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

She felt as if her already wounded heart would break, splintering into tiny pieces that scattered all over the paving stones at her feet. And yet this was what she had come this far for, after all. She had crept onto this island, sneaking past the security, just for this. The chance to see her little son.

But not like this. Not when she was not ready, not prepared.

And not with Ricardo Emiliani’s cold, dark eyes watching her, cruelly assessing everything she did.

Stumbling slightly, she turned away. Not looking where she was going, not caring, she headed in the vague direction of the way she had come, hoping that she would reach the shore, and the boat, before the pain got too much and she sank to the ground and howled like an animal.

The crack that came when her foot landed on a fallen branch sounded appallingly loud in the stillness of the evening. There was no way that Ricardo could not have heard it. Freezing, Lucy tensed, waiting for the inevitable.

‘Who’s there?’ Ricardo’s voice was sharp, harsh in contrast to the soft tones of just moments before.

Not daring to look back to see if he had actually spotted her, Lucy plunged on, dashing into the bushes in the hope of hiding from his sharp-eyed gaze.

‘Stop!’

There was no way she was going to respond to that…

‘Marissa! Here—now…’

Behind her, Lucy vaguely heard the sound of swift footsteps—female footsteps—hurrying down the stone steps to where he was in the garden.

‘Take Marco…’

That was the last thing she heard as she fled headlong, pushing aside branches that got in her way as she ran. Twigs snapped back, slapped her in the face, but she didn’t care. All she could think of was getting away, reaching the boat and heading back across the lake. Anything other than facing an angry and aggressive Ricardo.

‘Stop!’

How had he got to be so close behind her already? He had had to hand the baby over to Marissa—the nanny?—and then come after her but still it sounded as if he had made up so much ground that she could almost imagine that he would catch up with her at any moment. Heavy footsteps pounded behind her, making her heart race even faster in fear and apprehension.

‘Giuseppe…Frederico…’

Ricardo was speaking to someone else. A swift, desperate glance over her shoulder revealed that he had taken out his mobile phone and had flipped it open, speaking into it as he ran, not breaking stride or even adjusting his breathing. A string of curt, sharp commands in Italian were flung into the receiver and Lucy’s thudding heart lurched in even greater fear.

He was calling security. Summoning the trained bodyguards who watched the island boundaries for him, protecting his privacy—and making sure that his baby son was safe. And now he was setting his bloodhounds on to her.

And he was not pleased. There was no mistaking that tone of voice. She’d heard it often enough when she and Ricardo had been together. That tone meant that security had failed him and he was furious. Ricardo Emiliani didn’t countenance failure and heads would roll as a result of this.

A furious Ricardo was not someone she wanted to face. She had come here to try and talk to her husband, it was true, but she had planned to tackle him with the advantage of surprise on her side. Facing him now was quite a different matter. Seeing little Marco so unexpectedly had ripped away the flimsy protective shield she had built up around herself, taking with it several much needed layers of skin and leaving her raw and bleeding deep inside. She needed to get away, regroup and gather her strength again before she dared risk taking things any further.

The shore where she had left the boat was just around the corner. If she could just put on one last spurt, force her tiring and shaking legs into action, she might just do it. But whether she could get the boat onto the lake and actually get away was a very different matter.

Making a last effort, she pushed herself to breaking point, her breath coming in laboured gasps as a lack of fitness resulting from the past few months started to tell on her. She couldn’t look where she was going, caught her toe on a clump of grass, missed her footing and fell headlong.

Or, rather, started to fall.

Just as she felt herself totally lose her balance, convinced that the ground was coming up to meet her, she felt a hand grab her flailing arm, clamping tight around her wrist and holding firm.

‘Got you!’

With a jarring jolt she was jerked back from the fall, hauled upwards so that she balanced upright for just a moment, swaying precariously, before tumbling the other way. Straight into the arms of the man behind her.

‘Oh, no!’

She hit him like a ton of bricks but, although he staggered back, he didn’t fall and the punishing grip around her arm didn’t loosen for a moment. If anything, it tightened bruisingly so that she had no hope of pulling away.

‘So who the devil are you?’

There was no way that Lucy could answer him. Her mouth seemed to have dried so much that her tongue couldn’t form a word and her throat felt as if it had tied itself into knots.

But Ricardo didn’t seem to need an answer. Instead, he adjusted his hold so that he could spin her round, bringing her to a position facing him where he could see her for himself.

‘I said…you!’

It took every nerve in Lucy’s body to force herself to look him in the face, though she flinched away from meeting his eyes, terrified of the darkness she would see there. She could almost feel the cold burn of his glare on her skin, flaying it from her bones.

‘Me,’ she managed and the uncomfortably jagged beat of her heart made her voice sound brittle and defiant.

The stunned silence that greeted her response stretched her nerves to near breaking point. In desperation, knowing he wasn’t going to be the one to break it, she pushed herself to say something—anything—to try to show that he didn’t totally have control of this situation.

‘Buona sera, Ricardo.’

The sound of Ricardo’s breath hissing in between his teeth told her that she’d caught him on the raw and the way his hand tightened about her arm betrayed the struggle he was having with himself to control the burning temper that she knew was flaring inside him.

But all he said was one word—

‘Lucia…’

Her name. Or rather the Italianised form of it that only he had ever used. The low, almost whispered syllables slid off his tongue in a way that could have been a verbal caress or then again might have been the hiss of an angry snake, preparing to strike. And not knowing which brought her eyes up in a rush to clash with his glittering black gaze, the ice in their burning depths making her shiver in uncontrolled response.

‘Lucia.’

He said it again and this time there was no doubting the way that he meant it. The venom injected into the syllables of her name made her quail inside, shrinking away from him as far as his cruel grip on her arm would let her.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Don’t tell him the truth.

The warning words slid into her thoughts as if spoken aloud.

Don’t say a word about Marco. If you put that weapon into his hands, then he will use it against you.

‘I said…’

‘What do you think I’m doing?’

Somehow she found the strength to answer him, to put a note of defiance into her tone. She even managed to lift her chin in an expression of rebellion that was a million miles from what she was actually feeling. And although she actually made a pretence of looking into his eyes, of meeting their savage glare head on, the truth was something so very different. Deliberately she let her gaze slip out of focus so that all she could see was the dark blur of his face up above her. The jet-black pools of his eyes were bleak hollows where no light, no hint of feeling showed in their depths.

‘I certainly haven’t come to try to renew our marriage.’