How many nights had he dreamt of that simple non-seductive gesture?
Orla was the only lover whose scent he could remember simply by closing his eyes. Close his eyes and he could remember the feel of her skin beneath his fingers.
Close his eyes and he could remember the bewilderment to find her gone.
He would close his eyes no more. With Orla, he needed to keep his eyes open and his wits sharpened. Whatever happened from this moment, he would never let her disappear again.
‘I understand why I’ve not been named on it but it has to be done.’ He couldn’t force her to marry him—more was the pity—but he would do whatever was necessary to close off her options to flee.
Her head turned sharply to face him again. Tonino hadn’t realised quite how close to her he’d positioned himself until he saw the sprinkling of freckles across her pretty nose.
‘You understand…?’ She swallowed. ‘You believe me?’
‘I spoke to Dante after I left you last night,’ he admitted. ‘He confirmed your story about the accident and your memory problems.’
Dante’s confirmation had left him with a myriad emotions. There had been definite relief—Tonino’s instincts all those years ago that Orla was of a different mould from the unscrupulous, duplicitous bitches who lived in his world had not been as off the mark as he’d come to believe—but there had been something else there too, something that had made him feel as if acid had been poured into his guts.
Orla’s chest rose sharply then loosened slowly. She pressed her head against the window with a sigh. ‘I suppose it’s understandable you wouldn’t take my word on it.’
‘It doesn’t change how I feel about you not telling me about the pregnancy,’ he warned roughly. He doubted he would ever forgive her for that. ‘However, I feel it is in Finn’s best interest that I put that issue behind me.’
She gave a short bark of shaky laughter. ‘Your magnanimity does you much justice.’
Eyeing her carefully, he rested his hands on the windowsill either side of her thighs, effectively trapping her. ‘Are you being funny?’
Fresh colour heightened her cheeks. ‘I’m wondering where the proof is that you ended your engagement to Sophia before you took me to bed.’
‘I am not a cheat. I have never been unfaithful.’
‘I’m supposed to take your word on this?’
‘Sì. In my world, honour is everything. A man who cannot be taken at his word is no man at all.’
‘Now you’re being the funny one. Seriously? A man of your word? When you let me believe you were a humble hotel manager rather than a gazillionaire hotel owner?’
‘I never lied to you, Orla. Not in words.’
‘Well, that makes everything all right, then!’ She smiled brightly but her breaths had shallowed. He moved his face closer to hear her next words. ‘You didn’t lie to me with words. Grand. You’re only prepared to believe me about my amnesia because Dante’s backed me up, but I’m supposed to take you at your word on everything simply because you say so. Can you not see why that makes me uncomfortable having you named as Finn’s father on his birth certificate?’
A man could drown in the emerald-green pool swirling before him. Orla’s robe had parted at her waist, exposing her smooth legs. His blood thickened to see her thighs covered only by a pair of pyjama shorts.
‘All I want is to be a father to him.’ Dio, his voice was hardly above a whisper either. ‘Having legal recognition is important to me. I don’t want to be forced into taking legal action to get it.’
She swallowed a number of times then croaked, ‘That sounds like a threat.’
He clenched his tingling fingers into fists. If he extended either thumb he would be touching those delectable thighs. They were as close as they’d been on the dance floor and yet not a single part of their bodies touched.
Now he was the one to swallow, ridding himself of the moisture that had filled his mouth. ‘A threat I have no wish to act on.’
Last night, when he’d been full of anger, all he could think about were his rights and the fact that she had so cruelly kept him from his son. While his anger was still there—her insistence that she’d intended to tell him about the birth after the fact was something he doubted he’d ever believe—he could not escape the conclusion that she was correct that he didn’t know his son. And his son didn’t know him. Tonino and his mother’s relationship might be strained these days but as a child he’d worshipped the ground she’d walked on. To have been ripped from her arms would have destroyed him.
‘What do you intend to do with the legal recognition?’ she whispered.
His face inched closer to hers. ‘Be his father. Orla… I’m not going to launch a custody battle for him. All I want is to be involved.’
Her breaths quickened. ‘You’re not going to fight me?’
‘Our trust issues are a two-way thing we both need to work on but I give you my word that, provided you play fair with me, I will not take Finn away from you.’
‘That’s still a threat. What does play fair even mean?’
Their faces had got so close he could smell the faint mintiness of her toothpaste.
‘That you accept me as his father.’
A glazed quality washed over her eyes. Her face tilted, her voice dropping to a murmur. ‘I do accept you as his father.’
‘Then let us start again.’ His lips buzzed and the tingles on his skin deepened as their mouths drew closer still. ‘Put the past behind us for Finn’s sake and look to the future…’
Right at the moment their lips brushed together, the door to Orla’s suite opened and the nurse pushed Finn in.
‘Have you not had your shower…? Oh!’
A bullet ricocheting through the suite could not have parted them more effectively.
Cheeks the colour of beetroot, Orla jumped off the windowsill and hurried to Finn, frantically tucking strands of hair behind both ears. ‘Could you do me a favour, please, Rachel, and leave us alone for ten minutes?’
The nurse looked knowingly at Tonino. ‘Sure.’
The two Irishwomen’s conversation followed by the nurse’s abrupt departure from the suite were mere noise in Tonino’s head. The desire that had come so close to taking control of him had reversed as he stared at the tiny boy strapped in his wheelchair. Unlike the curious nurse, his innocence meant he had no idea his arrival had interrupted anything.
Orla knelt in front of him and carefully lifted him out. She carried him over to the sofa and placed him on her lap. ‘Finn, do you remember me telling you that you had a daddy but that mummy lost him?’
Tonino gave her credit for infusing strength into her voice.
The little head nodded.
‘And do you remember me telling you that one day we would find him?’
She’d told him that…?
Finn nodded again.
‘Well… I’ve found him.’
The dark brown eyes that were so like his own found his.
Tonino held his breath.
‘Finn,’ Orla continued. ‘This man… Tonino…is your daddy.’
There was a long moment