Kidnapped For Her Secret Son

With no alternative but to do as she was told, Leah ducked past him and, going into the tiny kitchen, opened a drawer and took out two passports, holding them against her chest. Too late she realised she could have lied—told Jaco that Gabriel didn’t have a passport. The only reason he had one was because she had wanted to be prepared for any eventuality—including fleeing the country to get away from Jaco if necessary.

Over the past twelve months Leah had spent far too much time thinking about Jaco Valentino—he had crowded her head, pervaded her thoughts day and night as if there was no escape from him. Finding out he was a cheating, two-timing bastard had broken her heart, and if that wasn’t enough a darker worm of doubt had begun to eat away at her. About his background, his business dealings, the sort of people he associated with.

She had found herself remembering things that had barely registered at the time. The skilful way he had avoided talking about his past, for example, and the set of his jaw—just a little too firm—when she had threatened to pry too much. His obsession with work—constantly checking his phone, working late into the night...

On more than one occasion she had come across him at two or three in the morning, having stealthily removed himself from her bed, his fingers flying across the keyboard of his laptop, a look of grim determination on his face. With the laptop hurriedly closed at her approach, she had politely but firmly been ordered back to bed, any attempt to ask him what he was working on dismissed with a kiss on the lips before she had been shepherded away.

In retrospect, his need for privacy had been excessive, and now Leah had another word for it—secrecy. Jaco was a man with secrets. She didn’t know what they were. But something told her they were bad.

Which was why she had made the decision to flee to the anonymity of London, to keep her pregnancy a secret, to tell no one about Gabriel. The more she’d examined Jaco, the more convinced she had become that she had to protect Gabriel from him at all costs. As long as he didn’t know of his son’s existence, Jaco could do him no harm.

Doing it alone had been so hard, but keeping the secret from her twin sister had been the hardest thing of all. Harper was used to Leah packing up and leaving on a whim—usually chasing a dream that never materialised. So she hadn’t been that surprised to hear her sister was on her travels again.

Keeping it deliberately vague, Leah had rung her every now and then, assuring her that she was fine, that she was having the time of her life, in fact, and then ending the call and sobbing her eyes out.

Somehow she had managed to keep the pretence going through all those long, lonely months. But deep down she had always known she would crack in the end—and crack she had. Just recently, after yet another mind-numbingly sleepless night with the baby, she had reached for her phone, scrolled to her sister’s number and, taking a shuddering breath, called and confessed to her about Gabriel.

Fending off the barrage of concerned questions, Leah had kept the details to a minimum, saying that he was Jaco’s child, but that she wanted nothing whatsoever to do with him. That under no circumstances was Harper to say anything. She had sworn her sister to secrecy.

And look where that had got her.

Leah’s eyes travelled from the passports in her hand to the implacable face of the man who was waiting for them. With a shaking hand she passed them over to him.

‘There. Happy now?’ She tried for defiance as she watched Jaco flick through the pages, his grim features hardening still further as he found the grainy photo of his baby son.

‘Gabriel McDonald.’ He spat out the name in disgust, barely leashed anger holding him taut. He looked up, thunder clouding his face. ‘This is my son, my flesh and blood—’ he jabbed at the photo with his finger ‘—and yet not only did you not see fit even to tell me of his existence, but he bears your name.’

‘Yes, he does.’ Leah flinched beneath his furious scrutiny, but she refused to show her fear. ‘And that’s because I don’t want you to have anything to do with him.’

Jaco gave a hollow laugh. ‘That much I had worked out for myself.’ He speared her with his eyes. ‘But let me assure you, Leah, your solo rights over this child are very much at an end. The child’s name will be changed—this passport will be changed.’ He held it aloft. ‘My son is a Valentino and that is the name he will bear.’

Leah felt a wave of panic surge inside her. This was exactly what she had been dreading—Jaco storming in, taking over. As a proud Sicilian man, family meant everything to him—she knew that.

From the few scraps of information he’d thrown her she had managed to piece together the fact that his parents had died when he was five, that he’d lived in a children’s home for several years, along with Vieri, and then been adopted at the age of eleven. She knew he was estranged from his adopted family, but any attempt to find out why had been met with a chilling refusal to say any more, Jaco’s urbane mask slipping, ever so slightly, to reveal a darker, more shadowy side.

But his heart was firmly embedded in the small Mediterranean island that he called home—that much was obvious. She had seen it in his eyes when they had been at Capezzana, heard it in his voice. And Leah had no doubt that with such lineage came the primitive sense of possession, the unilateral decision that his child would live in his country and obey his rules. To him blood ties were the strongest tie of all—binding. Impossible to break.

‘Jaco...’ In desperation she cast about, looking for some reason. ‘Can’t we at least talk about this?’

‘No.’ He closed the space between them. ‘The time for talking has passed. I have no intention of standing here listening to your pathetic excuses. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. From now on we are going to do things my way.’

He towered over her, backing her up against the kitchen cabinets, the passports still held aloft in one hand as his eyes raked over her body.

Leah swallowed. Everything about the taut strength in his powerful body, the glint of steel in his eye, the granite set of his jaw, told her there was to be no reasoning with this man. And yet still his nearness provoked a reaction in her that was wholly inappropriate, tightening her nipples, tensing her core.

And, worse still, Jaco could see it. As his hot eyes darted over her defensive figure, lingering on the swell of her breasts beneath the skimpy vest top, they left a shuddering trail of havoc in their wake and Leah could sense his masculine satisfaction. His realisation that he could still do this to her, that his control over her took many forms.

But maybe she could use it to her own advantage. With a wild surge of adrenaline Leah imagined reaching out to him, linking her arms around his neck and pulling him closer, finding his lips, kissing him, having him kiss her back. Because despite everything she still wanted that kiss. Despite everything she had gone through in the past twelve months, everything she had so sternly told herself, she still wanted Jaco.

For a moment he gazed at her—as if reading her thoughts, as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. Then with a slight curl of his lip—a gesture so deliberately dismissive that it curdled Leah’s stomach—he looked away.

‘Get some clothes on.’

Leah watched as he stowed the precious passports in the inside pocket of his jacket.

‘We are leaving.’

Fleeing to the bedroom, Leah pulled on a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, picking up her phone and slipping it into her handbag. Then, bending over the crib she gazed down at her baby son, still sleeping soundly through all the drama. Her heart swelled with anxiety and pride.

With his arms flung out on either side of his head, his little fists closed, he looked as if he was ready for a fight, ready to take on the world. But Leah knew that was her job—that she would do absolutely anything to protect him, to keep him safe. Even if right now that meant scooping him up and taking him God knew where, obeying the orders of a man who, she now realised with dread in her heart, was far darker and far more than dangerous than she could ever have imagined.

Reaching for the baby sling, she slid it over her head, holding Gabriel against her shoulder as she lowered him into it, tucking him in so carefully that he barely even stirred.

‘You are ready?’

Jaco had silently come to stand beside them—the closest he had ever been to his son. Leah held her breath, waiting to see how he would react, expecting him at least to want to take a peek at the small, dark head pressed snugly against her chest. But instead he turned away, checking his watch and then picking up her case before leading them out of the room.

As Leah closed the door to her apartment behind her she realised she had no idea what was happening or where she was going. No idea when she would ever be back here again.

CHAPTER TWO (#u1f47df42-e3b1-5446-a4df-78875e402b17)

LEAH LOOKED DOWN at her baby son’s head. The furious suckling of a few minutes ago was easing off now as he had almost had his fill. She rocked him in her arms—more to comfort herself than him. Gabriel was perfectly happy. He had his mother and a convenient source of food and that was all he needed.

He didn’t have the slightest concern that the two of them had been abducted, spirited away in the night. Bundled first into a limousine that had driven them to an exclusive apartment block, then whisked up to a helipad on the roof, strapped into a waiting helicopter, piloted by Jaco himself, and finally landing several hours later at wherever on earth it was that she found herself now.

Exhausted by shock, she had dozed off on the flight, only waking as the helicopter had banked steeply in preparation for landing. Peering through the window, she hadn’t been able to make out anything at all in the darkness, and it had been clear that Jaco had no intention of telling her where they were, so she’d had to let herself and Gabriel be helped into a Jeep and just watch in stupefied silence as Jaco got into the driver’s seat and navigated the steep and twisty road that had led to the residence she now found herself in.

But at least now it was daylight. Once she had Gabriel settled she would take stock of her surroundings and work out where on earth she was. The GPS on her phone should tell her that—when she managed to find it, that was. She had searched everywhere for it last night, with no success.

From looking around her, all she had managed to ascertain was that they were staying in some sort of luxury single-storey dwelling. Her bedroom was all cool elegance, with exposed stone walls and polished hardwood flooring, and a bed big enough to accommodate a small family. The en suite bathroom was of grey marble and had a sunken tub and succulent cacti growing behind a glass wall, while the floor-to-ceiling windows offered a view of a carefully landscaped garden, with ancient olive trees and time-worn granite boulders left in situ, but not much else.

A sharp tap on the door made her jump.

‘Yes?’ She hugged Gabriel closer to her.

The door opened and Jaco strode in. Wearing faded jeans low on his hips and a sleeveless black vest, he was all masterful authority. That was until he caught sight of Leah holding Gabriel to her breast.

‘Oh...my apologies.’

Leah fixed him with a haughty stare. She wasn’t going to look away. Breastfeeding a baby was the most natural thing in the world. And besides, she was perfectly decent. ‘What do you want, Jaco?’

Jaco hesitated, then moved into the room, towards the chair where Leah sat with Gabriel. Leah noticed that his eyes did not quite meet hers, or move to the bundle of baby in her arms, but hovered somewhere over her shoulder.

‘I came to see if you had a comfortable night.’

‘Huh!’ Leah snorted. ‘Like you care.’

Her sharp voice made Gabriel’s eyes flicker beneath the paper-thin skin of his closed lids. When his mouth fell from her breast Leah adjusted her clothing, and then moved to settle him in the crib by the side of the bed.