Читать книгу Secret Heirs: His One Night Consequence - Кэрол Мортимер, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 16

‘SO THAT’S it? We met in the Alps, where you had a job in a ski resort. We had an affair and I invited you back to my home.’ Alessandro kept his voice neutral, as emotionless as if he were reading a company report rather than repeating the most astonishing thing he’d heard in years.

The whole idea was absurd.

He’d never invited any woman to share his home. The only woman he could imagine living there was the woman he’d one day make his wife. A woman he hadn’t yet met.

He’d spent his adult years ensuring the women he dated understood he wasn’t interested in deep, meaningful relationships. That was just female-speak for snaring a rich man gullible enough to believe she wanted him for his character and personality!

‘We lived together, but it didn’t work out, and you came back to Australia,’ he continued, watching her avoid his gaze. ‘You discovered you were pregnant and you called my home repeatedly, eventually spoke to my stepmother and as a result, believed I wanted nothing further to do with you?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

Her offhand response fuelled the remnants of his earlier temper. Didn’t she realise how vital this was?

Alessandro’s fists clenched tight. He abhorred the need to share the fact of his memory loss with a stranger. Even a stranger with whom he’d once been intimate.

He’d been brought up never to show vulnerability, never to feel it. No wonder his discomfort now was marrow deep. His certainties, his sense of order, his grasp of the situation were far too shaky for a man accustomed to taking charge.

Still Carys didn’t look at him but busied herself feeding the tot in the high chair. Was it his imagination or was she taking far too long fussing with cloths and dishes?

Alessandro kept his eyes on her, rather than her son. Meeting those big green eyes so like his own made him uneasy. And the way the boy kept staring at him, surely that wasn’t normal.

The child wasn’t his. He’d know if he had a son.

He’d always been careful about contraception. He would have children at the appropriate time, when he’d found a suitable bride. She’d be clever, chic, at home in his world, sexy. She wouldn’t bore him after two weeks as most females did.

The harsh overhead light caught rich colour as Carys bent her head and the child tugged a lock of burnished hair loose from her prim bun.

Something snagged in Alessandro’s chest, looking at her. And her son.

No!

He refused to feel anything except annoyance that her story didn’t trigger any memories. It was all still an infuriating blank.

She turned and lifted the baby high in her arms, her prim white blouse dragging taut with the movement.

Something plunged in the pit of Alessandro’s belly and heat spread in his lower body.

At least one thing was explained: his sense of possessiveness when he looked at Carys. She’d been his and, if her story was true, they’d shared a relationship unlike his usual liaisons. He’d desired her enough, trusted her enough, to install her in his own home.

Incredible! Yet it would be easy to check.

Had he planned to keep her as a long-term mistress? The idea fascinated him.

Watching the tight material of her skirt mould her thighs, the thin cotton of her blouse stretch over her breasts, the idea didn’t seem quite as absurd as it should.

If it weren’t for the baby, he’d be tempted to take up right now where they’d left off last night.

Sudden pain slashed behind his eyes and through his temple as he struggled to remember. The headache he’d fought in the car hovered. He was well now. Recovered. Only occasionally did the pain recur, a reminder of the past.

‘Are you all right?’ Smoky eyes held his. He dropped his hand from his temple and stretched his legs in front of him, shifting his weight on the lumpy sofa.

‘Perfectly.’ He paused, following the movement of a chubby little starfish hand that patted her breast then tugged at one of her buttons. A moment later she caught the baby’s hand in hers.

Alessandro raised his eyes. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, her lips barely parted.

‘You haven’t told me why we split up.’

The colour in her cheeks intensified. But not, he’d swear, with sexual awareness. Her nostrils pinched, and her lips firmed.

‘I don’t want to talk about this. There’s no point.’

‘Humour me,’ he murmured, leaning forward.

He wanted his pound of flesh. But what choice did she have? He looked as immovable as Uluru. Instinctively she knew he wouldn’t leave till his curiosity was satisfied.

Carys believed him about his missing memory. He looked so uncomfortable she knew it was a truth he didn’t want to share. She’d heard of such amnesia from her medico eldest brother. And it explained so much that had puzzled her. Like why Alessandro had come round the globe to find her.

What other reason could he have for going to such lengths? Especially since he’d dumped her so unceremoniously.

She bit her lip, glad she was the only one to remember every ignominious detail of that scene.

‘You don’t remember anything?’ Pointless to ask, given his patent lack of knowledge about her, about them. Yet it seemed impossible she’d been wiped totally from his memory.

Once they’d been close. Not just physically intimate, but close as soulmates, or so it had seemed.

How could all that just disappear completely?

Because what they’d shared was far less important to Alessandro than it had been to her?

‘My memory stops several months before my father’s death.’ His words were terse. She guessed he viewed amnesia as a weakness he should be able to master. ‘I don’t remember meeting you.’ His tone implied he still doubted what she’d told him. ‘Those months are blank. I don’t even remember driving before the accident. Just waking up in hospital.’

Slowly Carys lowered herself into the rocking chair. She let Leo stand on her thighs while she held his hands. It was a game he loved, marching on the spot.

Besides, it gave her a chance to rest her shaky legs. The shock of Alessandro’s revelations was a stunning blow. She still felt faintly nauseous and her limbs trembled, thinking of him injured seriously enough to cause amnesia.

‘You didn’t tell me how the accident happened.’ She paused, wondering if her concern was too obvious. But she had to know. She avoided staring at the scar reaching up to his temple. Instead she fixed her attention on a spot over his shoulder.

His shrug was fluid and easy.

‘I was driving to Milan. The car skidded in the wet when I swerved to avoid a driver on the wrong side of the road.’

On the way to the office, then. Of course. He preferred to drive himself, claiming it helped him sort out his priorities for the day’s business. From the rough timeline he’d mentioned, it must have happened soon after she left.

Had she thought, even for an instant, that her departure would disrupt his precious business schedule?

Her ridiculous naivety still stunned her.

‘And you’re all right?’ Her heart pounded, imagining the scene. Carys swallowed hard on a jagged splinter of regret and fear. ‘No other after-effects? No pain?’

No matter what she told herself, she hadn’t completely severed her feelings for this man. She should despise him for the way he’d treated her, yet her conflicting emotions weren’t so straightforward.

Carys refused to meet his intent gaze, choosing instead to watch Leo as he babbled to her.

‘I’m perfectly healthy.’

Alessandro paused so long she looked up. He stared straight into her eyes as if reading her hunger for every detail. Her need for reassurance. Eventually he continued, his clipped words indicating how little he cared to dwell on his injuries.

‘I was lucky. I had lacerations and a couple of fractures.’

At her hissed indrawn breath he shrugged. ‘I mended quickly. I was only in hospital a few weeks. The main concern was my memory loss.’ Darkening eyes bored into hers. ‘But the specialists say there’s nothing I can do about that except let nature take its course. There’s no other brain damage.’

Carys slumped back, only now acknowledging the full depth of her fears. Relief warred with a sense of unreality.

‘I see.’ This strange, constrained conversation didn’t seem real given the past they shared. But it gave Carys a little time to work through the implications of his news.

He mightn’t remember her, but last night in his suite he’d seduced her with a combustible passion that had sheared straight through every defence she’d painstakingly erected in the last two years.

How had he done that if he couldn’t even recall her?

Was he such an awesome lover he could make any woman feel the heady, mind-blowing certainty that she wanted nothing more than Alessandro Mattani, unbridled and consummately masculine? Were the intimacies she’d shared with him and always thought so special, the wondrous sensations, something he shared with countless women?

Her weakness mortified her.

‘And your wife?’ Carys failed to keep the bitterness from her voice as she choked out the word. ‘I assume she’s not with you?’

‘Wife?’ The single syllable slashed through the heavy atmosphere in the room. ‘You’re not saying I have a wife?’

Did she imagine it or had he paled? His lazy sprawl morphed into stark rigidity as he sat up, staring.

Carys hesitated. ‘You were single when I left, but you were seeing someone else, planning to marry her. Principessa Carlotta.’ She couldn’t prevent distaste colouring her voice.

Of course Alessandro would only marry one of his own, a rich, privileged aristocrat.

Carys swallowed bile as memories surged. Of how she’d obstinately disregarded his stepmother’s warnings about Alessandro’s intentions. And about her true, temporary place in his world. Of how she’d foolishly pinned her belief and hopes on the tender passionate words he whispered in her ear. On the rapture of being with him, being loved by him.

No! Having sex with him. The love had been all on her side.

‘You seem to imply I did more than just see her.’ His tone was outraged; his eyes flashed a furious warning. ‘And that I did so while you and I were…together.’

If the cap fits, buddy. ‘So you did.’ Deliberately she turned away to focus on Leo, happily jouncing on her knees.

‘You’re mistaken.’ Alessandro didn’t raise his voice, but his whisper was lethally quiet, an unmistakeable warning. ‘I would never stoop to such despicable behaviour.’ Green eyes clashed with hers. They were so vibrant with indignation she expected to see sparks shoot from their depths.

‘I was there, remember.’ Carys took a slow breath, forcing down the rabid, useless jealousy that even now clawed to the surface. She concentrated on keeping her voice even. ‘And unlike you I have perfect recall.’

Silence. His stare would have stripped paint at twenty paces. It scoured her mercilessly.

Yet Carys refused to back down. He might believe he was incapable of such behaviour, but if his memory ever returned he was doomed to disillusionment.

‘I don’t need to remember to know the truth, Carys.’ He leaned forward, all semblance of relaxation gone. His voice echoed an unshakeable certainty. ‘No matter what you think you understand about that time, I would never betray one lover with another. Never have two lovers at the same time. It wouldn’t be honourable.’

Not honourable!

Carys suppressed an anguished laugh.

Was it honourable to have a lover share his bed but exclude her from the rest of his life because she wasn’t good enough for his aristocratic friends? To use her for temporary sex while he courted another woman?

Whatever had gone wrong between Alessandro and the principessa to prevent the marriage, that was exactly what he’d been up to.

Carys had simply been convenient, gullible, expendable.

She swung her head away, refusing to look at him. Even now the pain was too raw. A cold, leaden lump rose in her throat, but she refused to reveal her vulnerability.

She drew a slow breath. ‘When I tried to contact you about the pregnancy, your stepmother said you were preparing for your wedding. She made it clear you had no time to spare for an ex-mistress.’

‘Livia said that?’ His astonished tone drew her unwilling gaze. His eyebrows jammed together in a V of puzzlement. ‘I can’t believe it.’

No. That was the problem. He hadn’t believed her before either. Her word meant nothing against his suspicions. The reminder stiffened her backbone.

‘Frankly, Alessandro, I don’t care what you believe.’

‘It’s true Livia is fond of Carlotta,’ he murmured as if to himself. ‘And that she wants me to marry. But arranging a wedding? It never went that far.’

How convenient his loss of memory was.

Carys had confirmation of the betrothal from another source too. But most convincing of all had been the sight of Alessandro with the glamorous, blue-blooded Carlotta. Even now the recollection stabbed, sharp as a twisting stiletto in her abdomen, making her hunch involuntarily.

The princess had stared up at him with exactly the same besotted expression Carys knew she herself had worn since the day he’d swept her off her feet and into his bed. Alessandro had kept the other woman close, his arm protectively around her as if she were made of delicate porcelain. He’d gazed into her eyes, utterly absorbed in their intimate conversation as if she were the only woman in the world.

As if he didn’t have a convenient lover waiting obediently at home for him.

Carys blinked to banish the heat glazing the back of her eyes. Resolutely she focused instead on Livia’s dismissive words when Carys had rung to tell Alessandro about her pregnancy.

Alessandro will do what is necessary to provide for the child if it’s his. But don’t expect him to contact you in person. Her tone had made it clear Carys was too socially inferior to warrant anything more than a settlement engineered by his formidable legal team. The past is the past. And questions about your, shall we say…extra-curricular activities raise suspicions about the identity of the child’s father.

That slur, above all, had been hard to swallow.

How furious Alessandro’s stepmother would have been if she’d known Carys hadn’t accepted her word. Instead she’d left numerous messages on Alessandro’s private phone and sent emails, even a hand-written letter. She’d been so desperate for personal contact.

Only after months of deliberate, deafening silence had she finally accepted he wanted nothing to do with either her or her unborn child. Then she’d determined to turn her back on the past and start afresh, not even considering a legal bid to win child support. Leo was better off without a father like that.

Yet now it seemed Alessandro hadn’t known about her pregnancy.

Her breath jammed in her throat. All this time he hadn’t known!

He hadn’t rejected Leo at all.

Nor was he married.

Her head spun, trying to take in the implications, her emotions a whirling jumble. Once she might have believed that would change everything.

Now she knew better.

One glance at Alessandro confirmed it. He was absorbed in his thoughts, totally oblivious to the little boy perched on her lap, twisting around time and again to try catching the attention of the big man who so effortlessly dominated their flat.

Alessandro had no interest in her either. She was nothing but a source of information.

Or an easy lay.

A shudder passed through her as memories of last night’s passion stirred. Carys stiffened her resolve.

She looked into her baby’s excited green gaze. He twinkled back at her mischievously as he nattered away in a language all his own. He was the important thing in her life. Not ancient dreams of happily ever after with the wrong man.

Whether Alessandro had known about the pregnancy or not didn’t matter. What mattered was that the grand passion they’d shared had been a cheap affair, not a love on which to build a future. And he couldn’t have made it clearer he had no interest in Leo.

Bridges burned. End of story.

Carys ignored the ache welling deep inside at the finality of it all and summoned a wobbly smile for Leo.

‘Time for a bath, young man.’ She gathered him close and stood on creaky legs. Suddenly she felt old beyond her years. Old with grief for what her son would never have, and with a stupid, obstinate hurt at being rejected again. After a lifetime of not measuring up, not being quite good enough, it was stupid to feel so wounded, but there it was.

‘Why did I tell you to leave my home? You still haven’t told me.’

She looked across to see Alessandro on his feet, hands jammed deep in his trouser pockets. He stood as far from her as he could while remaining in the same room.

Didn’t that say it all?

‘I’d decided to go anyway.’ She lifted her chin. After learning about Alessandro and Carlotta the scales had fallen from her eyes. Carys knew she had to get as far away from him as she could. ‘But you accused me of having an affair, of betraying your trust.’

The irony should have been laughable. But Carys had never felt less like laughing. She jiggled Leo higher in her weary arms and straightened her back.

‘An affair? With whom?’ His brows furrowed and his features took on a remote, hawk-like cast. Condemnation radiated from him.

‘With Stefano Manzoni. He’s—’

‘I know who he is.’ If anything, Alessandro’s scowl deepened. His jaw set like stone and a pulse worked in his temple.

‘Nice company you keep,’ he said after a moment, his voice coolly disapproving.

Talk about double standards!

Carys jerked her chin higher. ‘I thought he was nice. At first.’ Until he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was another macho Italian male who couldn’t cope with rejection. Though, to be fair, she’d never felt unsafe with Alessandro. ‘I would have thought that as your Princess Carlotta’s cousin he’d be utterly respectable.’

‘She’s not my Carlotta.’ The words emerged through taut lips.

‘Whatever.’ Carys hunched stiff shoulders. ‘Now, it’s time for me to bathe Leo.’ Her composure was in tatters and her limbs trembled with exhaustion. She felt like a wrung-out dishrag. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d go now.’ She couldn’t take any more.

Alessandro’s appearance had dredged up emotions she thought she’d vanquished. Emotions that threatened to undo her. She needed desperately to be alone.

All she had left was the torn remnants of her pride, and Carys refused to collapse in a heap while he was here.

Head high, she walked on unsteady legs towards the front door, intending to show him out.

Leo’s sudden sideways dive out of her arms took her completely unawares. One minute she was holding him. The next he was plunging headlong towards the floor when his bid to throw himself at Alessandro failed.

‘Leo!’

Belatedly Carys grabbed for him, her weariness banished as adrenaline pumped hard and fast through her bloodstream, but her reactions were too slow.

‘It’s all right. I’ve got him.’ How Alessandro got there so fast she didn’t know, but he scooped Leo up in his arms just before he hit the floor.

Her heart catapulted against her ribs, slowing only when she saw he had the baby safe in his large hands. Relief shook her so hard her legs wobbled.

He held Leo awkwardly, at a distance from himself.

As if he couldn’t bear to touch him? Or as a man would who’d never had experience with babies?

Carys hesitated, trying to decide which. In that moment Leo latched onto Alessandro’s suit-clad arm, plucking at the fabric as if trying to climb closer. Green eyes met green, and Leo frowned, his chubby face puckering as he regarded the unsmiling man before him.

Finally, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, Leo smiled. His whole face lit up. His hands thumped on Alessandro’s arm and he crowed with delight.

Terrific! Her son had developed a soft spot for a man who never wanted to see him.

Obstinately Carys shied from dwelling on the sight of her son in his father’s arms. It would be the only time. It was foolish to feel even a jot of sentimentality over the image of the tall, strong man holding her precious baby so ineptly yet so securely.

Carys hurried forward, arms outstretched.

‘I’ll take him.’

Alessandro didn’t even turn his head. He was busy regarding Leo, not even flinching when the child’s rhythmic thumps against his arm became real whacks as he grew impatient with the adult’s lack of response.

‘Alessandro?’ Her voice was husky. The intensity of his stare as he looked down at his son made something flip over in her stomach. Anxiety walked its fingers down her spine.

‘I’ll arrange for the necessary tests to be done as soon as possible. Someone will ring you tomorrow with the details.’

‘Tests?’

He didn’t even turn at the sound of her voice, but he did lift Leo a little closer, winning himself a gurgle of approval and a spate of excited Leo-speak.

Carys watched Leo lean up, patting both hands over Alessandro’s square, scrupulously shaved jaw. A squiggle of emotion unsettled her, seeing her little boy with the man she’d once loved.

If only circumstances had been different.

No! It was better she knew what sort of man Alessandro was and that in his eyes she could never measure up.

‘DNA tests, of course.’ He flashed an assessing look from slitted eyes. ‘You can’t expect me to take your word this is my son.’

Her stomach went into freefall.

She’d fought so hard to have Alessandro acknowledge his son before giving up in despair. Yet now she felt fear at his sudden interest. Fear at what this might mean.

Leo was hers. But if Alessandro decided he wanted him…

She found refuge in stormy anger. ‘Distrust must be your middle name, Alessandro.’

The idea of him seeking independent scientific proof was a slap in the face.

Especially as he’d been her only lover.

His distrust tainted what they’d shared, reducing it to something tawdry. Her skin crawled as she met his glittering gaze and felt the weight of his doubt.

His fiery green stare scorched her. ‘Better distrustful than gullible.’