She sighed. There was no point wanting to be something she was never going to be, she told herself firmly. But she could at least make sure that she looked tidy and presentable. A glance in the mirror above the fireplace confirmed that her hair was no longer secured in a neat chignon but was hanging in damp rats’ tails around her face. There was no time to tie it up again when Sophie needed her nappy changed, and so she quickly removed the last of the pins and pulled a comb through her hair before she knelt down on the rug to attend to the baby.
Cesario strode across the entrance hall towards the library, his tension evident in the rigid set of his jaw. He had delegated to his chief executive the task of making a speech to the guests, and now he was intent on getting to the bottom of Beth Granger’s extraordinary story. His initial shock at her startling claim that he was the father of the child she had brought to the castle had been replaced by a healthy dose of common sense. There were numerous flaws in her story and many questions that he wanted answered before he would give her claim any credence.
It was even possible that she was gold-digger who had invented her incredible tale to try and extort money out of him, he thought darkly. He’d had experience of a confidence trickster once before. Some years ago a young man had declared that he was Orsino Piras’s illegitimate son and was entitled to a share of the Piras fortune. DNA evidence had disproved the claim, but Cesario had never believed there was any truth in it. His father had been a cold, remote man, and his only mistress had been the bank which had now been owned by the Piras family for five generations.
He pushed open the library door and hesitated on the threshold of the room, his eyes drawn to the young woman who was sitting on the sofa cradling the baby in her arms. Without her coat Beth Granger was much slimmer than his first impression of her. She was rather too slender for his tastes, he mused, noting her small, high breasts and the fragile line of her collarbone visible where the top couple of buttons of her blouse were undone.
Her grey skirt and navy blouse looked as though they had been bought from a bargain store, and her flat black shoes were scuffed and well-worn. But, although her clothes were unflattering, she possessed a quiet grace that he found unexpectedly appealing. She was not beautiful in a conventional sense, Cesario observed. But her heart-shaped face, slightly upturned nose and full mouth held a certain charm, and now that her hair was loose he saw that it was a pale golden-brown, gleaming like silk in the light from the lamp and falling to halfway down her back.
He was surprised by a compelling desire to touch her hair and feel its softness against his skin. He immediately dismissed the thought and walked into the room, noting the quick, nervous glance she darted at him. For a few seconds his gaze locked with a pair of vivid green eyes fringed by hazel lashes, before she returned her attention to the baby she was feeding from a bottle.
Images from the past flooded his mind. He remembered being in the nursery with Raffaella, watching her feeding Nicolo. Their love for their son had been the one thing they had shared; the only bond between two people whose marriage had in no way been a love-match.
For him, marriage to Raffaella Cossu had ensured the merger of the Piras and Cossu banks and made him one of the most powerful men in Italy. Driven by ambition, he had considered a marriage of convenience a small price to pay—or so he had believed, Cesario thought grimly. He had liked Raffaella well enough, and falling in love had never been on his agenda. Experience had taught him that love was an overrated emotion—one which frequently led to pain and disappointment.
He had loved his mother once—adored her. But when he was seven years old she had left his father for her lover and he had never seen her or spoken to her again.
‘Stop snivelling like a baby,’ his father had told him when he had found him crying in his room. ‘Do not waste your tears on a woman. You will find as you grow older that there are always plenty more, especially for a man who has wealth and power.’
Power was the golden grail, Cesario mused cynically. For the Cossu family their lack of a son to inherit their bank had led them to seek a merger with the Piras bank by marrying off their daughter to Cesario. Raffaella had obeyed her parents’ wishes, or perhaps been coerced—Cesario had never known. And eighteen months after their marriage she had dutifully given him an heir.
All would have been well if she had not fallen in love with another man. Love had blown everything apart. Raffaella’s decision to leave her marriage to be with her lover, and Cesario’s determination to keep his son—whom he had loved more than he had known it was possible to love another human being—had resulted in a bitter confrontation, and ultimately in the accident which had claimed Raffaella and Nicolo’s lives.
A nerve jumped in Cesario’s cheek. He had become adept at blocking out painful memories, and his expression was shuttered as he stood in front of the fireplace and stared at the woman whose arrival at the castle had such disturbing implications.
Sophie had finished her feed, and when Beth sat her upright on her lap she looked about her with wide-eyed curiosity. With a mass of silky black hair and dark brown eyes fringed by impossibly long lashes, the child was as pretty as a doll, Cesario noted, finding it impossible to tear his gaze from her.
‘When was she born?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘The twenty-eighth of October.’
He stiffened at Beth’s reply and his expression became steely. ‘In that case she cannot be my child. If Sophie was conceived this time last year she would have been due in December. I’ll be frank with you. I have no recollection of sleeping with the woman in the photograph, but I’d had a lot to drink and I cannot be certain that I did not invite her back to my room. But Melanie Stewart must have already been pregnant if she gave birth seven months later.’ His tone became mocking. ‘You should have worked out the maths before you embarked on your little game, Ms Granger.’
‘I’m not playing a game,’ Beth said sharply, stung by his sarcasm. ‘Sophie was born nearly two months premature. That’s why she’s small for a four-month-old baby.’ She flushed at Cesario’s disbelieving look. ‘It’s the truth. Mel was ill and the doctors had to deliver Sophie early.’
‘So where is Melanie Stewart now? Why isn’t she caring for her daughter? And who, exactly, are you?’
‘Mel is dead.’ Beth’s voice caught in her throat as she stared at Sophie and felt a pang of grief for her friend, who had only seen her baby a few times before she had died. It still seemed impossible that Mel was gone. She had always been the strong one out of the two of them, the daring one, who had teased Beth for being a timid mouse and protected her from the school bullies with her acid tongue and fiery temper.
She realised that Cesario was waiting for her to continue, and took a ragged breath. ‘Last autumn there was a flu epidemic in England that was especially serious for pregnant women. Mel thought she just had a cold, but within two days she was in Intensive Care, fighting for her life. The doctors decided to deliver Sophie early to give mother and baby a chance. But Sophie was tiny; she only weighed three pounds and was placed in the special care baby unit.’
Tears choked her as she remembered watching Sophie through the clear plastic walls of the incubator, willing the tiny scrap of humanity to live. ‘For a while Mel rallied and things looked optimistic. She was even able to hold Sophie once, for a few minutes. But a few days later she died suddenly. The doctor said the flu virus had put too much strain on her heart.’
Beth blinked hard to dispel her tears. She finally had Cesario’s attention, and she needed to convince him that he had a responsibility towards Sophie. She swallowed and forced herself to continue.
‘A few days before her death Mel told me she had recognised your photo in a newspaper. The paper had printed your name, and she realised that the man she had slept with at the party in London was Cesario Piras, and that you were Sophie’s father. I had already agreed that if anything happened to Mel I would look after Sophie. Mel made me promise that if she died I would try to find you and let you know you had a daughter.’
Cesario