‘Not without seeing Leo. He is my child. My son.’ It wasn’t a question and without a shadow of doubt she knew that he had come for Leo. It must have been Toni Adessi. She must have been right all along. He’d been working at the garage just to get the information Antonio wanted out of her. Why else would he be leaving? He’d done his dirty work. There was no reason to stay. It all made perfect sense.
‘I despise you!’ She hurled all that hurt at him, desperate to quash the heady need which was heating every part of her body, needing to feel the fear to set her anger free. ‘Do you honestly believe that I would want to walk back into your life again, now that it suits you to play at being a father? Have you thought about Leo even once?’
‘I have thought of nothing else, Sadie.’
‘So why didn’t you come yourself instead of sending someone to spy on me? Why did you get Toni Adessi to do your dirty work?’ He frowned and she ploughed on, intent only on making her annoyance known. ‘Did you really think sending Toni here to spy on me would achieve your aims?’
* * *
Antonio laughed. She actually believed Toni was real, that he was working for him? What would she say when she knew the man she’d sat with so contentedly over lunch just a few days ago, spilling secrets, was him?
He looked at the fire of angry sparks in her green eyes and the tightness of her lips and had to smother the overwhelming need to crush those lips beneath his until she gasped his name the way she had the first time he’d made her his. An intoxicating desire to hold her, to caress and make her his once more, rushed through him.
‘Do you really think I would allow another man to take you out for lunch?’ He was taunting her, but already he knew she was making connections. ‘Or talk with you and my son in the park? If anyone was going to stop the roundabout when he wanted to get off, it was me. His father.’
‘That was you?’ The incredulously gasped question raised the beat of desire inside him, taking it from a subtle and controllable yearning to a wild torrent of need. How could one woman unravel his senses, his control so instantly, so utterly?
‘Sì, mia bella. That was me. Toni served his purpose well, but now he is gone.’
She stepped towards him, her chin lifted in a supreme show of defiance, which only served to increase his admiration for her. She was all fire and passion and he knew in that instant that what had started between them four years ago was far from over.
‘I want you out of my home, Antonio.’ Her voice was low and hardness filled every word, determination only adding to her pale beauty.
‘That is not possible, mia bella.’ He moved past her and into the small living space, his attention instantly taken by the doors open onto the terrace and an easel standing abandoned. She painted? It seemed there was still much to learn about this woman.
‘I am not your mia bella.’ Her anger was so palpable it wrapped around him as he made his way out onto the terrace and looked down at the painting, a copy of a photograph of the Duomo di Milano.
He turned and raised his brows at her as she glared from the doorway. ‘You did not object to that term of endearment once.’
‘That was before. Now I do and I’d like you to leave. Right now.’
‘Why? Are you expecting someone? Were you hoping Toni would call on you to say a farewell before he left?’ It struck him that it had been Toni’s name on her lips when she’d first spoken. Did that mean she’d fallen for him? An unsettling thought took over. How many other men had drifted in and out of her life—and Leo’s?
‘Don’t be absurd. Leo will be home soon and I don’t want him to find you here.’ A hint of uncertainty filled her words and he noticed she couldn’t look at him, that she was nervously glancing at the clock on the wall.
‘He will have to get used to seeing more of me when we are in Rome.’ Again he couldn’t help but taunt her, wanting to bring back the fiery passion.
‘We?’
‘Sì mia bella. We will be leaving for Rome—today.’ He stepped back into the room and towards the mother of his child. As he got closer the need to touch her sparked through him, but the only way to get exactly what he wanted was to drive this situation in the direction he wanted.
‘I’m not going to Rome with you and neither is Leo. Why the hell should I go anywhere with a man who all but denied his son’s existence?’ That spark of passionate defiance leapt from her eyes again and he curled his fingers into a tight fist to stop himself from reaching out to touch her, from soothing that anger away with a caress.
After visiting his family home for the first time in over three years, he knew Sadie spoke the truth, knew that what she’d told Toni was true. His mother had turned her away, but he’d be damned if he was going to beg and plead. His mother had proudly told him how she’d protected his forthcoming marriage and he could still hear the cold words now.
I was not about to let a foreign gold digger prevent me from finally getting the daughter I wanted and you ruined that with your womanising ways.
If he’d ever been in doubt of being wanted and loved by his mother, he now knew the truth. She’d wanted a daughter and then had a son—her only child.
‘You have kept my son from me long enough, Sadie. There will be no negotiation on this. You will both return to Rome with me.’
‘I can’t just leave my life here. I have a child. Have you any idea what that means?’ She looked up at him, her lips pressed together in an angry line, and all he wanted to do was make them soften, make them sigh in pleasure, but now was not the time. Now was about getting the single most important thing. His son.
‘I meant what I said, Sadie. There will be no negotiations. You will return to Rome with me.’
‘I’m not about to uproot Leo, especially for a man who has already let him down.’ The barb hit its mark and a pang of guilt raced through him. To Leo his absence would be no different to what he’d felt when he was that age—a total lack of love from either his mother or father, even though his had been physically present in his life.
‘Yet you plan to move back to England. Isn’t that uprooting?’ It had been that bit of information she’d willingly given Toni that had made prompt action paramount. There was no way his son was leaving the country. It was far more than keeping the next Di Marcello heir in Italy for the sake of the family name. It was keeping his son in Italy—with him. He might not know how, but he was going to be a father—the kind of father he’d never had.
‘He will have a better life there with me and my parents.’ Her opinion, that his son would be better off living away from him when he’d missed so much time with him already, only convinced him further that what he planned to do was the right thing.
‘He will have much more in Rome—with me, his father.’ He couldn’t quite keep the anger from his voice and she looked up at him, wary and uncertain, as silence stretched between them and the tension moved up a notch.
Finally she spoke, her words holding a ring of regret to them. ‘No. Never. You had your chance, Antonio.’
‘Did I? Did you tell me, to my face? Did you say those words to me, Sadie? That you were pregnant with my child?’ Anger at her response, at her need to continue to block him from his son’s life, crashed over him. He folded his arms and waited for her reply, her excuse for not trying harder, but deep down he knew the blame lay with his mother. She hadn’t passed on any messages to him.
‘No, but...’ Sadie stumbled beneath his scrutiny,