Hot-Blooded Italians: Sicilian Husband, Unexpected Baby / A Tainted Beauty / Marriage Scandal, Showbiz Baby!

‘And what precisely were you going to tell me, Emma?’ he questioned in a suddenly silken voice.

Emma relaxed a little. ‘That I couldn’t…couldn’t have a baby.’

‘Yet now you are telling me that the doctor was wrong? That all those months of trying vainly to conceive were an illusion—and that you could conceive after all?’

‘Yes! My obstetrician said that these things do happen occasionally—’

‘Miraculous,’ he commented sarcastically. ‘And when did this marvel occur? How old is the child?’

A part of her wanted to tell him to forget it—that she wasn’t going to beg him to acknowledge his son, and that she had more than enough love to go round.

But Emma recognised that she must do this for Gino’s sake. Because what if one day he turned round and demanded to know where his father was? She must be able to look him in the eye and tell him truthfully that she had told Vincenzo everything—every single fact—even if she’d told them to him rather late in the day. How Vincenzo chose to interpret and then act on those facts was up to him, but her conscience would be clear.

‘He’s ten months old,’ she said—knowing that this was the big one and watching while Vincenzo’s eyes narrowed in silent calculation. He was clearly doing some kind of rapid mathematical assessment about whether or not it was possible for him to be the father. And, yes, it was insulting, but her feelings were not the issue here.

‘And when are you claiming that this conception took place?’

‘It must have been that…that last time we were together. Do you remember?’

Now he gave a grim kind of smile. ‘Do I remember? I am hardly likely to forget,’ he said bitterly. It had been the first time they’d been together for weeks. Their relationship had gradually been eroding, but in the light of the news that she could not bear his child and all the accompanying deceit they had become strangers to one another. The letter she had hidden had become the symbol of all that was wrong between them. He began to doubt whether anything about her had been genuine.

‘So were you really a virgin when I met you, Emma?’ he had demanded icily one day, over breakfast. ‘Or was that, too, a fabrication?’

He remembered the way that the light had gone out of her eyes and, yes, he had taken pleasure in that, too.

‘Oh, what is the point, Vincenzo?’ had been her dull response. ‘If you can think so poorly of me, then there is no point in going on, is there?’

He remembered the feeling of relief which had washed over him, telling himself that he would be glad to see the back of her lying little face. True, he would have to live with the mockery of his cousins, who had always cautioned him against the marriage—but he could deal with that.

Yet the reality of their separation had proved harsher than he had anticipated. He had missed her bright blonde hair and her sunny smile and the way that her delicate frame used to complement his own powerful body so perfectly. Until he reminded himself that those were external things which were easily replaceable and that, in truth, he didn’t really recognise the Emma he had married. His trust in her had been destroyed—and to a proud Sicilian man trust was everything.

He was aware of the bizarre situation in which he now found himself—aware of Emma standing wide-eyed on the opposite side of the luxury hotel suite, her cheeks still flushed from their lovemaking and her hair in disarray. So what was he going to do about her extraordinary revelation that he had fathered her child?

Giving himself time to sift through his options with a chilly detachment, which his business rivals would have recognised with sinking hearts, Vincenzo poured himself another glass of mineral water and drank from it. For once, he could have done with the slightly numbing effect of alcohol, but he needed his wits to be as razor sharp as they had ever been.

His black gaze bored into her like the twin barrels of a shotgun. ‘The question is—whether or not I believe you,’ he pondered. ‘Or whether you’re just spinning me a line to try to get your hands on as much of my money as possible.’

Emma choked back her instinctive gasp of distress. ‘You think that I’d choose this particular method as a means of extorting money from a man like you? That I’d put myself through all this grief?’ she demanded. ‘Why, I’d rather scrub floors to earn a crust than do that!’

‘So why don’t you?’ he challenged icily.

His words were the final straw—pushing her and pushing her until all her determination to stay calm flew out of the window and something inside Emma snapped. All the worry and the struggle of the preceding months, the huge decision to tell Vincenzo and then her own weakness in having just had sex with him—all these factors now ignited to explode into a debilitating cocktail of anger and indignation and sheer anxiety.

‘Because I have a baby to look after and it’s actually very difficult, if you must know! I’d pay more in childcare than I’d earn! But how would you know—when you’ve been cushioned by wealth all your life? Everything you’ve wanted has always been there for the taking. Money may have made your life easier, Vincenzo, but it has tarnished it, too, because you are unable to see anything except through its dark and corrupting influence. Every time you meet a new person the barriers go up and you’re thinking, Does this person want to know me, or do they want to get their hands on my millions?’

‘That’s enough!’ he snapped. ‘I don’t really think that you are in a position to give me a lecture on the morality of money, when your own morals are in radical need of an overhaul.’ Deliberately, he let his gaze rake over her crumpled dress, at the sting of colour which still flushed her face. ‘Tell me, did you have sex with me because you thought it would put you in a better bargaining position—because if I were you, I would really rethink your strategy in future, cara. Your worth would be greatly enhanced if you withheld the sex until after you had agreed the price.’

That did it. Her rage so blinding, her fury and her frustration and sense of self-recrimination were all so overwhelming that Emma just flew across the suite, launching herself at him, raining a battery of blows at the unforgiving wall of his chest.

But Vincenzo merely laughed, capturing her drumming little fists easily within the restraining grasp of his hands and stilling her with a contemptuous curve of his lips as he brought his mouth up close to her ear.

‘Did you imagine that such a spirited display would have me eating out of your hand?’ he whispered. ‘Or eating you?’

‘Vincenzo!’

‘Vincenzo!’ he mocked. And wasn’t the fiercely hot kick of desire hitting him hard in the groin—and didn’t he just want to press it against her warm, soft mound, to seek a quick and urgent release from this infernal desire? But sex without strings was one thing—having sex with her after what she had just told him was something entirely different.

Dropping his hands from her as if she were contaminated, he walked over to the other side of the room, his back facing her. People always said that Vincenzo’s face was cold and shuttered—that working out what was going on in his head from the look on his face was like trying to read a stone. But Emma was better at it than most because inevitably she knew him better than most. And so he needed to be careful.

Staring out of the window, he studied the dark gleam of the river and the dazzling light from the buildings which were reflected on its rippling surface. Logic told him that she was lying—and it also told him that if she persisted with her crazy contention, then he should simply refer it to his lawyers. It wasn’t exactly unheard of for fabulously wealthy men to be hit on by women with spurious paternity claims—but these days, fortunately, there were the means to establish the truth in such a claim.

He should tell her to get out, to leave the suite now—and he should put someone onto it in the morning. Why, he need not even meet with her again—it could all be put into the hands of his legal experts.

But some instinct made Vincenzo loath to follow the voice of logic, and he wasn’t sure why. Was it because the sex between them had been utter dynamite—just as it always had been with her—and because it had awoken in him a hunger which she could feed better than any other woman he’d ever known?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to play along with her—so that he could enjoy her body for a little longer before they parted for good? And wouldn’t renewed evidence of her duplicity finally help dull the magic enchantment which she could still wield over his senses?

Turning back, he surprised her chewing on her bottom lip like a nervous exam candidate. So was she? Nervous? Of course she was.

‘Where do you live?’ he questioned.

‘In a little place called Boisdale—it’s about an hour’s drive from here.’

‘Did you drive here today?’

Still smarting from all the hurt and the pain—some of it admittedly self-inflicted—Emma wondered which planet he lived on, until she remembered. He lived on Planet Wealth. Vincenzo had guessed that she was short of money, but someone in his position would have no idea of what that would mean in real terms. To him, being broke might mean having a pretty standard car—the idea that she would simply be unable to pay for road tax and petrol, let alone the cost of learning to drive would be completely outside his experience.

‘No, I still haven’t got my licence,’ she said, just wanting to get away now and as soon as possible. Away from that disdainful face and the memory of what she had just allowed to happen. All she wanted was to wash away every trace of him… She would blow the expense, put the immersion heater on and submerge herself in a hot, deep bath the minute she got home. ‘No, I came by train.’

Emma glanced at her watch, but the blur of numbers danced in front of her eyes. At least she had told him, and he hadn’t believed her. Gino would be unable to blame her and maybe this was all for the best. She need never see him again and she would manage. Somehow. ‘And, in fact, I ought to be getting back.’

‘Yes. I will order a car,’ said Vincenzo, sliding his mobile phone from his pocket.

‘That won’t be necessary, thank you. I’ll be fine.’

‘You think perhaps I am playing the gentleman, cara?’ he taunted silkily, with a shake of his dark head. ‘Alas, you are mistaken. You may be content to take public transport, but I can assure you that I am not.’

Emma stared at him, putting her confusion and interpretation of mixed messages down to the fact that she was tired and aching. ‘I don’t quite understand what you mean.’

‘Don’t you?’ questioned Vincenzo softly. ‘Haven’t you realised that I shall be coming with you?’

Emma stared at him in alarm. ‘What, you mean—to Boisdale? But I thought…’

‘What did you think?’ he put in as her strained whisper faded into an open-mouthed look of disbelief.

‘That you didn’t believe me.’

‘I don’t.’ His mouth hardened as he punched out a number on his phone, and said something swiftly in his Sicilian dialect, before meeting her gaze with cold, hard eyes. ‘But the easiest way to rule out a whole load of unnecessary paperwork and time is to see the baby for myself.’