionally locked himself away all these years, been totally unreachable? For a split second he was that young boy again, desperate to gain his father’s approval. Always failing. Always falling short of what a Silviano heir should be. He might well be a Silviano son, but now he knew that, as far as the man he’d thought of as a father was concerned, he was the wrong son. The wrong heir.
‘I’m sorry, for you and your family. It must be hard, dealing with that and now finding out you are to be a father yourself.’
Even now, Imogen was thinking of him, of others, believing he and his family were close. He envied her innocence, her strong sense of family. It was coming through loud and clear as if she was proclaiming it at the top of her voice that family was everything to her. She truly belonged to hers. He didn’t, even though he’d tried. He and Imogen were complete opposites. They had so little in common, yet fate had conspired to bring them together and link them inexplicably for ever.
‘I was here on business anyway and am returning to New York this evening. It wasn’t what I expected when I came here, but we can get through this together. After all, we made the baby together.’
Her hand slipped from his arm and she blushed at his reference to their night together. Then she looked down, her long lashes shielding the turmoil of emotions he’d just glimpsed in her eyes. ‘It is, yes, but we can talk about it another time. You should go to your father, your family.’
‘I want you to come too—as my fiancée, and mother-to-be of my child.’
She looked up at him slowly and all the emotion, all the pain he should be feeling right now was there in her eyes. ‘But...?’
‘I want my father to meet you, to know you carry his grandchild, his heir.’
‘Do you really think it will make a difference to him?’ The honesty in her eyes as she looked up at him was almost too much.
‘If what my sister tells me is correct, then it is possible there is limited time.’ He skirted around the issue. After Imogen’s revelation it was of paramount importance to take her to New York, to prove to his father and himself that he could at least get this right.
‘If I go, it won’t mean I have agreed to living in New York permanently, or to my baby being born there, and definitely not to us getting married, but your father is my baby’s grandfather and that counts for something as far as I am concerned.’
He should tell her the truth, tell her that their baby now had the entire future of the Silviano family in its hands. Guilt crashed over him. Silviano tradition always favoured a baby boy being the first born, and his parents would be hoping for a boy. And no matter who his father was, he was still a Silviano.
But he pushed those negative thoughts aside and held her gently by her arms as she looked up at him, that connection they’d shared on the island so very close to the surface again, but this wasn’t the time to allow passion and desire to have free rein. This was more like a business deal which needed careful handling. It wasn’t what he’d intended when the plan had rapidly formed in his mind, but it was enough—for now.
‘Thank you, Imogen.’ He spoke firmly, as if he was in the boardroom of Bespoke Luxury Travel negotiating a deal instead of trying to persuade the mother of his child to come to New York with him. He would take what she offered—for now. Once in New York he would prove to her that marriage was the only option. ‘I accept your terms.’
Imogen blinked in shock at the formality of his tone, the choice of his words, but he had to be like that, otherwise all that had been between them during their week of escape would return. It would drag his barriers down just as it had almost done then. It would open up the door to his emotions and right now that was the last thing he needed.
‘You make it sound more like a business deal.’ There was a hint of teasing mixed in with the confusion which was clear in her voice. ‘But for my baby’s grandfather’s sake, I will go with you to New York—just for a while.’
‘We will leave today for London. I’d like you to see a doctor first.’
‘A doctor?’ Suspicio
n laced the word.
‘I simply want to ensure you and the baby are well to fly.’
‘I saw my own doctor just two weeks ago. We are both fine.’
‘You were not planning a long-haul flight to New York then. I told you I would look after you and the baby, Imogen, and I mean to start doing that right now.’ He’d never known such a strong urge to protect, such a powerful need to care for someone. He hadn’t been in Imogen’s company for very long and already she was bringing out the Marco he’d spent his whole life hiding.
‘There is no need. I am due to have another scan in a few weeks and I have already asked the doctor about flying, in case I needed to know for work, so that is fine.’
‘Very good. Then we will fly out tonight.’
‘You seriously expect me to just drop my life and go with you—today?’
‘My car will take you to your home to collect whatever you need, and I will make all the necessary flight arrangements. And when I meet with your employer I will clear things here.’ He looked at his watch. ‘A meeting we are both now late for.’
‘I’m not going to the meeting. Julie is giving my apologies, so you had better go.’ Her flippant tone warned him she was far from onside in this deal they’d just struck. Was she urging him to go to the meeting so she could slip away? He dismissed that notion as soon as it came to him.
‘Be ready to leave for London in two hours.’ He wasn’t used to his decisions being challenged and his tone was far sharper than he’d intended.
‘Whatever happens, Marco, I want you to remember one thing: I’m not doing this for you, or even myself.’ She stood her ground, an air of defiance radiating from her gorgeous body. ‘I’m doing this for family. For my baby’s family—your father.’
CHAPTER FIVE
DURING THE LONG flight to New York, Imogen had made good use of the time and space in First Class to think about all Marco had said. Before she’d left, she’d told her parents how happy she was that Marco had come back into her life and how they were going to visit his parents and tell them of the baby and their engagement. She had explained Marco’s father’s ill health as their need for haste and her mother and father had waved her off with big smiles, believing it was what she wanted, that she was happy. She’d even let Julie believe that all was okay between her and Marco and that they were going to make a go of it. The guilt at the lies had eaten away at her as the plane had flown further and further away from England.
A Ring to Claim His Legacy Page 6