The Forbidden Ferrara. Sarah Morgan

the room their eyes clashed.

      They’d been lovers.

      They’d shared the ultimate intimacy, but that wasn’t going to help them navigate the treacherous waters they now found themselves in because they’d shared nothing else. They had no relationship. Essentially they were strangers. All they’d had were a few chance encounters and one stolen night, one delicious taste of the forbidden. None of that was going to help them through this desperate situation. And it was desperate; even he could see that.

      ‘Where is my son?’ He snapped out the words and she leaned her back against the door and looked at him.

      ‘Asleep in his bed. In his home. And if he wakes, Gina is there, and my grandfather.’

      The anger rushed at him like a ravenous beast ready to snap through the last threads of his fragile self-control. ‘And that is supposed to provide me with comfort?’

      ‘He loves Luca.’

      ‘I think we have a very different idea of what that word means.’

      ‘No.’ Her eyes were fierce. ‘No, we don’t.’

      Santo’s mouth tightened. ‘And will he still “love” him when he discovers the identity of his father? I think we both know the answer to that.’ He rose from his chair and saw her hand shoot towards the door handle. His mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed in a warning. ‘If you leave this room then we will be having this conversation in public. Is that what you want?’

      ‘What I want is for you to calm down and be rational.’

      ‘Oh, I’m rational, tesoro. I have been thinking clearly from the moment I saw my child.’

      The atmosphere thickened. The air grew overly warm.

      ‘What do you want me to say? That I’m sorry? That I did the wrong thing?’ Her voice was smoky-soft and that voice drew his eyes to the smooth column of her throat and then to her mouth. It had been just one night but the memory of it had left deep scars in his senses. He knew how she’d taste because he remembered it vividly. He knew how she’d feel because he remembered that too. Not just the smooth texture of her skin, but the softness of her gorgeous hair. Now released from the clips that had restrained it during cooking, it fell down her back like a dark flame, reflecting the sunrise back at him. He remembered the day her father had cut it short in a blaze of Baracchi temper, hacking with kitchen scissors until she’d been left with a jagged crop. A horrified Santo had witnessed the incident and had tried to intervene but the sight of him had simply inflamed the situation.

      She’d sat still, he remembered, saying nothing as hunks of long hair had landed in her lap. Afterwards she’d hidden in the boathouse, her fierce glare challenging him to say one word about it and of course he hadn’t because their relationship didn’t encompass verbal exchanges.

      And it had been in the boathouse, on that one night that had ended so tragically, that their relationship had shifted from nothing to everything.

      Santo hauled in a deep breath, resisting that savage, elemental instinct that had him wanting to flatten her to the wall and drag the answers from her. ‘When did you find out you were pregnant?’

      ‘Why does that matter?’

      ‘I’m the one asking the questions and right now you’ll answer any question I choose to ask you.’