Kitabı oku: «Claiming His Secret Love-Child: The Marciano Love-Child / The Italian Billionaire's Secret Love-Child / The Rich Man's Love-Child»

He couldn’t, wouldn’t, ignore his own child… nor the baby’s mother!

Claiming His Secret Love-Child

Three exhilarating romances from three

fabulous Mills & Boon authors!

Claiming His Secret Love-Child

THE MARCIANO

LOVE-CHILD

MELANIE MILBURNE

THE ITALIAN

BILLIONAIRE’S SECRET

LOVE-CHILD

CATHY WILLIAMS

THE RICH MAN’S

LOVE-CHILD

MAGGIE COX

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE MARCIANO

LOVE-CHILD

MELANIE MILBURNE

About the Author

MELANIE MILBURNE is married to a surgeon, Steve, and has two gorgeous sons, Paul and Phil. She lives in Hobart, Tasmania, where she enjoys an active life as a long-distance runner and a nationally ranked top ten Master’s swimmer. She also has a master’s degree in education, but her children totally turned her off the idea of teaching! When not running or swimming she writes, and when she’s not doing all of the above she’s reading. And if someone could invent a way for her to read during a four-kilometre swim she’d be even happier!

Don’t miss Melanie’s latest novel, The Wedding Charade and The Man with the Locked Away Heart, available from the Mills & Boon® Modern™ and Medical™ series in February and March 2011.

Dedicated to Jocey Anderson, Sue Mayne

and Katrina Henry, three wonderful members

of Talays Aussi Master’s Swimming team,

who have bought each and every one of my books

so far. Thank you for being such faithful supporters

both in and out of the pool.

Happy reading and swimming!

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD started just like any other Monday morning. Scarlett dropped three-year-old Matthew, at crèche after the usual tearful and heart-wrenching ‘don’t leave me, I miss you too much’ routine, before fighting her way through heavy traffic to her small interior-design studio in Woollahra. And just like any other Monday morning her business partner and best friend, Roxanne Hartley, handed her a double-strength latte on her way in the door and asked her how her weekend had been.

‘Don’t ask,’ Scarlett said wearily, and took a reviving sip of the creamy latte.

‘So I take it the blind date your sister set up for you wasn’t a success?’ Roxanne said as she perched on the edge of Scarlett’s desk.

Scarlett rolled her eyes expressively. ‘Depends what you mean by a blind date. Clearly this guy’s idea was to turn up blind drunk. He slurred his way through his sob story about his ex-wife for an hour and a half, until I finally managed to escape.’

‘Poor you,’ Roxanne said in empathy. ‘But don’t give up yet. There’s got to be someone decent out there for you.’

‘Decent would be good,’ Scarlett said, booting up her computer. ‘A good father-figure for Matthew would be good, too, but as soon as men hear I have a three-year-old son they seem to lose interest.’

‘Yes, well, men today can be so shallow,’ Roxanne agreed. ‘They won’t commit, and they want sex on tap.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Scarlett said as she clicked on her computer mouse to activate the screen to check her list of appointments. She put her glasses on and blinked, once, twice, three times, her heart giving a quick, hard thud when she saw that name staring back at her.

‘What’s wrong?’ Roxanne asked in a guileless tone.

Scarlett swivelled her chair to look up at her business partner, her face going pale with shock. ‘You made an appointment for me to meet with Alessandro Marciano?’ she choked.

Roxanne grinned at her excitedly. ‘Yes. I wanted it to be a surprise, otherwise I would have called you over the weekend to tell you about it. He phoned on Friday afternoon just after you’d left. It’s a huge contract, Scarlett. He’s worth zillions, and if we get the deal think of what it will do for us. We’ll be featured in every interior-design magazine across the globe. We won’t have to pay rent any more, we’ll be able to buy the building, no—’ She clasped her hands together in glee and added, ‘—we’ll be able to buy the whole street!’

Scarlett sprang to her feet, almost spilling her latte over her keyboard in the process. ‘I’m not seeing him,’ she said through tight lips. ‘I don’t want the contract. I want nothing to do with it.’

Roxanne slapped the side of her head as if she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. ‘Have you happened to look at our financial statements recently?’ she asked as she slipped down off the desk. ‘Come on, Scarlett, our business loan is stretched to the limit, you know it is. I know things are often a bit slow in January, while everyone is still on summer holidays, but this is a chance in a lifetime. This is just what we need right now. Alessandro Marciano has bought the old Arlington Hotel building in the city. He’s going to turn it into a luxury hotel, with three floors of penthouse apartments for the super rich. And he wants us to do the interior design. Us! Can you believe it? It’s like winning the lottery.’

‘I can’t see him, Roxanne,’ Scarlett insisted. ‘Please don’t ask it of me.’

A light bulb seemed to come on in Roxanne’s head as she peered at Scarlett. ‘Hang on a minute, what… Have you dated him in the past or something?’

‘More than dated,’ Scarlett answered with a dark frown.

Roxanne gave her a probing look. ‘What do you mean “more than dated?”’

Scarlett drew in an unsteady breath. ‘He’s Matthew’s father.’

Roxanne’s jaw dropped open, and her eyes went saucer-wide. ‘He’s what?’ she gasped.

Scarlett’s expression became rigid with tension. ‘I’m not going to see him, Roxanne. No way. I hate him for what he did to me, and I am not going to—’

The unmistakable throaty roar of a Maserati suddenly sounded on the street outside. Both girls looked out of the front window of the studio, and watched as the car’s black, sleek body was expertly manoeuvred in between their tiny fuel-efficient vehicles parked outside.

Roxanne met her friend’s startled grey-blue gaze. ‘Looks like you’re not going to have a choice,’ she said, and added, with a little sheepish grimace as the front door opened with a cheery tinkle of the bell hanging on the back, ‘Er…did I forget to mention the meeting was here, at nine-fifteen?’

Scarlett felt every pore of her skin and every hair on her body stand to attention as that imposing, darkly handsome figure stooped as he came in through the door. Her heart started going like a jackhammer, the pressure building in her chest so overwhelming she wondered if the heavy thumping would be visible through the lightweight white linen of her blouse.

His hazel eyes met hers, the brown-and-green flecks reminding her all over again of the myriad colours of a rainforest. But this time she felt as if there were mysterious shadows lurking in the depths of his gaze, as he stood looking at her in a watchful silence for what seemed like endless seconds.

‘Hello, Scarlett,’ he finally said in that stomach-tilting velvet drawl that had been her downfall close to four years ago.

Scarlett lifted her chin and turned to Roxanne, who was standing with her mouth opening and closing like a recently landed fish. ‘Roxanne, would you please inform Mr…er…’ She glanced down at her diary as if to remind herself of his name, before looking back up and continuing in the same haughty tone, ‘…Mr Marciano that I am not taking on any new clients as I am booked up until the end of the year.’

‘But—’ Roxanne spluttered, but was cut off by Alessandro who had stepped forward to smile at her with lethal charm.

‘Miss Hartley, would you be so kind as to leave Miss Fitzpatrick and I to conduct out meeting in private?’he asked.

‘No! Don’t you dare leave,’ Scarlett bit out hastily. Please, oh please, don’t leave me with him; she silently begged the rest of the sentence with her eyes.

Roxanne pursed her mouth, and after a moment’s hesitation scooped up her bag and half-finished latte. ‘Sure, I can do that,’ she said, smiling girlishly at Alessandro. ‘I have to see a man about some tiles anyway. I’ll be back at eleven.’

Scarlett sent her an ‘I’m going to kill you for this’ glare, before taking her place behind her desk in case her legs followed through on their current threat to fold beneath her.

The studio door opened and closed with another tinkle on Roxanne’s exit, but to Scarlett it felt more like the sound of a vault locking down for good.

The silence thrummed in her ears, the air becoming so thick with it she felt as if a pair of hands was around the slim column of her throat, gradually increasing the pressure until she was sure she was going to choke.

‘So you are not interested in doing business with me, Scarlett?’ Alessandro asked with a coolly impersonal smile.

‘No.’ Her one-word response came out of her mouth like a hard pellet.

‘Why ever not?’ he asked with an ironic arch of one dark brow. ‘I thought you would be jumping at this chance to get your hands on my money.’

She tightened her mouth even further, and forced her gaze to meet his. ‘I am surprised you are interested in engaging the services of a filthy little slut—those were your words for me back then, were they not?’

There was no sign of anger in his expression, but Scarlett could sense it all the same. She had known and loved that face so well in the three months they had been together. Every nuance of it was imprinted indelibly on her brain. The smile that could melt stone, the gaze that could heat blood, the mouth that could kiss like a teasing feather, or with such hungry passion her lips had tingled and been swollen for hours afterwards. Even now, after all this time, she could still taste the salt and musk of his lips and tongue, and her lower body began to pulse with the memory of how if had felt with him plunging between her legs.

She crossed her legs under her desk, fighting the sensations brewing there. But it was almost impossible to control the hit-and-miss beat of her heart every time she encountered that brown-and-green flecked gaze.

‘Your sexual proclivities, I would imagine, have no bearing on your talent at interior design,’ he said with an enigmatic look. ‘You have a good reputation professionally. That is why I am keen to have you wholly responsible for the project I am about to commence.’

Her chin went even higher. ‘I told you, I’m not available.’

His mouth tilted slightly. ‘Perhaps before you throw away this chance, Scarlett, you should at least look at what I am offering.’

‘No amount of money you could dangle in front of me will induce me to conduct any sort of relationship with you again, business or otherwise,’ she stated implacably.

A flicker of male interest darkened the brown in his eyes as they moved over her appraisingly. ‘I was not going to suggest anything other than a business agreement between us, however…’ He left the sentence suspended between them in the pulsing silence.

‘Forget it, Alessandro,’ she said. ‘In any case, I’m already seeing someone.’

‘Is it the same man you were involved with in Italy?’ he asked, piercing her gaze with his. ‘Dylan Kirby was his name, was it not?’

Scarlett felt her blood begin to simmer in her veins. ‘I was travelling with him, not sleeping with him.’

Cynicism burned in his gaze. ‘Ah, yes, that old story. I remember it well.’

‘It’s not a story, it’s the truth,’ she insisted. ‘I met Dylan, Joe and Jessica on a bus tour. I told you all this four years ago. How many times do I have to repeat myself?’

‘I am not interested in your lies, but I am interested in what you can do for me,’ he said. ‘Your business is in need of a contract as big as this, Scarlett. You would be a fool to throw it away as if it was worth nothing.’

She clenched her jaw. ‘I hate to be the one to point out the irony in all this, but isn’t that what you did to me?’

‘I am prepared to be generous,’ he said, ignoring her comment as if she meant nothing to him.

That was because she did mean nothing to him, she reminded herself. He had never spoken to her of love; he had simply enjoyed the delights of their affair while she had fallen in love with him, fallen hard.

Before she had met him she had been a little scathing at the notion of falling in love at first sight, or even of falling in love over a period of days. She had always thought the sort of love that was deep and abiding would build up over a period of time, as trust and respect grew between two people. But meeting Alessandro Marciano that hot summer morning in Milan had tipped her world upside down. Within three hours she had been kissed by him, within three days she had been sleeping with him, and within three months she had been pregnant by him.

Scarlett blinked herself back to the present when Alessandro handed her a document. She took it from him, her shaking fingers not quite able to avoid the fine-sandpaper brush of his against hers. Her whole body jolted in reaction and heat coursed through her, the thud of her pulse going at breakneck speed.

‘If you are not happy with that amount, I will double it,’ he said.

Scarlett looked down at the contract, her eyes almost popping out of her head at the amount printed there. It was an astonishing amount of money, although she would have to work very hard for it, she imagined. She knew enough about Alessandro Marciano to know he had exacting standards. His reputation as a hotelier was global. Guests staying at a Marciano hotel were treated to the utmost in luxury, and this one in Sydney would be no different, if the drawings his team of highly skilled architects had prepared were anything to go by.

But accepting this contract, as lucrative and career-enhancing as it was, would mean close contact with him, maybe even on a daily basis. There would be meetings with him to discuss her designs, fabrics to look over, light fittings, soft furnishings, plumbing fixtures—the list went on and on in her head. How could she get through it without damaging herself irreparably?

And more to the point how could she keep Matthew safe from knowing his father had refused to accept him as his? Although she couldn’t help thinking one look at that child would remove all doubt, even in someone as cynical as Alessandro. They had the same hazel eyes, the same ink-black hair and olive skin, the same-shaped mouth—although Matthew’s was still soft with the innocence of childhood.

‘I will give you a day or two to think it over.’ His deep voice invaded the private torture of her tangled thoughts.

She got to her feet in one abrupt movement. ‘I don’t need two—’

He held up one and then two long fingers against her mouth. ‘Two days, Scarlett,’ he said, holding her gaze. ‘Think about it.’

Scarlett swallowed as her body remembered how intimately those fingers had known every pleasure spot she possessed. How she had felt that first frisson of passionate response when he had stroked the silken folds of her femininity for the first time—how she had quivered inside and out when he had explored her so thoroughly and so devastatingly with his fingers, his mouth, his tongue, and the hot, pulsing hard length of him.

He lifted his fingers, and she ran her tongue over where he had been, her stomach doing a sudden free-fall when she saw his eyes flick to her mouth.

And stay there.

The air tightened around them, as if an invisible clinging vine had silently insinuated itself into the room and was now pulling them closer and closer together.

Scarlett couldn’t breathe; she wasn’t game enough to draw in a breath in case he heard the betraying flutter of her pulse beneath her skin.

She stood very still as he reached out again, this time with just the index finger of his right hand, brushing it against the softness of her bottom lip, his eyes still locked on her mouth. The temptation to sweep her tongue over and around his finger was suddenly overwhelming. She had to clamp her teeth together to stop herself taking him in her mouth and sucking on him, as she had done so many times before.

And not just his finger…

His eyes came back to hers, a tiny frown pulling at the dark slashes of his eyebrows, the line of his mouth losing its inherent cynicism for just a brief moment.

‘I had forgotten how very soft your mouth is,’ he said in an even deeper, more gravelly tone than he’d used before.

Scarlett rolled her lips together, more to stop them buzzing with sensation than to draw his attention back to her mouth—but his eyes dipped again, and this time she felt the heat of his gaze like a brand on her lips.

‘I-I think it might be time for you to leave,’ she scratched out through her too-tight throat. ‘I have nothing further to say to you. I don’t want the work. You’ll have to find someone else.’

He looked down at her for a long moment. ‘I am not quite ready to leave, Scarlett. There are still some things I would like to discuss with you.’

Panic prickled at her insides as she stood stock-still in front of him. She couldn’t step back because her desk was in the way, and stepping forward was out of the question, with the possibility of brushing against him to get past.

She was trapped.

‘Four years ago you told me you were pregnant,’ he said into the silence.

Scarlett felt her throat tighten even further, but somehow she managed to maintain eye contact with him. ‘Yes…yes I did.’

‘You also told me the child was mine.’

A glitter of anger lit her unblinking gaze. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘Did you go through with the pregnancy?’ he asked after an infinitesimal pause.

She kept her gaze locked on his. ‘At the risk of repeating myself—yes, I did.’

His expression remained as unreadable as a book with the pages glued together. ‘Does your child have contact with its father?’ he asked.

She frowned at him, angry at the way he was cross examining her. ‘What’s with all these questions, Alessandro? You were the one who insisted the child couldn’t possibly be yours. Why the sudden interest now? Have you suddenly changed your mind and decided I wasn’t lying to you after all?’

He gave a little shrug of insouciance. ‘No, of course I have not changed my mind. There is no way I could be the father of your child.’

Scarlett sent him a caustic glare. ‘So you think.’

‘I do not think, Scarlett,’ he said with a granite-hard stare. ‘I know it for a fact.’

She stood before him, silently fuming at his arrogance, her simmering hatred for him threatening to spill over.

His mouth tilted into a sardonic smile as his eyes roved over her lazily. ‘Anyway, you do not look as if you have had a child. You are as slim and attractive as you were four years ago.’

She gave him a withering look. ‘Thanks for insulting every mother out there who’s put on a bit of weight after childbirth.’

‘I did not mean to insult other mothers.’

‘No, you’re here to insult me,’ she shot back. ‘You can keep your contract, Alessandro Marciano. I don’t want anything to do with a man who thinks I am a liar and a cheat and a whore.’

‘So even after all this time you are still determined to have me nominated as the sire of your offspring, are you?’ he asked with a curl of his lip. ‘Why is that, Scarlett—because the other possible candidates would not pay up?’

She ground her teeth as she glared at him. ‘There were no other candidates, and you damn well know it.’

The cynicism in the line of his mouth increased. ‘You do not like admitting you got it wrong by singling me out, do you, Scarlett? You thought you had landed yourself a meal ticket for the rest of your life when you met me. I wondered at the time why you had fallen into bed with me so quickly. It all made sense, of course, when you told me your news. You needed financial security, but you got it wrong in selecting me.’

She clenched her fists by her sides. ‘I loved you, Alessandro. I really loved you. I would have given anything to have spent the rest of my life with you, but not for the reasons you’re assuming.’

‘Love?’ He snorted. ‘I wonder if you would still have claimed to love me if I’d told you at the beginning of our affair that I was not interested in having children—ever.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

Something moved in his gaze, like a shifting shadow. It was there one second, gone the next.

‘We had only been seeing each other for three months,’ he said. ‘I was going to tell you within the next week or two, as I was concerned that you would have hopes for a future of marriage and babies with me. I realise it is a lot to ask of a woman, to relinquish her right to have a child with the man she loves.’

‘So you do acknowledge that I loved you?’

The cynical slant to his mouth returned. ‘I believe you loved the idea of marrying a multi-millionaire. Nothing awakens love so much as money, I have found.’

‘Why are you so against having children?’ she asked, still frowning. ‘I thought all Italians loved children—having a loving family is everything to them, not to mention having an heir.’

‘That has never been in my plans,’ he said. ‘I have other things I want to do with my life. Being tied down with a wife and children holds no appeal at all.’

Scarlett searched his face, wondering what had led him to such an intractable stance, but his expression was inscrutable.

‘I will see you in two days’ time, Scarlett, to discuss the terms of the contract.’ He handed her a card with his business details on it. ‘My private phone number is on the other side, if you should wish to contact me before then, otherwise I will see you at the Arlington Hotel on Thursday at ten a.m.’

Scarlett looked down at the gold-embossed card with its serrated edges, the pad of her index finger running over each and every letter of his name. But it wasn’t until she heard the tinkle of the tiny bell hanging on the studio door that she realised he had left.

She looked up and watched as he went to his car parked outside, his tall, muscular body almost folding in half to get behind the wheel. He fired the engine and, just before he pulled out into the street, he glanced back and met her gaze, a small frown playing about his brow.

Scarlett turned from the window and drew in a scratchy breath, and held it inside her aching chest until the sound of his car had faded into the distance.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’M WARNING you, Scarlett, that if you don’t take this Marciano contract on I’m out of here,’ Roxanne threatened early on Thursday morning. ‘This is what I’ve been hoping for ever since I graduated. It’s what we’ve both been waiting for. You can’t do this to me—damn it, you can’t do it to us.’

Scarlett bit her lip, her eyes flicking to the clock again, which seemed to be gathering momentum every time she looked at it. She had less than twenty minutes to get into the city to meet Alessandro and give him her final answer. She had barely slept for the last forty-eight hours, agonising over what to do. Seeing him again had brought everything back, all the heartache and crushing despair of his disbelief and rejection.

‘I know you’re worried about some of the clauses in the contract,’ Roxanne said. ‘But we’ve handled complicated contracts before and sailed through without a hitch. This is an offer too good to pass up. Besides, you know how tight this industry is. If word gets out you turned aside a deal as big as this for personal reasons, how will we hold our heads up professionally?’

Scarlett sank her teeth into her lower lip. ‘I know, but…’

‘Don’t blow this, Scarlett,’ Roxanne said. ‘If you haven’t signed on the dotted line when you get back to the studio later today, I want you to buy me out of the business.’

Scarlett felt her chest begin to thud with alarm. ‘You know I can’t afford to do that, Roxanne. It will ruin me. I have no savings, and getting a personal loan would be impossible right now.’

‘You’ve lied to me for close to four years, Scarlett,’ Roxanne said bitterly. ‘You told me Matthew’s father had died in a car accident in Italy. Do you realise how that makes me feel? Totally betrayed. I thought I was your best friend.’

Scarlett met her friend’s wounded gaze. ‘I know I should have told you, but I was so upset and confused when I came home. It seemed easier to tell everyone Matthew’s father had been killed in an accident. I couldn’t bear the questions from Mum and Sophie. They would have driven me mad. I wanted to tell you so many times, especially after all you’ve done for me, but I had to consider Matthew too. How is he going to feel in the future to hear his father wanted nothing to do with him?’

‘I realise all that, but what’s so hard about taking on several-hundred thousand dollars or more of business?’ Roxanne returned. ‘Get in the real world, Scarlett. So what if he doesn’t believe Matthew’s his kid? That’s his loss. This is a business transaction. Put your private issues aside and get on with the job.’

‘It’s not that simple…’

Roxanne gave her a penetrating look. ‘You’re not still in love with the guy, are you?’

‘No, of course not,’ Scarlett said with an affronted huff. ‘It’s just that he’s…he’s…’

‘Very attractive,’ Roxanne offered helpfully. ‘And super-rich.’

Scarlett glared at her. ‘You know I’m not that sort of person, Roxanne.’

Roxanne blew out a breath. ‘No, you’re not, more’s the pity. You’re way too kind to people. You let them walk all over you.’

‘If you’re obliquely referring to the Underwood account, then don’t,’ Scarlett said with a little scowl. ‘I felt sorry for Louise Underwood—her husband was a total brute. I couldn’t leave her with all those bills to pay when he ran off with his mistress.’

‘We’re running a business not a charity, Scarlett,’ Roxanne said. ‘And, speaking of business, you’d better scoot or you’ll never get there in time.’

‘I’ll get a cab rather than try and park,’ Scarlett said as she grabbed her bag and sunglasses. ‘God, I wish there was some way out of this.’

‘There is,’ Roxanne said. ‘You sign the contract, you do the work, you say goodbye. Easy.’

Scarlett opened the studio door and grimaced. ‘You think.’

When Scarlett arrived at the old Arlington in the city there were various workmen on site, as the building was in the first stages of being gutted. Scaffolding was wrapped around the outside, and the front doors were pinned back to keep them open, but even so the fine dust in the air made her nose start to twitch.

She walked across the threadbare carpet-runner to the reception desk, but she had to step aside as a worn sofa was carried past her to the service lifts. She carried on once the men had moved past, but the reception area was deserted, as the hotel had closed down several weeks ago.

She turned and looked up at the winding staircase and locked gazes with Alessandro, who was standing on the next floor looking down at her. She felt her stomach fold over itself and her heart start to race as he came down the stairs, the sound of his footsteps echoing throughout the cavernous foyer.

‘Hello, Scarlett.’

Scarlett felt the skin on her bare arms lift in goosebumps as he came to stand in front of her. His slightly wavy hair was glossy black with moisture, as if he had not long showered. She could smell the exotic spices of his aftershave, and the clean, male scent of his body, and her brain flooded with images of how he had looked wet and glistening in the shower.

‘I was not sure you would come,’ he said.

She blinked at him, her mind still back in the shower, her heart beating so quickly she could hear a roaring in her ears. ‘Um…I need the money…’ she said, but instantly regretted it when she saw the way his eyes hardened slightly. ‘I mean, business has been slow over summer, and I don’t want to get in too far over my head…or anything…’ She bit her lip, hating that she sounded so unprofessional. She was usually so brisk and efficient with potential clients, but Alessandro was not just a client.

He was her little son’s father.

Alessandro looked down at her for a lengthy moment. He had spent the last two days thinking about her, wondering what it would be like to have her in his bed again.

This reaction hadn’t really surprised him; after all, he had felt the same way the first time he had met her. He could feel it now, the pulse of sexual attraction crackling in the air that separated them. Seeing her again had brought back a rush of memories of how responsive she had been in his arms. He had never experienced anything like it before or since. He felt his groin tightening even now, thinking about the pleasure her body had given him so uninhibitedly. Her slim, golden sun-kissed limbs had snaked around his, her body rocking and shuddering with the spasms of release, until he had exploded with mind-blowing pleasure time and time again.

He was glad now he hadn’t told her he had fallen in love with her four years ago—certainly not after the way she had tried to deceive him. That would have been the ultimate in humiliation, to have had her know how deeply he had cared for her while she had been cleverly masterminding her plot to hoodwink him.

‘So you have decided to work for me after all, Scarlett?’ he said into the too-long silence.

Scarlett moistened her mouth with her tongue, her stomach feeling as if a large nest of bush ants had been disturbed inside it. ‘Yes… Yes, I have…’

‘Because you need the money.’

She swallowed twice before she could find her voice again. ‘It’s as you said—a big contract. It’s also a very time-consuming one. I have some other clients that I—’

‘Your business partner Roxanne Hartley can see to those while you work for me.’

‘This is too big a job to do single-handedly,’ she said. ‘Roxanne will have to be in on it, as well as one or two other freelance designers.’

‘I will leave you to make the necessary arrangements,’ he said. ‘I am sure you are more than capable of assembling a design team to manage this project.’

‘It’s not just that.’ She took a breath to calm herself and continued. ‘I’m concerned about how things are…between us.’

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. ‘What do you mean?’

She hoisted her handbag over her shoulder as she ran the palms of her hands down the sides of her skirt. ‘We’re not exactly friends, Alessandro.’

‘We do not need to be friends in order to get down to business, Scarlett.’

‘As long as this remains strictly a business arrangement,’ she said with a pointed glance.

His expression contained a hint of mockery. ‘Are you saying that for my benefit or your own?’

Her eyes flared. ‘What do you mean by that?’

The brown flecks in his eyes darkened to the colour of espresso coffee. ‘You can still feel it, can’t you, Scarlett?’ he said in a low, sexy drawl. ‘You can feel that throbbing tension that fills the air as soon as we are in the same room together. I felt it the other day, and I know you did too.’

‘That’s complete and utter nonsense,’ she said with a little toss of her head. ‘Anyway, I told you, I’m seeing someone.’

‘What is his name?’

Scarlett stared at him, her mind going completely blank. ‘Umm…I’d rather not say.’

‘How long have you been involved with him?’ he asked, still pinning her with his gaze.

Scarlett pursed her mouth and glared at him irritably. ‘I thought I was here to discuss the refurbishment of this building, not the details of my personal life. Now, can we get on with it, please? I have a full list of appointments, and I have to pick up my son at five-thirty.’

He held her gaze for a pulsing moment, but she couldn’t decide what was going on behind the screen of his hazel eyes.

‘Excuse me,’ he said as his mobile started to ring.

Scarlett watched as he looked at the caller ID and frowned as he moved a few metres away. It gave her a chance to observe him while he wasn’t watching, but she couldn’t help wondering who he was talking to in such rapid-fire Italian, his voice sounding edgy and annoyed.

She drank in the sight of him—the long legs, the flat stomach, and the black silky hairs at his wrists where his shirt cuffs were casually rolled up. He looked every inch the successful and powerful man; the world was at his fingertips, and there was nothing he couldn’t do if he put his mind to it.

Except acknowledge his son as his own.

Scarlett hated recalling the night she had told him about her pregnancy. She shrank back from the memories, but they marched right through her paltry blockade as they had done so many times before…

‘Alessandro, I have something to tell you,’ she had said as soon as he had come in from his office in Milan.

He’d placed his briefcase on the floor at his feet and leaned down to kiss her lingeringly on the mouth. ‘Mmm,’ he’d said, lifting his head momentarily. ‘You have been eating chocolate again.’

She’d rolled her lips together and tried to smile, but her stomach had felt like it was unravelling. ‘I know you’re going to be terribly shocked,’ she’d said, capturing her lip with her teeth before adding, ‘I can’t believe it happened myself… I should have been more careful. I know it sounds stupid and naïve but I just didn’t realise how easy it was…’

He’d smiled and tipped up her chin with the pad of his fingertip. ‘Let me guess. You have run out of credit on your mobile phone, no?’

‘No, it’s not that…’ Her stomach had tilted again at his touch.

‘I told you before, cara, money is not an issue with me,’ he’d said, stroking her cheek with his thumb. ‘I was the one who encouraged you to stay on in Milan for a few extra weeks, so it is only fair that I give you an allowance to tide you over.’

‘No, I don’t want to take money from you, Alessandro,’ she’d said. ‘I won’t do it. I can get a job in a café or something if I run out.’

He frowned with disapproval. ‘No, I do not want you working in a hot, crowded café. I like coming home to you fresh and happy to see me.’

‘It’s not about money,’ she said. ‘I have some savings from home I can transfer in any case.’

His thumb stopped moving as he held her gaze. ‘You do not like the thought of being paid to be my lover?’

She frowned at him. ‘Of course I don’t like the thought of it. That’s positively archaic, Alessandro. People don’t do that, or at least not in the circles I move in.’

His expression was still unreadable as he looked into her eyes. ‘I want you to be my lover, and I do not mind paying you to stay with me.’

Scarlett felt her breath stall in her chest. ‘For…for how long?’

His thumb moved to her bottom lip and grazed it tantalisingly, his eyes holding hers like a magnet. ‘How long would you like to stay in Milan?’ he asked.

Her heart began thumping irregularly again. ‘How long do you want me to stay?’ she asked softly.

He kissed the corner of her mouth. ‘The way I feel right now, I want you to stay for a long time—a very long time.’

Scarlett let out her breath in a long stream of relief. She had longed to hear him say he loved her, but it was almost as good knowing he wanted her to stay indefinitely.

‘Alessandro…’ She stepped up on tiptoe and kissed his mouth in a series of hot, passionate little touchdowns of her lips on his. ‘I love you. I didn’t think it was possible to love someone so much and so quickly, but I do,’ she said, gazing up at him rapturously. ‘I love being with you. I love it more than anything in the world.’

He smiled again and brought her closer, his hips pressing against hers. ‘I know you do, and I enjoy being with you too. Now, tesore mio, tell me what you were so intent on telling me when I came in the door. I am all ears—is that how you say it in English, hmm?’

‘Yes…yes, it is.’ She took a little breath and announced baldly, ‘Alessandro, I’m pregnant.’

He released her so abruptly she stumbled, only just managing to right herself because there was a priceless marble statue close by. She faced him, one hand still holding the statue, her stomach feeling like it was going to drop down between her suddenly trembling legs.

His expression was thunderous with anger, his eyes like chips of murky-coloured ice as they locked on hers.

‘Vio slut ripugnante!’ His words were laced with venom. ‘Vio whore ripugnante.’

Scarlett’s eyes went wide with shock; she had been in Italy long enough to recognise a savage curse when she heard one. Although she had expected him to be surprised, and perhaps a little angry, to have him call her such horrible names was so unexpected she stood without speaking or defending herself for far too long.

‘You tried to trick me into asking you to marry me,’ he went on in the same cold, hard tone. ‘You did not just want my money in exchange for a little affair—you wanted everything, did you not?’

‘Alessandro—’ She choked on a frightened sob. ‘Why are you carrying on like this? I thought you cared for me. I—’

She flinched away as he stabbed a finger in the space between them. ‘Siete una frode affamata dei soldi deceitful,’ he snarled.

She swallowed against the burning ache in her throat. ‘I’m not sure what you’re saying. Please, can you speak in English?’

He stepped closer, one of his hands coming down on her wrist like a manacle. ‘You are a deceitful, money-hungry cheat,’ he translated viciously, his eyes flashing with sparks of brown and green. ‘You are a filthy slut, a filthy whore.’

Scarlett pulled against his iron hold. ‘Stop it, Alessandro, please, you’re hurting me.’

He flung her arm away and glared down at her. ‘You are good at this, I will admit that, Scarlett. But then you are rather accurately named, are you not? You are a scarlet woman if ever there was one.’

She stood as frozen as the statue beside her. ‘Don’t say things like that, Alessandro,’ she said, her heart squeezing in pain. ‘You know I’m not like that.’

His bark of humourless laughter had an edge of cruelty to it. ‘You opened your legs for me within three days of meeting me, but now of course I know why. You were looking for a father for your illegitimate child. You backpackers are all the same, screwing whatever comes along just for the hell of it. You got caught out and had to find a substitute father in a hurry. Who better than me, a knight dressed in Armani?’

Scarlett could scarcely believe what she was hearing. The malevolence in his tone was so foreign to her. She had never seen him lose his temper. He had never spoken to her so coarsely; she wasn’t sure how to deal with it, or indeed how to defend herself. It seemed so out of character; it terrified her that the man she had given her heart and soul to had suddenly changed into someone else entirely.

‘Get your things and get out of my house,’ he bit out. ‘I will give you ten minutes to do so.’

The hammer blows of panic inside her head made her vision start to blur. Her mouth was dry, her heart feeling as if it had been backed over by a truck. Her stomach churned with the nausea that had plagued her for days on end, but she fought against it valiantly as she tried to come to grips with what was happening.

She took a couple of deep, calming breaths. ‘You don’t mean that, Alessandro,’ she said, keeping her voice soft and low. ‘You know you don’t. Darling, what’s come over you?’

His eyes blazed as they looked down at her, his lips pulled tight by a rage so intense she instinctively moved back a step.

‘You cannot possibly be carrying my child,’ he said, with a flinty glare.

She nervously moistened her mouth. ‘But of course it’s yours, Alessandro. I’ve only been with you.’

His lips curled back in a sneer. ‘Itete trovando!’

Her chest tightened another painful notch. ‘Please speak to me in English, Alessandro. I don’t understand you.’

‘You are lying!’ He shouted the words so loudly they bounced off the walls, the echoes falling like slaps against her ears.

Scarlett was struggling not to cry. ‘I’m not lying. I’d only had one lover before you, and that had been over a year before we met. How can you possibly doubt me?’

‘You had been travelling for weeks with that Kirby man, but you tossed him aside as soon as you met me, no doubt because his wallet was running a little dry,’ he said.

‘That’s not true! I have never slept with Dylan. I told him and the others to leave without me, because I wanted to spend more time with you.’

His expression was cold with contempt. ‘That was just a very clever act to worm your way into my affections, was it not?’

Her face fell. ‘No…no. That’s not true. How can you say that?’

‘I can say it because it is true,’ he said. ‘You tried to set me up to pay for your bastard child, but there is one thing you miscalculated about me.’

She swallowed the thorny knot in her throat. ‘Alessandro, you’re not making sense. We’ve made love hundreds of times, a lot of times without protection. I went on the Pill too late. I thought it would be safe, but it obviously wasn’t.’

His sneer turned to a snarl. ‘I have heard of such ploys before. The unplanned pregnancy is a handy way of forcing a man into marriage, but these days it is all too easy to prove paternity.’

‘I’ll have a test done to prove it,’ she said with rising despair. ‘Then you’ll have to believe me.’

His eyes raked over her from head to foot. ‘I have all the proof I need. Now get out of my life.’

She looked up at him in stunned shock. ‘You surely don’t mean to throw me out on the streets at this time of night?’

His face was set in stone. ‘It is where you belong, is it not?’

Scarlett opened her mouth to protest, but he had already turned to call one of the household staff, issuing a short, sharp command to have Signorina Fitzgerald’s belongings packed immediately and brought to the front door.

Once the servant had scurried away, Alessandro turned back to Scarlett with another look of contempt. ‘I must congratulate you on your ingenuity,’ he said. ‘I have been pursued by many women, but no one has ever got close enough for me to invite them to live with me, albeit temporarily.’

A bubble of anger inside Scarlett finally found its way to the surface. ‘I was only ever a temporary diversion for you, wasn’t I?’ she said. ‘You were only interested in a summer fling, and for your own convenience asked me to move in with you. You were never going to make things permanent between us.’

‘Permanency is not something I have ever or will ever aim for in my relationships,’ he said. ‘I value my freedom too much.’

‘You’re going to end up a lonely old man with no one to love you,’ she said, her heart sinking as the servant came down the huge staircase, carrying her backpack.

Alessandro gave a scornful sneer and opened the front door as wide as it would go. ‘Goodbye, Scarlett.’

She picked up her backpack where the servant had placed it and slung it awkwardly over one shoulder, her eyes now streaming with tears. ‘You’re going to regret this one day,’ she said, her voice breaking over the words. ‘I know you will. You will hate yourself for not believing me.’

‘The only thing I will regret is allowing you to fool me into thinking you were not like other social-climbing women,’ he said. ‘Now, get out before I have you thrown out.’

Scarlett stepped down the stairs with only her pride to keep her upright. She walked stiffly towards the wrought-iron gates, her heart splintering into thousands of pieces as she heard the front door of his house click shut with ominous finality behind her.