Secret Heirs: Billionaire's Pleasure. Кейт Хьюит

addict bit was bad enough, but would the courts look favourably on the child of a prostitute without a single qualification to her name, one who was struggling to make ends meet and who had been admitted to hospital with severe exhaustion? Of course they wouldn’t. Not when she was up against a world-famous architect with more money than he knew what to do with.

      She licked her lips, naked appeal in her eyes. ‘And if the marriage is unbearable, what then? If I do want a divorce sometime in the future, does that mean you won’t give me one?’

      He shook his head. ‘I’m not going to keep you a prisoner, Darcy—you have my word on that. Perhaps we could surprise ourselves by negotiating a relationship that works. But that isn’t something we need to think about today. My priority is to get you out of here and into a more favourable environment, if you agree to my terms.’ His gaze swept over her, settling at last on her face so that she was captured by the dark intensity of that look. ‘So...do I have your consent? Will you be my wife?’

      A hundred reasons to refuse flooded into her mind but at that precise moment Darcy felt her son kicking. The unmistakable shape of a tiny heel skimmed beneath the surface of her belly and a powerful wave of emotion flooded over her. All she wanted was the best for her child, so how could she possibly subject him to a life like the one she had known? A life of uncertainty, with the gnawing sense of hunger. A life spent living on the margins of society with all the dangers that entailed. Secondhand clothes and having to make do. Free meals at school and charity trips to the seaside. Did she want all that for her little boy?

      Of course she didn’t.

      She stared into Renzo’s face—at all the unshakable confidence she saw written on his shuttered features. It would be easier if she felt nothing for him but she wasn’t self-deluding enough to believe that. She thought how infuriating it was that, despite his arrogance and determination to get his own way, she should still want him. But she did. Her mind might not be willing but her flesh was very weak. Even though he’d wounded her with his words and was blackmailing her into marriage—she couldn’t deny the quiver of heat low in her belly whenever he looked at her.

      But sex was dangerous. Already she was vulnerable and if she fell into Renzo’s arms and let him seduce her, wouldn’t that make her weaker still? Once their relationship had been about passion but now it was all about possession and ownership. And power, of course—cold, economic power.

      But a heady resolve flooded through her as she reminded herself that she’d coped with situations far worse than this. She’d cowered in cupboards and listened to sounds no child should ever have had to hear. She’d stood in courtrooms where people had talked about her future as if she weren’t there, and she’d come through the other side. What was so different this time?

      She nodded. ‘Yes, Renzo,’ she said, with a bland and meaningless smile. ‘I will marry you.’

       CHAPTER SEVEN

      DARCY ALMOST LAUGHED at the pale-faced stranger in the mirror. What would the child she’d once been have thought about the woman whose reflection stared back at her? A woman dressed in clothes which still made her shudder when she thought about the price tag.

      Her floaty, cream wedding gown had been purchased from one of Nicoletta’s boutiques in Rome and the dress cleverly modified to conceal her baby bump but nonetheless, Darcy still felt like a ship in full sail. Her curls had been tied and tamed by the hairdresser who’d arrived at the Tuscan villa they were renting now that Vallombrosa had been sold, and from which they had been married that very morning. Darcy had wanted to wear normal clothes for her marriage to Renzo, as if to reinforce that it was merely a formality she was being forced to endure, but her prospective husband had put his foot down and insisted that she at least looked like a real bride...

      ‘What difference does it make whether I wear a white dress or not?’ she’d questioned sulkily.

      ‘The difference is that it will feel more real if you wear white and carry flowers. You are a very beautiful woman, cara—and you will make a very beautiful bride.’

      But Darcy had not felt at all real as she’d walked downstairs—though she couldn’t deny that the dark blaze in Renzo’s eyes had made her feel briefly beautiful. He had insisted they marry in Italy, presumably on the advice of his lawyers, who seemed to be running the whole show. But that part Darcy didn’t mind. A wedding in Italy was bound to be more low-key than a wedding in England, where the press were much more curious and there was the possibility of someone from her past getting wind of it. With all the necessary paperwork in place, they had appeared before the civil registrar in the beautiful medieval town of Barga, with just Gisella and Pasquale as their witnesses. And just four days later they had been legally allowed to wed.

      It had been the smallest and most formal of ceremonies in an ancient room with a high, beamed ceiling and although Gisella had voiced a slight wistfulness that they weren’t having a religious service, Darcy, for one, was glad. It was bad enough having to go through something you knew was doomed, without having to do so before the eyes of the church.

      But there had been a point when her heart had turned over and she’d started wishing it were real and that had been when Renzo had smiled at her once they’d been legally declared man and wife—his black eyes crinkling with a smile which had reminded her of the first time she’d met him. With his dark suit echoing the raven hue of his hair he’d made a sensational groom. And when he’d looked at her that way, he’d looked as if he actually cared—and she’d had to keep reminding herself that he didn’t. It had all been an act for the benefit of those around them. She was here because she carried his child and for no other reason. But it had been difficult to remember that when he’d pulled her into his arms in full view of everyone.

      She’d felt so torn right then. Her instinctive response had been to hug him back because that was how she always responded and they hadn’t touched one another in any way since he’d turned up at the hospital with his ultimatum of a marriage proposal. But too much had happened for her to ever go back to that easy intimacy. How could she possibly lie in his arms and let him kiss her after all the cruel and bitter things which had been done and said? How could she bear to feel him deep inside her body when he’d been so eager to think badly of her?

      She remembered freezing as his hands went to her expanded waist, feeling as if her body had suddenly turned to marble. ‘Please, Renzo,’ she’d whispered, her words a soft protest, not a plea.

      But he hadn’t let her go or changed his position. He’d dipped his head and spoke to her in low and rapid English, his fingers spanning the delicate fabric of the dress and increasing the points at which he’d been in contact with her.

      ‘You are dressed to play the part of my bride and therefore you will act the part of my bride,’ he’d said softly. ‘Let’s show the world that I have married a flesh-and-blood woman and not some pale-faced doll.’

      It was then that he’d bent his head to claim her lips and it had been the weirdest kiss of her life. At first her determination had made it easy not to respond, but the sensation of his lips on hers had soon melted away her reservations and she’d sunk into that kiss with an eagerness she hadn’t been able to disguise. She’d felt powerless beneath that brief but thorough exploration. She hadn’t been able to hold back her gasp as she’d felt that first sweet invasion of his tongue. Heat had flooded over her. Her hands had reached up to hold on to him as the beat of her heart had become erratic but suddenly the movement had become about so much more than support. Suddenly she’d been clinging to him and revelling in the feel of all that rock-hard flesh beneath her fingertips. She’d wanted him so much that she hadn’t even cared about his triumphant laugh of pleasure as he’d drawn his lips away because it had felt like for ever since he’d kissed her and it had tasted as delicious as having a drink after a dusty walk. Like the first hint of sweetness on your tongue when you badly needed the boost of sugar.

      A kiss like that was the inevitable forerunner of intimacy and she must not let it happen again. She dared not...

      ‘You