Secret Love-Child. Kate Walker

had smiled until her jaw ached and she had played the role of the happy young bride who had all that she could dream of.

      When all the time, deep down inside, she had known the truth—the only reason why Ricardo had married her in the first place.

      And love had had nothing to do with it.

      ‘If you hear anything more, then let me know…’

      The once-loved voice came again, startling her because it spoke in English and not his first language of Italian.

      So who was he talking to in English? And why?

      A nervous shiver ran down Lucy’s spine as the sudden thought struck her that perhaps she might have made a fatal mistake in coming out of hiding and getting back in touch with Ricardo after so long. By writing to him, however desperate her need, she had let him know where she was. And Ricardo, being the hugely wealthy, hugely powerful man that he was, would have no difficulty in using that information to find out more. He had only to click his fingers and he had an army of men at his disposal—private detectives, investigators, ready to do anything needed to find out more, to track her down and…

      And what?

      What would the man who in one last dreadful row had declared to her face that marrying her had been the biggest mistake he had ever made in his life do once he found out where she was?

      ‘I want to see this matter sorted out and finished with.’

      ‘I’ll get on to it right away. The contracts will be ready for you to sign tomorrow.’

      Somehow it was the other man’s voice that brought her back to reality with such a bump that she almost laughed out loud, only just catching herself in time before she gave herself away.

      Who was she trying to kid? Why would Ricardo want anything to do with her? He had let her go without a second thought, hadn’t he? No one had come after her to try and drag her back to this house and all she had left behind in it. And hadn’t the message of the letter returned to her been loud and clear?

      Contracts and signing—of course. What else would be on Ricardo’s mind other than his huge luxury car business?

      Ricardo Emiliani wanted nothing to do with her. He would never forgive her for what she had done, so now he was glad that she was out of his life and he wanted it to stay that way. She was a fool if she allowed herself even to dream that it could be anything else.

      She shrank back into the shadowed space between the shrubs and the stone wall of the terrace as slow, heavy footsteps brought Ricardo down the last flight of steps and into the garden. Watching him stroll away from her, Lucy felt as if something or someone had suddenly punched her hard in the chest, driving all the breath from her body and making her heart jump painfully in her throat.

      Even from behind like this, he still had such a potent physical impact that it made her freeze and just stare, unable to look away.

      He had been walking away from her when she had first seen him. So the first impression she had had been of that proud, black-haired head, held so arrogantly high on a strong, deeply tanned neck. Her eyes had been drawn to those broad, straight shoulders, the powerful length of his back sweeping down to narrow hips and long, long legs. Then, as now, he had been wearing denim jeans so worn and tight that they had clung to his powerful thighs like a second skin. But that day on the beach, two years before, he had been wearing no shirt, nothing to conceal the bronzed skin of his torso, stretched tight across honed muscles that flexed and tightened with every movement, making her mouth dry in sensual response as she’d watched. He’d been barefoot too, seeming nothing but the casual holidaymaker she was herself, his appearance giving no sign of the wealthy, powerful man he really was.

      She had been halfway in love with him before she had found out the truth.

      Today he wore a white polo shirt, untucked at the waist and hanging loose. But she knew what was under that shirt. She had let her hands slide underneath his clothing so many times, stroking hungry fingers over the warm satin of his skin, feeling his shuddering tension as he responded to her provocative caress. She had closed her palms over the tight muscles of his shoulders, digging her nails into his flesh in yearning hunger as she had ridden his passion hard and hot until it had taken her right over the edge into ecstasy.

      Oh, no, no, no, no! She must not think of that! She must not let herself remember how it had been, how she had once responded to him so fast, so easily. She couldn’t let herself remember that or she would be finished before she started, her plan ruined before it even began.

      She had come here for one reason only and that was…

      A sudden sound, new and unexpected, broke into her thoughts, stopping them dead. For a moment it was as if it was so much an echo of what was in her thoughts that she almost imagined that she had conjured it up inside her head, wishing—dreaming—that she had heard it, rather than actually catching it in reality.

      But then the sound came again, a snuffling, choking sort of wail, not too far away, faintly muffled, as if being held against something soft.

      The world jolted beneath her feet, swung round once, and then back again the opposite way, leaving her feeling weak and queasy. One hand went out to grab at a nearby low branch, hanging on for dear life while her thoughts swirled and her head spun sickeningly.

      ‘No…’

      It was a low-voiced moan, one she had no hope at all of holding back. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be real. She had to have been imagining it, creating it in the hungry depths of her own thoughts.

      But, as her clouded eyes cleared, she blinked hard and saw the way that Ricardo’s arms were bent at the elbow, held in front of him as if he was carrying something, cradling it close to his chest. And as she registered the care and concentration he was exerting to hold his small burden, the way his down-bent gaze was directed at it, concentrating only on what he held, her heart clenched once again, skipping several beats in agonizing shock.

      ‘Hush, caro…’

      Once more that painfully familiar voice murmured huskily, the soft note in it tearing at her vulnerable heart. ‘Time to sleep, mio figlio…’

      Oh, dear God!

       Mio figlio…

      Somehow the new angle of Ricardo’s body gave her a better view. Now she could see. And what she saw made her heart twist inside as if some cruel hand had just reached into her chest and wrenched it savagely, threatening to tear it right out of its assigned space.

      Now she could see the way that Ricardo’s arms were bent at the elbow, the way they curved around the small body he held. She could see the shock of soft hair—jet-black like that of the man who held him—that was cushioned in the crook of one arm, where the small head rested, relaxed and totally at ease.

      And why not? The small boy was safe in his father’s arms.

      In a way that she once feared he would never be safe in his mother’s.

      ‘Oh, Marco…’

      Her vision blurred, the harsh, bitter tears welling up at the back of her eyes, pushing against them until they ached and burned. An ache that was echoed deep inside her heart, tearing at her cruelly.

      To her shock, she found that she had reached out a hand, stretching her arm towards the man who still stood with his back to her, oblivious to the fact that she was there.

      No, not towards the man but towards the child he held. The reason why she was here at all. The one and only person for whom she would have braved Ricardo’s anger, the fury of hatred she knew would be in his eyes when he saw her.

      She had thought that she would never see her husband again, and she had resigned herself to that. But what she had never managed to resign herself to was the fact that she would never again see the baby boy she adored with all her heart but hadn’t been strong enough to love properly.

      His baby boy—and hers.

      Her