‘Live daringly, mia bella. Marry me—for Leo’s sake if not for the passion and desire we shared.’
‘Do you know what your mother accused me of?’
‘For that I apologise. But Leo is the Di Marcello heir. Wouldn’t you like to prove her wrong?’
Too late she heard the sound of her son’s excited voice as he spoke to her mother and she knew her fate was sealed. Antonio had left her no choice. She couldn’t imagine life without Leo, who within minutes would burst into the apartment, her mother behind him. How was she going to explain Antonio’s presence and, even worse, the fact that she had no choice but to accept his so-called proposal? She couldn’t put her mother through any more worry. Whatever else happened her parents must think she was marrying Antonio for love, that they had found each other again. Only then could they stop worrying about her and Leo.
* * *
Antonio watched as Leo chatted to Sadie, hardly giving him a second glance. Was he that used to having strange men in his home? An uncomfortable sensation prickled over him as he thought of not only Leo looking up to another man, but Sadie too. Since when did he do jealousy where women were concerned?
‘I didn’t know you had company.’ A woman he could only assume was Sadie’s mother looked at him, suspicion in every line of her face.
‘This is Antonio Di Marcello.’ Sadie introduced him but offered no explanation for his presence in her small apartment.
‘I know exactly who this is,’ Sadie’s mother said and looked from him to Leo, confirming what he’d thought the first time he’d seen Leo. She too could see the unmistakable resemblance, the Di Marcello eyes which had stared out at him from many of the paintings of his ancestors all through his childhood. There was no doubting this child was his.
‘How very astute you are, Mrs Parker.’ Antonio filled his voice with as much charm as possible but couldn’t keep the fierce determination to get exactly what he wanted from it. He’d played his trump card, but the bitter taste of it wasn’t pleasing. ‘It is something I have only just discovered, but, now that I have, I intend to deal with things in the correct fashion. You have my word on that.’
Leo was trying to show Sadie something, but she glanced up at him, her green eyes wide and nervous. ‘Antonio and I are trying to sort something out.’
Was she speaking to him or her mother? He couldn’t tell, but he could hear the quiet acceptance in her voice. The fight she’d had when he’d arrived had gone, defused by her son. A sense of satisfaction slipped over him. She was going to accept his terms.
He had what he wanted. His son.
SADIE STILL HAD doubts over her decision to come to Rome with Antonio, just as she’d had doubts for the last two months that moving back to England was the right thing to do. She still worried about the way Antonio had emotionally blackmailed her, using all they’d once had to get her to agree to marriage, but it was his threat to take Leo from her that had made any other option impossible. She’d always wanted to give him a chance to be a father, for Leo’s sake, but she didn’t know if she could forgive him for using Leo like that.
The idea of marriage to a man who’d turned his back on her when she’d needed him most and then blackmailed her wasn’t one which sat comfortably with her. Worse than that was the way he’d made her feel at just seeing him and that was before he’d caressed her face and looked at her with desire in his eyes, reminding her of all they’d once shared. No, she was adamant: their marriage would be in name only.
Leo, however, didn’t show any such doubts. After a period of initial shyness as Antonio’s plane had taken them to Rome, he was now embracing the new male figure in his life, although he didn’t yet have any idea that Antonio was his father. That had been a condition of accepting his terms: being able to tell Leo herself, when she was ready, exactly who Antonio was.
‘Mamma, Antonio can take us to see real Romans. Can we? Please?’ Leo enthused as he climbed into her lap while she sat on the terrace, trying to take in the fact that she was in Rome—with Antonio.
‘Then I guess we should,’ she said, hugging Leo to her.
‘Bene.’ Antonio’s voice startled her and she looked up at him as he came out onto the terrace. ‘We shall go today.’
He was dressed, not in the finest suit, as he had been when he’d called at her Milan apartment, but in jeans and a shirt. Casual suited him. And made him look very sexy. Hastily she pushed the thought aside. She wouldn’t be going down that particular path again.
‘Don’t you have to work today? Wasn’t that why you were rushing back?’ She regarded him suspiciously, trying hard not to read anything into the smile he gave Leo, as if they were co-conspirators.
‘I am the boss, remember. I want to be here with Leo. I want to get to know him’ He looked down at her as he stood next to her, his closeness sending sparks of attraction sizzling over her skin. ‘I also want to get to know you—more than I did before.’
‘Leo is very excited about it, aren’t you, Leo?’ She looked down at her son and hugged him, desperate to hide her desire for Antonio and prevent Leo being hurt or let down. This had to happen. Antonio had to get to know his son. It was time for her to share her son, but was Antonio man enough, able to be a father, able to love Leo as he deserved? Until she knew the answer to that she couldn’t let her emotions control her. She had to bury all that resurging desire.
He held out his hand to Leo. ‘Shall we go now?’
Sadie waited, expecting Leo to turn and hug her legs as he usually did when strangers wanted to interact with him, but to her amazement he slipped from her lap and ran across the terrace to take Antonio’s hand.
The arrogant rise of Antonio’s brows told her he knew exactly what she’d thought Leo would do and she couldn’t help but feel that somehow he was scoring points over her. Was he challenging her to be as welcoming?
As Leo clattered excitedly through the luxury of the antiques-furnished apartment, Sadie braced herself for Antonio’s displeasure. An apartment like this was not a place for a three-year-old boy, which was why she’d spent so much time on the terrace, giving him the freedom he craved. It had seemed safer than chancing any of the furnishings, which looked exactly as if they’d been lifted from his ancestral home.
To her utter amazement, Antonio laughed and the sound did something to her, as if in that unguarded moment he was truly himself. It chipped away at a little bit more of the wall she’d erected around her heart after he’d turned his back on her.
‘Leo, take it easy!’ Sadie called after him, getting up, needing to do something.
‘Don’t,’ Antonio said and reached for her as she moved towards the door into the apartment. She stopped instantly, his touch scorching through her blouse. ‘He is young and I just want him to enjoy himself.’
‘But all your furniture, all those lovely antiques.’ She wanted to pull her arm away from his touch, to stop him holding her, however gently. It made her remember that he was dangerous, but remembering would only open the door to her heart again.
‘I know what it is like to be a boy running through the grown-ups’ world where nobody notices you. It’s not much fun. Let him be a boy,’ Antonio said and thankfully let her arm go, but he smiled at her in a way which melted her heart and reminded her of Leo. ‘We will go out now if it makes you more comfortable.’
* * *
Antonio’s memories of his childhood had been thrown wide open as he’d