But amid all this confusion was a shimmering of something he couldn’t understand, an emotion which licked like fire over his cold heart and was confusing the life out of him. Furiously, he forced himself to concentrate on facts. To get his head around the reason he was here—why he’d been driven to some remote area of Norfolk on what had felt like the longest journey of his life. And then he needed to decide what he was going to do about it. His head spun as his mind went over and over the unbelievable fact.
Darcy was going to have a baby.
His baby.
His mouth thinned.
Or so she said.
Eventually he was shown into the side room of a ward where she lay on a narrow hospital bed—her bright hair the only thing of colour in an all-white environment. Her face was as bleached as the bed sheets and her eyes were both wary and hostile as she looked at him. He remembered the last time he’d seen her. When she’d slid to the floor and he had just let her lie there and now his heart clenched with guilt because she looked so damned fragile lying propped up against that great bank of pillows.
‘Darcy,’ he said carefully.
She looked as if she had been sucking on a lemon as she spoke. ‘You came.’
‘I had no choice.’
‘Don’t lie,’ she snapped. ‘Of course you did! You could have just ignored the call from the hospital, just like you’ve ignored all my other calls up until now.’
He wanted to deny it but how could he when it was true? ‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘I could.’
‘You let my calls go through to voicemail,’ she accused.
Letting out a breath, Renzo slowly nodded. At the time it had seemed the only sane solution. He hadn’t wanted to risk speaking to her, because hadn’t he worried he would cave in and take her back, even if it was for only one night? Because after she’d gone he hadn’t been able to forget her as easily as he’d imagined, even though she had betrayed his trust in her. Even when he thought about the missing diamonds and the way she’d allowed that creep to enter his home—that still didn’t erase her from his mind. He’d started to wonder whether he’d made a big mistake and whether he should give her another chance, but pride and a tendency to think the worst about women had stopped him acting on it. He’d known that 50 per cent of relationships didn’t survive—so why go for one which had the odds stacked against it from the start? Yet she’d flitted in and out of his mind in a way which no amount of hard work or travelling had been able to fix.
‘Guilty as charged,’ he said evenly.
‘And you told your secretary not to put me through to you.’
‘She certainly would have put you through if she’d known the reason you were ringing. Why the hell didn’t you tell her?’
‘Are you out of your mind? Is that how you like to see your women, Renzo?’ she demanded. ‘To have them plead and beg and humiliate themselves? Yes, I know he doesn’t want to speak to me, but could you please tell him I’m expecting his baby? Or would you rather I had hung around outside the Sabatini building, waiting for the big boss to leave work so I could grab your elbow and break my news to you on a busy London street? Maybe I should have gone to the papers and sold them a story saying that my billionaire boyfriend was denying paternity!’
‘Darcy,’ he said, and now his voice had gentled. ‘I’m sorry I accused you of stealing the necklace.’
Belligerently, she raised her chin. ‘Just not sorry enough to seek me out to tell me that before?’
He thought how tough she was—with a sudden inner steeliness which seemed so at odds with her fragile exterior. ‘I jumped to the wrong conclusions,’ he said slowly, ‘because I’m very territorial about my space.’ But he had been territorial about her, too, hadn’t he? And old-fashioned enough to want to haul that complete stranger up against the wall and demand to know what he’d been doing alone with her. ‘Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. You shouldn’t be getting distressed.’
‘What, in my condition?’
‘Yes. Exactly that. In your condition. You’re pregnant.’ The unfamiliar word sounded foreign on his lips and once again he felt the lick of something painful in his heart. She looked so damned vulnerable lying there that his instinct was to take her in his arms and cradle her—if the emerald blaze in her eyes weren’t defying him to dare try. ‘The midwife says you need somebody to take care of you.’
Darcy started biting her lip, terrified that the stupid tears pricking at the backs of her eyes would start pouring down her cheeks. She hated the way this new-found state of hers was making her emotions zigzag all over the place, so she hardly recognised herself any more. She was supposed to be staying strong only it wasn’t easy when Renzo was sounding so...protective. His words were making her yearn for something she’d never had, nor expected to have. She found herself looking up into his darkly handsome face and a wave of longing swept over her. She wanted to reach out her arms and ask him to hold her. She wanted him to keep her safe.
And she had to stop thinking that way. It wasn’t a big deal that he’d apologised for something he needed to apologise for. She needed to remind herself that Renzo Sabatini wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the baby.
‘It’s the unborn child which needs taking care of,’ she said coldly. ‘Not me.’
His gaze drifted down to the black-and-white image which was lying on top of the locker. ‘May I?’
She shrugged, trying to ignore the tug at her heart as he picked it up to study it, as engrossed as she had ever seen him. ‘Suit yourself.’
And when at last he raised his head and looked at her, there was a look on his face she’d never seen before. Was that wonder or joy which had transformed his dark and shuttered features?
‘It’s a boy,’ he said slowly.
She’d forgotten about his precise eye and attention to detail, instantly able to determine the sex of the baby where most men might have seen nothing but a confusing composition of black and white.
‘It is,’ she agreed.
‘A son,’ he said, looking down at it again.
The possessive way his voice curled round the word scared her. It took her back to the days when she’d been hauled in front of social services who’d been trying to place her in a stable home. Futile attempts which had lasted only as long as it took her mother to discover her new address and turn up on the doorstep at midnight, high on drugs and demanding money in ‘payment’ for her daughter. What had those interviews taught her? That you should confront the great big elephant in the room, instead of letting it trample over you when you weren’t looking.
‘Aren’t you going to ask whether it’s yours?’ she said. ‘Isn’t that what usually happens in this situation?’
He lifted his gaze and now his eyes were flinty. ‘Is it?’
Angered by the fact he’d actually asked despite her having pushed him into it, Darcy hesitated—tempted by a possibility which lay before her. If she told him he wasn’t the father would he disappear and let her get on with the rest of her life? No, of course not. Renzo might suffer from arrogance and an innate sense of entitlement but he wasn’t stupid. She’d been a virgin when she met him and the most enthusiastic of lovers during their time together. He must realise he was the father.
‘Of course it’s yours,’ she snapped. ‘And this baby will be growing up with me as its mother, no matter how hard you try to take him away!’
As he put the photo back down with a shaking hand she saw a flash of anger in his eyes. ‘Do you really think I would try to take a child away from its mother?’
‘How should I know what you would or wouldn’t do?’ Her voice was really shaking now. ‘You’re a stranger to me now, Renzo—or maybe you always were. So eager to think badly of someone. So quick to apportion blame.’
‘And what conclusion would you have come to,’ he demanded, ‘if you’d arrived home to find a seedy stranger leaving and a costly piece of jewellery missing?’
‘I might have stopped to ask questions be
fore I started accusing.’
‘Okay. I’ll ask them now. What was he doing there?’
‘He turned up out of the blue.’ She pushed away a sweat-damp curl which was sticking to her clammy cheek. ‘He’d seen a photo of me at the ball. He was the last person I expected or wanted to see.’
‘Yet you offered him a beer.’
Because she’d been afraid. Afraid of the damage Drake could inflict if he got to Renzo before she did because she hadn’t wanted her golden present to come tumbling down around her ears. But it had come tumbling down anyway, hadn’t it?
‘I thought he would blackmail me by telling you about my mother,’ she said at last, in a low voice. ‘Only now you know all my secrets.’
‘Do I?’ he questioned coolly.
She didn’t flinch beneath that quizzical black gaze. She kept her face bland as her old habit for self-preservation kept her lips tightly sealed. He knew her mother had been a drug addict and that was bad enough, but what if she explained how she had funded her habit? Darcy could imagine only too well how that contemptuous look would deepen. Something told her there were things this proud man would find intolerable and her mother’s profession was one of them. Who knew how he might try to use it against her?
Suddenly, she realised she would put nothing past him. He had accused her of all kinds of things—including using her virginity as some kind of bartering tool. Why shouldn’t she keep secrets from him when he had such a brutal opinion of her?
‘Of course you do. I’m the illegitimate daughter of a junkie—how much worse could it be?’ She sucked in a deep breath and willed herself to keep her nerve. ‘Look, Renzo, I know I’m expecting your baby and it must be the last thing you want but maybe we can work something out to our mutual satisfaction. I don’t imagine you’ll want anything more to do with me but I shan’t make any attempt to stop you from having regular contact with your son. In fact, I’ll do everything in my power to accommodate access to him.’ She forced a smile. ‘Every child should have a father.’
‘That’s good of you,’ he said softly before elevating his dark eyebrows enquiringly. ‘So what do you propose we do, Darcy? Perhaps you’d like me to start making regular payments until the baby is born? That way you could give up work and not have to worry.’
Hardly able to believe he was being so acquiescent, Darcy sat up in bed a little, nervously smoothing the thin sheet with her hand. ‘That’s a very generous offer,’ she said cautiously.
‘And in the meantime you could look for a nice house to live in for when our son arrives—budget no obstacle, obviously. In the country of your choice—that, too, goes without saying.’
She flashed him an uncertain smile. ‘That’s...that’s unbelievably kind of you, Renzo.’
‘And perhaps we could find you a street paved with gold while we’re at it? That way you could bypass me completely and simply help yourself to whatever it was you wanted?’
It took a moment or two for her to realise he was being sarcastic but the darkly sardonic look on his face left her in no doubt. ‘You were joking,’ she said woodenly.
‘Yes, I was joking,’ he bit back. ‘Unless you think I’m gullible enough to write you an open cheque so you can go away and bring up my son in whatever chaotic state you choose? Is that your dream scenario? Setting yourself up for life with a rich but absent babyfather?’
‘As if,’ she returned, her fingers digging into the thin hospital sheet. ‘If I had gone looking for a wealthy sperm donor, I’d have chosen someone with a little more heart than you!’
Her words were forceful but as Renzo absorbed her defiant response he noticed that her face had gone as white as the sheet she was clutching. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Darcy,’ he said, self-reproach suddenly rippling through him.
‘Being able to hurt me would imply I cared.’ Her mouth barely moved as she spoke. ‘And I don’t. At least, not about you—only about our baby.’
Her fingers fluttered over the swell of her belly and Renzo’s heart gave a sudden leap as he allowed his gaze to rest on it. ‘I am prepared to support you both.’ His voice thickened and deepened. ‘But on one condition.’
‘Let me guess. Sole custody for you, I suppose? With the occasional access visit for me, probably accompanied by some ghastly nanny of your choice?’
‘I’m hoping it won’t come to that,’ he said evenly. ‘But I will not have a Sabatini heir growing up illegitimately.’ He walked over to the window and stared out at the heavy winter clouds before turning back again. ‘This child stands to inherit my empire, but only if he or she bears my name. So yes, I will support you, Darcy—but it will be on my terms. And the first, non-negotiable one is that you marry me.’
She stared at him. ‘You have to be out of your mind,’ she whispered.
‘I was about to say that you have no choice but it seems to me you do. But be warned that if you refuse me and continue to live like this—patently unable to cope and putting our child at risk—I will be on my lawyers so fast you won’t believe it. And I will instruct them to do everything in their power to prove you are an unfit mother.’
Darcy shivered as she heard the dark determination in his voice. Because wouldn’t that bit be easy? If that situation arose he would start digging around in her past—and what a bonanza of further unsavoury facts he would discover. The drug addict bit was bad enough, but would the courts look favourably on the child of a prostitute without a single qualification to her name, one who was struggling to make ends meet and who had been admitted to hospital with severe exhaustion? Of course they wouldn’t. Not when she was up against a world-famous architect with more money than he knew what to do with.
She licked her lips, naked appeal in her eyes. ‘And if the marriage is unbearable, what then? If I do want a divorce sometime in the future, does that mean you won’t give me one?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not going to keep you a prisoner, Darcy—you have my word on that. Perhaps we could surprise ourselves by negotiating a relationship that works. But that isn’t something we need to think about today. My priority is to get you out of here and into a more favourable environment, if you agree to my terms.’ His gaze swept over her, settling at last on her face so that she was captured by the dark intensity of that look. ‘So...do I have your consent? Will you be my wife?’
A hundred reasons to refuse flooded into her mind but at that precise moment Darcy felt her son kicking. The unmistakable shape of a tiny heel skimmed beneath the surface of her belly and a powerful wave of emotion flooded over her. All she wanted was the best for her child, so how could she possibly subject him to a life like the one she had known? A life of uncertainty, with the gnawing sense of hunger. A life spent living on the margins of society with all the dangers that entailed. Secondhand clothes and having to make do. Free meals at school and charity trips to the seaside. Did she want all that for her little boy?
Of course she didn’t.
She stared into Renzo’s face—at all the unshakable confidence she saw written on his shuttered features. It would be easier if she felt nothing for him but she wasn’t self-deluding enough to believe that. She thought how infuriating it was that, despite his arrogance and determination to get his own way, she should still want him. But she did. Her mind might not be willing but her flesh was very weak. Even though he’d wounded her with his words and was blackmailing her into marriage—she couldn’t deny the quiver of heat low in her belly whenever he looked at her.
But sex was dangerous. Already she was vulnerable and if she fell into Renzo’s arms and let him seduce her, wouldn’t that make her weaker still? Once their relationship had been about passion but now it was all about possession and ownership. And power, of course—cold, economic power.
But a heady resolve flooded through her as she reminded herself that she’d coped with situations far worse than this. She’d cowered in cupboards and listened to sounds no child should ever have had to hear. She’d stood in courtrooms where people had tal
ked about her future as if she weren’t there, and she’d come through the other side. What was so different this time?
She nodded. ‘Yes, Renzo,’ she said, with a bland and meaningless smile. ‘I will marry you.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
DARCY ALMOST LAUGHED at the pale-faced stranger in the mirror. What would the child she’d once been have thought about the woman whose reflection stared back at her? A woman dressed in clothes which still made her shudder when she thought about the price tag.
Her floaty, cream wedding gown had been purchased from one of Nicoletta’s boutiques in Rome and the dress cleverly modified to conceal her baby bump but nonetheless, Darcy still felt like a ship in full sail. Her curls had been tied and tamed by the hairdresser who’d arrived at the Tuscan villa they were renting now that Vallombrosa had been sold, and from which they had been married that very morning. Darcy had wanted to wear normal clothes for her marriage to Renzo, as if to reinforce that it was merely a formality she was being forced to endure, but her prospective husband had put his foot down and insisted that she at least looked like a real bride...
‘What difference does it make whether I wear a white dress or not?’ she’d questioned sulkily.
‘The difference is that it will feel more real if you wear white and carry flowers. You are a very beautiful woman, cara—and you will make a very beautiful bride.’
But Darcy had not felt at all real as she’d walked downstairs—though she couldn’t deny that the dark blaze in Renzo’s eyes had made her feel briefly beautiful. He had insisted they marry in Italy, presumably on the advice of his lawyers, who seemed to be running the whole show. But that part Darcy didn’t mind. A wedding in Italy was bound to be more low-key than a wedding in England, where the press were much more curious and there was the possibility of someone from her past getting wind of it. With all the necessary paperwork in place, they had appeared before the civil registrar in the beautiful medieval town of Barga, with just Gisella and Pasquale as their witnesses. And just four days later they had been legally allowed to wed.
Secrets of a Billionaire's Mistress (Mills & Boon Modern) (One Night With Consequences, Book 29) Page 9