The Italian's Love-Child. Emma Darcy

over his heart. He wound a long tress of her hair around his hand to hold her there. He told himself she could not be more vulnerable to the idea than she was at this moment with both of them naked and intimately entwined, reinforcing what they could and did share.

      It would come out baldly, he knew, but dressing it up with feelings she might scorn could very well tip the scales in a very negative fashion. She wouldn’t trust emotions. Working from her reaction seemed the most viable option. He had to use reason and do it convincingly.

      Trying to keep the enormous tension he felt out of his voice, Luc simply announced what he was aiming for.

      ‘I want you to marry me.’

      * * *

      Marry him…

      The shock of the proposal rolled through Skye’s sluggish mind, setting off alarm signals. She hadn’t wanted to think of what she’d done with Luc. Much easier to just drift in a haze of feeling, blocking realities out until they had to be faced. But a proposal of marriage… it was so off the wall, Skye struggled to get her head around what it meant.

      She started to shift, acutely aware of his heart drumming under her ear—a soothing sound just a few moments ago—a disturbing one now.

      ‘No. Stay with me.’

      The brusque command unsettled her further. He had no right to force her compliance to his will, not over anything so personal as this. She’d conceded his right to involve himself with Matt, but what happened between her and Luc was most certainly a matter of choice. Just because she’d had sex with him didn’t mean he could do anything he liked with her.

      ‘Don’t make this a fight, Luc,’ she warned, trying to gather wits enough to understand what had motivated his proposal. ‘Let me move.’

      ‘Why do you want to?’

      ‘I’ve just remembered who you are,’ she answered, not caring if it hurt him, instinctively using shock to give herself room for retreat to a less vulnerable position so she could think straight, not be influenced by the strong sexual connection he was pressing.

      ‘Don’t give me that!’ He whipped her over onto her back and propped himself up, one arm on either side of her so that she was looking directly into his eyes—eyes blazing with a certainty that poured into passionate words. ‘You knew who was kissing you…knew who brought you to this bed…knew who was—’

      ‘Screwing me again?’ she fired at him, angered by the physical domination he was exerting when she had made a clear request to be released.

      His face tightened, his mouth compressing into a thin line. ‘You wanted this, too, Skye,’ he bit out, shaking his head over her accusation.

      He was using it against her—the far too shortsighted surrender to what had probably always been a fantasy—her and Luc together, their love so strong it could ride through anything. It hadn’t. And he’d moved on to other women while she had struggled on by herself. He’d still be moving on, but for Matt.

      ‘Was it good for you, Luc?’ she asked, resenting all his infidelities.

      ‘Yes. And you wouldn’t have responded as you did if it wasn’t good for you,’ he retorted, determined on making her admit it.

      ‘So you think you can capitalise on it, move straight in and take over my life.’

      ‘We’re good together. We always were,’ he argued.

      ‘A pity you didn’t remember that when it counted.’

      ‘It counts now,’ he snapped back, ignoring the past, accentuating the present. ‘We have a son. We should be a family.’

      Matt. She was right about what Luc really wanted. ‘There’s more to marriage than having a child. I don’t want you as my husband.’

      ‘You came to bed with me.’

      She couldn’t leave him with that weapon to use against her. ‘I wanted you to remember what you gave up, Luc,’ she said mockingly.

      His brows beetled down into a deep frown.

      ‘How many women have there been since me?’ she asked, hating him for moving on, leaving her behind, then thinking he could turn around and take her as his wife when it suited him.

      ‘They’re irrelevant.’ It was a fierce mutter, wanting her to forget them.

      ‘When you shared a bed with them, did you remember me?’

      ‘Yes, I did. Nothing was ever like what we had together.’

      For a moment, his vehement reply rocked Skye out of her bitter train of thought. There had only ever been Luc for her. No one else. If he felt the same way… But he couldn’t. He’d put his brother’s word ahead of hers, his family’s view of her ahead of his own.

      ‘I don’t believe you!’ she cried, and with all her strength, slammed her hands against his shoulders and thrust him far enough away for her to scramble off the bed, out of reach.

      ‘It’s true!’ he hurled after her.

      ‘Be quiet! Matt’s in the next room,’ she hissed at him as she grabbed her houserobe from the one chair in her bedroom, putting it on as fast as she could, determined on shutting out any resumption of intimacy with him.

      ‘Our son, Skye,’ he swiftly reminded her, his voice lowered but still emphatic in delivery. ‘Don’t you think it would be better for him to have a full-time father as well as mother?’

      She wrapped the robe around her and tied the belt savagely as she swung to face him again. ‘That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? Matt. Not me. Get the mother, get the boy.’

      ‘Wrong! I want both of you.’

      He was still stretched out on the bed, propped up on one arm, looking moody and magnificent, every part of him male perfection. No wonder she hadn’t wanted any other man. And maybe never would. Which gave her pause for thought. She could have him. All she had to do was say yes to his marriage proposal.

      But could she live with him—live with his family—and be happy? How could she trust any of them to really care about her, given how they’d treated her in the past?

      She had to finish this—get him out of her bedroom, out of her house—not let him play on the desires he could so easily tap into. Treacherous feelings! The sense of intimacy still swirling in this darkened room drove her over to the light-switch by the door. She flicked it on, telling herself she would see more clearly now, think more clearly.

      But it didn’t help. Luc’s nakedness gathered even more power in the light, vividly reminding her of how every part of him had felt. And his claim of wanting her burned from his eyes, heating her skin all over again, making her toes curl, making her stomach contract, making her breasts ache, her nipples tighten into tell-tale prominence.

      Panicking over his effect on her, she folded her arms across the wildly fluttering beat of her heart and rushed into defensive speech. ‘Don’t think having sex with you means anything, Luc.’

      ‘You can’t make me believe you’d have sex indiscriminately, Skye.’ His mouth curled in bitter irony. ‘I believed it once and made the biggest mistake of my life. No one can sell it to me a second time.’

      ‘This is different,’ she hotly argued.

      ‘How is it different?’ he mocked.

      She frantically sought a convincing explanation. ‘Being pregnant hardly makes you desirable to other men. And having a baby takes up all your time, not to mention nursing your mother through chemotherapy, losing her, then trying to establish a life while being a single parent. I haven’t had sex since I was with you six years ago and you caught me at a weak moment. That’s all it was.’

      ‘Because it was me,’ he pointed out with arrogant certainty.

      She