Italian Mavericks: Forbidden Nights With The Italian: The Forbidden Ferrara / Surrendering to the Italian's Command / The Unwanted Conti Bride

‘Yes, it was. For a few wild hours you lost control of this persona you’ve constructed. That was the real you, Fia. It’s the rest of this that is an act.’

‘Everything about that night was crazy—’ her fingers were curled into her palms ‘—I don’t know how it started, but I do know how it ended.’

‘It ended when your brother stole my car and wrapped it around a tree.’ He’d hoped the direct approach might shake her out of her rigid control but apparently even the shock of his blunt comment couldn’t penetrate that wall she’d built around herself.

‘It was too powerful for him. He’d never driven anything like it before.’

‘Neither had I,’ Santo said icily. ‘I’d only received it two days earlier.’

‘That is a monumentally tactless and unfeeling thing to say.’

Then show some emotion. ‘About as tactless and unfeeling as the wordless implication that I was in some way responsible for his death.’

There was a throbbing silence. ‘I have never said that.’

‘No, but you’ve thought it. And your grandfather thought it. You say you don’t know me, so learn this about me right now—I’m not good with undercurrents or people who hide what they’re really thinking and I sure as hell am not going to feed this damn feud that we’ve both grown up with. It ends here, right now.’ The fire burned hot inside him, strengthening his resolve. ‘If what you said to me this morning is true then I presume you want that, too.’

‘Of course. But we can kill the feud without getting married. There is more than one way of being a family.’

‘Not for me. My child will not grow up being shuttled from one parent to another. We’ve never talked about that night, so let’s do it now. Whatever you’re thinking, I want it out in the open, not gnawing holes in that brain of yours. You blamed me for the fact that he took the car. And yet you know what happened that night. I was with you. And we had other things on our mind, didn’t we, bellissima?’

‘I never blamed you.’

‘Really?’ His sardonic tone made her lift her head and look at him.

‘Yes, really.’

He waited for her to elaborate but of course she didn’t and that failure to break through her defences exasperated him because he wasn’t a man who liked to fail. Jaw tense, he breathed deeply, his emotions at war with each other. ‘It’s late and you’ve had a hell of a night. One thing I know about toddlers is that they don’t lie in just because adult life is collapsing around them. What time does he wake up?’

‘Five.’

His working day frequently began at the same hour. ‘If you’re not going to eat, then get to bed. I’ll lend you one of my shirts to sleep in.’

A faint smile touched the soft curve of her mouth. ‘So you don’t have a wardrobe full of slinky nightwear for overnight guests? The world would be disappointed to discover that.’

‘I don’t encourage overnight guests. They can grow roots fast.’ He watched her steadily. ‘This once, I’ll let you retreat. Make the most of it because once we’re married there will be no hiding. Be sure of that.’

‘We’re not getting married, Santo.’

‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But everything I said in my office still stands.’

‘No, it doesn’t. You were concerned that Luca had been harmed, but you can see now that he has had a happy childhood.’

‘I admire your efforts to create the family you didn’t have, but my son doesn’t need paid employees to fill that role. He has the real thing. A family ready and willing to welcome him. He’s a Ferrara and the sooner we make that legal the better for everyone.’

‘Is it?’ Her voice suddenly seemed to gain strength. ‘Is it really better for him to be brought up by parents who are strangers?’

Santo’s mouth tightened. ‘We’re not going to be strangers, tesoro. We’re going to be as intimate as it’s possible for a man and a woman to be. I’m going to rip down those barriers you’ve built. When you’re with me you might as well be naked because there is going to be no hiding. Now get some sleep. You’re going to need it.’

As intimate as it’s possible for a man and a woman to be.

What was intimate about that cold, emotionless statement? He was blisteringly angry. Furious. How did he think they could achieve intimacy under those circumstances?

She wasn’t going to marry him. It would be wrong.

Once he calmed down, he’d see sense. They’d come to an agreement about how to share Luca. And perhaps the three of them would spend some time together. But there was no need to make it legally binding.

Worry about her grandfather mingled with worry for her son and herself and Fia curled up in the bed, but there was no rest to be found in sleep, the dreams racing over her in a dark, tangled rush of disturbing images. Her mother, huddled in a corner of the kitchen, trying to make herself as small as possible while her husband lost his temper. The sight of her walking away, leaving her eight-year-old daughter behind. ‘If I take you, he’ll come after me.’ Standing with her grandfather as they buried her father after the drunken boating accident that had taken his life, knowing that she was supposed to feel sad.

She awoke to find herself alone in the bed. A lurch of fear was followed by a brief moment of relief as she heard the sound of Luca giggling. And then she remembered that they weren’t at home, but in Santo’s deathtrap apartment.

Almost tripping in her haste to get to her child, she shot out of the bedroom and followed the sound, ready to drag him out of trouble.

Expecting to find an energetic Luca fearlessly scaling a cupboard or plunging his curious fingers into a piece of high-tech electrical equipment, she instead found him sitting on a chair in Santo’s sleek, contemporary kitchen watching as his father deftly cut shapes out of brioche.

Weak with relief, Fia paused in the doorway, astonished by what she was seeing. Father or not, Santo was a stranger to Luca. A tall, powerfully built intimidating stranger who was in an undeniably dangerous mood since he’d made the unexpected discovery that he had a son. It was true that he’d helped and supported her the night before, but nothing in his demeanour had led her to believe that there was any softening in his attitude.

She’d assumed that some of his anger would reveal itself in his interaction with the child and yet Luca was clearly not only comfortable, but vastly entertained and delighted with the masculine attention he was receiving along with his breakfast.

Judging from his damp hair, Santo had not long left the shower and it was obvious from his bare feet and bare chest that he’d tugged on a pair of jeans in haste, unable to finish dressing before Luca had demanded his attention. But the real change wasn’t in his dress—or lack of it—it was the way he carried himself. There was no sign of the forbidding, intimidating businessman who had called all the shots the day before. The man currently entertaining one small boy was warm and approachable, his smile indulgent as he wiped his son’s buttery fingers. He looked as though he did this every day. As if this was part of their morning routine.

As she watched, Santo bent down and kissed Luca and when the child giggled, he kissed him again as if he couldn’t get enough of him.

Tears sprang to her eyes and Fia leaned against the doorframe for support.

Watching them made her heart clench. Luca had never had that, had he? He’d never known a father’s love. Yes, she’d surrounded him by ‘family’ but even she couldn’t pretend that what she’d created came close to the real thing. One day Gina would move on, Ben would marry and Luca’s ‘family’ would disband.

Yesterday she’d been so sure that marriage between her and Santo would be the wrong thing for her son. She’d seen no benefit to him in being forced to live with two people whose only connection was the child they’d made.

But of course there was benefit and she was staring at it right now.

If they married, Luca would have his father. Not at prearranged times, like single snapshots taken on a camera. But permanently.

Santo still hadn’t noticed her and, as he spoke to their son in lilting Italian, Fia found that she was holding her breath. When Luca replied in the same language pride mingled with emotions she didn’t even recognise.

She was normally the one who gave Luca his breakfast. It was their morning ritual. And yet here he was happily pursuing that ritual with his father as if the two of them had been doing it for ever.

There was a lump in her throat and the lump grew as Santo leaned forward and kissed his son again, indifferent to buttery fingers that grabbed at his hair. He blew bubbles into Luca’s neck and made him giggle. He pulled faces and tickled him.

He had nieces, she remembered, so he was obviously used to children, but still—

She couldn’t ever remember being kissed by her father and she’d certainly never been kissed by her grandfather. And yet here was Santo, openly demonstrative with his child.

‘Mamma—’ Luca saw her, wriggled off the chair and hurled himself at her, brioche squashed in his fist.

Across the top of his head, her gaze met Santo’s.

As she scooped up her child, she swallowed down that lump that still threatened to choke her.