They’d shared the ultimate intimacy, but that wasn’t going to help them navigate the treacherous waters they now found themselves in because they’d shared nothing else. They had no relationship. Essentially they were strangers. All they’d had were a few chance encounters and one stolen night, one delicious taste of the forbidden. None of that was going to help them through this desperate situation. And it was desperate; even he could see that.
‘Where is my son?’ He snapped out the words and she leaned her back against the door and looked at him.
‘Asleep in his bed. In his home. And if he wakes, Gina is there, and my grandfather.’
The anger rushed at him like a ravenous beast ready to snap through the last threads of his fragile self-control. ‘And that is supposed to provide me with comfort?’
‘He loves Luca.’
‘I think we have a very different idea of what that word means.’
‘No.’ Her eyes were fierce. ‘No, we don’t.’
Santo’s mouth tightened. ‘And will he still “love” him when he discovers the identity of his father? I think we both know the answer to that.’ He rose from his chair and saw her hand shoot towards the door handle. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed in a warning. ‘If you leave this room then we will be having this conversation in public. Is that what you want?’
‘What I want is for you to calm down and be rational.’
‘Oh, I’m rational, tesoro. I have been thinking clearly from the moment I saw my child.’
The atmosphere thickened. The air grew overly warm.
‘What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? That I did the wrong thing?’ Her voice was smoky-soft and that voice drew his eyes to the smooth column of her throat and then to her mouth. It had been just one night but the memory of it had left deep scars in his senses. He knew how she’d taste because he remembered it vividly. He knew how she’d feel because he remembered that too. Not just the smooth texture of her skin, but the softness of her gorgeous hair. Now released from the clips that had restrained it during cooking, it fell down her back like a dark flame, reflecting the sunrise back at him. He remembered the day her father had cut it short in a blaze of Baracchi temper, hacking with kitchen scissors until she’d been left with a jagged crop. A horrified Santo had witnessed the incident and had tried to intervene but the sight of him had simply inflamed the situation.
She’d sat still, he remembered, saying nothing as hunks of long hair had landed in her lap. Afterwards she’d hidden in the boathouse, her fierce glare challenging him to say one word about it and of course he hadn’t because their relationship didn’t encompass verbal exchanges.
And it had been in the boathouse, on that one night that had ended so tragically, that their relationship had shifted from nothing to everything.
Santo hauled in a deep breath, resisting that savage, elemental instinct that had him wanting to flatten her to the wall and drag the answers from her. ‘When did you find out you were pregnant?’
‘Why does that matter?’
‘I’m the one asking the questions and right now you’ll answer any question I choose to ask you.’
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the door. ‘Not for ages. Afterwards … I can’t really remember. It’s all a blur. First there was the hospital. Then the funeral. And my grandfather …’ Her sudden silence said more than words. Her breathing was fractured. ‘It was chaos. The last thing I was thinking about was me.’
Yes, it had been chaos. Pandemonium. A huge tangled mess of blame, guilt, regret and raw emotion. The frantic rush to save a life that was already lost. A moment of intimacy lost in a sea of negative publicity and cruel gossip. Remembering it sent the tension flowing through his muscles and he knew she was feeling the same. In fact he was fairly sure that the only thing holding her upright was willpower.
‘So when did you find out?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose it must have been a couple of months. Longer—’ she rubbed her fingers over her forehead ‘—it was a very difficult time. I probably should have realised sooner but at the time I just thought that everything I was feeling was part of the shock. I felt sick the whole time but I thought that was grief. And when I did finally work it out it seemed like—’
‘—one more problem?’ His hands were clenched by his sides but her eyes flew to his, appalled.
‘No!’ She shook her head violently. ‘I was going to say that it seemed like a miracle.’ Her words dropped to a whisper. ‘The best thing in my life came from the worst night of my life.’
It wasn’t the response he’d expected and for a moment it threw him. ‘When you realised, you should have contacted me.’
‘For what purpose?’ There was despair in her tone. ‘So that you and my grandfather could rip each other to pieces? Do you think I wanted Luca exposed to that? I made the decision that was best for my baby.’
‘Our baby,’ Santo corrected her with lethal emphasis. ‘And from now on we’ll be making those decisions together.’ He saw the panic flicker across her face and knew that anxiety was responsible for those dark shadows under her eyes.
‘Luca is happy. I can understand how you’re feeling, but—’
‘You do not understand how I’m feeling.’ His voice was raw. Savage. He didn’t know himself and he certainly didn’t trust himself. ‘This is my son we’re talking about. Did you honestly believe I would want him to grow up a Baracchi?’ He braced himself to ask the question that had robbed him of sleep. ‘Has he ever hit him?’
‘No!’ Her denial was immediate and sincere. ‘I would never, ever allow anyone to touch Luca.’
‘And how do you defend him? You never defended yourself.’ Perhaps it was low of him, but he told himself that his son’s welfare was more important than her feelings. ‘You just endured it.’
‘I was eight years old!’ Hurt and reproach flickered in her eyes and suddenly he felt like an animal for ripping into her. That was what people had done all their lives, wasn’t it?
‘I apologise for that remark,’ he breathed and she shook her head.
‘You don’t need to. I don’t blame you for being protective of your child.’ She spoke quietly, as if she had long since resigned herself to the fact that no one had any concern for her. ‘And yes, I was brought up in a violent family but that violence came from my father, not my grandfather. I assure you that Luca has never been at risk. He has had a warm, loving childhood.’
‘Without a father in his life.’
She flinched as if he’d slapped her. ‘Yes.’
‘Naturally I am relieved that he has been safe, but that doesn’t change the fundamental issue here. Family is the most important thing to me. I am a Ferrara and we look after our own. There are no circumstances—none—that would induce me to walk away from my own child.’ His words struck another blow because of course her mother had done exactly that. She’d walked away when Fia was only eight years old.
Her face lost the last hint of colour and he wondered briefly how it must feel to watch a parent walk away, leaving you to cope with danger alone.
He knew the story, as did everyone else. Her mother had been an English tourist who had fallen for the charms of the smooth, good-looking Pietro Baracchi, only to discover after the wedding that he was an incurable womanizer with a dangerous temper. After one beating too many, she’d turned her back on Sicily and her two children and soon after that Fia’s father had been killed in a drunken boating accident.
She watched him steadily. ‘You are very quick to judge me, but did you bother to come back and find out if there were consequences to our night together?’