The Italian's Secret Baby (14 page)

‘Since Sam was born your life has revolved around him. Can you deny that?'

‘Are you saying I smother him?'

‘I'd say the possibility of you wearing yourself to a shadow trying to be the perfect mother is a more likely scenario.'

Scarlet threw a hand up. ‘You've been a father, what? Five minutes, and you're telling me what I'm doing wrong.'

He opened his mouth to deliver a cutting rejoinder and his gaze settled on her face. Suddenly the anger drained out of him. She looked so tired, he thought, looking at the purplish bruises under her eyes. He experienced a wave of protective tenderness of shocking intensity.

‘Consider yourself asked.'

Scarlet looked at him blankly. ‘What?'

‘I'm
asking
if you and Sam will come to Ireland with me this weekend.'

‘It's quite impossible. A trip like that will muck up Sam's routine and I have work on Monday.'

‘You're the impossible one!' he flung, literally grinding his teeth in frustration. ‘Sam's routine is not engraved in stone. I thought you said it was important with a child to be flexible?'

‘This wasn't what I was talking about.'

‘Now there's a surprise.' The muscles in his taut jaw tightened another notch. ‘As for work, you have four weeks' holiday to take before the end of next month and I happen to know there won't be any objection to you taking some of it next week.'

‘And you'd know that because?'

‘It always pays to think ahead,' he drawled, seemingly unaffected by the tremble of anger in her voice.

‘I can't believe you went behind my back,' she choked. ‘How
dare
you interfere in my life this way? This is exactly what I was talking about. I'm not some puppet you can manipulate.'

‘How much simpler life would be,' he drawled.

Scarlet shot him a furious glance. ‘Well, there's absolutely no way we're coming now. What…what's that?' she said, stopping mid-sentence to stare suspiciously at the newspaper he had drawn from his pocket and thrown on the worktop.

‘You'll find the relevant article on page two. It's an evening edition. I think we'll make the front page tomorrow morning. What you read there might make you reconsider your decision. I don't think London is going to be a very comfortable place for you.'

As he spoke his eyes were trained on Scarlet, who was turning the page with considerable trepidation.

‘I feel sick!' she declared when the half-page picture headlined DOMESTIC BLISS…? jumped out at her. It was a cosy domestic scene. Roman was manoeuvring Sam's pushchair up a pavement in the park. Sam himself was asleep, his head lolling to one side. Scarlet, her head turned slightly away from the camera, was looking up at Roman and smiling.

‘They didn't catch my good side, but you look cute.'

‘How can you joke about this?' Scarlet demanded, raising reproachful shell-shocked eyes to his face. She shook her head and protested in a dazed tone, ‘We're not going to go public yet.'

‘I think we just have.' Roman sounded remarkably philosophical about it. Although you're still the mystery brunette and they've stopped short of saying that Sam is my son, I think it's significant that there are five references to the uncanny resemblance.'

‘You didn't arrange this, did you?'

He sucked in his breath audibly. ‘No, I did not. I'm pretty sure it was your neighbour upstairs who did that.'

‘Isobel wouldn't do that!' she gasped, appalled. ‘She's my friend.'

‘One who you've known for what? A week?'

‘That's only three weeks less than I've known you and you expect me to trust you?'

‘And you'd prefer that I was the bad guy. I get your sister pregnant, but it's you who have to be there to hold her hand while she's dying and bring up my son when she's gone. This record is not one to inspire confidence or trust, I can see that, but right now I am here and all I want is to get to know my son.'

‘I don't blame you for what happened to Abby.'

‘Why the hell not? If the positions were reversed I would.'

Scarlet looked around for something else to dry; this was a subject she didn't want to get into.

With an exasperated grunt Roman snatched the tea towel from her fingers and spun her around to face him.

‘Your friend might have nothing to do with this, but when I met her she seemed very interested in my relationship with Sam and you.'

‘I didn't know you'd met her.'

‘The other day when I was arriving she just happened to be coming out her door and you said yourself that Isobel was hard up for cash. Hasn't her husband lost his job?'

‘You're saying she wasn't my friend, she was just using me?' Distress roughened her voice.

‘I'm sure she liked you too, but maybe she saw a way to make some money and the temptation was too great to resist. It's incredible how flexible your principles can become when you've no money for the rent.'

‘You don't even sound angry!' she gasped, raising tear-filled eyes to his face.

‘Do you think nobody who said they were my friend has ever done the dirty on me?' he asked.

‘It's awful. No wonder you're so horribly cynical,' she observed. ‘Not,' she added with a sniff, ‘that I'm going to condemn someone without proof.'

‘Quite right, I'm just pointing out a possibility.'

He scanned her ivory-pale face and walked over to the fridge and withdrew a half-open bottle of wine from the door. He filled a glass and wrapped her stiff fingers around it. ‘You're in shock and it should be brandy, but I don't suppose you keep any spirits.'

‘I have no secrets from you,' she bit back sardonically through chattering teeth.

‘Drink the lot,' he insisted, standing over her to make sure she did as he ordered. ‘Feel any better?'

‘No, just dizzy.' She lifted her eyes to his. ‘What are we going to do?'

‘We are going to do nothing. We are not going to respond when journalists ask us—'

‘But what if—?'

He shook his head. ‘We do not respond,' he told her flatly. ‘Listen, I know you're not used to handling the media, which is why I thought a few days of time out in Ireland might be a good idea.'

‘Don't you mean hiding…running away?'

‘No, I don't mean hiding or running away.'

‘But that's what it amounts to,' she objected with a frown.

‘You'd prefer to be here when the telephone starts ringing or you wake up to find them camping on your doorstep?'

A shudder of revulsion ran through Scarlet at the image his words conjured up. She was an intensely private person; the idea of having her face and name the object of speculation was abhorrent. ‘Is that going to happen?' she asked fearfully.

‘You'll have a camera lens trained on every window,' he predicted. He looked around the tiny room. ‘And this flat could not offer less protection.'

‘My entire life can't change because of a silly story in a newspaper,' she protested, her voice rising shrilly. ‘Perhaps I should go and stay with a friend?' she suggested.

‘You could, if you want to lay them open to the same intrusive media invasion,' he agreed. ‘Or you could come with me to Ireland.'

‘You think they'll have lost interest in the story by the time we get back?' she suggested hopefully. ‘I mean, it's bound to die a natural death really, isn't it, if I go away for a while?'

There was a moment's silence before his dark lashes lifted and he looked directly at her. ‘Anything is possible.'

His cagey response didn't sound too comforting to Scarlet. ‘But if they want a story or pictures they could follow us to Ireland. Where do you register on the scale of newsworthy?' she demanded. ‘Would they follow you to Ireland?'

‘Sorry they would, but it wouldn't do them much good. The house is set in the middle of a couple of thousand acres, part of it heavily forested, which means even fly-overs by helicopter are unproductive.

‘It's an added plus factor that the neighbours are as unfriendly to the press as the geography. Sometimes,' he mused, ‘friends are more effective than a million pounds' worth of security, not that we haven't invested in some of that of late,' he added drily.

‘Your stalker?'

‘I suppose you read about that.'

‘No, your mother mentioned something about it and I've seen the scar, remember?' she added huskily. Her fingertips tingled as she recalled running her fingers along the ridge of scar tissue that stood out pale against his smooth dark skin. Shocking, sensual heat washed over her until she was engulfed from head to toe.

Their eyes touched and locked.
‘I remember.'

A soft, sibilant hiss issued from his lips at the same moment a deep shudder rippled through her body. The sexual tension fed on the electricity that passed between them and became a palpable presence in the room.

Scarlet knew that a gigantic black hole had opened up at her feet and, God, did she want to step into it! Every fibre in her body told her to let go, what the hell? How could this be wrong when it felt so good? From somewhere she dredged up the will-power to cling to the fragments of her self-control.

‘It must have been a terrible experience.' Her voice sounded high and brittle to her own critical ears. ‘Is she…the woman…?'

‘In a psychiatric unit, but making good progress by all accounts. Hopefully she'll be well enough to be released later this year.'

Despite her best intentions this comment brought Scarlet's attention back to his face. If it weren't for the thin line of feverish colour that focused the eye on his high cheekbones she might have thought she had imagined that moment of mutual lust. Now she knew that she hadn't imagined anything—his desire was still there, raw and dangerous…but, worse still, deeply exciting.

Dear God, girl, show a bit of control.

‘I don't think I'd be hoping for that in your shoes,' she admitted huskily. The knowledge that give or take a few inches he could have died at the hands of the crazy woman sent a chill through her.

‘She was sick, people get sick…'

‘But she nearly—'

‘But she didn't,' he cut in firmly. ‘If we spent our lives worrying about what could have happened we'd never get out of bed in the morning.'

‘If we did come with you when we came back the press would still be waiting?'

Roman nodded.

‘Wouldn't it be better to get it all over with rather than postpone the inevitable?' The look she directed up at him did not contain the same bold fearlessness of her suggestion.

‘You seem pretty adept at avoiding the inevitable,' Roman observed drily. He watched the give-away warm colour bloom on her pale cheeks and smiled.

‘Please try and concentrate,' she rebuked.

‘It's very hard when you're standing there looking so luscious.'

His voice might have contained a teasing note but there was nothing light-hearted about the raw, needy expression in the eyes that moved in a compulsive fashion over her slender body.

‘Don't be silly!' Scarlet found it incredible that someone who had escorted some of the most glamorous women in the country could look at her wearing her oldest jeans and a washed out tee shirt, with no make-up and her hair tied back in a pony-tail, and feel desire.

While her brain told her that it was impossible for him to feel that way about her, her eyes told her differently. Her body—well, actually her body had an agenda of its own. Her body wanted to get as close as possible to this man.

God knew where it came from, but somehow she found the strength not to throw herself at him.

‘I need you to be serious for a moment.'

An expression of regret formed on Roman's face as he examined her pale features. She was trying to put a brave face on it in a typically Scarlet way.

He would have given a lot to offer the reassurance she was obviously seeking from him. It frustrated the hell out of him that the matter had been taken out of his hands, but he knew that he would be doing her no favours if he pretended the problem was going to go away.

‘I mean,
obviously
I'm not going to go out of my way to provide photo opportunities for these people, but isn't it a cop-out to put your life on hold because of a couple of men with cameras?'

‘It's not going to be a couple of men with cameras,' he told her as gently as he could. ‘There are going to be a horde of them, a siege. Journos are going to be phoning you offering you money for a chance to tell your side of the story, shoving notes under your front door when you don't answer…'