New Arrivals: One Secret Child

She didn’t have a hope of concealing her feelings behind a managerial mask under the circumstances. How could she?

‘Who’s coming to see us, Mummy?’ Feeling a tug on her trouser-leg, Anna’s gaze fell distractedly into her daughter’s. The child’s big blue-grey eyes—eyes, she realised with another frisson of shock, that were identical to her father’s—were avid with curiosity. ‘Is it Auntie Anita?’

‘No, darling. It’s not Auntie Anita.’ Chewing anxiously down on her lip, Anna forced herself to smile. ‘It’s a man called Dante Romano and—and he’s an old friend of mine.’

‘If he’s your friend, why haven’t I seen him before?’ Tia’s husky little voice was plaintive.

‘Because—’

The knock on the hallway door just outside completely silenced whatever it was that Anna had been about to say. Rolling up her sweater sleeves, she reached for Tia’s hand and led her as calmly as she was able over to the couch, where she sat her down. Crouching in front of her, she tenderly stroked back some golden corkscrew curls from her forehead.

‘Don’t be nervous, will you? He’s—he’s a very nice man, and I’m sure he’ll be very pleased to meet you.’

As she hurried out into the hallway a surge of irrepressibly strong emotion made tears flood into her eyes. Not now! she moaned silently, wiping them away with the back of her hand. Why don’t you wait to hear what he has to say before you start crying?

‘Hi.’ His handsome smile was devastatingly confident, and Anna could scarcely contain the anger that suddenly rose up inside her, let alone analyse it.

‘Hello,’ she murmured in reply, praying he wouldn’t see the evidence of her tears. ‘Come in.’

Had he called at a bad time? Dante speculated. Her beautiful brown eyes appeared slightly moist. He guessed she would rather have put off his visit until tomorrow, but the fact of the matter was he couldn’t wait until then to see her and talk to her again. Ever since Anna had walked into that office he’d ached to get her alone, find out what she’d been doing all these years… maybe even ask if she’d ever thought about him since that extraordinary night they’d spent together.

Folding her arms, she stood squarely in front of him, leaving him with the distinct notion he wasn’t going to be invited in any farther. Fighting down the sense of rejection that bubbled up inside him, he swept his glance hungrily over her pale oval face. The dazzling fire-lit brown eyes were wary, he noticed, and the softly shaped mouth that was barely glazed with some raspberry-coloured lipgloss was serious and unsmiling.

‘You said you wanted to talk…what about? ‘

It wasn’t a very promising start. Apprehension flooded into the pit of Dante’s stomach.

‘What a greeting. You make it sound like you’re expecting an interrogation.’ He shrugged, momentarily thrown off balance by her cool reception.

‘It’s just that I’m busy.’

‘Cooking, you said?’ He quirked a slightly mocking eyebrow and sniffed the air.

‘Look… how do you expect me to greet you after all this time? The truth is you’re the last person I ever expected to see again! For you to show up now, because you’re the new investor in the Mirabelle, is obviously a shock…a shock that I was totally unprepared for.’ Pursing her lips, she was clearly distressed. ‘I don’t know how to put this any other way, Mr Romano, and please don’t think me presumptuous, but I think that whatever else happens round here our relationship should remain strictly professional for as long as we have to work together.’

‘Why? Afraid you might be tempted to instigate a repeat performance of the last time we got together?’

Stung by her aloof air, and the distance she seemed so eager to put between them, Dante said the first thing that entered his head. Trouble was, he’d be lying if he said the thought of them being intimate hadn’t crossed his mind. It was practically all he’d been dwelling on since setting eyes on her.

Blushing hard, Anna gazed down at the floor. When she glanced up at him again her dark eyes were spilling over with fury.

‘What a hateful, arrogant thing to say! Bad enough that you only thought me good enough for a one-night stand, but to come here now and assume that I—that I would even—’ She gulped in a deep breath to calm herself. ‘Some of us have moved on.’

Dante nodded, sensing a muscle flex hard in the side of his cheek. ‘And you have moved on, haven’t you, Anna? Assistant Manager, no less.’

‘If you’re suggesting I got the position by any other means than by damned hard work then you can just turn around and leave right now. I certainly don’t intend to meekly stand here while you mock and insult me!’

His lips twitched into a smile. He couldn’t help it. Did she have any idea how sexy she was when she was angry? With that fiery-red hair spilling over her shoulders and those dark eyes flashing. it would test the libidinous mettle of any red-blooded heterosexual male. To Dante it felt as if a lighted match had been dropped into his blood, and it had ignited as though it were petrol.

‘I didn’t come here to insult you, Anna. I merely wanted to see you again in private…that’s all.’

‘I heard you shouting, Mummy.’

A little girl with the prettiest corkscrew blond curls Dante had ever seen suddenly emerged from a room along the hall. Deep shock scissored through him. She’d addressed Anna as ‘Mummy’.

Definitely flustered, Anna ran her fingers over the child’s softly wayward hair, captured a small hand in hers and squeezed it.

‘Tia…this is the man I told you about. Mr Romano.’

‘Why are you calling him Mr Romano when you told me his name was Dante?’

The girl was engagingly forthright. Dante smiled, and the child dimpled shyly up at him.

‘Hello, Tia.’ Staring into her riveting misty-coloured eyes, he frowned, not knowing why she suddenly seemed so familiar. Quickly he returned his attention to Anna. ‘You got married and had a child?’ he said numbly. ‘Was that the “moving on” you referred to?’

‘I’m not married.’

‘But you’re still with her father? ‘

Her cheeks pinking with embarrassment, she sighed. ‘No…I’m not.’

‘Obviously things didn’t work out between you?’ Dante’s racing heartbeat started to stabilise. So she was alone again? It must have been tough, raising her child on her own. He wondered if the father kept in touch and assumed the proper responsibility for his daughter’s welfare. Having had a father who had shamelessly deserted him and his mother when it didn’t suit him to be responsible, Dante deplored the mere idea that the man might have turned his back on Anna and the child.

‘Perhaps—perhaps you’d better come in after all.’ Saying no more, Anna turned back towards the room along the hallway, Tia’s hand gripped firmly in hers.

Barely knowing what to make of this, Dante followed. The living room was charming. The walls were painted in an off-white cream-coloured tone, helping to create a very attractive sense of spaciousness and light. It was the perfect solution in a basement apartment where the long rectangular windows were built too high up to let in much daylight.

‘Please,’ she said nervously, gesturing towards a plump gold-coloured couch with toys strewn at one end, ‘sit down. Can I get you something to drink?’

She’d gone from hostile to the perfect hostess in a couple of seconds flat. It immediately made Dante suspicious. He dropped down onto the couch.

‘No, thanks.’ Freeing his tie a little from his shirt collar, he gave Tia a smile then leant forward, his hands linked loosely across his thighs. ‘What’s going on, Anna? And don’t tell me nothing. I’m too good a reader of people to buy that.’

She was alternately twisting her hands together and fiddling with the ends of her bright auburn hair. The tension already building in Dante’s iron-hard stomach muscles increased an uncomfortable notch.

‘Tia? Would you go into your bedroom for a minute and look for that colouring book we were searching for earlier? You know the one—with the farm animals on the front? Have a really good look and bring some crayons too.’

‘Is Dante going to help me colour in my book, Mummy?’ The little girl’s voice was hopeful.

‘Sure.’ He grinned at her. ‘Why not?’

When Tia had left them to run along the hallway to her bedroom, Anna’s dark eyes immediately cleaved apprehensively to Dante’s. ‘That night—the night we were together.’ She cleared her throat a little and his avid gaze didn’t waver from hers for a second. ‘I got pregnant. I didn’t lie when I told you I was on the pill, but because I’d been working so hard I missed taking one… Anyway…Tia’s yours. What I’m saying—what I’m trying to tell you—is that you’re her father.’

He’d heard of white-outs, but not being enamoured of snow or freezing weather had never experienced one. He imagined the blinding sensation of disorientation that currently gripped him was a little like that condition. Time ticked on in its own relentless way, but for a long moment he couldn’t distinguish anything much. Feelings, thoughts—they just didn’t exist. He quite simply felt numb. Then, when emotions started to pour through him like a riptide, he pushed to his feet, staring hard at the slender redhead who stood stock-still, her brown eyes a myriad palette of shifting colours Dante couldn’t decipher right then.

‘What are you up to? ‘ he demanded. ‘Has someone put you up to this to try and swindle money from me? Answer me, damn it!’ He drove his shaking fingers through his hair in a bid to still them. ‘Tell me what you just said again, Anna—so I can be sure I didn’t misunderstand you.’

‘Nobody put me up to anything, and nor do I want your money. I’m telling you the truth, Dante. That night we spent together resulted in me becoming pregnant.’

‘And the baby you were carrying is Tia? ‘

‘Yes.’

‘Then if that’s the truth, why in God’s name didn’t you find me to let me know?’

‘We agreed.’ She swallowed hard. Her flawless smooth skin was alabaster-pale, Dante registered without sympathy. ‘We agreed that we wouldn’t hold each other to anything…that it was just for the one night and in the morning we’d both move on. You were—you were so troubled that night. I knew you were hurting. I didn’t know what had happened, because you didn’t tell me, but I guessed you might have just lost someone close. You weren’t looking for anything deep…like a relationship. I knew that. You didn’t even tell me your last name. You simply wanted—needed to be close to someone and for some reason—’ She momentarily dipped her head. ‘For some reason you chose me.’

Barely trusting himself to speak, because his chest felt so tight and he was afraid he might just explode, Dante grimly shook his head.

‘You could have easily found out my last name by checking in the reservations book. From there you could have found a contact address. Why didn’t you? ‘

She hesitated, as if she was about to say something, but changed her mind. ‘I—I told you. I didn’t because we’d made an agreement. I was respecting your wishes. that’s all.’

‘Respecting my wishes? Are you crazy? This wasn’t just some simple mistake you could brush aside, woman! Can’t you see what you’ve done? You’ve denied me my own child. For over four years my daughter has lived without her father. Did she never ask about me?’

‘Yes…she—she did.’

‘Then what did you tell her?’

Her expression anguished, Anna was clearly struggling to give him a reply.

‘When Tia asked me why her daddy wasn’t around I—I just told her that you’d been ill and had to go away to get better. What else could I tell her when I had no idea where you were or even if you’d care? ‘

Lifting a shaky hand to his forehead Dante grimaced painfully. ‘And whose fault is that, when you couldn’t even be bothered to find me?’

Her skin turned even paler. ‘I understand why you’d want to blame me, but at the time the decision not to see each other again was ostensibly yours, if you remember?’

‘And while I’ve been relegated to the back of your mind as some past inconvenient mistake…has there been anyone else on the scene?’ Dante demanded, his temper flashing like an electrical storm out of a previously calm summer sky. ‘Another man who’s played father to Tia?’

‘No, there hasn’t. I’ve been raising her on my own, and at the same time trying to build a career so that I can support us both. I don’t have time for relationships with other men!’

This last statement had clearly made her angry. The tightness in Dante’s chest eased a little, but not much. He was still furious with her. Frankly, the idea that his child might have witnessed a parade of different men filing through her mother’s life filled him with horror and distress. Children needed stability, support, love… The thought brought him up short. He had accepted without dispute the fact that Tia was his daughter—accepted the word of a woman he had only known for one too short and incredible night. Yet the moment he had gazed into Tia’s eyes—eyes that were the same unusual light shade as his—Dante had somehow known that she belonged to him.

‘Well, now you will make time for a relationship, Anna. Your comfortable little idyll of having things just the way you want them is about to change dramatically. You’ve dropped the bombshell that I am father to a daughter, and now you will have to accept the consequences.’

‘What consequences? ‘ The colour seemed to drain out of her face.

‘What do you think?’ Dante snarled, his hands curling into fists down by his sides. ‘What do you think will happen now that I know I fathered a child that night? Did you think I would calmly walk away, saying, “Oh, well”? From this moment on I fully intend to be a father to our daughter, and that means I want a legalised relationship with you—her mother. Purely for the child’s sake, you understand, and not because it fills me with joy to be with you again, Anna! Not after the terrible deceit you have played on me. So, no. I won’t be calmly walking away so that you can happily continue the way you were. It’s not just the hotel that will undergo a great change now that I am here.’

‘I won’t prevent you from playing an important part in Tia’s life now that you know the truth…if that’s what you want,’ Anna replied quietly, though her expression mirrored a silent plea, ‘but we don’t need to be in a relationship for that. Five years ago you made it very clear that you weren’t interested in taking things any further. I accepted that. I’ve made a good life for myself working at the hotel. The owners have been more than kind to me and Tia, and I’m extremely grateful to them for all they’ve done. As far as I can see there’s no need for that arrangement to change.’

Rubbing his fingers into his temples, Dante breathed out an impatient sigh. He didn’t like referring to the past, but in this case he would have to.

‘Five years ago I was bordering on burn-out from working too hard and too long…then my mother died. She was Italian. The name I use now is my proper full name—the name my mother gave me. I only mention it because the night we met I’d just flown back from her funeral in Italy. I was living in New York at the time, but I couldn’t get a direct flight back there so made a stopover in London for the night. Having just been bereaved, I was hardly in a fit state to contemplate a relationship with anyone. But, like you with Tia, my mother raised me on my own as a single parent, and I saw first-hand how hard life was for her. It made her old before her time, and I worried about her constantly. I’ll be damned if I’ll visit that hurtful existence on my own child. That being the way things stand, you have no choice but to enter into a relationship with me—a relationship that can have only one destination. Our marriage.’

Sympathetically examining the compellingly handsome face with those searing stormy eyes—the face that she had fantasised over and dreamed longingly about for five long, lonely years—Anna willed her emotions not to get the better of her. She was gratified to hear at last an explanation as to why Dante had appeared so haunted and troubled that night, and for the second time in their association her heart went out to him. But while she understood the fears that their own situation must be raising inside him, because he too had been brought up without a father, she balked at the idea of tying herself to him merely for convenience. Dante Romano might be the father of her beloved daughter, but he was still an unknown quantity to Anna. It would be nothing less than reckless to marry him—even though privately she still held a torch for him and always would.

‘I’m really sorry that you lost your mother, Dante. I could see at the time how devastated you were. But I won’t be told I’m going to have to marry you just because you’re Tia’s father. That would be crazy. We don’t even know each other. And for your information I don’t want to marry anyone. I’m happy just as I am, doing my job and taking care of Tia. I won’t stop you from being in her life—I’d be glad of it, if that’s what you honestly want. But, like I said before, you and I don’t have to be in a relationship for that.’

‘Like hell we don’t! ‘ He scowled at her.

‘And there’s one more thing.’ Feeling nervous, and knowing she was on shaky ground already, Anna rubbed a chilled palm down over her sweater. ‘I’d be grateful if you didn’t say anything to Grant and Anita about us knowing each other…at least not yet. It’s such an awkward situation, and I will tell them, but I need some time to think about how best to broach the subject. Please do this one favour for me, and I promise I’ll tell them soon.’

‘I’ll let you off the hook for a couple of days,’ Dante agreed reluctantly. ‘But then you will be telling them, Anna—about us and Tia. You can be absolutely sure about that.’

‘I found my colouring book and my crayons! ‘ Rushing back into the room like a tiny blond cyclone, Tia blew out a happy breath and headed straight for Dante.

For a moment he stood stock-still, his lean, smartly suited figure apparently all at sea. Anna realised that, like her, he was desperately trying to get his emotions under control. Put yourself in his shoes, she told herself. How would you feel if you were suddenly confronted with the astonishing fact that you’d fathered a child? A child you hadn’t even known existed up until now?

‘Will you help me colour in my book, please?’

The tall broad-shouldered man whose dark blond hair was slightly mussed from his agitated fingers had let Tia pierce his heart with her big soulful eyes, Anna saw. Her teeth clamped down on her lip, but it didn’t stop them from trembling.

‘I promised I would, didn’t I?’ she heard Dante agree huskily, and then he slipped his hand into his daughter’s and allowed her to lead him back to the couch. Before he sat down, he shucked off the dark blue exquisitely lined jacket of his business suit, throwing it carelessly onto the cushions.

His arresting light eyes met Anna’s. ‘I’d like that drink you offered earlier after all,’ he commented. ‘Coffee would be good. I take it with milk and two sugars, thanks.’

CHAPTER FIVE

BY THE time Dante was ready to leave that evening—having accepted Anna’s invitation to join them for dinner—Tia was completely besotted with the man.

Although Anna’s senses had been minutely attuned to the fact that the man she had so recklessly given herself to that magical night five years ago was now sitting opposite her at her dining table there had been no struggle to make awkward conversation. Not when her daughter had chatted enough for them both. So engaged had she been with Dante’s company that for the first time ever she’d protested loudly about going to bed. She had only agreed to go if Dante would read her a bedtime story—which he duly had.

When he’d emerged from her bedroom half an hour later his air had been subdued and preoccupied. It had been obvious that he was trying hard to come to terms with a situation he probably couldn’t have envisaged in a thousand years. After all, Anna had told him she was on the pill, so what need had there been for him to worry?

Assuming he would want to discuss things further, she’d risked giving him a smile, but he had shown no inclination to linger…the opposite, in fact. How was she supposed to confess that she wasn’t as heartless as he’d assumed, and that she had planned to let him know about her pregnancy, but when she’d discovered his ruthless reputation in the business world she’d been scared that when the baby was born he might try and take him or her away from her? Then, when she’d tried again later, it had been as though ‘Dan Masterson’ had simply vanished off the radar.

‘We’ve got a long day of discussion and planning about the hotel tomorrow,’ he said to her now. ‘There’ll be plenty of time after work in the evening for us to discuss our personal situation in more depth.’ There was a fierce glint in his eyes that said do not doubt that. ‘For now I’ll say goodnight, innamorata, and I will see you in the morning. Sleep well. You’re going to need to be doubly alert for all we have to face tomorrow,’ he added, a dark blond eyebrow lifting a little mockingly even though his voice and manner was still distant and aloof.

Innamorata—didn’t that mean sweetheart in Italian? Anna shivered hard. Having asserted that she wasn’t interested in a relationship, she wondered if Dante would still adhere to his insistence that they marry? A tug of uncertainty mingled with the faintest of faint hopes in the pit of her stomach. What if he concluded that his association with Tia was the only one that really counted?

A lonely feeling crept over her. And when she was still lying awake in the early hours of the morning because she couldn’t get Dante out of her mind, Anna seriously worried how on earth she was going to get through her working day without at some point falling asleep on the job.

Reflecting on the new partner’s all-business tone when he’d left, as well as his warning that she needed to be ‘doubly alert’, she imagined that would go down like the proverbial ton of bricks. It certainly wouldn’t reveal her at her best. And as for the news he had just so shockingly learned…would Dante be so angry with her for not revealing his daughter’s existence to him that he would try to punish her in some way? For instance, would her job and her home be under threat now that he was in the driving seat?

Thumping her pillow in pure frustration, Anna released a pained groan. Then, with her eyes determinedly shut, she sent up a swift plea to the universe for the incessant worry going through her mind to grind to a halt so that she might at least get a couple of hours’ rest before having to rise for work…

‘You’re late, Miss Bailey.’

The clipped pronouncement came not from the owners of the hotel, nor Jason their son, but from Dante. He was seated at the head of the meeting table in Grant and Anita’s office, wearing another mouthwateringly tailored dark suit that he’d teamed with an elegant black shirt—the only splash of colour came from his vivid cobalt silk tie and his disturbing light eyes…eyes that now pierced Anna like the dazzling beams of sunlight reflecting on water as she stood in the doorway, wrestling with her embarrassment at being reprimanded.

So the gloves were off, were they? Clearly he’d reflected on her news of yesterday and he did mean to punish her. Making it clear he was the one in charge, he’d probably make her rue the day she’d kept Tia a secret from him and then had the temerity to say she wouldn’t marry him.

‘I’m sorry. I’m afraid I had a bit of a sleepless night. When I did manage to drop off I ended up sleeping through the alarm.’

‘Tia’s not coming down with something, is she?’ Anita’s perfectly arched brows lifted concernedly.

Straight away, Anna saw Dante’s smooth lightly-tanned forehead tighten too.

‘No, she’s fine. I just couldn’t sleep, that’s all.’