At Her Latin Lover's Command: The Italian Count's Command / The French Count's Mistress / At the Spanish Duke's Command

She jumped in before she felt sorry for him. ‘And then?’

His jaw worked. Pain tore at his mouth. To her surprise, a pang ripped at her chest, though why she should feel any sympathy she couldn’t imagine for the life of her.

Very softly he said, ‘I regret to say that all my entertaining and affection could not replace the love that he has for you.’

He took a deep breath. Miranda stifled a sudden rush of joyful relief. ‘I’m not surprised.’

‘I am. But remarkably, despite your poor mothering skills, Carlo is clearly missing you.’

She bit back a wrenching sob so that Dante wouldn’t notice how deeply she’d been affected by that last remark. Poor baby, she thought in an agony of despair. They’d never been parted before. Most of his waking hours had been spent with her. He’d been miserable. Had probably cried pitifully…

And suddenly her control snapped. She couldn’t hold back her misery, her mind tortured by flashes of cinematic images of Carlo in tears, his small face screwed up in bewilderment and despair.

‘Of course he’s missing me!’ she stormed. ‘How could you hurt him like this? You must have known this would happen!’

‘But I didn’t!’ he protested. ‘I thought he’d miss his nanny more, since you’d largely abandoned him to her care!’

‘Not true—!’ she gasped.

‘I heard different!’ he hurled.

Her eyes blazed and she clenched her fists. ‘From whom?’

‘Someone close to you.’

‘The nanny—Susan?’

He shook his head, his black eyes never leaving her tense face. ‘Someone else. I know that Carlo rarely saw you—’

‘That’s a lie!’ she spat in outrage.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said tightly. ‘I was the only one who gave him any time and affection—’

‘Ridiculous! You were never home during those last few months!’ she accused.

‘An exaggeration!’ he retorted. ‘Certainly I visited my uncle frequently, because he was ill—’

‘And rich!’ she goaded.

‘However, when I was home,’ Dante went on, grimly ignoring her, ‘Carlo had my devoted attention. It was obvious that he lacked affection. He clung to me. Wouldn’t let me go—’

‘Because he felt insecure about you! He never knew when you’d go and when you’d come back—’

‘He loves me!’ Dante hurled. ‘You know he does!’

‘Yes,’ she agreed coldly. ‘But he’s precious to me—’

‘Because you can use him?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she cried in astonishment.

The black eyes were like stones. ‘He’s good currency,’ he said coldly. ‘You know I want him—’

‘Oh, the Severini heir!’ she scathed, fear clutching at her heart. ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘He is my son! That’s why I want him!’ Dante flung in passion and she knew she had a battle on her hands. ‘I know you see him as a meal ticket—perhaps, as I said, something to bargain with. Or perhaps as a revenge because your days of sucking me dry are over—’

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she said, trying to keep the lid on her temper. ‘I don’t see Carlo as a means of getting revenge or money. He is my child and I love him. I am here to take him home because he needs me. Whatever this…lying person says, I am devoted to Carlo. You’ve seen that for yourself, Dante! Are you blind?’

‘You’re not particularly demonstrative,’ he snapped.

‘Are you comparing me with Italian mothers?’ she demanded. ‘You know how I am. I’m not effusive—never have been. I try not to spoil him. But I do hug and kiss him and think of his welfare all the time. I won’t have you saying I don’t love my own son when it’s written in my eyes for anyone to see! I absolutely adore him! I am his mother!’

‘To my eternal regret.’ Dante scowled. ‘And I find it inexplicable that he’s been asking for you every single day.’

Anguish mingled with delight and longing in her expression. Dante glanced away as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.

‘Poor little scrap!’ she exclaimed, horrified by the trauma Carlo must have suffered. Dante had no option but to realise that she must have custody of their son. Emboldened, she lifted her head belligerently. ‘He must have been bewildered when you whisked him off! It’s unbelievable that you put him through this, Dante!’

‘I could hardly leave him with you after what I’d witnessed,’ he snarled.

‘Me? Supposedly drunk—?’

‘If only that were all!’ Loathing spilled from his eyes. ‘You’re a trollop, Miranda. You entertained a man in our bed, knocking back champagne with him and, by the state of you when I arrived, you might have been taking recreational drugs too. While our son lay neglected—’

‘None of that’s true!’ she cried in horror. ‘How can you say that—?’

Pain was slashing into every line of his face. ‘With great difficulty!’ he snarled. ‘I know what I saw. You were disorientated and totally out of it. The evidence of your partying, your infidelity, was there for anyone to see—’

‘It’s an out-and-out lie!’ she croaked. ‘If that’s what you’re pretending…’

Dante jerked around, the ferocity of his expression drying her throat so that she couldn’t continue. His face was taut with anger. In his eyes blazed a hatred so intense, so murderous that it was as if he’d stabbed her in the heart.

‘Pretending? Pretending?!’ he cried, in a slicingly cold voice that lashed her more surely than if he’d yelled at her. ‘I did not imagine that I came home unexpectedly from Milan and found you virtually comatose, the sheets soaked in champagne, and my son abandoned and screaming his head off in the nursery!’ he ripped out. ‘You were drugged, drunk and incapable. And from the marks on your body you’d clearly had rough sex with some,’ he choked and forced out, ‘some common thug—’

‘No! That’s a vile lie!’ Reliving that evening, she felt as if her head might burst. Everything that had happened was a terrible, sickening blur… ‘Of one thing I’m certain!’ she cried with passion. ‘I’ve never been unfaithful to you! I’ve told you that over and over again! I had flu—’

‘But no temperature. I checked,’ he said stonily.

‘I don’t care! That’s the only explanation—’

‘No. Regrettably, it is not.’

‘Flu!’ she insisted vehemently.

‘And champagne is a cure?’ he flung. ‘In two glasses?’

Her hand strayed to her forehead. She felt nauseous, as she had on that day. Whenever she went to sleep now, she woke up sweating from terrible nightmares in which she seemed to be living out Dante’s fantasy that she’d had sex that night. Someone rough and uncaring was ripping off her clothes. Hurling her on the bed. Holding her down.