The Italian's Secret Baby (8 page)

‘There were no other relatives who could help?'

‘No. My uncle and aunty are not really
children
people.'

‘But surely they were better situated than you to bring up a baby?'

‘Financially maybe, but it's not about money, is it?' she said, taking his agreement on something so fundamental as granted. ‘They didn't have a family of their own out of choice,' she went on to explain.

‘And I can't imagine them welcoming
anything
which stopped them jumping in the car and driving down to the South of France when they felt like it.' Her nose wrinkled as she looked reflectively at him and her head tilted a little to one side. ‘They're a bit like you, really. They do whatever they like without having to consider anyone else…though you're younger, obviously.'

‘But equally selfish,' he suggested drily.

‘They love one another, so you can't call them
totally
self-obsessed and narcissistic,' she pointed out tolerantly.

‘Unlike me.'

Scarlet flushed under his ironic gaze. ‘I didn't say that,' she protested.

‘You didn't need to. You can't imagine me with children?'

Scarlet frowned at the inflection in his voice. ‘You're Italian Irish, aren't you?' She gave an offhand shrug. ‘With that background I expect you'll have a big family one day, when you're ready.'

In her head she could see children with Roman's dark eyes and warm colouring running around…children just like Sam.

‘Or when I've grown up?'

‘I wasn't going to say that. I'm a realist.'

Roman grinned. ‘You have a smart mouth.' Lush, lovely and incredibly kissable—!

The fact his dark, devastatingly gorgeous eyes were glued to her lips, and that he was no longer grinning, made Scarlet very nervous.

‘I wouldn't worry—a lot of men never grow up. You're obviously enjoying playing the field.' And, my, did he show dedication. She tried to make up for her lack of judgement in speaking her mind with a brittle, blindingly insincere smile.

‘But I expect one day you'll get bored with it, and when you meet someone…' Someone beautiful and talented to give him those golden babies.

‘You don't sound very convinced.'

‘You're right, I've always had my doubts about reformed rakes,' she confided. Her glance skimmed the strong, arrogant lines in his hard-boned features. And if anyone could accurately be described as a rake, it was him.

‘Rakes?'

Scarlet, who was warming to one of her favourite themes, nodded, barely registering the stunned expression on his handsome face.

‘I know a lot of women think that with the love of a good woman, the good woman being them,' she qualified drily, ‘even the most committed playboy will metamorphose overnight into a faithful husband.' She shook her head and gave an incredulous laugh at the ability of her own sex to fool themselves.

‘But you don't share this view?'

‘Look at me! Do I look like a hopeless romantic?' she demanded.

He took her reckless offer and there was an extremely uncomfortable interval while he considered the question and her face. The defiant angle of Scarlet's chin increased in direct proportion to the rapid thud of her racing heart.

Finally he delivered his judgement.

‘I don't have one hell of a lot of hands-on experience with hopeless romantics but, yes, I'd say you do.'

His dry comment drew Scarlet's eyes involuntarily to the hands he referred to. His long, tapering fingers curled lightly over the arms of the chair; they were square-tipped, suggesting sensitivity and strength. Something low in her belly tightened as she looked at them and imagined them moving over softer, paler flesh.

Colour significantly heightened, she dragged her eyes clear. ‘Well, I'm not, and,' she informed him with feeling, ‘
I'm glad.
I don't see how falling in love can fundamentally change a person's character. Call me a cynic, but, the way I see it, once a faithless love rat always a—' She broke off, her eyes widening. ‘Not that I'm calling you a faithless…'

His eyebrows lifted. ‘
No?
If you say so.' His mobile lips formed a cynical smile as he shrugged.

It was pretty damned hard to refute her observations when you had fathered a child on a one-night stand and didn't discover it until almost four years later.

In most people's book that qualified as love-rattish behaviour. The fact it had been an accident did not make him any the less an irresponsible bastard.

‘Marriage means different things to different people. Some people are more…flexible…' she finished awkwardly.

‘I take it “flexible” is a euphemism for sleeping around.'

Scarlet gave an uncomfortable shrug and wondered how on earth she had got onto this subject. ‘I guess so.'

His nostrils flared as he looked at her. The expression of chilling hauteur on his dark patrician features sent a ripple down her spine.

‘I don't think I'd be at all flexible at the idea of my wife sleeping with anyone else. I happen to consider fidelity an essential component of marriage.'

‘Well, it just goes to show you never can judge by appearances,' she responded cheerily. ‘Look at me—' she suggested.

When he did her lashes swept down in a protective gesture. ‘I used to be the most important thing in my life. I had it all, the job, the flat, the car—'

‘And you don't regret giving it up?'

‘Not for one second. I earn peanuts by comparison now,' she admitted. ‘Not that I ever earned the
serious
money Abby did, but on the plus side nobody treats
me
like I'm a piece of meat, and I don't have to live on lettuce leaves and cigarettes to stay stick-thin! Mostly people appreciate what I'm doing.'
Present company excluded.

‘So your sister left you well provided for?' At least she hadn't spent the last four years leading a hand-to-mouth existence in order to give his son a decent life.

His relief turned out to be premature.

‘Abby earned, but she liked to spend too. But, yes, she had put some money aside for Sam. It will pay for his education and there'll be a little bit left over for a nest egg for him.'

‘So you have lived off what?'

‘I live within my means, and I don't worry if I'm not wearing this year's designs. I mean, money isn't everything, is it?' A sudden bubble of laughter sprang to her lips. ‘Actually, I suppose it is to you.'

‘Sure, I sold my soul for a good return on my investments years ago,' he drawled.

‘I wasn't being offensive…well, not intentionally, anyhow,' she added with a crooked smile. His rigid expression didn't thaw. ‘It was a joke.'

His dark eyes swept across her face. ‘Was it?'

‘Yes!' she responded, exasperated that he seemed intent on over-dramatising a simple comment. ‘You're rich, I'm not, so what I've never had I'm not going to miss, am I?' she pointed out simply.

‘Do you plan to go back to your old job?'

‘Who knows what the future holds? But it would be good in the immediate future if you revealed a reason for you being here.'

‘I'm getting there.'

The ironic twist of his lips troubled her. If she was going to be honest, Roman worried her full stop.

‘Where does Sam's father come into all this?' he said casually.

‘There isn't one.'

He raised an ironic brow.

‘Well, there is, but he isn't in the picture. And not just that one,' she added as he picked up a framed photograph taken of Sam on his first birthday.

This was the point when people who possessed the basics of social skills dropped the subject.

‘Have you ever tried to contact him?'

Scarlet shook her head. ‘I couldn't if I wanted to.'

‘Why's that?'

‘I don't know who he is.'

‘Surely your sister told you. I'm assuming she knew the seriousness of her condition.'

‘Oh, yes, she knew,' Scarlet confirmed bleakly. ‘I did ask Abby, I was concerned—' She broke off with a self-conscious grimace. ‘She said getting pregnant was her responsibility.'

‘Even if it was a one-night stand, that doesn't make it any less the man's responsibility.'

Scarlet shot him a look bristling with suspicion. ‘I didn't say it was a one-night stand.'

‘Didn't you?' He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Totally.'

‘I must have assumed.'

S
CARLET
studied Roman with suspicious eyes, bristling at the implied criticism. ‘Abby had lots of boyfriends, but she didn't sleep around,' she told him fiercely.

What she didn't tell him, what she had never told anyone, was how Abby, heavily drugged in the final painful stages of her illness, had confessed when pressed for the identity of the father that it hadn't been an accident, that in fact she had planned to get pregnant. That she had wanted a baby and had chosen a father, she just hadn't included him in the plan.

‘What if he finds out?' Scarlet asked.

‘The only way he'll find out is if someone told him and you don't know who he is.'

‘But when he hears you've had a baby, won't it be bound to cross his mind?'

‘I doubt if he'll hear, but I thought of that. I told him nothing happened.'

‘He was there, Abby.'

‘He'd already had several drinks by the time we got back to my place,' Abby recalled, displaying none of her younger sister's awkwardness when it came to discussing the intimate details. ‘He actually got quite maudlin and sentimental; I don't think he even noticed I'd added Scotch to his coffee,' she ended on a self-congratulatory note.

Scarlet couldn't believe what she was hearing. ‘You got him drunk!'

‘But not incapable. Please don't look at me like that, Scarlet, it's not like I raped the man. He enjoyed himself, and I got the impression he had something he wanted to forget. That was why he'd been drinking in the first place…something to do with it being the anniversary of something, I think.'

‘But he wasn't a stranger.'

‘I didn't want just
anybody
to be my baby's father,' Abby reproached indignantly. ‘I did my research beforehand.'

‘How long had you been planning to do this, Abby?'

‘Let's just say this wasn't an impulse. I finally accepted I was never going to meet Mr Right and settle down. My biological clock was ticking away. I thought about artificial insemination but you don't really get to choose the father that way, and I got pregnant straight off, the first time, which is just as well, because I doubt if…so it must have been meant to be, don't you think, Scarlet?' she asked wistfully.

Scarlet felt unable under the circumstances to tell her sister what she actually thought and so moderated her views. ‘You don't think it might be a good idea to tell the father?'

‘God, no, a baby would scare the pants off him and I had a hard enough time getting them off the first time. Sorry, Scarlet, I don't mean to embarrass you with the gruesome details.'

‘But a baby needs a father.'

‘You're thinking about inherited weaknesses…'

‘Not specifically,' Scarlet said weakly.

‘No worries there, the guy is about as genetically perfect as is possible. When I drew up my list—'

‘You had a
list
?'

‘Well, it seemed logical, and he was streets ahead of the rest,' Abby revealed, apparently oblivious that she was saying anything out of the ordinary. ‘His family on both sides all seem to be disgustingly healthy and live until a ripe old age.'

‘You seem to have thought of everything,' Scarlet responded weakly.

‘You don't approve, do you, Scarlet? I knew you wouldn't but I was desperate. You have no idea how badly I wanted this baby.'

Scarlet tried to hide how desperately shocked she was when her weak and frail sister went on to describe how she had ruthlessly engineered the seduction to coincide with her fertile period and tampered with the condom! How could you condemn someone who was clinging to life? The guilt of being healthy and strong when someone she loved was dying by inches silenced any protest she might have made.

Abby's spontaneous, warm nature was part of what made her the lovable person she was. But being spontaneous and warm was one thing—what Abby had done was something else! As far as Scarlet was concerned, having a baby was the ultimate expression of love. There had seemed precious little love in the event that Abby described.

‘What would you do if the father suddenly appeared?'

The sound of his voice brought Scarlet back to the present.

She blinked her eyes, focusing on Roman's lean, watchful features. Logically danger ought to repel any right-thinking person, but, while there was something distinctly wolf-like in his lean, hungry aspect, it was that same danger that exerted a strange, almost hypnotic attraction.

‘I asked what you would do if Sam's father reappeared.'

‘Sam's father?'

As always when she thought about the mystery man her sister had callously tricked she was engulfed by a wave of crushing guilt.

There had been a time when she had actually considered trying to discover who he was, but, short of putting an ad in the personal columns, when it came down to it she didn't have the faintest idea how to go about identifying him. And even if she did, would he thank her? According to Abby he was a man who, given the choice, would not have wanted to know—in fact a man who would have denied paternity.

In the circumstances it was academic. No, her energies were better concentrated on taking care of his son. The son he didn't know he had.

‘That's not going to happen,' she told him quietly. There was nothing in his face to explain his motivation in pursuit of the subject.

‘But the idea alarms you?'

Her eyes skimmed his face; she was unwilling to allow herself to become entrapped by his dark, mesmeric eyes. ‘I didn't say that,' she countered quickly.

‘You didn't need to—you have a very expressive face.'

Scarlet was immediately conscious of every facial muscle she possessed as she tried to produce a neutral expression. ‘Trust me…I don't want to be rude, but none of this is actually any of your business.'

‘It's Sam's father's business,' he replied after a taut silence.

‘Sam's father is not going to materialise,' she promised him.

‘But if he did…' Roman persisted. ‘What would you do if he wanted to be part of Sam's life?'

It seemed much more likely that he would resent the child that he had been tricked into fathering, and who could blame him? Not Scarlet. Non-consensual fatherhood pretty much fitted what had been done to him.

‘That's really not at all likely.' His unblinking, glittering scrutiny was making her increasingly nervous.

‘Hypothetically,' he inserted smoothly.

‘
Hypothetically
I'd work something out for Sam's sake, but this isn't something that's going to happen.'

‘You sound very sure.'

‘I am.'

‘How can you be?'

‘Abby didn't tell him,' she revealed abruptly.

‘She knew who he was, then?'

Scarlet let out a furious gasp and bounced to her feet. The shocking sound of her hand connecting with his face resounded around the room.

She looked from her extended hand to the mark on his lean cheek. The thin white scar stood out lividly against the reddened skin. Her chest heaved with emotion as her eyes met his.

‘You pack quite a punch.'

She had started shaking in reaction. ‘I'm sorry.' She was deeply ashamed of the loss of control that had made her resort to violence. ‘But you deserved it,' she added with a glare that dared him to disagree with her.

Roman levered himself from the chair in a fluid elegant motion. He looked down at her from his superior vantage point.

‘Maybe I do.'

Scarlet looked up at him warily through the protective dark mesh of her lashes. This was not the reaction she had expected.

‘What do you mean?'

‘You recall when my mother collapsed at the opening ceremony?'

Scarlet nodded. ‘Of course I do.' She had not the faintest idea where this was going and, call her a coward, but she didn't actually want to know.

‘It was because she saw someone she recognised.'

She still didn't have an inkling. Her smooth brow pleated in a perplexed, wary frown. ‘Who did she recognise?'

‘She saw Sam.'

An image of Sam, the posy of wilting flowers clutched in his hot, sticky hands, flashed into her head. ‘I don't understand.'

He scanned her face for a moment, his own expression broodingly sombre. ‘I know you don't. Sam looks exactly the way I did when I was his age. That's what spooked my mother.'

Scarlet was confused but not suspicious, which later on struck her as ironic in the extreme. ‘Because Sam looks like you?' Perhaps it was the colouring. Sam did have that Mediterranean glow and the long lashes and, now that she thought about it, at certain angles…

‘Because Sam is my son.'

Scarlet was dramatically unprepared for his revelation, which, when at a later date she went over the conversation that had led to it, made her blind, deaf and very stupid!

She was not conscious then or later of his tensing and moving closer in readiness to catch her as the colour seeped rapidly from her skin, leaving it marble-pale.

‘For God's sake, sit down.'

Quivering with denial, she kept to her feet. ‘You and Abby?' She shook her head, feeling sick. ‘You slept with Abby?' she wailed.

Now why did that make her feel as though she were the tragic victim of some betrayal? The victim here was Roman. What he must have felt like discovering he had a son this way she couldn't even imagine! Her well-developed sense of empathy sprang into life, as did her guilt.

‘Apparently.'

Considering his admission, he was surprised when she didn't deliver the obvious comeback. To father a child accidentally was one thing, to forget about it took the crime to another level.

‘She said not, but facts say otherwise,' he related grimly.

‘That's ridiculous, you can't be!' she cried shrilly. ‘She said he…
you
—' she corrected herself.

‘She said what about me?'

Scarlet gave her head a tiny shake; she was having second thoughts about her candour. This was one occasion when the truth was not going to help.

‘I don't recall exactly.'

‘I'll settle for inexact.'

Scarlet gave an exasperated sigh; he wasn't going to leave well alone. She studied his profile. The light fell from behind, highlighting all the hard angles and intriguing hollows of his face.

‘She said the father would have run a million miles if he'd known about the baby.'

Roman flinched.

‘You're not running.'

‘That's because she was wrong,' he breathed grimly. ‘
Very
wrong.'

Tears formed in Scarlet's eyes. ‘Why are you saying this?' she choked, turning her hands palm upwards towards him in an unconscious gesture of appeal. ‘What's the point?'

‘Point?'
he repeated, looking at her as though she were mad. ‘I have a son.'

‘You don't want Sam. You
can't
. Abby isn't here to punish so leave us alone.' Fighting the rising level of panic that made it hard for her to think, she covered her face with her forearm and swallowed a sob.

‘Why would I want to punish the mother of my child? It was my fault.'

Scarlet, who could hear the self-recrimination in his voice, felt so guilty she could hardly look at him. Whatever else Roman was, he was clearly
not
the moral-free zone that Abby had taken him for.

‘I'm hardly unable to support a son. Presumably she thought I'd contest paternity and couldn't stomach the idea of the mud-slinging.' He raked a hand through his dark, sleek hair and fixed Scarlet with an interrogative stare.

She was too stunned by his reading of her late sister's motives that all she could do was stare at him. He appeared to take her silence as confirmation of his explanation.

Why couldn't he be the shallow, selfish playboy Abby had taken him for instead of the owner of a very well-developed set of moral principles? She didn't want to empathise with him, not when he might try and snatch Sam away from her.

She was her nephew's legal guardian but where would she stand legally if he chose to contest her guardianship?

Scarlet was terrified by the thought of a custody battle. Better to let him carry on thinking the pregnancy had been accidental than allow that to happen. Why tell him the truth when there was nothing to be gained except blackening her sister's name?

‘Your sister may have been misguided in going it alone.' This admission seemed to be as close as he was going to get to criticising Abby. ‘But you've got to admire her. Most women finding themselves in that situation would have wanted to make me pay.'