The Italian's Baby of Passion. Susan Stephens

features sent a ripple down her spine.

      ‘I don’t think I’d be at all flexible at the idea of my wife sleeping with anyone else. I happen to consider fidelity an essential component of marriage.’

      ‘Well, it just goes to show you never can judge by appearances,’ she responded cheerily. ‘Look at me—’ she suggested.

      When he did her lashes swept down in a protective gesture. ‘I used to be the most important thing in my life. I had it all, the job, the flat, the car—’

      ‘And you don’t regret giving it up?’

      ‘Not for one second. I earn peanuts by comparison now,’ she admitted. ‘Not that I ever earned the serious money Abby did, but on the plus side nobody treats me like I’m a piece of meat, and I don’t have to live on lettuce leaves and cigarettes to stay stick-thin! Mostly people appreciate what I’m doing.’ Present company excluded.

      ‘So your sister left you well provided for?’ At least she hadn’t spent the last four years leading a hand-to-mouth existence in order to give his son a decent life.

      His relief turned out to be premature.

      ‘Abby earned, but she liked to spend too. But, yes, she had put some money aside for Sam. It will pay for his education and there’ll be a little bit left over for a nest egg for him.’

      ‘So you have lived off what?’

      ‘I live within my means, and I don’t worry if I’m not wearing this year’s designs. I mean, money isn’t everything, is it?’ A sudden bubble of laughter sprang to her lips. ‘Actually, I suppose it is to you.’

      ‘Sure, I sold my soul for a good return on my investments years ago,’ he drawled.

      ‘I wasn’t being offensive…well, not intentionally, anyhow,’ she added with a crooked smile. His rigid expression didn’t thaw. ‘It was a joke.’

      His dark eyes swept across her face. ‘Was it?’

      ‘Yes!’ she responded, exasperated that he seemed intent on over-dramatising a simple comment. ‘You’re rich, I’m not, so what I’ve never had I’m not going to miss, am I?’ she pointed out simply.

      ‘Do you plan to go back to your old job?’

      ‘Who knows what the future holds? But it would be good in the immediate future if you revealed a reason for you being here.’

      ‘I’m getting there.’

      The ironic twist of his lips troubled her. If she was going to be honest, Roman worried her full stop.

      ‘Where does Sam’s father come into all this?’ he said casually.

      ‘There isn’t one.’

      He raised an ironic brow.

      ‘Well, there is, but he isn’t in the picture. And not just that one,’ she added as he picked up a framed photograph taken of Sam on his first birthday.

      This was the point when people who possessed the basics of social skills dropped the subject.

       ‘Have you ever tried to contact him?’

      Scarlet shook her head. ‘I couldn’t if I wanted to.’

      ‘Why’s that?’

      ‘I don’t know who he is.’

      ‘Surely your sister told you. I’m assuming she knew the seriousness of her condition.’

      ‘Oh, yes, she knew,’ Scarlet confirmed bleakly. ‘I did ask Abby, I was concerned—’ She broke off with a self-conscious grimace. ‘She said getting pregnant was her responsibility.’

      ‘Even if it was a one-night stand, that doesn’t make it any less the man’s responsibility.’

      Scarlet shot him a look bristling with suspicion. ‘I didn’t say it was a one-night stand.’

      ‘Didn’t you?’ He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Totally.’

      ‘I must have assumed.’

      CHAPTER NINE

      SCARLET studied Roman with suspicious eyes, bristling at the implied criticism. ‘Abby had lots of boyfriends, but she didn’t sleep around,’ she told him fiercely.

      What she didn’t tell him, what she had never told anyone, was how Abby, heavily drugged in the final painful stages of her illness, had confessed when pressed for the identity of the father that it hadn’t been an accident, that in fact she had planned to get pregnant. That she had wanted a baby and had chosen a father, she just hadn’t included him in the plan.

      ‘What if he finds out?’ Scarlet asked.

      ‘The only way he’ll find out is if someone told him and you don’t know who he is.’

      ‘But when he hears you’ve had a baby, won’t it be bound to cross his mind?’

      ‘I doubt if he’ll hear, but I thought of that. I told him nothing happened.’

      ‘He was there, Abby.’

      ‘He’d already had several drinks by the time we got back to my place,’ Abby recalled, displaying none of her younger sister’s awkwardness when it came to discussing the intimate details. ‘He actually got quite maudlin and sentimental; I don’t think he even noticed I’d added Scotch to his coffee,’ she ended on a self-congratulatory note.

      Scarlet couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘You got him drunk!’

      ‘But not incapable. Please don’t look at me like that, Scarlet, it’s not like I raped the man. He enjoyed himself, and I got the impression he had something he wanted to forget. That was why he’d been drinking in the first place…something to do with it being the anniversary of something, I think.’

      ‘But he wasn’t a stranger.’

      ‘I didn’t want just anybody to be my baby’s father,’ Abby reproached indignantly. ‘I did my research beforehand.’

      ‘How long had you been planning to do this, Abby?’

      ‘Let’s just say this wasn’t an impulse. I finally accepted I was never going to meet Mr Right and settle down. My biological clock was ticking away. I thought about artificial insemination but you don’t really get to choose the father that way, and I got pregnant straight off, the first time, which is just as well, because I doubt if…so it must have been meant to be, don’t you think, Scarlet?’ she asked wistfully.

      Scarlet felt unable under the circumstances to tell her sister what she actually thought and so moderated her views. ‘You don’t think it might be a good idea to tell the father?’

      ‘God, no, a baby would scare the pants off him and I had a hard enough time getting them off the first time. Sorry, Scarlet, I don’t mean to embarrass you with the gruesome details.’

      ‘But a baby needs a father.’

      ‘You’re thinking about inherited weaknesses…’

      ‘Not specifically,’ Scarlet said weakly.

      ‘No worries there, the guy is about as genetically perfect as is possible. When I drew up my list—’

      ‘You had a list?’

      ‘Well, it seemed logical, and he was streets ahead of the rest,’ Abby revealed, apparently oblivious that she was saying anything out of the ordinary. ‘His family on both sides all seem to be disgustingly healthy and live until a ripe old age.’

       ‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ Scarlet responded weakly.

      ‘You don’t approve, do you, Scarlet? I knew you