The Italian's Unexpected Baby / Secrets Of His Forbidden Cinderella. Кейт Хьюит

no other men in the picture as far as he knew, but of course he didn’t know…anything. And yet he couldn’t believe Mia would have gone with another man so soon after. Surely it was his. Surely…

      There was only one way to find out.

      He took his private jet to Los Angeles that night, cancelling half a dozen meetings without a word of explanation. The flight felt endless, his mind going in pointless circles as he considered what he would say to Mia.

      If it was his child, his daughter, then he knew what he wanted, and he knew he’d do anything, anything, to see it happen. He’d grown up without a father, and it had tormented him for all his childhood. He would never, ever allow a child of his to experience that same sense of loss, confusion, and grief. He’d never walk away from his own flesh and blood the way his father had, without a single thought or care.

      But perhaps the baby wasn’t his. A thought that, irrationally, gave him a little lurch of disappointment, even as he recognised that his treatment of Mia had been less than admirable. Could he really blame her if she’d met someone else and forgotten him?

      A limo picked him up at the airport and drove him to the address of Mia’s apartment that he’d had on file. It was a beautiful, balmy evening, the sun setting over the ocean, its placid surface shimmering with crimson and gold, palm trees silhouetted against a darkening sky.

      The apartment building where Mia lived was a two-storey stucco house with an apartment on each floor and a pool in the back. Hers was on the second floor, and he mounted the steps with grim determination. Rapped once, short and hard. Waited.

      A few seconds later he heard light footsteps, and then the slip of a chain before the door opened. Mia stood there, the questioning smile on her face morphing into an expression of complete and utter shock.

      ‘Alessandro…’ His name came out in a whisper.

      ‘You should have told me.’ The words came out before he could stop them.

      Her face paled and one hand fluttered to her throat. ‘How did you…?’

      ‘So it is mine?’ he interjected grimly, and her eyes sparked.

      ‘It is a she, which you probably already know, considering you’re here.’

      ‘Yes, I do.’ He’d forgotten her fire, and how it annoyed and impressed him in equal measure. ‘Are you going to let me in?’

      Wordlessly she stepped aside, closing the door behind him. Alessandro looked around the room, noting its bland corporate furnishings softened by familial touches—a colourful mat and baby’s activity gym on the floor, a pink bouncy seat in one corner, a wicker basket of bright toys by the coffee table.

      He turned to Mia, taking in how she had changed. Her hair was pulled back loosely, golden tendrils framing a rounder, softer face. Her figure was rounder and softer too, more womanly. She was dressed in a tunic top and capris, casual clothes he realised he’d never seen her in. Of course, he’d barely seen her at all. He’d known her for two days. Two short, incredible, life-changing days.

      Neither of them spoke; she regarded him nervously, wiping her palms down the sides of her flowing top.

      ‘Where is she?’ he demanded.

      ‘Sleeping in her nursery. Alessandro…’

      ‘You should have told me.’ He couldn’t get past that. ‘No matter what did or didn’t happen between us, you should have told me.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t forgive that, Mia.’

      ‘You can’t forgive?’ Her nervousness fell away as she stared at him incredulously. ‘You have some cheek, Alessandro Costa.’

      Now he was glaring as well, both of them with daggers drawn, only moments into their meeting. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

      ‘What makes you think I didn’t try to tell you?’ She planted her hands on her hips, her eyes furious slits of bright, bright blue. ‘Why do you assume?’

      He shook his head slowly. He wasn’t buying that. ‘If you’d tried, I would have known.’

      ‘Oh, really? You, the head of a huge, sprawling multibillion-dollar organisation? You think a message from a nobody PA would have been passed on?’

      He frowned. ‘So how did you try to reach me?’

      ‘The only way I knew how,’ she snapped. ‘Through the switchboard of Costa International.’

      His frown deepened, but he still couldn’t concede the point. ‘There must have been a better way…’

      ‘And what way would that have been?’ Mia challenged. Now she was the one who sounded angry and aggrieved, the one who was in the right, and yet Alessandro felt she couldn’t be. She couldn’t be. ‘You didn’t exactly want to keep in touch, did you? I didn’t have any of your contact details, and I was under the distinct impression you never wanted to lay eyes on me again. Which was fine by me, because I didn’t want to lay eyes on you.’

      Which, absurdly, stung, even though he knew it shouldn’t have. It wasn’t as if they’d had a relationship, or even been friends. ‘A baby changes things, obviously,’ he snapped. ‘A baby changes everything.’