The Italian's Demand. Sara Wood

the railway arches. If she couldn’t resurrect her landscape garden business and earn some money, they’d be eating the darn daisies instead of decorating themselves with them.

      ‘Help!’ she muttered faintly. ‘How can I ever work when Lio treats me like the north face of Everest and hangs on to me all day?’

      Her stomach churning with worry, she hauled herself up and stood on the edge of the pool, fretfully dabbling first one bare foot and then the other in the dark turquoise water. It looked inviting, with the sunset staining the far end a glorious poppy red, but she just didn’t have the energy to stay afloat, let alone swim.

      On the slender cord around her waist, the entry phone buzzed intrusively. She looked at it in deep reproach. Her friends had flocked to see the incomparably beautiful Lio, vastly amused that she’d abandoned her love of freedom and independence for a child who kept superglueing himself to her.

      ‘I’m not in,’ she muttered firmly, leaving the answer button firmly switched off. It was gone nine o’clock. Too late for visitors.

      The buzzing became more insistent and she silently cursed all mod cons and hi-tech appliances. Doorknockers could be ignored. Gadgets, however, had an arrogance all of their own.

      ‘Oh, all right!’ she grumbled, flicking on the switch. ‘Yes? Who is it?’ she demanded grumpily into the receiver.

      ‘Vittore Mantezzini,’ silked a foreign voice, declaiming the name as if it were a lyrical poem set to music.

      But it was far from music to Verity’s ears. It took her a moment to realise where she’d heard that name before, and then the shock made her gasp out loud.

      ‘Vittore!’ she exclaimed in horror. ‘You’re dead!’

      Whirling around in dismay to face the house, she lost her balance on the wet tiles. One foot shot out sideways, her arms flailed like windmills, and before she knew it she’d gone over backwards and hit the water with a painful ‘thwack’ that took all the breath from her enfeebled body.

      The waters closed over her head and she was in a silent world where the weakness of her attempts to surface did nothing to allay her panic. Briefly she surfaced, yelling for help, before she went down again.

      The remote control for the entry phone bobbed on its cord and caught her on the temple with a sharp blow.

      Lio! she thought in panic. Can’t drown! He needs me!

      Spurred on, she kicked strongly, feeling the sudden warmth of the dying sun on her head, and managing to grab the side of the pool and haul herself out of the water onto her stomach, dripping, choking, gasping.

      Somewhere in the distance a man was shouting. Linda’s husband presumably.

      ‘Oh, my good grief!’ she groaned. ‘Linda’s husband!’

      Widower, she corrected, shivering with apprehension as the penny dropped. And her hand flew to her mouth to contain her appalled groan.

      Of course, she thought shakily. It might be an impostor. But…if it was him, then somehow he’d found out about Linda’s death. And that meant…

      He’d come to take Lio away!

      The world spun around and she clung to the ground as though she were in danger of falling off.

      He couldn’t take her baby, the person she most cherished in the whole, wide world, who needed her desperately and who cried piteously if she ever seemed likely to be moving more than a yard away!

      Gasping for breath, she knelt up, rigid with horror. Lio screamed at strangers. He was a scared, desperately insecure little kiddie who’d been through hell and was only just learning to play.

      He wasn’t ready to trust anyone else. What could she do? Where did she stand in law? Would blood be the deciding factor, over and above Linda’s request that he should never take charge of his child?

      Verity felt sick. Vittore might be rotten all the way through, but he was Lio’s father. He had a legal claim to his son.

      ‘Hellfire!’ she breathed, her mouth drying with a stupefying fear. It could be that she had no rights at all!

      CHAPTER TWO

      HALF-SOBBING with panic, Verity flung back her dripping hair out of her eyes and scrambled awkwardly to her feet, praying that this was an impostor. Perhaps someone who’d read the obituaries and thought Linda had been rich. If so, she’d tear strips off him for scaring her witless!

      The buzzer made her jump. Hoping to open the gate, she grabbed the remote control that was still dangling from her waist, but it didn’t work.

      ‘I’m coming!’ she yelled, her nerves perching on a knife edge.

      And with her dress clinging to her like a food wrap and badly impeding her movements, she began to stumble towards the formal front garden on legs that didn’t want to take her there.

      If this was Vittore, she decided—somehow risen from the dead—then her deeply disturbed nephew must be protected at all costs, father or no father, whatever the law.

      She’d run away with Lio, disappear, hide on a remote island, if it meant that his sanity was preserved.

      She had a duty to the sad little baby—and was not going to hand him over to a womanising rat who’d callously ignored his son’s existence—and worse.

      Her teeth ground together. Vittore’s infidelity had ruined the marriage and caused Linda to end her life. As a result, Lio was now an emotional mess and in no fit state to be whisked away by a strange man to a strange land where they didn’t even speak English!

      Rounding the side of the house, she saw him at last. Tall and immaculately dressed, he was striding up and down like a man possessed, his powerful voice ringing out as he demanded imperiously that someone come to open the high-security gate at once!

      Vittore removed his finger from the bell, suddenly struck dumb. Coming towards him with the ferocity of a heat-seeking missile, was a tall, voluptuous woman with ink-jet hair tumbling about her head in a riot of glistening, wet curls.

      And this stunning beauty was in a furious temper, a strap of her long, white dress slipping off one tanned shoulder, the neckline scooping low to the mounds of gleaming, glorious breasts which were in danger of bouncing free of the flimsy material as she careered at full speed to where he stood in silent amazement.

      Awed, he drew in a sharp breath. The dress was dripping wet and draped around her body in crinkling folds so that she looked like a living Grecian goddess. Like a Venus rising from the sea.

      Something kicked hard in his loins, startling and shocking him. And for a brief moment his body took control until his brain reminded him of his purpose.

      ‘Let me in,’ he ordered brusquely, short-cutting polite greetings and stamping his authority on the situation because she evidently intended to yell at him for some mad reason. He’d come for Lio, not an argument. ‘I’m Vittore Mantezzini and I demand entry.’

      ‘Oh, are you? Show me proof of identity first!’ she demanded, her white teeth looking as if they would savage his flesh to shreds if he stepped out of line.

      His mouth tightened at the delay and he frowned, not used to being disobeyed or challenged. Slid a hand into the inside pocket of his cashmere jacket and handed over his ID card without further comment.

      Though the angry set of his jaw and the black glitter of his hard, cold eyes would have deterred most people from questioning his word.

      Scowling, she peered at the photo, then checked that it looked like him. Since it had cost a great deal of money and the efforts of Milan’s top society photographer, there was, indeed, a flattering likeness.

      Shock registered on her face. Then undisguised dismay.

      ‘You’re dead!’ she protested, searching his narrowed eyes in bewilderment, her soft lips parted