Secret Love-Child: Kept for Her Baby / The Costanzo Baby Secret / Her Secret, His Love-Child

‘A settlement,’ Ricardo amended. ‘A generous settlement in return for a quick and quiet divorce—I’ll even take the blame, provide you with grounds if you want it that way. And then you get out of my life for good. You go and you stay away. I never want to see you again.’

How could he ever want to see a woman who was capable of walking out on her own child, leaving behind just a frivolous, careless note that told him the marriage was over and the baby—Marco—was his responsibility now?

She was considering the proposition. Considering it seriously. That much was obvious from the way that her expression had changed, the softness vanishing from her eyes just before she let her pale eyelids drop down to cover them, concealing her thoughts from him.

‘You really must want to be rid of me.’ Her tone was flat, no emotion showing in it at all.

‘Oh, I do,’ he confirmed, his tone deep with harsh sincerity. ‘Believe me, I do.’

‘And you’d pay anything I asked?’

Her jaw had tightened so much that it drew in her cheeks, narrowing the whole look of her face and making the words come out as stiffly and as jerkily as if they had come from the carved wooden mouth of a painted marionette. Blue eyes lifted briefly to look into his face in a swift glance that was coolly assessing. ‘In English law I’d be entitled to half your fortune. You should have thought about getting me to sign a pre-nup.’

If he’d had any sense then he would have done just that. But at the time the only thing that he’d been thinking of was the child they had created between them. The child that had to be born in wedlock and with his name as the father on the birth certificate. No child of his was ever going to grow up illegitimate, with all the snubs and the social exclusion that he had endured. The barriers to belonging that had blighted his mother’s life as well as his own.

He had known that it was only his money that had convinced her to marry him in the end. But, if he was honest, then at that point he really hadn’t cared. All that had mattered was getting the ring on Lucy’s finger and ensuring that her name—and her child’s—were the same as his.

He had thought that he would have longer to see if the relationship between the two of them would grow into something so much stronger than the wild, fiery passion that had brought them together in the first place and had resulted in the creation of the tiny life that Lucy had carried within her.

‘And would you have signed one?’

At the time she would have done anything, Lucy acknowledged. Ricardo had only to ask and she would have said yes. She had been in so deep, so totally besotted so that she had been unable to think straight. She hadn’t even hesitated over his proposal, though common sense should have told her that he didn’t want her. All he had wanted was the child in her womb.

‘I don’t want marriage, Lucia,’ he’d said. ‘Never have. No woman has ever even made me think of it. But your news changes everything. We have a baby to consider and my child is not going to grow up illegitimate. That’s all that matters to me right now.’

‘It would have made sense—on your part, at least,’ Lucy answered now, covering the lacerations on her heart with an armour of control. ‘After all, neither of us was going into that marriage with any romantic stars in our eyes. We both knew it was just a business and legal arrangement.’

‘And now?’

‘Now? I wouldn’t sign anything you asked me to without having it thoroughly checked out first.’

‘Not even if it gave you everything you’d ever wanted—more than you ever dreamed of?’

‘I don’t think that’s possible.’

If she could have Marco in her life, then she would feel as if she had been given the world and would want nothing more. But, without her son, there was no amount of money or possessions that could compensate for the emptiness his loss would leave in her life. And she knew, deep in her soul, that Ricardo would never let her have Marco.

‘Try me.’

For the life of her, Lucy couldn’t bring her numbed, bruised brain to recognise whether there was pure challenge or invitation in the two words that Ricardo tossed at her. And she didn’t really dare to hope for the latter. Any invitation from Ricardo Emiliani came hung about with so many chains of doubt and risk, so many conditions, that it was like putting your head into a noose just to consider it. And a challenge was something she dreaded.

‘Tell me what you really want—and you can have it. Anything, so long as you get out of my life and never come back.’

‘You’ll never give me what I want so there’s no need to even ask.’

‘Why not? I—’ Ricardo broke off abruptly as a buzzing sound from his pocket drew his attention to his mobile phone. ‘Momento…’

Pulling it out, he checked the screen, frowning as he did so. ‘I have to take this.’

With the phone clamped to his ear, he swung away again, listening hard and then firing sharp, incisive questions into the receiver in rapid-fire Italian that was too fast for Lucy’s schoolgirl grasp of the language to allow her to keep up.

But she caught one word, clearly and distinctly, and that fastened onto her nerves, twisting and tugging with every second that passed.

‘Marco…’ he’d said. And, again, ‘Marco…’

Whoever was at the other end of the phone had rung him because of something that was happening with Marco and just to think of that pressed Lucy’s personal panic button, sending her thoughts into overdrive. Her heart was pounding, her breathing harsh and shallow. Something had happened to her little boy and she didn’t know what.

She couldn’t stand still, finding that only by pacing restlessly around the room could she keep herself from grabbing that phone from Ricardo and demanding to know what was happening. But the dimensions of the small space were restricted so that she found she had barely started before she was forced to turn and head back in the opposite direction. And still the conversation went on until she was ready to scream, only keeping a grip on herself by clenching her fists tight, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.

But then, at last, Ricardo thumbed off the phone and turned to her again.

‘What’s happened…?’

‘My apologies…’

Their voices clashed, froze, then, because Lucy couldn’t manage anything more, it was Ricardo who continued, his tone rough with impatience. ‘I have to go. My son…’

Catching the look she gave him, he at least had the grace to pause in faint acknowledgement but only for a second. Immediately he continued, emphasising that possessive claim once again. ‘My son has woken and is upset. I need to get back.’

‘Is he all right?’

The concern wouldn’t be held down. She didn’t care what Ricardo thought of her, how he might interpret her enquiry. She only knew that if Marco was distressed then she had to know more.

‘He will be when I can get to him.’

Once more the exclusion of her was deliberate, pointed. The words stung cruelly; as she was sure they were meant to.

‘You left him in that big house—out there on the island—on his own…’

‘Never on his own!’ Ricardo cut in furiously and Lucy flinched from the fire that flared in his eyes. ‘Of course he was well looked after. His nanny was with him.’

Of course, the nanny. How could she forget the nanny?

‘He was asleep when I left…but he woke and she thought he was too upset to settle. She felt he needed his papa.’

His papa. Another vicious put down, slapping her in the face with the fact that he was Marco’s father, the parent who cared for the little boy. While she was just an outsider. The woman who had given up her claim on her child when she had run out on him. For reasons she could explain if only she got the chance.

But now was not the time. Already Ricardo was turning towards the door.

‘I have to get back to him.’

‘Of course.’

But if she let him walk out of the door, let him walk away, would she ever get the chance to talk to him again? Would she ever even see his face again? And, much, much more important, how could she let him walk away when she knew that, back in the Villa San Felice, his baby son—their baby son—was awake and miserable and in need of comfort?

Not pausing to think, she snatched up the bag that was lying on the bed, stuffed her feet hastily into flat pumps and hurried after him. The speed and length of his strides had taken him out of the door and along the landing already and she had to push herself to follow him. She caught up just as Ricardo was about to let the main door swing to behind him.

‘What the…?’ The question was pushed from him as her hand clashed with his, catching the door before it slammed.