Shock: One-Night Heir

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Maya too would find it hard. She had developed a special kind of relationship with Salvatore over the five years of their marriage. She had grown up in a single parent household but then tragically, when she was just ten years old, her mother had been killed in an accident. Maya had been brought up by a great-aunt who had never married and had no children of her own. Maya hadn’t spoken much about her childhood. She seemed to find it painful so Giorgio mostly had avoided the topic.

  He had been delighted when Maya had expressed her avid desire to have children. It was one of the things that made him so determined she was the one he should marry. When the first couple of pregnancies had ended in a miscarriage he had been upset, but out of concern for Maya he had concealed his feelings. He hadn’t wanted her to think she had let him down. He knew she had blamed herself, wondering if there was something wrong with her for not being able to have a child. It was only after the fourth miscarriage had occurred that he wondered if somehow it was him that was causing the trouble. But subsequent tests had shown that he was fine, although sometimes he still worried.

  And then Maya had stopped falling pregnant altogether. They had done everything they were told to do. They kept temperature charts, Maya mapped her ovulation period and they had sex when she was supposedly most fertile, but still she’d failed to conceive.

  The progression to IVF was something he had not felt entirely comfortable with. It all seemed so clinical, nothing like the sex they used to have when they’d first met. Nothing like the sex they had the night of Luca and Bronte’s wedding.

  His body tightened as he recalled that night. He hadn’t cared about anything other than having her as quickly and as passionately as he could. It had been the best sex of his life and he wanted more. He had realised that the day he had gone to her flat to invite her to the party. He had gone there thinking their one-night stand would have cooled his ardour. He had been confident he could have seen her, talked to her and even touched her without feeling a thing. He had been shocked to find out how wrong he was. Putting his hands on her shoulders had sent zapping wires of electric want through him. He wanted Maya as he wanted no other woman. How could he have forgotten how fantastic it was with her? His body had tingled for hours afterwards. He only had to look at her and his blood raced through his veins and made him rock-hard.

  He was feeling it now, standing so close to her, breathing in her sexy new fragrance: flowery but spicy and exotic at the same time. The dress she was wearing brought out the glow of her skin and the platinum blond of her hair. She had left it loose this evening, the way he most liked it. Before he even realised he was doing it, he reached out and threaded his fingers through the silk of it where it lay about her shoulders.

  She gave a little shudder of reaction and looked up at him. ‘Do you have to do that?’ she asked in an undertone.

  ‘We are supposed to be reconciled, cara,’ he said, taking the opportunity to brush his lips against her forehead. ‘People will expect us to touch each other in public. They will imagine we will be doing much more when we are finally at home alone.’

  ‘Where is home supposed to be now?’ she asked in a soft breathless sort of voice. ‘Your place or mine?’

  Giorgio shifted his mouth ruefully as he straightened. ‘My place, or what used to be our place, is not quite ready. I’ve been staying at the hotel most nights. We will have to stay at yours tonight, otherwise the press will not believe we are truly reunited.’

  ‘You think they will follow to check up on us?’ she asked with a worried frown.

  He gave her a wry look. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten what the press is like. Haven’t they been on your tail over the last six months of our separation?’

  Maya captured her lip between her teeth, thinking of all the times she’d had to get away from the intrusive eyes of the press. That ridiculous ‘date’ with Howard Herrington was a case in point. They had blown it right out of proportion with a photograph that looked far more intimate than it was. She had been leaning forward, trying to catch something Howard had been saying and a flashbulb had captured the moment, making it appear she was about to press a kiss close to Howard’s mouth. When it appeared in the gossip pages the following day she had taken a devil-may-care approach to the fallout. There had been a photo only a week earlier of Giorgio with his model friend. It seemed fitting that Maya had started to reclaim her life, even if Howard Herrington was the worst date she had ever had.

  Maya cast her eyes over the crowd. The party was in full swing now; several couples were dancing as the band played some classic dance hits. She remembered the days when she had danced in Giorgio’s arms; he had swung her around and around and even though her head had been left spinning she had always gone back for more. The early days of their courtship and marriage had been so much fun, so dizzyingly exciting for a girl who had grown up with so little. There had been no parties that she could remember during her childhood, no massive family gatherings, no huge celebrations of her own or anyone else’s milestones or achievements.

  As soon as she had met Giorgio she had clung to him and his family, subconsciously looking for the anchor she had lacked for much of her life. She had slotted in like a small sea-tossed craft into a safe and sheltered harbour.

  She had never wanted to be cast adrift.

  She had done that herself.

  But now the rules had been changed. She was back, but only temporarily. Giorgio wanted her to pretend things were back to normal and she could do that for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two. The chances were her pregnancy would disappear down the drain of despair, just like the others had done. All she had to do was keep it a secret until Giorgio’s game of pretend was over. There was no point in getting his hopes up as well as hers, or anyone else’s for that matter.

  Maya’s heart ached at the thought of Salvatore dying. He was such a vitally alive man. He was the last of the great patriarchs. He liked the authority his position warranted as the elder of the tribe. She had learned a lot watching the family dynamics over the past five years. The meshing of different personalities, the way each son was cast from the same mould but still so very different. Giorgio was more like his grandfather than anyone. She suspected that was why Salvatore had told him about his illness first. Salvatore knew Giorgio would have the strength to carry the rest of the family through such a difficult time. He would watch over the family finances, he would steer a steady course instead of wavering about in panic. He would grieve certainly, but in private. He would not need anyone to support him.

  He never had.

  Giorgio led her to say their goodbyes to his grandfather and his mother. There were more congratulatory comments, more camera flashes and an even bigger smile from Salvatore as he gripped his eldest grandson’s hand in his. ‘You have made me a very happy man, Giorgio. I hoped and prayed you would not give up on your marriage. I knew you would win her back once you put your mind to it.’

  Maya stretched her lips into a smile as Salvatore turned his attention to her.

  ‘Maya, you are good for my grandson. You bring out the human, more softer side of him. Don’t give up on him, mio piccolo. You remind me of my adored wife, Maria. She was so strong, even though like you she looked so petite and fragile. Just like her, you have backbone. I knew it from the first moment I met you.’

  ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your party,’ Maya said, leaning forward to kiss him on both cheeks. She brushed at the tears that had sprung from her eyes and added, ‘I love you.’

  Salvatore smiled indulgently as she stood back with Giorgio’s arm looping around her waist. ‘I have never doubted it,’ he said. ‘Now, go home with your husband and convince him of the same.’

  Chapter Four

  ‘WE CAN’T possibly live together in this small flat,’ Maya said as she opened the villa door a short time later.

  Gonzo was bouncing up and down, his tail going like a metronome on twelve eight time, not unlike the rate of Maya’s heartbeat.

  Gior
gio closed the door after waving off a car that had tailed the limousine that had brought them home. He turned and scratched behind Gonzo’s ears before straightening to face her. ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘It has a bed, does it not?’

  Maya felt her stomach flip over. ‘Y…yes, but only the one.’

  He gave an up and down lift of his brows that sent another shockwave through her belly. ‘Then we will have to share it.’

  She took a step backwards, her hands going up to ward him off. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘There is no way I am sharing my bed with you. You can sleep on the sofa.’

  He glanced at the cheap sofa she had picked up in a second-hand sale in one of her staunch attempts to move away from the wealth he took for granted, having had it all of his life. His lip curled in disdain, as she knew it would. ‘I wouldn’t let Gonzo sleep on that,’ he said. ‘Anyway, how do you expect to fit the whole six foot four of me on that thing?’

  Maya gave her head a little toss and began to move away. ‘Not my problem.’

  One of his hands captured her like a cobra striking out at its prey. One minute she was free, the next she was standing up against the hard wall of his body, his dark eyes burning like embers as they held hers. ‘I think you might have missed something in our conversation earlier, Maya,’ he said in a deep silky voice. ‘This reconciliation of ours is not just a show for the press.’

  Maya felt her eyes widen and her heart gave another uncoordinated sprint. ‘What do you mean?’ She swallowed a tight knot of panic in her throat. ‘You surely don’t want to…to…’ She swallowed again when she saw the way his eyes darkened even further.

  Oh, dear God, he did.

  One of his hands began stroking the length of her forearm, back and forth in a mesmerising movement that was loaded with erotic sensuality. Her skin leapt at his touch, her spine went to water and her inner core contracted as if he were already driving through her hot moistness to brand her as his.

  ‘We might as well make the most of the situation,’ he said into the throbbing silence. ‘What do you say? Shall we see if we can still do it like we did the night of Luca and Bronte’s wedding?’

  Maya tried to pull out of his hold but it was like trying to disengage from a steel trap. ‘Th…this is not what I agreed to…’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady and controlled. ‘I thought we were just acting, you know…out in public. Not in private. Not when we’re alone.’

  His fingers had found her pulse at her wrist and his caress slowed to a drugging pace that made her brain turn the rational and sensible switch to irrational and impulsive. She was in danger of betraying everything she had worked so hard over the last six months to achieve: independence, confidence and immunity. She wasn’t immune and that was the biggest shock of all. She had never quite got there in terms of invulnerability and quite possibly never would. He only had to look at her in that brooding all male way of his and she felt her whole body turn into a wanton needy mess.

  He pulled her even closer against him, letting her feel the heat of his arousal. ‘You know we could never share a flat or villa, no matter how big or small, without it coming to this,’ he said in that spine-tingling gravel-rough tone he always used when he wanted sex. Not pre-planned sex, not sex with a jar or to a meticulous timetable, but sex when everything that their bodies wanted and craved was paramount.

  Like at his brother’s wedding.

  Like now…

  Maya had to scramble mentally to regain lost ground. She was in a vulnerable period of this surprise pregnancy. All the medical advice she had received in the past was no sex until the three-month mark, just to be safe. Not that she had ever got there—the three-month mark, that was. Giorgio had been so good about it—perhaps too good about it. It had often made her wonder if he had simply taken his needs elsewhere when she had been unavailable. Maya knew about his father’s well documented affairs in the early years of his marriage to Giovanna. Of course, since his untimely death he had been enshrined as a saint but, according to what Maya had heard, he had been anything but. Was it a case of like father like son? Luca was a bit of an unknown to her, but Nic was certainly everything a playboy should be, just as Giorgio had been before they had married.

  ‘I don’t want to sleep with you, Giorgio,’ Maya said with as much firmness as she could muster. It wasn’t much: a bit like a Chihuahua trying to round up a herd of wildebeest, she thought.

  ‘You know you don’t mean that,’ he said, his warm coffee-scented breath caressing her face just as sensually as his thumb was now doing over her leaping pulse.

  ‘I…I do,’ she said, gulping over another tight swallow.

  His expression hardened, as if his blood supply had suddenly released a shot of cynicism into his veins. ‘Herbert wouldn’t approve of a bit of ex-sex?’ he taunted.

  Maya cringed all over again at how stupid she had been to use that poor lonely man as a payback for Giorgio’s sexual exploits. ‘Howard,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘His name is Howard and I didn’t sleep with him.’

  Giorgio laughed but his thumb didn’t stop on her wrist. ‘Poor Howard. He probably didn’t get much time for sleeping. Not with you in his bed.’

  Maya glared at him. ‘What about your lingerie model? Did you manage to get any sleep while you were with her?’

  ‘I did, actually,’ he said, bending down to nibble at one of her ears. ‘She bored me to tears.’

  Maya angled her head away, arching so much she felt a pain in her back and, before she could stop it, let out a little sharp cry. ‘Ow!’

  Giorgio released his hold, just using his hands to keep her upright. ‘Cara, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you?’ he asked, frowning with dark seriousness.

  She shook her head and eased out of his loose hold, rubbing at her lower back. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said, not quite meeting his eyes. ‘I think I may have overstretched myself in my yoga class.’

  ‘Let me massage it for you,’ he offered.

  Oh, no, Maya thought. That would be asking for more trouble than she needed right now. ‘I’m fine, really. I just need a hot bath or something.’

  ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ he said. ‘I’ll run it for you.’

  Maya looked at him with suspicion. ‘What’s with the loving husband routine?’ she asked. ‘No one’s watching, Giorgio. There are no paparazzi cameras peering through the windows.’ Thank God, she added mentally.

  His mouth tightened around the edges. ‘Must you always misread my motives? I am merely doing what I would do for anyone.’

  Maya gave him a scornful look. ‘Oh, yes, anyone you were trying to seduce into your bed, that is.’

  He muttered something under his breath that sounded very much like a very rude word but she didn’t stay around to confirm it. She stalked through to the kitchen, opening and then banging the cupboard door shut as she got out a glass for water. She turned on the tap and filled the glass and, once it was full, turned and leaned back against the sink to steady her shaking legs.

  Giorgio followed her into the room which, prior to this moment, had seemed of a reasonable size. Now, with him standing there within touching distance, Maya instantly downgraded it to a kitchenette.

  ‘You sound jealous, Maya,’ he said, leaning against the opposite counter, his feet crossed over at the ankles in an indolent manner.

  Maya drained her glass and set it on the sink with a little clatter. ‘Why should I be jealous?’ she asked. ‘We were officially separated for six months. We were both free agents. You could sleep with whomever you liked. So could I.’

  Her answer appeared to annoy him, as that tiny hammer of tension began beating beneath the skin at the edge of his mouth. ‘Exactly how many times did you see this Hugh?’ he asked.

  ‘Howard.’ Maya rolled her eyes in annoyance. ‘H.O.W.A.R.D. Howard.’

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘And I am not going to,’ she said, pushing herself away from the sink. ‘Firstly, it’s none of your business and, seco
ndly, I don’t want all the details of who you’ve been seeing, that is, of course, assuming you haven’t lost count by now.’

  ‘You, of all people, should know you can’t take what is written in the press as gospel,’ he said.

  She gave him an ironic arch of her brows. ‘Funny that you don’t adhere to your own philosophy on that issue, isn’t it? But then, there is always one rule for you and another one for everyone else.’

  ‘Maya, this is getting us nowhere,’ he said, uncrossing his ankles and straightening. He expelled his breath on a sigh and sent one of his hands through his hair. ‘You are exhausted. You look as if a sneeze from me would send you through that wall there to the next room. Why don’t you go to bed? I will make do on the sofa.’

  Maya hesitated. He would not get a wink of sleep on that sofa and they both knew it. Why he was being so chivalrous about it was beyond her. The old Giorgio would have had her flat on her back by now, sending her to paradise for the second, if not the third or fourth, time. Just thinking about it brought hot colour to her cheeks. Her body was so aware of him; each time he moved, another part of her would register it and respond. How she wanted to close that small distance between them and throw herself into his arms, begging him to take her back, to love her, even if she couldn’t ever provide him with an heir. But that small distance of a few cracked and faded tiles might as well have been a canyon.

  ‘It’s just for tonight,’ Giorgio said. ‘I don’t think I could bear any longer than that in this dump. What were you thinking, renting something like this?’

  Maya folded her arms and looked at him drolly. ‘I am surprised you can speak so clearly with all those silver spoons sticking out of your mouth.’

  He laughed again, but this time it wasn’t mocking like before. It was the sort of laugh she had heard so rarely from him over the past five years. The sort of laugh that made her spine fizz, as if a fairy was tiptoeing its way over each of her vertebrae to dance amongst the tiny hairs at the back of her neck.