The Italian's Baby of Passion. Susan Stephens

‘What’s the point?’

      ‘Point?’ he repeated, looking at her as though she were mad. ‘I have a son.’

      ‘You don’t want Sam. You can’t. Abby isn’t here to punish so leave us alone.’ Fighting the rising level of panic that made it hard for her to think, she covered her face with her forearm and swallowed a sob.

      ‘Why would I want to punish the mother of my child? It was my fault.’

      Scarlet, who could hear the self-recrimination in his voice, felt so guilty she could hardly look at him. Whatever else Roman was, he was clearly not the moral-free zone that Abby had taken him for.

      ‘I’m hardly unable to support a son. Presumably she thought I’d contest paternity and couldn’t stomach the idea of the mud-slinging.’ He raked a hand through his dark, sleek hair and fixed Scarlet with an interrogative stare.

      She was too stunned by his reading of her late sister’s motives that all she could do was stare at him. He appeared to take her silence as confirmation of his explanation.

      Why couldn’t he be the shallow, selfish playboy Abby had taken him for instead of the owner of a very well-developed set of moral principles? She didn’t want to empathise with him, not when he might try and snatch Sam away from her.

      She was her nephew’s legal guardian but where would she stand legally if he chose to contest her guardianship?

      Scarlet was terrified by the thought of a custody battle. Better to let him carry on thinking the pregnancy had been accidental than allow that to happen. Why tell him the truth when there was nothing to be gained except blackening her sister’s name?

      ‘Your sister may have been misguided in going it alone.’ This admission seemed to be as close as he was going to get to criticising Abby. ‘But you’ve got to admire her. Most women finding themselves in that situation would have wanted to make me pay.’

      ‘Abby didn’t want your money.’ Her head lifted and there was a flicker of hope in her eyes. ‘Couldn’t you just pretend you didn’t know?’ she suggested with a sniff as she wiped the moisture from her face. ‘I’m sure it would be a lot more comfortable for you and I wouldn’t say anything to anyone.’ She dabbed a stray tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.

      ‘You expect me to pretend I don’t have a son?’ he grated. ‘Dio!’ he ejaculated rawly. ‘What sort of man do you think I am?’ he demanded, every inch of his powerful frame vibrating at the affront.

       Scarlet shook her head in a bemused fashion, unable even at this critical moment not to appreciate just how magnificent in a lean, mean way he looked when he was mad. When he lost his temper he was very much the Mediterranean male, all passion and fire.

      ‘This is still just speculation. You can’t prove it. Just because you slept with Abby doesn’t mean you’re Sam’s father.’ She clung stubbornly to the hope that this might still turn out to be a terrible misunderstanding.

      ‘But DNA sampling does. I wouldn’t have come to you unless I was sure. I took a hair sample, Scarlet, the day at the nursery, and had it analysed.’

      She sank back into her chair, the fight draining out of her. ‘Oh, my God!’ she whispered, knowing what was coming.

      CHAPTER TEN

      ‘THERE is no doubt about it. Sam is my son, there’s no question.’

      Scarlet shook her head and, hand pressed to her mouth, ran towards the bathroom. ‘Excuse me!’ she gulped, polite to the end, and then she bolted.

      She was in too much of a hurry to close the door behind her and Roman heard the sound of her painful retching. It was several minutes later when she returned, paler and graver, but her composure was obviously paper-thin.

      ‘If you think you can take him off me…I know you’ve got money.’

      Roman could almost see the sinister plan he hadn’t made to snatch the child away from her forming in her mind.

      ‘Don’t be melodramatic.’

      ‘I’ll run away and you’ll never find us,’ she threatened wildly. Now that makes me sound like stable, responsible parent material.

      ‘I can see you’ve cast me in the role of evil villain to your wilting heroine.’

      ‘I’ve never wilted in my life.’

      ‘I’m glad to hear it. I can’t abide a clingy female.’ He reached out and took her shoulders. When there was no resistance he drew her gently towards him. ‘I’m not going to take Sam off you. I just want to be part of his life.’

      And he had a right to be part of his life, but what sort of upheaval would that cause for Sam, not to mention herself. Scarlet didn’t feel capable of working out the implications of this; she no longer knew which way was up, let alone what was a lie or the truth!

      Scarlet, totally focused on convincing him she wasn’t going to let him take Sam, didn’t even feel the pain as her neatly trimmed nails gouged into the soft flesh of her palms.

      ‘Sam’s life is with me,’ she asserted loudly.

      Roman inhaled sharply and his hands fell from her shoulders. ‘He is my son. This will be much easier, Scarlet, if we work together. If we’re friends.’

      ‘Friends? Even if none of this had happened we could never be friends,’ she asserted hotly.

      On this at least Scarlet could be totally confident. How could you be friends with someone whose way of life was a total anathema to you, someone with whom you didn’t have anything in common and someone who, furthermore, made your hormones act in an indiscriminate and mortifying manner?

      Irritation showed in his deep-set shadowed eyes as he heard her out.

      ‘A little bit of give and take here—would it be too much to ask?’ he wondered, dragging his hand wearily through his already disordered hair.

      Scarlet experienced an irrational urge to smooth down those disordered locks. ‘Me give Sam, and you take him! Sam is three—where were you when he had chicken pox? Were you there to hold his hand when they stitched up his head when he fell off his bike?’

      ‘I didn’t know I had a son.’

      So far he’d only thought about the changes having a son was going to make to his life. For the first time he paused to consider the things he had already missed out on, things he would never see, like the child’s first steps. He was unprepared for the feeling of profound loss.

      ‘And now you do, so what? Are you going to change your entire lifestyle?’ I don’t think so. ‘It’s obvious you haven’t thought this through. What do you plan to do—fit Sam into your schedule between making your next million or wooing your next supermodel? You can’t walk in here and demand to be part of Sam’s life.’

      ‘I’m not demanding anything.’

      ‘That’s not the way it looks from where I’m standing.’

      ‘There are things I can give Sam.’

      ‘Money—?’ she suggested scornfully.

      ‘Financial security, certainly,’ he agreed levelly.

      ‘Well, that was predictable. I wondered when the pound sign would start flashing.’ She raised an eyebrow and produced a disdainful sniff. ‘Well, you can put your chequebook away; we don’t want your money,’ she completed contemptuously.

      There was a short simmering silence. Looking down his patrician nose at her, he drew himself up to his full height. ‘Does it give you a nice sense of moral superiority to be able to throw my money back in my face?’

      ‘You can’t buy me,’ she gritted defiantly.

      ‘I’m not