The Gold Collection. Maggie Cox

bed, but because she knew he wouldn’t. Seeing him again had made her realise just how much she had missed him. She must be even more of a fool than she’d thought because even though he was demanding proof that the baby was his she still ached for him to take her in his arms and stroke her hair, as he had often done during their heartbreakingly brief affair.

      ‘Charlie is expecting me. If you wouldn’t mind calling me a taxi, I’d like to go now.’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Dante said roughly when he realised he could not force her to stay. ‘I’ll take you to your friend’s.’

      ‘You can’t; you’ve been drinking.’

      She was right—the amount of whisky he’d downed meant that he could not get behind the wheel of a car. He controlled his impatience and fought the urge to pull her into his arms and tell her he believed the baby was his. His brain told him to wait for proof, and so he ignored what his heart was telling him.

      ‘My chauffeur will drive you to where you are staying,’ he said curtly, ‘and I’ll collect you in the morning.’

      Rebekah’s parents’ farm was in Snowdonia National Park. If Dante had not had other things on his mind he would no doubt have admired the dramatic landscape of lush green valleys and rugged mountain peaks, the highest of which bore the first snowfall of the winter. But he was concentrating on driving along the tortuously twisting lanes and whenever his mind wandered it returned inevitably to Rebekah and the baby she was carrying.

      Was it only two days since she had turned up at his house in London and told him she was pregnant? It felt like a lifetime ago. He frowned at the memory of how pale and fragile she had looked when he had collected her from her friend’s house where she had spent the night, and driven her to the clinic for the prenatal paternity test to be done.

      He had felt worried about her, especially as the dark circles beneath her eyes had been evidence that she had not slept.

      ‘Come and stay at the house for a few days while we wait for the results,’ he had urged her. But she had shaken her head.

      ‘I bought a return train ticket to Wales. I want to go home,’ she’d told him when he had started to argue. ‘I need to be with people who care about me. My family have been brilliant and I know that whatever happens I can count on their love and support.’

      Had she been making a dig at him for his lack of support? She had been perfectly within her rights to, Dante acknowledged grimly. For the past two days he had thought about her constantly and he’d come to the conclusion that he should be shot for the appalling way he had treated her.

      Yesterday he had phoned her, not really knowing what he wanted to say but aware that he needed to apologise. She had answered his queries about how she was feeling with a coolness that had been infuriating and worrying.

      ‘Obviously we will have to decide what will happen if the test proves the baby is mine,’ he had said and had frowned when he realised how stilted he sounded. Her silence had rattled him. ‘There will be things to discuss—financial matters and so on.’ Once again his words hadn’t reflected what he really wanted to say. And he’d realised as he wiped beads of sweat from his brow that he was the biggest fool on the planet.

      He forced himself to concentrate as the road narrowed to a muddy track, and a few moments later he swung the car through some iron gates and came to a halt outside a rather tired-looking grey stone farmhouse. The farmyard appeared deserted apart from a few chickens pecking in the mud. As he approached the house a dog began to bark. The front door looked as though it hadn’t been opened for years, but at the side of the house a door stood ajar and led into the kitchen.

      No one came when he knocked, but he could hear voices talking in a language he had never heard before, which he presumed was Welsh. He supposed he should have phoned Rebekah to tell her he was coming, but he hadn’t because he wanted to catch her off guard, before she had a chance to erect the barriers he had sensed she’d put in place when he had spoken to her yesterday.

      A cat wound through his legs as he walked across the kitchen. He hesitated for a second and then pushed open the door in front of him and stepped into a crowded room. At least a dozen people were sitting at a long dining table, and numerous children were seated around a smaller table. At the head of the main table sat a giant of a man, grey-haired with a weathered face, who he guessed was Rebekah’s father. Dante glanced at her brothers, all as huge as their father, but his eyes moved swiftly to Rebekah and he felt a sudden pain in his chest, as if an arrow had pierced between his ribs.

      She was smiling, and for some reason that hurt him. He hadn’t felt like smiling since … since Tuscany, when she had made him laugh with her dry wit and atrociously bad jokes.

      The sound of chatter slowly died as the people in the room became aware of a stranger in their midst. The suspicious stares from the army of Welshmen and their wives emphasised that he was an outsider.

      Dante had a sudden flashback to when he had been ten years old, at boarding school. It had been the end of term and most of the boys were gathered in the quadrangle, waiting for their parents to collect them to take them home for the holidays. But his parents weren’t coming. His father had arranged for him to stay with the headmaster and his family for the Easter break. Staring out of a classroom window, he had felt detached from the other boys’ excitement. All his life he had never felt that he belonged anywhere.

      He certainly did not belong here in this Welsh farmhouse. But Rebekah did. He could almost sense the invisible bonds that tied her closely to her family—a family that at this moment were unified in protecting her.

      Her father made to stand up, but the younger man sitting beside him got to his feet first, saying, ‘I’ll deal with this, Tada.’

      Rebekah’s smile had died on her lips and she was staring at him as if he had two heads. She scraped back her chair and, as she stood up, Dante felt a surge of emotion as his eyes were drawn to her rounded stomach. His child was growing inside her, his flesh and blood. He looked around the sea of faces all gazing warily at him and he no longer cared if they regarded him as an outsider. Rebekah was carrying his baby and he was determined to convince her that he wanted to be a father.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

      ‘SIT down, Beka,’ her brother ordered.

      She threw him a sharp glance, her eyes flashing fire. ‘It’s my problem, Owen, and I’ll deal with it.’ Turning back to face Dante, she lifted her head proudly and shook back her long silky hair. ‘Why are you here?’

      Since when had she viewed him as a problem? He felt a sudden fierce blaze of anger. How dared she speak to him in that coolly polite voice, as if he were a casual acquaintance rather than the man whose child’s heart beat within her? With great effort he swallowed his temper and said quietly, ‘We need to talk.’

      One of the women seated at the table stood up. Rebekah’s mother was short and plump, her dark hair was threaded with silver strands but her violet-coloured eyes were sharp and bright. It occurred to Dante that the Evans women were formidable and he suspected that, for all their huge size, the men of the family would think twice about arguing with them.

      ‘You must be Mr Jarrell. I am Rowena Evans. This is my husband, Ifan—’ she waved a hand towards the other end of the table ‘—and our sons and their families. Our daughter you already know, of course,’ she said calmly. ‘Rebekah will take you into the parlour so that you can talk in private.’

      Rebekah knew better than to argue with her mother but her legs felt unsteady as she walked out of the room, and she was desperately conscious of Dante following closely behind her. He was the second shock she had received today, but not the worst, she thought, feeling a stab of fear as she remembered her hospital appointment earlier in the day. She ushered him into the parlour and closed the door, taking a deep breath before she turned to face him.

      He was wearing a soft oatmeal-coloured sweater