as he glanced around the shabby sitting room. ‘I can provide my son with a far better lifestyle than he currently has with you. My lawyer has already started the legal process for me to file for custody of Nico, but it would be better for his sake if we settled out of court and, to that end, I am prepared to make you a generous financial offer.’

      ‘You know what you can do with your offer!’ Kristen snapped. Inside, she was shaking, but she refused to let Sergio see how scared she felt. He was not a man to make vain threats and she did not doubt that he had already begun his legal claim for Nico. ‘You think you can buy anything you want,’ she said bitterly. ‘But nothing would persuade me to give Nico up.’

      ‘Everything has a price, cara.’ Sergio sounded strangely weary. He gave a harsh laugh. ‘Was that what Friday night was about? Did you use your delectable body as a sweetener, and once I had succumbed to your magic you intended to offer my son to me in return for hard cash?’

      Incensed by his taunt, Kristen reacted instinctively and raised her hand but, before she could make contact with his cheek, he captured her wrist in a vice-like grip.

      ‘I wouldn’t,’ Sergio advised in a dangerously soft voice. He flung her arm from him and raked his fingers through his hair, feeling disgusted with himself when he saw her white face. He had not intended to frighten her, but for a few seconds blind rage had swept through him. ‘We both need to cool down,’ he muttered. ‘Why don’t you go to bed and get some sleep. You look all in. We’ll talk again in the morning.’

      Not trusting herself to remain in the same room as Sergio when she was tempted to murder him, Kristen swung round and walked out of the room. Sleep! She laughed hollowly as she marched up the stairs. She felt as limp as a wrung-out dishcloth and with the threat of losing her little boy hanging over her she doubted she would ever sleep again. But when she slid between the sheets her brain mercifully decided that it had had enough for one day, and her last thought was that she must set the alarm on the bedside clock.

      * * *

      Sergio woke to the sensation of his eyelids being prised open. After spending a hellish night on the most uncomfortable sofa he had ever encountered, he craved a couple of hours more sleep, especially when he glanced blearily at his watch and saw that it was five-thirty in the morning. He blinked and refocused on the angelic face hovering above him. Nico was staring at him with his big brown eyes framed by unbelievably long lashes. When he saw that Sergio was awake, he grinned.

      ‘Daddy...’

      Sergio felt his gut twist. ‘Papà,’ he said softly. ‘I am your papà.’ And you are il mio bel ragazzo. My beautiful boy, he thought to himself. Propping himself up on one elbow, he watched Nico line up his toy cars on the carpet. ‘Is Mummy still asleep?’

      Nico nodded. ‘I got dressed,’ he said proudly, patting his shorts.

      That would explain why his T-shirt was on back to front, Sergio mused. He smiled. ‘Clever boy.’

      Nico lay on his stomach so that he could push his cars along the floor and Sergio suddenly froze. His eyes were drawn to the black bruises on the backs of the little boy’s legs. Bile rose in his throat. Santa Madre di Dio! The marks were sickeningly familiar. When he had been a child, his legs had often been covered in bruises after a beating.

      Swallowing hard, Sergio noticed another mark on Nico’s body where his T-shirt had ridden up.

      ‘Hey, little guy, let me turn your shirt around for you,’ he murmured.

      Nico obediently stood up and, as Sergio drew the shirt over his head, his breath hissed between his teeth at the sight of several more bruises on the child’s ribs.

      ‘How did you get hurt?’ He somehow managed to keep his tone light.

      ‘I was very naughty,’ Nico told him with an innocence that tore Sergio’s heart to shreds.

      His head spun. He didn’t know what was happening here. Everything inside him rejected the idea that Kristen could have inflicted the bruises on Nico. It was true she hadn’t convinced him that she was an overly caring parent and he was deeply suspicious of her motive for finally deciding to tell him that he had a son, but it was hard to imagine that she would hurt her child.

      But no one would ever have believed that his charming, beautiful mother had been capable of mental and physical cruelty, Sergio thought grimly. Patti had been the patron of a children’s charity, but to her own child she had been a confusing figure—at times overly loving so that he had felt swamped, but she had been prone to violence when she had succumbed to her personal demon, alcohol, and at those times he had been afraid of her. He remembered the sick feeling in his stomach whenever she had summoned him to her study to be punished for the most minor misdemeanour. No one had heard his cries, and no one had come to his rescue—including his father.

      Deep within Sergio’s soul the scared, unhappy little boy he had once been took over his logical thought processes. A fundamental instinct to protect his child surged through him and he stood up and lifted Nico into his arms. ‘How would you like to fly on an aeroplane, piccolo?’ he murmured.

      His heart turned over when Nico looked at him with his big, brown, trusting eyes. ‘I will always protect you,’ he promised his son gruffly, and was rewarded with a smile that somehow eased the loneliness that had haunted him since he had been a small boy who had longed to be with his own father.