She knew she daren’t let Cesare see how deeply her emotions had been affected, already knowing him well enough to realise that if he thought he was actually giving her something she so desperately wanted, then he would use that advantage to bend her totally to his arrogant will.
Yes, now that she had seen and held Marco she fully intended marrying Cesare—but it would be on her own terms, not his …
‘We may as well go through to dinner,’ Cesare announced when Robin rejoined him in the sitting room, her hair once more in a neat chignon and looking again like the coolly detached woman who had arrived at his apartment less than half an hour ago.
Once Robin was his wife, Cesare had decided as he sipped his champagne and waited for her to rejoin him, he had no intention of giving her any choice but to become Marco’s mother. With time, he hoped she would learn to be at ease with with the child, to love him as he deserved to be loved.
‘Fine,’ she accepted distantly, before preceding him into the dining room that he indicated.
A woman any man would be proud to have on his arm, Cesare knew, as he watched the gentle sway of her hips as she walked in front of him.
Or in his bed.
‘Have you decided what it is you wish to tell your father about our forthcoming marriage?’ Cesare prompted, once he had seen her seated opposite him at the small, intimate table he had requested be laid for their meal together.
Robin eyed him warily. ‘I believe I told you earlier that nothing has been settled yet concerning a marriage between the two of us?’
Cesare gave a hard smile. ‘Fight it all you want, Robin, but the marriage will take place.’
She hadn’t given herself away, Robin realised with relief. And she dared not do so, either, because if Cesare even half guessed at how she had fallen for Marco, then all her bargaining power was spent. And she had little enough to start with!
‘Perhaps,’ she allowed uninterestedly, avoiding the intensity of his stare as she placed her napkin across her lap in preparation for eating the platter of seafood that was the first course. ‘As for how we deal with my father …’ she paused, as if to give the matter some thought ‘… I really don’t think he would accept anything less for me than what he perceives as a love match.’
Cesare’s eyes widened. ‘I know I told you earlier that I would go along with whatever you decided to tell him, but do you seriously expect me to behave in front of your father as if I have fallen in love with you?’
‘Beyond your powers, is it?’ Robin came back tauntingly, stung by his tone of incredulity. ‘Or just totally incomprehensible to you?’ she added softly as she saw his contemptuous expression.
‘You can’t pretend to be in love because you’ve never been in love—is that it?’ she prompted curiously.
‘Love!’ he snorted. ‘My father loved my mother so much that when she died he drank himself to an early death! Carla loved Marco’s father—and he abandoned her totally once he knew she was expecting his child! Contrarily, your own husband did not want you once you had refused to have his child. I do not need to have been in love, Robin, to know it is a destructive emotion!’
Robin had been prepared to give him an argument on the subject—until he mentioned her own marriage. Because she had loved Giles when she’d married him—had thought he loved her too. But that love hadn’t been strong enough to withstand Giles’s disappointment when she hadn’t been able to give him the child he wanted …
And she already knew that falling in love with Cesare Gambrelli would be sheer madness—for any woman!
No, loving Marco, and being this man’s unwilling wife, was as far as she was willing to go.
‘True,’ she acknowledged. ‘Nevertheless, for my father’s sake, I really think if we are to go ahead with this marriage that we will have to behave for a few weeks as if we’re in love with each other.’
Cesare looked at her frustratedly, knowing what she was demanding was her own price for agreeing to marry him without further argument or delay. A high price, granted, and not one that he would normally have even considered. But perhaps the pretence would have benefits to himself that even Robin had not considered yet.
He gave an arrogant inclination of his head. ‘In that case I suggest we begin the pretence this evening, with your not returning to your father’s home as expected. It will tell him, without any word having to be spoken between the two of you, that you have taken a lover.’
Robin sat back in her chair to look at him admiringly. ‘Touché, Cesare,’ she finally admitted ruefully. ‘No one could ever accuse you of losing control of a situation, could they?’ she added wryly.
Losing control in any situation was never in Cesare’s plans.
He had taken many women to his bed, and considered himself a considerate as well as attentive lover for as long as his interest lasted. But all his relationships had been completely under his control. His emotions, other than desire, had never been engaged.
And, no matter what he might decide to pretend for the sake of her father, they would not be with Robin, either.
Love made fools of people—as it had his father and Carla. It was a trap that Cesare never intended falling into.
He shrugged. ‘I suggest that once we have eaten you call your father and inform him you will not be returning tonight.’
At which time, as Cesare meant him to do, Robin knew her father would draw his own conclusion.
Charles would probably be pleased with the development too.
He had made no secret of his concern about the way she had become almost reclusive since her separation and divorce, burying herself in her work at Ingram Publishing and avoiding a social life, and would probably view any sign of her being involved with a man as a good thing, rather than something he should be concerned about.
Until he learnt that Cesare Gambrelli was the man she was involved with, of course—when his reaction would probably be completely the opposite!
But she would deal with that later. For now she had to concentrate on getting through this evening, on talking to her father on the phone before staying the night in one of the many bedrooms in this penthouse suite of the Gambrelli Hotel—Unless.
She looked across at Cesare with accusingly suspicious eyes. ‘I have no intention of sharing your bedroom tonight, Cesare!’ she told him determinedly.
He raised his dark brows calmly. ‘I did not ask you to.’
‘I’m quickly learning that you don’t ask—you just take!’
Cesare eyed her mockingly, enjoying this angrily rebellious Robin much more than the icy socialite who had arrived at his suite a short time ago. ‘I can assure you I do not intend for you to share my bedroom tonight,’ he drawled.
She didn’t look at all convinced by his reassurance. As she should not. His assurance that she wouldn’t share his bedroom did not mean that he didn’t intend to share hers …
‘Come, Robin,’ he encouraged briskly as he picked up the fork beside his plate. ‘Let us eat our food and talk of more general things. Was the charity dinner a success last weekend?’
She still felt suspicious as she picked up her own fork. ‘Very much so,’ she finally confirmed. ‘In fact, one anonymous benefactor—who coincidentally couldn’t stay for the dinner—left us a donation of fifty thousand pounds,’ she explained, with a pointed look in his direction.
Cesare smiled. ‘It was for a good cause.’
She nodded. ‘Disabled children.’
Cesare’s mouth tightened. ‘You think me as uncharitable as your father does?’