Affairs Of The Heart: The Italian Boss's Secret Child

‘Believe me, Damien. I won’t be your mistress. I won’t be anyone’s mistress. Have you no idea what an insult that is?’

‘Then what were you expecting? Marriage? Is that what you were hoping for? A white picket fence and a fairy-tale ending?’

She schooled her face blank, her chest heaving, not trusting her voice to hold steady if she uttered a word. Of course it sounded ridiculous when he put it like that. But what was wrong with wanting things to be right, wanting to bring up a child in a proper family? What was wrong with hoping love might have something to do with it?

But there was no way she’d tell Damien that.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said, only when she was sure her voice wouldn’t betray her. ‘I told you, I don’t want anything from you.’

Still, his eyes narrowed, focusing on something in her face. ‘Ah, but that’s what you were hoping for, wasn’t it?’

His words cut uncomfortably close to the truth. Why had she had to go and fall in love with him? It had been so much easier in the beginning, before she’d seen beyond the arrogant businessman behind whom Damien existed, before she’d felt his lovemaking and experienced the sheer magic of his touch.

Until then she’d been happy to think about a life with her child—Damien didn’t even have to figure. But she did love him. And now she couldn’t imagine life with his child without him.

Her chin kicked up. ‘You must really fancy yourself. I told you and I mean it. I don’t want anything from you.’

He watched her for a few seconds more, cold emotion drizzling down over them. ‘So be it. Because I don’t do family. It’s not going to happen.’

He walked to the slatted timber bifold doors separating the bedroom from the rest of the apartment. ‘I’m going back to work. Let yourself out when you’re ready.’

‘I’ll be down shortly,’ she said, knowing it would take her a good ten minutes to get herself back together enough to appear in public.

‘Don’t bother,’ he said. ‘Go home.’

And then he was gone.

CHAPTER NINE (#u4f93203d-362b-520d-9d07-6c75ca30ba3e)

‘HOW is she?’ asked Enid on his return.

‘Gone home,’ he snapped back, ‘and if she’s got any sense, she’ll stay there.’

Enid’s eyes narrowed speculatively, her lips tight and puckered. ‘I see.’

‘You do? I sure wish the hell I did. Hold my calls, Enid. Tell everyone I’m in conference.’

‘As you wish,’ she said as he entered his office. He closed the door behind him but for once ignored the expansive desk to his right. Instead he strode to the wall of glass, his window to the outside world, and gazed out across the city, looking for answers amongst the columns of office towers, the low-rise buildings and homes at the city’s fringe and the warehouses of the harbour near the port. The sea lay lifeless in the distance, flat and dull. He empathised. It matched his mood perfectly.

It had been one hell of a day. To finally find the woman who’d been haunting his thoughts and dreams for so long only to discover it had been Philly all along. What was more, to learn she was pregnant with his child.

He was going to be a father.

The concept was as exciting as it was terrifying. Yet he didn’t want a child; he’d never wanted one. He’d survived without the whole family thing for this long. He didn’t need it.

So why did some small part of him insist on feeling proud? He’d spent his life avoiding such possibilities with a vengeance. So why didn’t he break out in a cold sweat as he’d expect? Why did he feel such a sense of exhilaration at the idea?

He was going to be a father.

He was going to have a child.

And, no matter what Philly said, he would make sure that child was properly taken care of.

What was her problem, anyway? He’d just offered her a house, a housekeeper, nursing care for her mother and an income. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger. It was a great deal.

So why wouldn’t she accept? What did she want? He’d made her a reasonable offer. More than reasonable. And she’d turned him down flat.

He sighed deeply, his forehead and hands pressed against the glass as he looked down to the street below. It was a long way down. He’d been down there, at rock bottom and lower, not even within cooee of a rung to begin the long, lonely climb up the ladder.

And he’d made it. All the way to the top on his own. No one to help him, no one to turn to for support but a drunken foster mother who had drunk his foster money blind and the faded memory of a family tragedy that had taught him never to get close to anyone.

He lashed out with his foot, slamming his shoe into the reinforced glass and making the entire window shudder before he spun around and tracked a course round his desk.

What the hell was wrong with him? He hadn’t thought so much about his family for years and yet today, in the feel-good hum of some of the best sex he’d had since their encounter in the boardroom—the only sex he’d had since that encounter in the board-room—the mere suggestion of a honeyed voice had dredged it all up.

He paced the carpet, trying not to ignore the pictures that were surfacing in his mind’s eye, the pictures like dusty film clips he’d been avoiding for years. His father, tall and straight, strong featured, with hair swept back much like his own, but greying already at the temples, the white shirt and dark trousers, his standard uniform; even when picking fruit or working in the garden he had always liked to look his best.

His brothers, loud and broad-shouldered like their father and always wrestling in the yard outside when they should have been doing homework.

And his mother, dark and handsome, with eyes that had sparkled with love and pride, scolding her two eldest sons only to toss her thick, dark hair and leave them, laughing as she’d turned back to her cooking.

He sucked in a jagged breath and closed his eyes but the pictures became even sharper and more distinct.

Unrelated snippets of memories exploded into his mind like the coloured contents of a party popper.

These were real people he was remembering, not some cardboard cut-outs that could be neatly filed away in a corner of his mind, buried deeper than the four wooden caskets that had lain side by side in the old church.

They’d been his family and now they were gone. And he’d done his best to leave them behind, moving cities, moving states. Burying them in his mind.

He shivered.

Suddenly he had to get out of there. Had to go somewhere—anywhere. He pulled open the door in time to see Philly placing some papers on Enid’s desk. She jerked around guiltily at his appearance, her face pale but her eyes challenging. Then she frowned and her features softened into something closer to concern. She took a step towards him.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘What are you doing here?’ he demanded. ‘I told you to go home.’

She stopped dead, her back stiffening. ‘I’ve just had two weeks leave. I have work to catch up on.’

‘You’re not fit for work.’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, forcing herself taller as if that would convince him. ‘I’m not ill.’

‘What do you call what happened this morning then?’

Her chin kicked up even as she coloured.

‘I think most people refer to it as sex.’