‘That bad, huh?’ he grunted. ‘I am not used to packing,’ he then added as an excuse.
‘It showed.’ Despite herself, Sara could not hold back a small smile. ‘You did a little better for Lia,’ she then went on to allow graciously. ‘Simply because you must have just emptied each drawer containing her clothes into the suitcase. And— Oh,’ she added, ‘you remembered Dandy. Now that was really thoughtful. Her whole countenance changed when she saw him again.’
‘And what, I wonder, will change yours?’
She went hot, then cold, then began tingling all over as his softly provoking tone sent disturbing little messages to all her senses.
‘I will eat my dinner here in the suite if you don’t mind,’ she said coolly as a way to counteract the disturbance.
‘You will eat in the dining room as is the custom in this house,’ he ordained. But at least that other, more intimate tone had gone from his voice.
She shook her head. ‘I won’t leave Lia here alone. She may wake up and be frightened.’
‘And Fabia is with her, is she not?’
‘Yes.’ Sara conceded that point. ‘But Fabia is not the child’s mother, is she? She’s had enough upsets in her little life recently without waking to a strange room and a strange woman and no sign of her mother.’
‘The house is equipped with an internal communications system.’ He made dry mockery of all her protests. ‘One call from Fabia and you can be back down here in seconds.’
‘Seconds that can seem like an hour of agony to a child in distress.’
‘This is foolish!’ He sighed. ‘The child is safe! She knows Fabia’s face. She knows her mama accepts Fabia as someone she can trust. You have spent the whole afternoon together building that trust! Now you must trust Fabia to do her job without rancour from you, while you—’
‘Job?’ She picked up on the word with a sharp question.
‘Yes.’ His eyes glinted down at her, cool and unwavering. ‘Fabia has been employed specifically to look after the child.’
She jumped up, a tight band of fear suddenly closing like steel around her chest. ‘As a nanny, you mean?’
‘Yes …’ he confirmed, but in a way which tightened the band further. She was thinking of Alfredo, wondering how much of his influence was at work here. Had Alfredo employed Fabia? Was she here to wean Lia away from her mother so that the wrench when it came would not be too great for the child?
‘I don’t need a nanny to help me with Lia,’ she stated as firmly as her quaking heart would let her. ‘L-look what h-happened the l-last time you employed a nanny! Lia was taken from right beneath her nose!’
‘Why are you stammering?’ He frowned down at her.
Because I’m frightened, she thought agitatedly. ‘Nic, please—’ She resorted to begging, her hand going to clutch at his forearm in appeal. ‘Don’t do this to me! Don’t reduce my importance as a mother! I don’t need Fabia! I w-won’t be here long enough to n-need her!’
‘My God,’ he breathed, his eyes suddenly dark with shock. ‘You are terrified, aren’t you?’
So t-terrified that I’m even s-stammering inside my head! she thought wildly. ‘L-let me just stay quietly here in this s-suite until you are ready to send us back to London! Please!’
‘But what are you frightened of?’ He ignored her plea to demand an answer to his question. ‘Do you think because the child’s abductors were Sicilian that I cannot protect you here?’ he suggested when she didn’t answer but just stood there staring at him with those huge, frightened eyes and trembling so badly that he felt compelled to lift his hands to her arms to steady her. ‘You are wrong, you know,’ he murmured reassuringly. ‘This place is built like a fortress. Nothing moves outside it without an electronic camera picking it up.’
But it wasn’t the outside Sara was worried about. It was the inside. And the people within it.
She took in a deep breath, and tried very hard to grab back some self-control. ‘Nic …’
She stepped closer, her fingers settling tremulously on the centre of his wide chest. It was not a come-on; she was not trying to use female wiles on him here to get him to do what she wanted. She was simply too anxious to know what she was doing or how she was doing it.
‘Listen to me …’ she pleaded. ‘I don’t want to be here and you don’t want us here! If you believe it impossible to protect us in London, then I will change my name—my identity if I have to! Just send us back to England and I shall get right out of your life. I promise you. You won’t have to be inconvenienced like this again on our account!’
He stiffened, the big chest expanding on a tense clenching of its muscular flesh. ‘You—love this child very much, don’t you?’
Why did he keep on asking her that question? ‘She is my life!’ she choked.
‘And the father? Did you love him with the same strength?’
Oh, God. Sara closed her eyes on a shaft of tight pain and wanted to drop her head onto that big chest and weep. Weep. ‘Yes,’ she breathed.
He stepped away from her, turning back to the window and leaving her standing there trembling with her hands still lifted in front of her where his chest had just been.
‘Did he love you?’ he enquired after a moment.
She had to swallow to remove the aching lump from her throat. ‘I think so, once,’ she replied, letting her hands drop empty to her sides.
‘Then why did he never claim you both?’
Her sigh held an irony only she would ever understand. ‘Because he could never be sure that my baby was his and his pride could not let him accept another man’s child.’
‘Could she be mine, then?’
Oh, no, she thought wretchedly. Don’t ask me that question now. Not when I daren’t give you an honest answer!
So instead she avoided it. ‘Nic, I need to get away from here. I can’t bear this place,’ she murmured thickly. ‘I never could.’
‘Were you so unhappy here?’
Without you here with me? she thought painfully. ‘Yes,’ she said, and sank down onto the sofa and wished to God that they’d never begun this whole wretched scene.
He didn’t say anything to that, and the silence between them throbbed with the heavy pull of her own heartbeat.
Then, quietly, he said, ‘You cannot leave.’
Her stomach gave a funny lurch. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she asked warily.
He turned. ‘Just what it said. You cannot leave here. The risk is too great. I can guarantee your safety here; I cannot in London.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘So here is where you and the child must stay.’
‘No.’ She shook her head vehemently. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘I am not giving you a choice,’ he grimly informed her.
It brought her back to her feet. ‘Just because you refuse to divorce me does not mean you own me, Nicolas!’ she cried. ‘I can make my own choices. And I prefer to take my chance in London rather than live under this roof again!’
‘You speak as if it were you who was betrayed!’ he said derisively in response to that little speech.
‘I will not be put through the kind of misery I endured here a second time.’
‘Maybe