Modern Romance - The Best of the Year. Miranda Lee

his dark colouring. And he looked murderous.

      He bit out, ‘This is where you tell me that by some extraordinary feat of genetic coincidence that little boy in there isn’t three years and approximately three months old. That he didn’t inherit exactly the same colour eyes that I inherited from my own mother. That he isn’t my son.’

      Sam opened her mouth. ‘He is...’ Even now, at this last second, her brain searched desperately for something to cling onto. Some way this could be justified. He was his father. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t have the right any more. She’d never had the right. ‘He is your son.’

      Silence, stretching taut and stark, and then he repeated, ‘He is my son?’

      Sam just nodded. Nausea was churning in her belly now. The full implications of this were starting to hit home.

      Rafaele emitted a long stream of Italian invective and Sam winced because she recognised some of the cruder words—they were pretty universal. Her belly was so tight she put a hand to it unconsciously. She watched as Rafaele struggled to take this in. The enormity of it.

      ‘No wonder you were so keen to get rid of me the other day.’

      He paced back and forth in the tiny space. She could feel his anger and tension as it lashed out like a live electrical wire, snapping at her feet.

      Suddenly he stopped and looked at her. ‘Are you married?’

      Sam shook her head painfully. ‘No.’

      ‘And what if I hadn’t decided to pay you a visit? Would you have let me remain in blissful ignorance for ever?’

      Stricken, Sam whispered, ‘I don’t...I don’t know.’ Even as she admitted that, though, the knowledge seeped in. She wouldn’t have been able to live with the guilt. She would have told him.

      He pinned her to the spot with that light green gaze which had once devoured her alive and was now colder than the arctic.

      ‘You bitch.’

      Sam flinched. He might as well have slapped her across the face. It had the same effect. The words were so coldly and implacably delivered.

      ‘You didn’t want a baby,’ she whispered, unable to inject more force into her voice.

      ‘So you just lied to me?’

      Sam could feel her cheeks burning now, with shame. ‘I thought it was a miscarriage, as did you. But at the clinic, after the doctor had done his examination, he told me that I wasn’t miscarrying.’

      Rafaele crossed his arms and she could see his hands clenched to fists. She shivered at the threat of violence even though she knew he would never hit her. But she sensed he wanted to hit something.

      ‘You knew then and yet you barefaced lied to me and let me walk away.’

      Clutching at the smallest of straws, Sam said shakily, ‘I didn’t lie...you assumed...I just didn’t tell you.’

      ‘And the reason you didn’t inform me was because...?’

      ‘You didn’t...didn’t want to know.’ The words felt flimsy and ineffectual now. Petty.

      ‘Based on...?’

      It was as if he couldn’t quite get out full sentences, Sam felt his rage strangling his words.

      Her brain felt heavy. ‘Because of how you reacted when I told you in the first place...’

      Sam recalled the indescribable pain of realising that Rafaele had been about to break it off with her. His abject shock at the prospect of her pregnancy. It gave her some much needed strength. ‘And because of what you said afterwards...at the clinic. I heard you on the phone.’

      Rafaele frowned and it was a glower. ‘What did I say?’

      Sam’s sliver of strength started to drain away again like a traitor. ‘You were talking to someone. You said you were caught up in something unimportant.’ Even now those words scored at Sam’s insides like a knife.

      Rafaele’s expression turned nuclear. His arms dropped, his hands were fists. ‘Dio, Samantha. I can’t even recall that conversation. No doubt I just said something—anything—to placate one of my assistants. I thought you’d just miscarried. Do you really think I was about to announce that in an innocuous phone call?’

      Sam gulped and had to admit reluctantly, ‘Maybe...maybe not. But how did I know that? All I could hear was your relief that you didn’t have to worry about a baby holding your life up and your eagerness to leave.’

      He all but exploded. ‘Need I remind you that I was also in shock, and at that point I thought there was no baby!’

      Sam was breathing hard and Rafaele looked as if he was about to kick aside the kitchen table between them to come and throttle her.

      Just then a small, unsure voice emerged from the doorway. ‘Mummy?’

      Immediately Sam’s world refracted down to Milo, who stood in the doorway. He’d opened it unnoticed by them and was looking from one to the other, his lower lip quivering ominously at the explosive tension.

      Sam flew over and picked him up and he clung to her. Her conscience struck her. He was always a little intimidated by men because he wasn’t around them much.

      ‘Why is the man still here?’ he asked now, slanting sidelong looks to Rafaele and curling into Sam’s body as much as he could.

      Sam stroked his back reassuringly and tried to sound normal. ‘This is just an old friend of Mummy’s. He’s stopped by to say hello, that’s all. He’s leaving now.’

      ‘Okay,’ Milo replied, happier now. ‘Can we look at cars?’

      Sam looked at him and forced a smile, ‘Just as soon as I say goodbye to Mr Falcone, okay?’

      ‘Okey-dokey.’ Milo used his new favourite phrase that he’d picked up in playschool, squirmed back out of Sam’s arms and ran out of the kitchen again.

      Sam watched Rafaele struggle to take it all in. Myriad explosive emotions crossing his face.

      ‘You’ll have to go,’ she entreated. ‘It’ll only confuse and upset him if you stay.’

      Rafaele closed the distance between them and Sam instinctively moved back, but the oven was behind her. Rafaele’s scent enveloped her, musky and male. Her heart pounded.

      ‘This is not over, Samantha. I’ll leave now, because I don’t want to upset the boy, but you’ll be hearing from me.’

      After a long searing moment, during which she wasn’t sure how she didn’t combust from the anger being directed at her, Rafaele turned on his heel and left, stopping briefly at the sitting room door to look in at Milo again.

      He cast one blistering look back at Sam and then he was out through the front door and gone. Sam heard the powerful throttle of an engine as it roared to life and then mercifully faded again.

      It was then that she started to shake all over. Grasping for a chair to hold onto, she sank down into it, her teeth starting to chatter.

      ‘Mummeeee!’ came a plaintive wail from the sitting room.

      Sam called out, ‘I’ll be there in one second, I promise.’

      The last thing she needed was for Milo to see her in this state. Her brain was numb. She couldn’t even quite take in what had just happened—the fact that she’d seen Rafaele again for the first time since those cataclysmic days.

      When she was finally feeling a little more in control she went in to Milo and sat down on the floor beside him. Without even taking his eyes off the TV he crawled into her lap and Sam’s heart constricted. She kissed his head.

      Rafaele’s words came back to her: ‘This is not over, Samantha. I’ll leave now, because I don’t want to upset the boy, but you’ll be hearing from