The Italian's Baby of Passion: The Italian's Secret Baby / One-Night Baby / The Italian's Secret Child

SCARLET studied Roman with suspicious eyes, bristling at the implied criticism. ‘Abby had lots of boyfriends, but she didn’t sleep around,’ she told him fiercely.

What she didn’t tell him, what she had never told anyone, was how Abby, heavily drugged in the final painful stages of her illness, had confessed when pressed for the identity of the father that it hadn’t been an accident, that in fact she had planned to get pregnant. That she had wanted a baby and had chosen a father, she just hadn’t included him in the plan.

‘What if he finds out?’ Scarlet asked.

‘The only way he’ll find out is if someone told him and you don’t know who he is.’

‘But when he hears you’ve had a baby, won’t it be bound to cross his mind?’

‘I doubt if he’ll hear, but I thought of that. I told him nothing happened.’

‘He was there, Abby.’

‘He’d already had several drinks by the time we got back to my place,’ Abby recalled, displaying none of her younger sister’s awkwardness when it came to discussing the intimate details. ‘He actually got quite maudlin and sentimental; I don’t think he even noticed I’d added Scotch to his coffee,’ she ended on a self-congratulatory note.

Scarlet couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘You got him drunk!’

‘But not incapable. Please don’t look at me like that, Scarlet, it’s not like I raped the man. He enjoyed himself, and I got the impression he had something he wanted to forget. That was why he’d been drinking in the first place…something to do with it being the anniversary of something, I think.’

‘But he wasn’t a stranger.’

‘I didn’t want just anybody to be my baby’s father,’ Abby reproached indignantly. ‘I did my research beforehand.’

‘How long had you been planning to do this, Abby?’

‘Let’s just say this wasn’t an impulse. I finally accepted I was never going to meet Mr Right and settle down. My biological clock was ticking away. I thought about artificial insemination but you don’t really get to choose the father that way, and I got pregnant straight off, the first time, which is just as well, because I doubt if…so it must have been meant to be, don’t you think, Scarlet?’ she asked wistfully.

Scarlet felt unable under the circumstances to tell her sister what she actually thought and so moderated her views. ‘You don’t think it might be a good idea to tell the father?’

‘God, no, a baby would scare the pants off him and I had a hard enough time getting them off the first time. Sorry, Scarlet, I don’t mean to embarrass you with the gruesome details.’

‘But a baby needs a father.’

‘You’re thinking about inherited weaknesses…’

‘Not specifically,’ Scarlet said weakly.

‘No worries there, the guy is about as genetically perfect as is possible. When I drew up my list—’

‘You had a list?’

‘Well, it seemed logical, and he was streets ahead of the rest,’ Abby revealed, apparently oblivious that she was saying anything out of the ordinary. ‘His family on both sides all seem to be disgustingly healthy and live until a ripe old age.’

‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ Scarlet responded weakly.

‘You don’t approve, do you, Scarlet? I knew you wouldn’t but I was desperate. You have no idea how badly I wanted this baby.’

Scarlet tried to hide how desperately shocked she was when her weak and frail sister went on to describe how she had ruthlessly engineered the seduction to coincide with her fertile period and tampered with the condom! How could you condemn someone who was clinging to life? The guilt of being healthy and strong when someone she loved was dying by inches silenced any protest she might have made.

Abby’s spontaneous, warm nature was part of what made her the lovable person she was. But being spontaneous and warm was one thing—what Abby had done was something else! As far as Scarlet was concerned, having a baby was the ultimate expression of love. There had seemed precious little love in the event that Abby described.

‘What would you do if the father suddenly appeared?’

The sound of his voice brought Scarlet back to the present.

She blinked her eyes, focusing on Roman’s lean, watchful features. Logically danger ought to repel any right-thinking person, but, while there was something distinctly wolf-like in his lean, hungry aspect, it was that same danger that exerted a strange, almost hypnotic attraction.

‘I asked what you would do if Sam’s father reappeared.’

‘Sam’s father?’

As always when she thought about the mystery man her sister had callously tricked she was engulfed by a wave of crushing guilt.

There had been a time when she had actually considered trying to discover who he was, but, short of putting an ad in the personal columns, when it came down to it she didn’t have the faintest idea how to go about identifying him. And even if she did, would he thank her? According to Abby he was a man who, given the choice, would not have wanted to know—in fact a man who would have denied paternity.

In the circumstances it was academic. No, her energies were better concentrated on taking care of his son. The son he didn’t know he had.

‘That’s not going to happen,’ she told him quietly. There was nothing in his face to explain his motivation in pursuit of the subject.

‘But the idea alarms you?’

Her eyes skimmed his face; she was unwilling to allow herself to become entrapped by his dark, mesmeric eyes. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she countered quickly.

‘You didn’t need to—you have a very expressive face.’

Scarlet was immediately conscious of every facial muscle she possessed as she tried to produce a neutral expression. ‘Trust me…I don’t want to be rude, but none of this is actually any of your business.’

‘It’s Sam’s father’s business,’ he replied after a taut silence.

‘Sam’s father is not going to materialise,’ she promised him.

‘But if he did…’ Roman persisted. ‘What would you do if he wanted to be part of Sam’s life?’

It seemed much more likely that he would resent the child that he had been tricked into fathering, and who could blame him? Not Scarlet. Non-consensual fatherhood pretty much fitted what had been done to him.

‘That’s really not at all likely.’ His unblinking, glittering scrutiny was making her increasingly nervous.

‘Hypothetically,’ he inserted smoothly.

‘Hypothetically I’d work something out for Sam’s sake, but this isn’t something that’s going to happen.’

‘You sound very sure.’

‘I am.’

‘How can you be?’

‘Abby didn’t tell him,’ she revealed abruptly.