Secret Heirs: Billionaire's Pleasure. Кейт Хьюит

reached down to lie protectively over her belly, her fingers curving over its hard swell. She would do anything to protect the life of this unborn child.

      Anything.

      And right at the top of that list was the need to be strong. She’d been strong at the beginning of the affair and it had protected her against pain. She’d done her usual thing of keeping her emotions on ice and had felt good about herself. Even during that weekend when he’d taken her to Tuscany and hinted at his trust issues and the fickleness of women, she had still kept her feelings buried deep. She hadn’t expected anything—which was why it had come as such a surprise to her when they’d got back to England and he’d offered her the key to his apartment.

      Had that been when she’d first let her guard down and her feelings had started to change? Or had she just got carried away with her new position in life? Her plans to move to Norfolk had been quietly shelved because she’d enjoyed being his mistress, hadn’t she? She’d enjoyed going to that fancy ball with him, when—after her initial flurry of nerves—she’d waltzed in that cherry blossom–filled ballroom in his arms. And if things hadn’t gone so badly wrong and Drake hadn’t turned up, it probably wouldn’t have taken long for her to get used to wearing Renzo’s jewels either.

      She’d been a fool and it was time to stop acting like a fool.

      Never again would she be whimpering Darcy Denton, pleading with her cruel Italian lover to believe her. He could think what the hell he liked as long as he helped take care of her baby.

      She opened her eyes and met the questioning look in the midwife’s eyes.

      ‘His name is Renzo Sabatini,’ she said.

      * * *

      Feeling more impotent than he’d felt in years, Renzo paced up and down the sterile hospital corridor, oblivious to the surreptitious looks from the passing nurses. For a man unused to waiting, he couldn’t believe he was being forced to bide his time until the ward’s official visiting hours and he got the distinct impression that any further pleas to be admitted early would by vetoed by the dragon-like midwife he’d spoken to earlier, who had made no secret of her disapproval. With a frown on her face she’d told him that his girlfriend was overworked and underfed and clearly on the breadline. Her gaze had swept over him, taking in his dark suit, silk tie and handmade Italian shoes and he could see from her eyes that she was sizing up his worth. He was being judged, he realised—and he didn’t like to be judged. Nor put in the role of an absentee father-to-be who refused to accept his responsibilities.

      But amid all this confusion was a shimmering of something he couldn’t understand, an emotion which licked like fire over his cold heart and was confusing the life out of him. Furiously, he forced himself to concentrate on facts. To get his head around the reason he was here—why he’d been driven to some remote area of Norfolk on what had felt like the longest journey of his life. And then he needed to decide what he was going to do about it. His head spun as his mind went over and over the unbelievable fact.

      Darcy was going to have a baby.

      His baby.

      His mouth thinned.

      Or so she said.

      Eventually he was shown into the side room of a ward where she lay on a narrow hospital bed—her bright hair the only thing of colour in an all-white environment. Her face was as bleached as the bed sheets and her eyes were both wary and hostile as she looked at him. He remembered the last time he’d seen her. When she’d slid to the floor and he had just let her lie there and now his heart clenched with guilt because she looked so damned fragile lying propped up against that great bank of pillows.

      ‘Darcy,’ he said carefully.

      She looked as if she had been sucking on a lemon as she spoke. ‘You came.’

      ‘I had no choice.’

      ‘Don’t lie,’ she snapped. ‘Of course you did! You could have just ignored the call from the hospital, just like you’ve ignored all my other calls up until now.’

      He wanted to deny it but how could he when it was true? ‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘I could.’

      ‘You let my calls go through to voicemail,’ she accused.

      Letting out a breath, Renzo slowly nodded. At the time it had seemed the only sane solution. He hadn’t wanted to risk speaking to her, because hadn’t he worried he would cave in and take her back, even if it was for only one night? Because after she’d gone he hadn’t been able to forget her as easily as he’d imagined, even though she had betrayed his trust in her. Even when he thought about the missing diamonds and the way she’d allowed that creep to enter his home—that still didn’t erase her from his mind. He’d started to wonder whether he’d made a big mistake and whether he should give her another chance, but pride and a tendency to think the worst about women had stopped him acting on it. He’d known that 50 per cent of relationships didn’t survive—so why go for one which had the odds stacked against it from the start? Yet she’d flitted in and out of his mind in a way which no amount of hard work or travelling had been able to fix.

      ‘Guilty as charged,’ he said evenly.

      ‘And you told your secretary not to put me through to you.’

      ‘She certainly would have put you through if she’d known the reason you were ringing. Why the hell didn’t you tell her?’

      ‘Are you out of your mind? Is that how you like to see your women, Renzo?’ she demanded. ‘To have them plead and beg and humiliate themselves? Yes, I know he doesn’t want to speak to me, but could you please tell him I’m expecting his baby? Or would you rather I had hung around outside the Sabatini building, waiting for the big boss to leave work so I could grab your elbow and break my news to you on a busy London street? Maybe I should have gone to the papers and sold them a story saying that my billionaire boyfriend was denying paternity!’

      ‘Darcy,’ he said, and now his voice had gentled. ‘I’m sorry I accused you of stealing the necklace.’

      Belligerently, she raised her chin. ‘Just not sorry enough to seek me out to tell me that before?’

      He thought how tough she was—with a sudden inner steeliness which seemed so at odds with her fragile exterior. ‘I jumped to the wrong conclusions,’ he said slowly, ‘because I’m very territorial about my space.’ But he had been territorial about her, too, hadn’t he? And old-fashioned enough to want to haul that complete stranger up against the wall and demand to know what he’d been doing alone with her. ‘Look, this isn’t getting us anywhere. You shouldn’t be getting distressed.’

      ‘What, in my condition?’

      ‘Yes. Exactly that. In your condition. You’re pregnant.’ The unfamiliar word sounded foreign on his lips and once again he felt the lick of something painful in his heart. She looked so damned vulnerable lying there that his instinct was to take her in his arms and cradle her—if the emerald blaze in her eyes weren’t defying him to dare try. ‘The midwife says you need somebody to take care of you.’

      Darcy started biting her lip, terrified that the stupid tears pricking at the backs of her eyes would start pouring down her cheeks. She hated the way this new-found state of hers was making her emotions zigzag all over the place, so she hardly recognised herself any more. She was supposed to be staying strong only it wasn’t easy when Renzo was sounding so...protective. His words were making her yearn for something she’d never had, nor expected to have. She found herself looking up into his darkly handsome face and a wave of longing swept over her. She wanted to reach out her arms and ask him to hold her. She wanted him to keep her safe.

      And she had to stop thinking that way. It wasn’t a big deal that he’d apologised for something he needed to apologise for. She needed to remind herself that Renzo Sabatini wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for the baby.

      ‘It’s the unborn child which needs taking care of,’ she said coldly. ‘Not me.’

      His