Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: November 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Эбби Грин, Julia James - Страница 15

CHAPTER FIVE

Ten months later

‘I HOPE THAT baby isn’t going to cry all the way through lunch, Keira. It would be nice if we were able to eat a meal in peace for once.’

Tucking little Santino into the crook of her arm, Keira nodded as she met her aunt’s accusing stare. She would have taken the baby out for a walk if the late October day hadn’t been so foul and blustery. Or she might have treated him to a long bus ride to lull him to sleep if he hadn’t been so tiny. As it was, she was stuck in the house with a woman who seemed determined to find fault in everything she did, and she was tired. So tired. With the kind of tiredness which seemed to have seeped deep into her bones and taken up residence there. ‘I’ll try to put him down for his nap before we sit down to eat,’ she said hopefully.

Aunt Ida’s mouth turned down at the corners, emphasising the deep grooves of discontentment which hardened her thin face. ‘That’ll be a first. Poor Shelley says she hasn’t had an unbroken night since you moved in. He’s obviously an unsettled baby if he cries so much. Maybe it’s time you came to your senses and thought about adoption.’

Keira’s teeth dug into her bottom lip as the word lodged like a barb in her skin.

Adoption.

A wave of nausea engulfed her but she tried very hard not to react as she stared down into the face of her sleeping son. Holding onto Santino even tighter, she felt her heart give a savage lurch of love as she told herself to ignore the snide comments and concentrate on what was important. Because only one thing mattered and that was her baby son.

Everything you do is for him, she reminded herself fiercely. Everything. No point in wishing she hadn’t given away Matteo’s money, or tormenting herself by thinking how useful it might have been. She hadn’t known at the time that she was pregnant—how could she have done? She’d handed over that thick wad of banknotes as if there were loads more coming her way—and now she just had to deal with the situation as it was and not what it could have been. She had to accept that she’d lost her job and her home in quick succession and had been forced to take the charity of a woman who had always disapproved of her. Because how else would she and Santino have managed to cope in an uncaring and hostile world?

You know exactly how, prompted the ever-present voice of her conscience but Keira pushed it from her mind. She could not have asked Matteo for help, not when he had treated her like some kind of whore. Who had made it clear he never wanted to see her again.

‘Have you registered the child’s birth yet?’ Aunt Ida was asking.

‘Not yet, no,’ said Keira. ‘I have to do it within the first six weeks.’

‘Better get a move on, then.’

Keira waited, knowing that there was more.

Her aunt smiled slyly. ‘Only I was wondering whether you were going to put the mystery father’s name on the birth certificate—or whether you were like your poor dear mother and didn’t actually know who he was?’

Keira’s determination not to react drained away. Terrified of saying something she might later regret, she turned and walked out of the sitting room without another word, glad she was holding Santino because that stopped her from picking up one of her aunt’s horrible china ornaments and hurling it against the wall. Criticism directed against her she could just about tolerate—but she wouldn’t stand to hear her mother’s name maligned like that.

Her anger had evaporated by the time she reached the box-room she shared with Santino, and Keira placed the baby carefully in his crib, tucking the edges of the blanket around his tiny frame and staring at him. His lashes looked very long and dark against his olive skin but for once she found herself unable to take pleasure in his innocent face. Because suddenly, the fear and the guilt which had been nagging away inside her now erupted into one fierce and painful certainty.

She couldn’t go on like this. Santino deserved more than a mother who was permanently exhausted, having to tiptoe around a too-small house with people who didn’t really like her. She closed her eyes, knowing there was somebody else who didn’t like her—but someone she suspected wouldn’t display a tight-lipped intolerance whenever the baby started to cry. Because it was his baby, too. And didn’t all parents love their children, no matter what?

A powerful image swam into her mind of a man whose face she could picture without too much trying. She knew what she had to do. Something she’d thought about doing every day since Santino’s birth, and in the nine months preceding it, until she’d forced herself to remember how unequivocally he’d told her he never wanted to see her again. Well, maybe he was going to have to.

Her fingers were shaking as she scrolled down her phone’s contact list and retrieved the number she had saved, even though the caller had hung up on her the last time she’d spoken to him.

With a thundering heart, she punched out the number. And waited.

* * *

Rain lashed against the car windscreen and flurries of falling leaves swirled like the thoughts in Matteo’s mind as his chauffeur-driven limousine drove down the narrow suburban road. As they passed houses which all looked exactly the same, he tried to get his head round what he’d learned during a phone call from a woman he’d never thought he’d see again.

He was a father.

He had a child.

A son. His heart pumped. In a single stroke he had been given exactly what he needed—though not necessarily what he wanted—and could now produce the grandson his father yearned for.

Matteo ordered the driver to stop, trying to dampen down the unfamiliar emotions which were sweeping through his body. And trying to curb his rising temper about the way Keira had kept this news secret. How dared she keep his baby hidden and play God with his future? Grim-faced, he stepped out onto the rain-soaked pavement and a wave of determination washed over him as he slammed the car door shut. He was here now and he would fix this—to his advantage. Whatever it took, he would get what he wanted—and he wanted his son.

He hadn’t told Keira he was coming. He hadn’t wanted to give her the opportunity to elude him. He wanted to surprise her—as she had surprised him. To allow her no time to mount any defences. If she was unprepared and vulnerable then surely that would aid him in his determination to get his rightful heir. Moving stealthily up the narrow path, he rapped a small bronze knocker fashioned in the shape of a lion’s head and moments later the door was opened by a woman with tight, curly hair and a hard, lined face.

‘Yes?’ she said sharply. ‘We don’t buy from the doorstep.’

‘Good afternoon,’ he said. Forcing the pleasantry to his unwilling lips, he accompanied it with a polite smile. ‘I’m not selling anything. I’d like to see Keira.’

‘And you are?’

‘My name is Matteo Valenti,’ he said evenly. ‘And I am her baby’s father.’

The woman gasped, her eyes scanning him from head to toe, as if registering his cashmere coat and handmade shoes. Her eyes skated over his shoulder and she must have observed the shiny black car parked so incongruously among all the sedate family saloons. Was he imagining the look of calculation which had hardened her gimlet eyes? Probably not, he thought grimly.

‘You?’ she demanded.

‘That’s right,’ he agreed, still in that same even voice which betrayed nothing of his growing irritation.

‘I had no idea that...’ She swallowed. ‘I’ll have to check if she’ll see you.’

‘No,’ Matteo interrupted her, only just resisting the desire to step forward and jam his foot in the door, like a bailiff. ‘I will see Keira—and my baby—and it’s probably best if we do it with the minimum of fuss.’ He glanced behind him where he could see the twitching of net curtains on the opposite side of the road and when he returned his gaze to the woman, his smile was bland. ‘Don’t you agree? For everyone’s sake?’

The woman hesitated before nodding, as if she too had no desire for a scene on the doorstep. ‘Very well. You’d better come in.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I’ll let Keira know you’re here.’

He was shown into a small room crammed with porcelain figurines but Matteo barely paid any attention to his surroundings. His eyes were trained on the door as it clicked open and he held his breath in anticipation—expelling it in a long sigh of disbelief and frustration when Keira finally walked in. Frustration because she was alone. And disbelief because he scarcely recognised her as the same woman whose bed he had shared almost a year ago—though that lack of recognition certainly didn’t seem to be affecting the powerful jerk of his groin.

Gone was the short, spiky hair and in its place was a dark curtain of silk which hung glossily down to her shoulders. And her body. He swallowed. What the hell had happened to that? All the angular leanness of before had gone. Suddenly she had hips—as well as the hint of a belly and breasts. It made her look softer, he thought, until he reminded himself that a woman with any degree of softness wouldn’t have done what she had done.

‘Matteo,’ she said, her voice sounding strained—and it was then he noticed the pallor and the faint circles which darkened the skin beneath her eyes. In those fathomless pools of deepest blue he could read the vulnerability he had wanted to see, yet he felt a sudden twist of something like compassion, until he remembered what she had done.

‘The very same,’ he agreed grimly. ‘Pleased to see me?’

‘I wasn’t—’ She was trying to smile but failing spectacularly. ‘I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, not like this. Not without any warning.’

‘Really? What did you imagine was going to happen, Keira? That I would just accept the news you finally saw fit to tell me and wait for your next instruction?’ He walked across the room to stare out of the window and saw that a group of small boys had gathered around his limousine. He turned around and met her eyes. ‘Perhaps you were hoping you wouldn’t have to see me at all. Were you hoping I would remain a shadowy figure in the background and become your convenient benefactor?’

‘Of course I wasn’t!’

‘No?’ He flared his nostrils. ‘Then why bother telling me about my son? Why now after all these months of secrecy?’

Keira tried not to flinch beneath the accusing gaze which washed over her like a harsh ebony spotlight. It was difficult enough seeing him again and registering the infuriating fact that her body had automatically started to melt, without having to face his undiluted fury.

Remember the things he said to you, she reminded herself. But the memory of his wounding words seemed to have faded and all she could think was the fact that here stood Santino’s father and that, oh, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

For here was the adult version of the little baby she’d just rocked off to sleep before the doorbell had rung. Santino was the image of his father, with his golden olive skin and dark hair, and hadn’t the midwife already commented on the fact that her son was going to grow up to be a heartbreaker? Keira swallowed. Just like Matteo.

She felt an uncomfortable rush of awareness because it wasn’t easy to acknowledge the stir of her body, or the fact that her senses suddenly felt as if they’d been kicked into life. Matteo’s hair and his eyes seemed even blacker than she remembered and never had his sensual lips appeared more kissable. Yet surely that was the last thing she should be thinking of right now. Her mind-set should be fixed on practicalities, not foolish yearnings. She felt disappointed in herself and wondered if nature was clever enough to make a woman desire the father of her child, no matter how contemptuously he was looking at her.

She found herself wishing he’d given her some kind of warning so she could at least have washed her hair and made a bit of effort with her appearance. Since having a baby she’d developed curves and she was shamefully aware that her pre-pregnancy jeans were straining at the hips and her baggy top was deeply unflattering. But the way she looked had been the last thing on her mind. She knew she needed new clothes but she’d been forced to wait, and not just because of a chronic shortage of funds.

Because how could she possibly go shopping for clothes with a tiny infant in tow? Asking her aunt to babysit hadn’t been an option—not when she was constantly made aware of their generosity in providing a home for her and her illegitimate child, and how that same child had disrupted all their lives. The truth was she hadn’t wanted to spend her precious pennies on new clothes when she could be buying stuff for Santino. Which was why she was wearing an unflattering outfit, which was probably making Matteo Valenti wonder what he’d ever seen in her. Measured against his made-to-measure sophistication, Keira felt like a scruffy wrongdoer who had just been dragged before an elegant high court judge.

She forced a polite smile to her lips. ‘Would you like to sit down?’

‘No, I don’t want to sit down. I want an answer to my question. Why did you contact me to tell me that I was a father? Why now?’

She flushed right up to the roots of her hair. ‘Because by law I have to register his birth and that brought everything to a head. I’ve realised I can’t go on living like this. I thought I could but I was wrong. I’m very...grateful to my aunt for taking me in but it’s too cramped. They don’t really want me here and I can kind of see their point.’ She met his eyes. ‘And I don’t want Santino growing up in this kind of atmosphere.’

Santino.

As she said the child’s name Matteo felt a whisper of something he didn’t recognise. Something completely outside his experience. He could feel it in the icing of his skin and sudden clench of his heart. ‘Santino?’ he repeated, wondering if he’d misheard her. He stared at her, his brow creased in a frown. ‘You gave him an Italian name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘Because when I looked at him—’ her voice faltered as she scraped her fingers back through her hair and turned those big sapphire eyes on him ‘—I knew I could call him nothing else but an Italian name.’

‘Even though you sought to deny him his heritage and kept his birth hidden from me?’

She swallowed. ‘You made it very clear that you never wanted to see me again, Matteo.’

‘I didn’t know you were pregnant at the time,’ he bit out.

‘And neither did I!’ she shot back.

‘But you knew afterwards.’

‘Yes.’ How could she explain the sense of alienation she’d felt—not just from him, but from everyone? When everything had seemed so unreal and the world had suddenly looked like a very different place. The head of Luxury Limos had said he didn’t think it was a good idea if she carried on driving—not when she looked as if she was about to throw up whenever the car went over a bump. And even though she hadn’t been sick—not once—and even though Keira knew that by law she could demand to stay where she was, she didn’t have the energy or the funds to investigate further. What was she going to do—take him to an industrial tribunal?

She’d been terrified her boss would find out who the father of her unborn child was—because having sex with your most prestigious client was definitely a sacking offence. He’d offered her a job back in the workshop, but she had no desire to slide underneath a car and get oil all over her hands, not when such a precious bundle was growing inside her. Eventually she’d accepted a mind-numbingly dull job behind the reception desk, becoming increasingly aware that on the kind of wages she was being paid, she’d never be able to afford childcare after the birth. She’d saved every penny she could and been as frugal as she knew how, but gradually all her funds were running out and now she was in real trouble.

‘Yes, I knew,’ she said slowly. ‘Just like I knew I ought to tell you that you were going to be a father. But every time I picked up the phone to call you, something held me back. Can’t you understand?’

‘Frankly, no. I can’t.’

She looked him straight in the eye. ‘You think those cruel words you said to me last time we spoke wouldn’t matter? That you could say what you liked and it wouldn’t hurt, or have consequences?’

His voice grew hard. ‘I haven’t come here to argue the rights and wrongs of your secrecy. I’ve come to see my son.’

‘He’s sleeping.’

‘I won’t wake him.’ His voice grew harsh. ‘You’ve denied me all this time and you will deny me no longer. I want to see my son, Keira, and if I have to search every room in the house to find him, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

It was a demand Keira couldn’t ignore and not just because she didn’t doubt his threat to search the small house from top to bottom. She’d seen the brief tightening of his face when she’d mentioned his child and another wave of guilt had washed over her. Because she of all people knew what it was like to grow up without a father. She knew about the gaping hole it left—a hole which could never be filled. And yet she had sought to subject her own child to that.

‘Come with me,’ she said huskily.

He followed her up the narrow staircase and Keira was acutely aware of his presence behind her. You couldn’t ignore him, even when you couldn’t see him, she thought despairingly. She could detect the heat from his body and the subtle sandalwood which was all his and, stupidly, she remembered the way that scent had clung to her skin the morning after he’d made love to her. Her heart was thundering by the time they reached the box-room she shared with Santino and she held her breath as Matteo stood frozen for a moment before moving soundlessly towards the crib. His shoulders were stiff with tension as he reached it and he was silent for so long that she started to get nervous.

‘Matteo?’ she said.

Matteo didn’t answer. Not then. He wasn’t sure he trusted himself to speak because his thoughts were in such disarray. He looked down at the baby expecting to feel the instant bolt of love people talked about when they first set eyes on their own flesh and blood, but there was nothing. He stared down at the dark fringe of eyelashes which curved on the infant’s olive-hued cheeks and the shock of black hair. Tiny hands were curled into two tiny fists and he found himself leaning forward to count all the fingers, nodding his head with satisfaction as he registered each one. He felt as if he were observing himself and his reaction from a distance and realised it was possession he felt, not love. The sense that this was someone who belonged to him in a way that nobody ever had before.

His son.

He swallowed.

His son.

He waited for a moment before turning to Keira and he saw her dark blue eyes widen, as if she’d read something in his face she would prefer not to have seen.

‘So you played God with all our futures,’ he observed softly. ‘By keeping him from me.’

Her gaze became laced with defiance.

‘You paid me for sex.’

‘I did not pay you for sex,’ he gritted out. ‘I explained my motivation in my note. You spoke of a luxury you weren’t used to and I thought I would make it possible. Was that so very wrong?’

‘You know very well it was!’ she burst out. ‘Because offering me cash was insulting. Any man would know that.’

‘Was that why you tried to sell your story to the journalist, because you felt “insulted”?’

‘I did not sell my story to anyone,’ she shot back. ‘Can’t you imagine what it was like? I’d had sex for the first time and woke to find you gone, leaving that wretched pile of money. I walked into a charity shop to get rid of it because it felt...well, it felt tainted, if you must know.’

He grew very still. ‘You gave it away?’

‘Yes, I gave it away. To a worthy cause—to children living in care. Not realising I was pregnant at the time and could have used the money myself. The journalist just happened to be in the shop and overheard—and naturally she was interested. She bought me a drink and I hadn’t eaten anything all day and...’ She shrugged. ‘I guess I told her more than I meant to.’

Matteo’s eyes narrowed. If her story was true it meant she hadn’t tried to grab some seedy publicity from their brief liaison. If it was true. Yet even if it was—did it really change anything? He was here only because her back was up against the wall and she had nowhere else to turn. His gaze swept over the too-tight jeans and baggy jumper. And this was the mother of his child, he thought, his lips curving with distaste.

He opened his mouth to speak but Santino chose that moment to start to whimper and Keira bent over the crib to scoop him up, whispering her lips against his hair and rocking him in her arms until he had grown quiet again. She looked over his head, straight into Matteo’s eyes. ‘Would you...would you like to hold him?’

Matteo went very still. He knew he should want that, but although he thought it, he still couldn’t feel it. There was nothing but an icy lump where his heart should have been and as he looked at his son he couldn’t shift that strange air of detachment.

His lack of emotional empathy had never mattered to him before—only his frustrated lovers had complained about it and that had never been reason enough to change, or even want to change. But now he felt like someone on a beach who had inadvertently stepped onto quicksand. As if matters were spinning beyond his control.

And he needed to assert control, just as he always did.

Of course he would hold his son when he’d got his head round the fact that he actually had a son. But it would be in conditions favourable to them both—not in some tiny bedroom of a strange house while Keira stood studying him with those big blue eyes.

‘Not now,’ he said abruptly. ‘There isn’t time. You need to pack your things while I call ahead and prepare for your arrival in Italy.’

‘What?’

‘You heard me. He isn’t staying here. And since a child needs a mother, then I guess you will have to come, too.’

‘What are you talking about?’ She rocked the child against her breast. ‘I know it’s not perfect here but I can’t just walk out without making any plans. We can’t just go to Italy.’

‘You can’t put out a call for help and then ignore help when it comes. You telephoned me and now you must accept the consequences,’ he added grimly. ‘You’ve already implied that the atmosphere here is intolerable so I’m offering you an alternative. The only sensible alternative.’ He pulled a mobile phone from the pocket of his cashmere overcoat and began to scroll down the numbers. ‘For a start, you need a nursery nurse to help you.’

‘I don’t need a nurse,’ she contradicted fiercely. ‘Women like me don’t have nurses. They look after their babies themselves.’

‘Have you looked in the mirror recently?’

It was an underhand blow to someone who was already feeling acutely sensitive and once again Keira flushed. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to slap on a whole load of make-up and put on a party dress!’

He shook his head. ‘That wasn’t what I meant. You look as if you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks and I’m giving you the chance to get some rest.’ He forced himself to be gentle with her, even though his instinct was always to push for exactly what he wanted. And yet strangely, he felt another wave of compassion as he looked into her pale face. ‘Now, we can do this one of two ways. You can fight me or you can make the best of the situation and come willingly.’ His mouth flattened. ‘But if you choose the former, it will be fruitless because I want this, Keira. I want it very badly. And when I want something, I usually get it. Do you believe me?’

The mulish look which entered her eyes was there for only a second before she gave a reluctant nod. ‘Yes,’ she said grudgingly. ‘I believe you.’

‘Then pack what you need and I’ll wait downstairs.’ He turned away but was halted by the sound of her voice.

‘And when we get there, what happens then, Matteo?’ she whispered. ‘To Santino?’ There was a pause. ‘To us?’

He didn’t turn back. He didn’t want to look at her right then, or tell her he didn’t think there was an ‘us’. ‘I have no crystal ball,’ he ground out. ‘We’ll just have to make it up as we go along. Now pack your things.’

He went downstairs, and, despite telling himself that this was nothing more than a problem which needed solving, he could do nothing about the sudden and inexplicable wrench of pain in his heart. But years of practice meant he had composed himself long before he reached the tiny hallway and his face was as hard as granite as he let himself out into the rainy English day.