Gianni's Pride. KIM LAWRENCE

I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Innocent until proved guilty is my motto.’

      ‘Well, don’t worry, you’re quite safe from me,’ she told him with a sniff before adding crossly, ‘Didn’t it occur to you to explain who you were right off and mention that you had your son with you?’

      ‘I didn’t get much opportunity.’

      ‘I’m very, very thirsty,’ the child, who was trying to run up and down the bed, complained. ‘And I want to go home. I want Clare—she always leaves me a glass of water by my bed in case I get thirsty in the night.’

      Who was this Clare? Miranda wondered. And where was the child’s mother?

      ‘Clare isn’t here.’ Not the best decision he’d ever made, but then hindsight was a marvellous thing. ‘It’s just you and me.’ Piece of cake, Gianni—those words were really coming back to haunt him.

      ‘She’s here.’

      The child waved a hand towards her, and Miranda took an involuntary step forward in alarm.

      ‘He’s going to fall,’ she warned, holding her breath as she watched the dark-haired boy sway precariously as he ran up and down the bed, coming close to the edge. His father did nothing. ‘Shouldn’t you …?’ She lifted her eyes to Gianni’s face and as she encountered a distinctly hostile expression her voice faded.

      Gianni’s square jaw had tightened several notches in response to an attitude that he had plenty of experience of, an attitude that never failed to get under his skin. He was in a position to know that being female did not necessarily make a person a childcare expert and having a Y chromosome did not make him utterly clueless.

      ‘He’s not going to fall.’ Gianni’s confident pronouncement coincided with his son landing on his bottom on the polished boards.

      With a cry Miranda moved in to help but the boy’s father, who had responded with much quicker instincts and a lot more agility, had dropped to a crouch beside the boy, hiding him from her view.

      He might be pretty clueless about long journeys with a child prone to car sickness, Gianni reflected, but at least he did know enough to keep anxiety out of his voice as he asked lightly, ‘Are you all right—hurt anywhere?’

      Liam was inclined to laugh off bumps and bruises unless he picked up on an adult’s anxiety—then things could tip over into hysteria.

      There were tears in the limpid blue gaze that lifted to his father. Gianni smiled reassuringly and ran his hands lightly down his son’s body to check for any obvious injuries.

      The boy blinked several times and bit his wobbling lip before he shook his head and said, ‘I’m fine … Fitzgeralds are tough.’

      Gianni patted his son’s shoulder and gave a thumbs-up sign as he rose to his feet. ‘Good man.’

      Miranda, who had watched the revealing interchange with a disapproving frown, was forced to swallow to clear the emotional lump in her throat when the boy returned the thumbs-up gesture and beamed with pride as he struggled valiantly to his feet.

      This was a very appealing kid who obviously wanted to please his father, who was clearly a paid-up member of the macho ‘boys don’t cry’ school of thought.

      She just hoped for this child’s sake that his mother provided a softening influence. If ever I have a son, she thought fiercely, I’ll teach him that a boy is allowed to have feelings. He’s allowed to cry.

      ‘You haven’t said I told you so yet.’ Gianni turned his head and arched a sardonic brow. Caught unawares, Miranda found herself pinned by a heavy-lidded cynical stare.

      ‘I haven’t said big boys don’t cry either,’ she fired back, unable to totally shake the illogical feeling that those mocking eyes could see right into her head.

      One corner of his mouth lifted in a mocking smile. ‘Are you suggesting I’m not in touch with my feminine side, Miranda?’

      Miranda was startled to hear him use her name with such familiarity. The way he said it made it sound … different? ‘N-no …’ On another occasion the suggestion might have made her laugh—feminine? The man who oozed more testosterone than a rugby team!

      ‘I’m half Italian, half Irish—neither are known for their inhibitions when it comes to expressing emotions.’

      Miranda looked at the sensual curve of his mouth and thought, I can believe it.

      ‘Frequently loudly,’ he admitted with a flash of white teeth.

      Miranda turned her head quickly to break the hold of his mesmeric gleaming stare and, ignoring her violently quivering stomach muscles, directed her attention to the little boy. ‘Are you sure he’s all right?’

      It was the child under discussion who responded to the question. ‘No, I’m not all right. The car made me sick … a lot,’ the little boy announced with a hint of pride. He gave her a look resembling a mistreated puppy—it would have melted stone—and said pathetically, ‘The car smells. Daddy was mad.’

      ‘Was he? I’m sure that helped a lot.’ The smiling comment passed over the child’s head but hit its target.

      Reconciled to being considered the monster in this scene, Gianni shrugged and thought, Why fight it? ‘A man and his car—you know how it is.’

      Miranda gave a scornful snort, edged a little towards the window and glanced down seeing, not the shiny boy’s toy his comment had brought to mind, but a disreputable-looking four wheel drive parked down below.

      You could tell a lot about a man by the car he drove, as her mother had always told her daughters—her theory was not in Miranda’s experience foolproof, but sometimes dead on. Oliver drove a solid estate, which suited him; safe, steady and dependable.

      ‘Gracious!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m not surprised he was sick in that thing! What possessed you to transport a child who suffers from travel sickness in something that’s one step up from a horse and cart?’

      ‘You know what they say, Miranda—beggars can’t be choosers,’ he drawled with a languid shrug. ‘And I’m obviously not the expert on all things relating to childcare that you are.’ Jaw clenched, he arched a sarcastic brow. ‘How many children do you have?’

      ‘That’s not Daddy’s car. Daddy has a big, big car!’ the child boasted as he made a thrumming sound in his throat and began to charge around the room in imitation of a car, proving if nothing else that he hadn’t been injured by the fall.

      Miranda’s softly rounded jaw tightened with annoyance. ‘I don’t have children and I never claimed to be an expert.’

      ‘Just a woman.’

      ‘What have you got against women?’

      His sensually sculpted upper lip curled into an exaggerated leer. ‘I have never been accused of not liking women.’

      I just bet they like you right back, she thought, dragging her gaze from his mouth, aware as she did so of the heavy ache low in her abdomen. This man really was sinfully attractive. She felt a spasm of sympathy for Liam’s mother, then as her eyes were drawn back to his mouth that vanished as it occurred to her the woman didn’t need sympathy—she had that mouth.

      Rather shocked by her thought, she blinked, then lowered her gaze, balling her fists on the quilt as she resisted the sudden impulse to touch her own lips.

      ‘I’m sure that makes your wife deliriously happy.’

      ‘I’m not married.’

      ‘Oh, I thought …’ Her eyes moved in an unscheduled sweep from him to the playing child and back again. Not married did not mean they were not a couple.

      He answered the question she was clearly gagging to ask. ‘No, we are not together.’

      ‘Oh!’