Kitabı oku: «The Italian's Wife», sayfa 2

Timmie would be much better off adopted, Holly forced herself to concede. It would break her heart but it was cruel of her to keep him when she could not provide for him as he deserved. Her eyes stung with hot, prickling tears. There was no other choice available to her. She couldn’t earn enough in the employment market to pay for childcare or a proper home. Even living off the state in recent weeks, as she had been forced to do after a spate of ill health had seen her sacked from her last job, she had managed no better. Everything she had once owned had either been sold for cash or stolen. She now literally owned only what she stood up in. It was time to do the right thing for Timmie. He would have two caring parents and a decent home. How could she stand in her son’s way when she herself had so little to offer him?

The nurse bustled back in with a wide smile. ‘Mr Lombardi is planning to come and see you…now, aren’t you the lucky one?’

‘Mr…who?’

‘Saverio Lombardi. The man whose limousine you almost dented!’

‘A limousine…Lombardi? Isn’t that the same name as this hospital?’ Holly queried in confusion. Had he been in a limousine? He had certainly been travelling with an awful lot of people, she recalled dimly.

‘This hospital is run by the Lombardi Foundation. It’s a charitable trust set up by Mr Lombardi. We only take in local patients on emergency,’ the nurse explained. ‘People come here from all over the world for surgery that they can’t get in their home countries. The foundation covers the costs. Mr Lombardi is a very well-known philanthropist…surely you’ve heard of him?’

‘No…I didn’t notice the limo either.’ The nurse was talking about underprivileged people from less developed countries, Holly gathered in some discomfiture, charity cases. Although she had been taken aback by her luxurious surroundings, she had not realised that the hospital was private. Indeed, she had assumed that the hospital was simply brand-new and that she had got her own room either by sheer good fortune or because Timmie’s initial crying would have disturbed other patients. But now it was obvious that luck and Timmie’s lungs had had nothing to do with it. She was a charity case too.

‘Maybe you were too busy looking at those scorching tawny eyes of his,’ the other woman teased. ‘Not to mention the rest of him. Rio Lombardi is drop-dead gorgeous, and so fanciable you could kidnap him.’

On the other side of the ajar door, Rio hesitated in receipt of that unsought accolade and raised his brows in exasperation. Then, strong jawline squaring, he entered with a light warning knock on the door.

Holly jerked in dismay, her pale skin taking on instant discomfited colour as if she had been the one talking out of turn, while the night nurse scurried out with a bent head. But after just one look at the very tall, powerfully built dark male coming to a halt at the foot of her bed, Holly was challenged even to recall what had briefly embarrassed her. In all her life she had never seen a more breathtakingly handsome male and, no matter how hard she tried, she could not stop staring.

Drop-dead gorgeous had been no exaggeration. That lean, taut bone-structure, composed of flaring dark brows, proud cheekbones, wide narrow mouth and assertive jawline, was the very essence of raw masculinity. As she encountered his stunning dark golden eyes her mouth ran dry, and without any good reason at all she was suddenly very conscious that she was naked beneath the thin hospital gown she wore, suddenly hugely aware of her own female body. Her breasts seemed to ache and heat flickered deep in her pelvis, an oddly charged heat that drew her every muscle so taut that she could hardly breathe as he studied her.

Luxuriant black lashes screened his gaze as his attention lingered on her soft full mouth. In that quick upward glance he made to connect with her scrutiny again, she met the flashburn effect of those intense eyes of his and was appalled to find herself wondering how that beautiful male mouth would feel on her own.

‘How are you feeling?’ Rio Lombardi asked quietly.

‘F-f-fine,’ Holly stammered helplessly, aghast at a mind that could throw up such inappropriate thoughts, terrified that he might somehow suspect the effect he was having on her. ‘But I’ve got a concussion.’

‘I know…’ As Rio Lombardi strolled over to the cot to gaze down at her son, Holly, her face burning like a bonfire, struggled to get a grip on herself. But it was no use, for she could not drag her magnetised attention from him. He was well over six feet tall, his impressive physique lean and muscular, and in spite of his size he moved with extraordinary grace. ‘Timmie looks happy, though.’

‘Yeah…nice cosy cot,’ Holly mumbled, feeling like an idiot as soon as the inane words escaped her.

Rio Lombardi glanced up from his scrutiny of Timmie’s slumbering and peaceful little face, a faint smile still softening the hard line of his sculpted lips. ‘You shouldn’t have been on the streets with him,’ he remarked with quiet assurance.

‘I…I know,’ Holly stressed jerkily, her dilated gaze clinging to the mesmeric tawny hold of his, her heart jumping as if she had just leapt off a cliff, pounding inside her so hard she could hardly squeeze the words out.

She was still blushing as fierily as a schoolgirl, Rio registered with reluctant amusement. He had switched his attention to Timmie to give her a moment in which to compose herself but his subtlety had been wasted. He turned her on and she couldn’t hide it. Yet there was something strangely touching about her lack of artifice, her total inability to conceal what she was feeling and thinking. Those big blue eyes were like windows and that lush pink mouth betrayed her tension.

Her slight, slender body barely made a decent impression in the bed. She had the most amazing hair, though, Rio acknowledged. Released from whatever had held it in temporary subjection, her hair now cascaded in snaking corkscrew ringlets halfway to her waist, catching the light like rich, gleaming bronze. His attention strayed lower and momentarily lingered on the surprising fullness of the rounded swells pushing against the hospital-issue gown as she sat forward, the prominence of her taut nipples visible even through the barrier of starched cotton. Nice breasts, he found himself thinking, and he was startled when he felt himself hardening in urgent response, startled that even exhaustion and stress could not stifle his most basic urges.

‘I’m going to sort me and Timmie out…I r-really am,’ Holly swore earnestly in the charged silence, desperate to make him think better of her. ‘When can I get out of here?’

‘You need a couple of days of R & R,’ Rio responded, recognising the naïvety of that question when she was free to walk out the door any time she wished. But he was relieved by it and did nothing to disabuse her of her notion that she had to pay heed to some superior authority.

‘R & R?’

‘Rest and recuperation. A lady is coming to see you tomorrow.’ Recognising the flash of instant panic in her wide eyes, Rio gave her a bland smile of reassurance. ‘Nobody is going to make any arrangements against your will, but I think you’ll agree that you need some professional advice and support right now.’

Holly’s tummy muscles contracted in a sickening spasm of alarm, her thin shoulders hunching as she lost colour. At last, she gained the strength to take her eyes from him, but only because fear and deep shame over her own failure to give her son a proper home made it impossible for her to continue meeting his level gaze.

‘You’ll both be fine,’ Rio asserted in conclusion, strolling back to the door.

For an instant he hesitated as he remembered that crazy thought he had had only a few minutes before Holly fell in front of his limo. She was, indisputably, the very first woman he had met since walking out on Christabel.

Just as well he wasn’t insane enough to marry a complete stranger, he told himself with grim amusement. After all, Holly Sansom might be green as grass but she was still an unmarried mother. While he was a male who prided himself on his open mind, his family background and traditional Italian upbringing had imbued him with certain values and expectations.

CHAPTER TWO

PALE as death, Holly flopped back against the pillows, feeling as weak as water and trembling.

She had gawped at Rio Lombardi like a bedazzled kid and had severely embarrassed herself. Since she had never felt that way around a man before, not even around Jeff, she could only put her behaviour down to the effects of concussion and total exhaustion. Fortunately a guy like Rio Lombardi, so rich and so important and so utterly above her in every way, wouldn’t have noticed how awkward and silly she had been, she told herself. In any case, she had a lot more to worry about than the poor impression she had made on some bloke she was never likely to see again!

From her bed she stared at her sleeping son, tears stinging her strained eyes in a blinding surge. She adored Timmie; she could not begin to imagine her life without him. But tomorrow authority, with all its unlimited power, was coming in the guise of that lady Rio Lombardi had smoothly mentioned. Why hadn’t she had the strength to get up and walk away after her fall in that street? Once officialdom became involved, the die would be cast.

Rio Lombardi had sworn that no arrangements would be made without her agreement. Did he really think that she was that stupid? She had had her baby out in the middle of the night. She had no home to go to and that doctor would confirm that she had been betraying signs of hypothermia. Those three facts were like three big extra nails being hammered into her coffin. The powers-that-be would decide that she was an unfit mother and would lose no time in removing Timmie from such inadequate care.

Just half an hour ago she had been telling herself that it was her duty to give Timmie up for adoption, but when it came to the crunch she could feel herself tearing apart inside at the prospect of never, ever again having the right to hold his sweet, trusting weight in her arms. Surely she could do better? Surely she had enough backbone to pull herself up out of the mess she was in and provide for her own child?

Couldn’t she allow herself one more chance? Was that so selfish? Tears streaming down her guilty face, she studied Timmie in despair. He was all she had, all the family she was ever likely to have. She would go to a shelter for the homeless, one of those places from which advice came without the price of remorseless, grinding officialdom. If it killed her, she would find them somewhere to live. Only if she was faced with another night on the streets would she acknowledge defeat and accept that adoption was the only solution. That was the pact she made with herself, the promise she knew she had to make for her son’s sake.

But she had to get out of the hospital before that lady came to call in a few hours’ time, she told herself frantically. However, Timmie needed his sleep and she still felt too dizzy to walk, so she had to be sensible and stay in her bed as long as possible.

On his way to a business meeting at eight that morning, Rio found the memory of Holly Sansom’s frightened face continually flashing up between him and the figures he was scrutinising.

In one of the snap decisions that invariably threw his employees off-balance, Rio swept up the phone to communicate with his chauffeur and told him to head for the hospital instead of the Lombardi Industries building. Impatience tightening his sculpted mouth as he checked his watch, he questioned his sense of responsibility. He had done all that he could reasonably do. However, he should have kept quiet about the social worker’s visit. Forewarning Holly had been careless, and he had only made that mistake because he had gone without sleep for too long.

The limo drew to a halt in the busy car park of the foundation hospital. Waiting with a sigh for his chauffeur to walk round the bonnet in his usual dignified fashion, which he knew was simply a ploy to ensure that his security team alighted from their car behind in advance of himself, Rio caught a glimpse of a bright bronze head moving behind the line of cars parked about forty feet away. In a sudden movement, a vicious swear word impelled from his lips, Rio thrust the door of his limo open for himself and sprang out to stride in the same direction.

‘Holly!’

Hearing that shout just when she had believed she was free and clear of having attracted any adverse notice almost gave Holly a heart attack. Her blood literally chilling in her veins with fright, she spun round, her arms automatically tightening round her child.

Rio Lombardi stepped up onto the pavement ahead of her. ‘Where the blazes do you think you’re going?’

He was the very last person she had expected to see, and for the first time she was facing him upright and he was an incredibly intimidating figure. She was five feet four but he had to be almost twelve inches taller, and he had shoulders like a rugby player that even his fancy dark business suit could not conceal. He also looked…livid, shimmering dark golden eyes flaming over her, telegraphing anger and strong censure.

‘I…I’m g-going to find a shelter for the homeless—’

‘Like bloody hell you are!’ Rio interrupted, lean strong face set in steely lines as he closed the distance between them in a couple of strides. ‘Where’s his pushchair?’

‘I c-couldn’t find it—’

Holly was trembling, her own guilty conflict over her decision to give herself one more chance intensified by the disapproval Rio Lombardi was emanating in powerful waves. Just twenty-four hours, only twenty-four hours, that was all she had wanted.

‘Give Timmie to me…’ he demanded.

And, so shaken and ashamed was Holly as she stood there with tears filling her anguished eyes, she found herself instinctively obeying that authoritarian note of absolute command. As Rio Lombardi reached out she let him take her son from her. A split-second later she could not credit what she had done and she stared up at Rio Lombardi in dismay, her distraught face pale as parchment. ‘Give him back to me!’

‘Not until you agree to go back inside and wait to see the social worker, who is going to help you,’ Rio stressed, watching her begin to tremble and recognising her fear. Striving not to feel like a bully, he reminded himself that he was doing the best thing for both mother and child.

‘I can’t do that!’ Holly suddenly sobbed.

As Rio removed his frustrated attention from her he caught a glimpse of Ezio’s face. His security chief was positioned about twenty feet away, watching him in frank astonishment. Rio’s high cheekbones fired with a slight rise of colour.

‘You must be sensible about this…’ Rio stated as the baby in his arms went all stiff and loosed an anxious little moan of fright at the sound of his mother’s distress. Timmie was just about to blow. Indeed, any moment now, mass hysteria was going to break out and spread like a disease, Rio recognised with a very male sense of discomfiture. Dio mio, they were in a public place and he didn’t know what had got into him. He could only recall the savage jolt of pure rage he had felt at the sight of Holly trying to sneak away from the safety of the hospital.

‘Please…give him back!’ Holly cried.

An older man unlocking his car just yards away had now halted the activity to openly stare, his expression already that of someone thinking that perhaps he ought to intervene. Rio threw his proud head back and murmured in a tone calculated to soothe, ‘My car’s just over there. We’ll discuss this calmly in private.’

Holly was totally disconcerted when Rio just strode away from her. But she raced after him in a panic. As the chauffeur yanked open the door of the gleaming silver limousine Rio broke the habit of a lifetime and, instead of standing back politely to allow Holly first access, climbed in ahead of her, thereby forestalling any possibility of further debate in public.

Holly shot in after him like a mouse in stricken pursuit of a cat. The passenger door closed on her. Rio Lombardi had her son clasped under one arm while he spoke to someone in his own language on the car phone.

In a daze of confusion, Holly absorbed the startling sight of Timmie smiling up at Rio. Timmie, who never smiled at anyone but her! Her head ached even more. She felt clammy and sick and scared. ‘Please give him back to me…’

‘Look, I haven’t got time for this right now. I have a very important meeting to get to,’ Rio imparted, leaning forward to make some curious adjustment to the rear of the leather seat facing them. Before her bemused eyes, a child’s travelling seat complete with safety restraint folded down out of the once flat surface.

‘Mr Lombardi—er—?’

‘You can stay at my home for a few days until you feel stronger,’ Rio cut in flatly. ‘You’re in no fit state to make decisions right now. It’ll give you a breathing space.’

‘Your…home?’ Holly was so taken aback by that offer coming at her out of the blue that she could only stare at his bold bronzed profile with wide shaken eyes.

Rio settled Timmie into the baby seat. After tightening everything up, he snapped the harness into place with a definite air of satisfaction at his own efficiency.

‘Your home?’ Holly watched his manoeuvres in bewildered stillness, quite unable to react with any greater volubility. Her head was pounding fit to burst and her brain felt like mush, for she had had little sleep during what had remained of the night hours while she fretted and waited for an opportunity to steal out of the hospital without being noticed.

‘Why not?’ Suppressing the faint suspicion that once again he was reacting in an impulsive manner that was quite unlike him, Rio told himself that rescuing Holly would be his good deed for the year and he warmed to the concept at similar speed. He would soon get them sorted out. He might have given millions to humanitarian causes but when had he ever become personally involved in someone else’s problems? But intervention was definitely required. Without a helping hand, there was an all too real possibility that Holly Sansom would end up selling her body for the price of her next meal. A pervert would spot her from a distance of a hundred yards, Rio reflected with distaste. She had victim written all over her. As for Timmie…well, Timmie was already measuring up to follow faithfully in his mother’s footsteps.

‘Why…not?’ Holly echoed, pressing a weak hand to the bruising that still throbbed at the back of her skull. ‘Because people don’t do stuff like that for people they don’t know.’

Rio settled brilliant, dark, deep-set eyes on her. ‘Make your mind up.’

Holly tensed at that demand. He was offering them a lifeline. A roof, a bed, no worries about food or the future for a few days. He was an incredible guy. He was just so kind. She could not believe how kind he was being when he had been so furious with her only minutes earlier. ‘OK.’

‘I’ll make the arrangements.’ Rio swept up the phone and watched Ezio answer from the front seat. At one point during that conversation, Ezio twisted round to frown in amazement through the glass panel separating him from his employer. Rio ignored that pointed reaction.

That deep, dark, sexy drawl of his just seemed to shimmy down her spine, Holly thought absently. She loved his voice even though she hadn’t a clue what he was saying. Catching herself up on that mortifying train of thought, Holly reddened fierily.

‘As soon as I’ve been dropped off for my meeting, my security chief will take you to my town house. Any problems, speak to Ezio. He speaks English but most of my household staff don’t,’ Rio warned her.

Holly nodded uncertainly, momentarily attempting to picture the kind of world where a person had household staff, and then watching the gold in Rio’s eyes reflect the light, her mouth running dry and her breath catching in her throat.

Rio sprang out of the limo outside Lombardi Industries.

Ezio cleared his throat. ‘Miss Kent won’t like another woman in the house, boss.’

Rio froze. ‘The wedding’s off, Ezio.’

Leaving the older man gazing after him in consternation, Rio strode on into the building, inclining his proud dark head in acknowledgement of the doorman’s respectful greeting and concentrating his mind on the challenging business meeting ahead with considerable relief.

The limo nosed its way with all the arrogant assurance of its owner back into the flow of traffic. Holly breathed in slowly and deeply and then pinched the back of her hand. The stinging sensation of that small hurt convinced her that she was not dreaming. She was really and truly sitting in Rio Lombardi’s fabulous limousine. For potentially the next forty-eight hours she could stop worrying. He had taken pity on her.

Inwardly, Holly squirmed, the self-esteem that had been battered to ground-level in recent months burning at the wretched awareness that she was just a charity case to a male like Rio Lombardi. Well, she had never let anyone do her favours for free. She would make herself useful round his house, repaying his generosity the only way she could. But at that moment the simple knowledge that she needed to worry neither about food nor shelter in the immediate future was like a giant weight rolling off her shoulders.

Just how had she contrived to sink so low that she was prepared to accept such charity? It had happened by degrees, she conceded. But undoubtedly her biggest and worst mistake had been getting involved with Jeff Danby…

Holly had grown up on a hill farm on Exmoor where her father was the tenant farmer. Her parents had married late in life and her mother had been forty when Holly was born. That her mother never conceived again had been a source of deep disappointment to her parents, for it had meant that there would be no son to help out when her father became too old to cope alone with the harsh winters and the lambing season and that eventually he would have to give up the tenancy.

She had had a happy childhood and she had enjoyed school. But possibly, as an only and much loved child, she had been a little spoilt, she conceded with pained hindsight. For, while her parents had urged her to aim at a college education, Holly had been more eager to find a job so that she could have her own money and spend more time with her friends who lived in the nearest town.

Working in a dead-end job that hadn’t struck her as a dead-end job had been fine the first couple of years when all that had been in her head was buying the latest cheap fashions and finding a boyfriend. But, although boys had made her plenty of offers, they had all come with the price tag of casual sex attached. And, for all that she had liked to pretend to be as cool in her outlook as her peers, Holly had been raised in a home where that kind of behaviour was just not acceptable and had shrunk from doing anything likely to distress her parents.

And then Jeff had come along in her eighteenth year, Jeff, with his ancient sports car and cheeky grin and impressive aura of sophistication. He had been a pool attendant at the local leisure centre, much admired by all her friends and seven years older. So she had been thrilled when he had asked her out and infatuated by the end of the first week, but not so foolish as to jump into bed with him. In any case, if she was honest, the sex side of things had never appealed to her much, even with Jeff. She had liked the romantic stuff better, holding hands, just listening to him talk about his plans to become an instructor at some trendy fitness club in London and admiring the fact that he had a goal and ambition.

‘He’s too flash,’ her mother had said when she’d finally met Jeff.

‘He’s a big-head,’ her father had sighed. ‘He’s a lot older than you are too. You’d be better off with a boy your own age.’

Jeff had ditched her a couple of times and gone off with other girls. Each time he’d come back to her, and she had been so grateful she’d repressed her hurt and forgiven him. Then he had got the job he had always wanted in London and, struggling to conceal her breaking heart, she had gone out with him and his friends for a last-night celebration. The drinks had been lined up in front of her and Jeff had kept on urging her not to be a killjoy and drink up. He had talked about how she was ‘his’ girl and how he would send for her once he got a place of his own. Hearing him talk like that, including her in his lofty plans, she had almost cried with relief.

‘I really do care about you, Holly,’ he had said fondly. ‘You’re the girl I want to marry, so surely you can come home with me tonight.’

And she had, and she had gritted her teeth in the darkness, tears running down her face at the roughness, embarrassment and pain of the experience. She had wanted to please him, had so wanted to prove that she was not the silly little girl still tied to parental dictums he had often accused her of being but a real adult woman capable of loving her man and being loved.

True to his word, Jeff had phoned her while city life was still strange to him. She had written great, long, adoring screeds to him and had been four months pregnant before she’d even realised that she had conceived. During his final phone call, she had begged him to visit for a weekend. She had needed to see him face-to-face to share her news. But he had complained that it would cost too much and he had not phoned again. Weeks afterwards, when she had been climbing the walls with panic over his silence and trying to conceal her changing shape from her parents, one of her many letters had been returned to her with ‘Not known at this address’ written across it. She had not seen Jeff again until she’d finally tracked him down in London many months later.

Emerging from those unwelcome memories, Holly felt cool air on her face and only then realised that the passenger door was open. The chauffeur was waiting for her to vacate the limo.

The most enormous house lay before her. It had a gravel turning circle in front and tall shaped evergreen trees in fancy metal troughs.

‘Miss Sansom…I’m Ezio Farretti.’

Holly focused shyly on the heavily built older man with his steady dark eyes. ‘Nice to meet you.’

Ezio engaged the employee positioned at the front door in a flood of foreign speech, and motioned Holly into the house. Feeling like a third wheel, Holly followed him inside and skimmed an intimidated glance round the huge hall, the fantastic staircase and the big pictures adorning the walls.

‘Come this way, Miss Sansom,’ Ezio urged.

‘What’s that language you speak?’ she asked to fill the silence.

‘Italian.’

He showed her into what appeared to be a drawing room. Well, she adjusted, what she would call a drawing room, because the opulent sofas and marble fireplace were way too grand to belong in a humble sitting room. A fire glowed in the iron grate. Holly had not seen a real fire since leaving home, and without warning her eyes smarted as she pictured the cosy farmhouse kitchen where her parents sat by the fire on cold nights.

Ezio extended a notepad and pen. ‘Will you make a list of supplies for you and your son?’

‘Supplies?’

‘Anything you require.’

She reddened to the roots of her hair. ‘I don’t have any money.’

‘That’s not a problem.’

The waiting silence that followed embarrassed her into making up a list. Nappies, a feeding cup and baby juice were really all she had to have. She was down on her luck but she was not a freeloader, and she was sure to get the chance to wash their clothes.

‘You should put down a few more things.’ Ezio’s voice was gruff.

Holly shook her head. Having to put down even the necessities had hurt. Rio Lombardi was putting them up and he would be feeding them as well. The very last thing she wanted to do was cost him money into the bargain.

Ezio led her up the imposing staircase. The magnificent landing was adorned with gilded furniture that looked as if it belonged in a palace. But then, Rio Lombardi’s home was just like a palace, Holly conceded in a daze. She was shown into a fabulous guest room, complete with an adjoining bathroom, and then into the smaller room next door which contained a cot. The cot, which contained several very new-looking toys, surprised her. Belatedly it occurred to her that perhaps Rio Lombardi was or had been married and had children. Tensing, tummy suddenly feeling hollow, she asked Ezio right out.

‘The boss is…single,’ the older man stated after a slight hesitation. ‘But he often has relatives with kiddies to stay. The Lombardis are a big family and very close.’

As Ezio departed Holly glimpsed her reflection in a mirror and a mortified gasp left her lips. The backside of her jeans was filthy, probably from the road the night before. Fetching a couple of the toys from the cot, she took Timmie into the bathroom, set him down with them on a bathtowel and then stripped down to her skin. Everything she wore went into the bath to steep in hot water. She stepped into the separate shower cubicle but could only run the water in bursts because she couldn’t close the door properly while she watched over Timmie. Her son could not yet crawl but he could cover a surprising amount of distance by rolling.

It was such bliss, such utter bliss to feel truly scrubbed clean again. Making use of the luxury toiletries in the corner shower compartment, she shampooed her hair and then conditioned it for the first time in many months. Having pounded her clothes back to cleanliness with soap, she then realised in dismay that there were no radiators in which to dry them. At that point, a knock sounded on the bedroom door.