The Secret Heirs

COLLECTION

July 2019

Secret Heirs: Baby Bargain

August 2019

Secret Heirs: Billionaire’s Pleasure

September 2019

Secret Heirs: Royal Appointment

October 2019

Secret Heirs: Baby Scandal

January 2020

Secret Heirs: His One Night Consequence

February 2020

Secret Heirs: Price of Success

About the Authors

ANNIE WEST has devoted her life to an intensive study of charismatic heroes who cause the best kind of trouble in the lives of their heroines. As a sideline she researches locations for romance, from vibrant cities to desert encampments and fairytale castles. Annie lives in eastern Australia with her hero husband, between sandy beaches and gorgeous wine country. She finds writing the perfect excuse to postpone housework. To contact her or join her newsletter, visit annie-west.com

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and seventy books for Mills & Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

The day MAGGIE COX saw the film version of Wuthering Heights, was the day she became hooked on romance. From that day onwards she spent a lot of time dreaming up her own romances, hoping that one day she might become published. Now that her dream is being realised, she wakes up every morning and counts her blessings. She is married to a gorgeous man, and is the mother of two wonderful sons. Her other passions in life – besides her family and reading/writing – are music and films.

Secret Heirs: His One Night Consequence

Forgotten Mistress, Secret Love-Child

Annie West

The Infamous Italian’s Secret Baby

Carole Mortimer

Mistress, Mother…Wife?

Maggie Cox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90609-2

SECRET HEIRS: HIS ONE NIGHT CONSEQUENCE

Forgotten Mistress, Secret Love-Child © 2009 Annie West The Infamous Italian’s Secret Baby © 2009 Carole Mortimer Mistress, Mother…Wife? © 2011 Maggie Cox

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Forgotten Mistress, Secret Love-Child

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The Infamous Italian’s Secret Baby

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Mistress, Mother…Wife?

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

About the Publisher

Forgotten Mistress, Secret Love-Child

Annie West

This one’s for Judy!

Hope it brings you joy.

Warm hugs and huge thanks to

Anna, Josie, Marilyn, Monique and Serena,

whose expertise made this book possible.

CHAPTER ONE

ALESSANDRO spared barely a glance for the promotional material he tossed into his out tray. His newest PA still hadn’t learnt what he should see and what he had no time for. The textile manufacturing arm of the company would be represented at the upcoming trade fair. But one of his managers could handle that. It hardly needed the CEO to…

Oddio mio!

His gaze caught on a photo as a brochure landed askew, half covered by discarded papers.

Alessandro’s eyes narrowed on the curve of a woman’s smile, a tiny mole like a beauty spot drawing attention to a mouth that would catch any man’s interest. Wide, lush, inviting.

Every muscle froze even as his pulse revved and blood roared in his ears.

That smile.

That mouth.

Yet it wasn’t sexual awareness that arrested him. A tantalising wisp of almost-memory wafted behind his conscious thoughts. A taste, sweet as ripe summer cherries, rich and addictive.

Heat filled him, despite the climate-controlled air in his spacious office. A zap of something that might have been emotion stifled the breath in his lungs. Alessandro froze, telling himself not to analyse but to relax and let the sensations surface. Willing the recollections to come.

Like a lacy curtain in a breeze, the blankness cloaking his memory of those missing months two years ago rippled. It shifted, parted, and then dropped back into place.

His hands clenched, white-knuckled on the edge of his glass and black marble desk. But Alessandro didn’t register pain, just the infuriating, familiar sense of nothingness.

Only to himself would he acknowledge how helpless that void made him feel. How vulnerable. It didn’t matter that he’d been assured those lost months contained nothing out of the ordinary. Other people remembered that time: what he’d done and said. But he, Alessandro Mattani, had no recall.

Swift as thought, he tugged the brochure from the papers. It was an advertisement for a luxury hotel. He turned it over. A luxury hotel in Melbourne.

Alessandro waited, but no spark of recognition came. He hadn’t travelled to Melbourne.

Not that he could remember.

Impatience flared and he forced it down, breathing deeply. An emotional response wouldn’t help. Even if the sense of loss, of missing something vital, sometimes threatened to drive him to the edge.

He flipped over the flyer again. A woman, a receptionist, smiled at a handsome couple as they checked in. The photo was professionally styled, yet despite its air-brushed gloss, there was something riveting about the receptionist’s smile.

The setting was opulent, but Alessandro had grown up with luxury and barely bothered to notice. The woman, on the other hand…she intrigued him.

The more he stared, the more he felt an atavistic premonition that made his blood pump faster and prickled the skin at his nape. She was so familiar.

Had she smiled at him like that?

A tickle of awareness started low in his belly.

A tickle of…certainty.

Carefully he catalogued her features. Dark hair pulled back sleekly from a pleasant but unremarkable face. Her nose was pert, a trifle short. Her eyes were surprisingly light for her brunette colouring. Her mouth was wide.

She wasn’t beautiful. She wasn’t exotic enough to turn heads. And yet she had…something. A charisma the photographer had seen and capitalised on.

Alessandro traced the angle of her cheekbone, the gentle curve of her jaw, to pause on the lush promise of her lips.

There it was again. That tingle of presentiment. The intuition that she was no stranger. It drew every muscle and sinew in his body tight, as if in readiness for action.

Behind the opaque gauze of his faulty memory something shifted.

Sensation, soft as the tentative brush of those lips against his. That taste again, of sun-ripened cherries. Irresistible. The phantom caress of delicate fingers along his jaw, over his rapidly pulsing heart. The sound of feminine sighs, the aftermath of ecstasy.

Alessandro’s chest heaved as if from intense physical exertion. Sweat prickled his nape and brow as his body stirred with arousal.

Impossible!

Yet instinct clamoured with a truth he couldn’t ignore.

He knew her. Had met her. Held her. Made love to her.

His nostrils flared on a surge of wholly masculine possessiveness. The primitive sense of ownership, of a male scenting his mate, was unmistakeable.

He stared at the image of a stranger from the other side of the world. If he hadn’t visited Melbourne, had she travelled here to Lombardia?

Frustration at those missing months simmered.

For long minutes Alessandro considered the photograph, his thumb absently caressing the curve of her cheek.

Impossible as it seemed, the certainty grew that this woman held the key to his locked memories. Could she open them? Restore what he’d lost and obliterate the sense that he was somehow less than he’d been. The gnawing hint of dissatisfaction with his world.

Alessandro reached for the phone. He intended to have answers, no matter what it took.

‘Thanks, Sarah, you’re a lifesaver.’ Relief flooded Carys. Today everything that could go wrong had. At least this one thing, the most important, was sorted.

‘No worries,’ her neighbour and babysitter responded. ‘Leo will be fine staying over.’

Carys knew Sarah was right, but that didn’t stop the twinge of regret, sharp in her chest. When she’d taken this job at the Landford Hotel it was with the expectation she’d be home most days at a reasonable hour. Early enough to look after her son.

She didn’t want Leo growing used to an absentee parent too busy with her career to spend time with him. The sort of home life Carys had taken for granted as a child.

Especially since Leo only had her.

The twinge beneath her breast intensified, catching her breath as pain ripped through her. Even after all this time she couldn’t suppress the shaft of regret and longing that pierced her whenever she remembered.

She needed to toughen up. Once upon a time she’d chased her dream, but she wasn’t fool enough to believe in it any more. Not after she’d learned so cruelly how futile that dream was.

‘Carys? What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’ Hastily she forced a smile, knowing Sarah could read her tone even over the phone. ‘I owe you one.’

‘You sure do. You can babysit for us next weekend. We’ve got plans for a night on the town, if you can mind Ashleigh.’

‘Done.’ She looked at her watch. She had to get back before the next crisis hit. ‘Don’t forget to give Leo a goodnight kiss from me.’ Stupid to feel that catch in her throat because tonight she wouldn’t feed him his evening meal or kiss his plump pink cheek at bedtime.

Her son was in good hands and, she told herself sternly, she was lucky to have landed a job that usually gave her regular time with him. She was grateful the management had been impressed enough to allow her reasonably family-friendly hours.

Today was the exception. The flu that ravaged the Landford’s staff had hit at the worst possible time. More than a third of the staff was off sick just when there was a series of major functions.

It didn’t matter that Carys had already spent more than a full day on the job. The collapse just an hour ago of David, the senior functions manager, with a soaring temperature, meant Carys had to step into that role too.

Nerves fluttered in her stomach. This was her chance to prove herself and justify David’s faith in her, having taken her on despite her incomplete qualifications. He’d been a good friend and a terrific mentor. She owed him not only her position, but the hard-won self-confidence she’d slowly built since coming to Melbourne.

‘I don’t know what time I’ll be back, Sarah. Probably in the early hours.’ Steadfastly Carys refused to worry about how she’d manage the trip home. She couldn’t rely on public transport at that time, and the cost of a cab was prohibitive. ‘I’ll see you around breakfast time, if that’s OK?’

‘That’s fine, Carys. Don’t fret. We’ll see you when we see you.’

Slowly Carys replaced the phone and stretched her hunched shoulders. She’d been working at the computer and on the phone without a break for so long her body ached all over.

She glanced at the monitor before her and saw the lines of the spreadsheet she’d opened dance and jumble before her eyes. She pinched the bridge of her nose, knowing that no matter how hard she concentrated, working on the document would be a test of endurance and determination.

Sighing, she reached for her tinted reading glasses and leaned forward.

She had to finish this. Only then could she make last minute checks on the arrangements for tonight’s masked ball.

Carys stood in the corner of the ballroom near the door to the kitchens, listening to the head waiter’s whispered update. It was mayhem in the kitchen with more staff struck down by this virulent flu. Only a couple of the extra waitstaff had arrived to replace those who’d phoned in ill, and the chefs were barely able to cope.

Fortunately, the guests hadn’t noticed anything wrong. The Landford prided itself on superb service, and the staff were doing everything to live up to that reputation.

The ballroom, all black and gold, was gracious and formally elegant. Antique chandeliers sparkled, casting a glow that set jewels scintillating among the A-list crowd. The guests looked impossibly chic as befitted one of Fashion Week’s major events.

The room smelled of exclusive fragrances, hothouse flowers and money. Serious money. Celebrities, designers, buyers, the crème de la crème of Australian society, were here tonight and plenty of international high-flyers too.

And they were all her responsibility.

Carys’ pulse thundered and she struggled to focus on her companion’s words. She must concentrate if she wanted to ensure tonight was a success. Too much was at stake.

‘All right. I’ll see if we can get someone else from the restaurant to help out.’ She nodded, dismissing him and turning to the house phone on the wall. She reached out to hit the speed dial number for the restaurant, then froze.

A tingling sensation began at the base of her spine. It burned its way up her back like the slide of hot ice on bare skin. Except her skin wasn’t bare. She wore a regulation jacket and straight skirt, dark stockings and high heels.

Yet through the layers of clothing her skin sizzled, the hairs on her neck prickling.

Carys replaced the phone with stiff, unsteady fingers. She pivoted, turning to face the shifting, colourful crowd. Staff circulated with gourmet canapés and vintage champagne; groups broke and reformed.

The guests, most of them wearing exquisite handmade masks, were busy enjoying themselves or networking or showing off their finery. They wouldn’t notice anyone who didn’t belong in their rarefied circle.

That suited Carys. She didn’t hanker for a place at a fairytale ball. Not since she’d given up on the whole Prince Charming fantasy.

Yet heat washed her cheeks. Her breath snagged in her throat and her pulse accelerated as instinct told her she was being watched.

Her heart was in her mouth as frantically she searched the throng for something, someone, familiar. Someone who could make her skin tingle and her heart race as it had before, long ago.

Briefly she shut her eyes. Madness! That was in the past. A past best forgotten.

Tiredness and nerves had simply made her imagine things.

Her path and his would never cross again. He’d made certain of that. Carys’ lips twisted in a grimace as familiar pain stabbed her chest.

No! Not now. She refused to let her wayward imagination distract her. People depended on her. She had a job to do.

From across the packed room he watched her.

His fingers curled, white-knuckled, around the back of a nearby chair. Blood roared in his ears as his heart thundered out of control. The shock of recognition was so strong he shut his eyes for an instant and lightning flickered across the darkness of his closed lids.

Opening them, he saw her turn to the wall phone, her movements jerky.

It was her. Not just the woman from the brochure, but more, the woman he remembered. Correction—almost remembered.

An image teased his mind. An image of her walking away from him. Her back rigid, her steps staccato bites that ate up the ground as if she couldn’t get away fast enough. Bites that echoed the rapid pulse of his drumming heart as he stood rooted to the spot. She carried a case, the taxi driver ahead of her stowing another bag in his vehicle.

Finally she paused. Alessandro’s heart stopped and rose in his throat. But she didn’t turn around. A moment later she was in the car as it accelerated in a spurt of gravel and swooped away down the private road from his Lake Como home.

Still he stood, prey to an alien mix of sensations. Fury, relief, disappointment, disbelief.

And hurt! Pain filled the yawning chasm inside him.

Only once before in his entire life had Alessandro felt so intensely. At five, when his mother had deserted him for a life of pampered luxury with her lover.

He stirred and shook his head, banishing the misty image, belatedly aware again of the crowded ballroom.

Yet the powerful brew of emotions still stirred in his breast.

Maddona mia! No wonder he felt vulnerable. Such feelings…

Who was this woman to awake such responses in him?

Anger mingled with impatience. That mere chance had led him here. That he could so easily have missed this opportunity to learn more.

Deliberately he flexed his fingers and let go of the chair back, feeling at last the deep imprint of curved wood score his palm.

The wait was over.

He would have his answers now. Tonight.

Surreptitiously Carys slid a foot from her shoe and wriggled her toes. Soon the ball would be over. Then she could oversee the clearing away and setting up for the next day’s fashion show.

She suppressed a rising yawn. Every bone in her body ached, and she wanted nothing more than to flop into bed.

She skirted the dance floor. She’d just check on—

A hand, large, warm and insistent took hers, pulling her to a halt. Quickly she summoned a serene expression, ready to deal with the guest who’d overstepped the boundaries by touching her. She hoped he wasn’t intoxicated.

Carys had just pinned a small professional smile on her face when a tug of her hand made her turn.

The carefully crafted smile slid away.

For an instant Carys’ heart stopped beating as she looked up at the man before her.

Unlike most of the revellers, he still wore his mask. His dark hair was cut brutally short, sculpting a beautifully shaped head. The mask shadowed his eyes, but she caught a gleam of dark fire. His mouth was a grim slash above a strong, firm chin.

Her eyes widened, staring at that chin. It couldn’t be…

Then he moved and she caught the faint tang of an unfamiliar cologne. Her heart dived.

Of course it wasn’t him!

A scar snaked up his brow from the edge of the mask. The man she’d known had been as devastatingly handsome as a young god. No scars. His complexion had been golden too, olive, gilded by hours in the sun, not as pale as this stranger’s.

And yet…

And yet she stupidly wished in that moment it was him. Against all logic and the need to protect herself, how badly she wanted it to be so.

Carys drew herself up straighter, fumbling for poise while her nerves screamed with disappointment.

He was tall, far taller than she, even though she wore heels. Surely as tall as…No! She wasn’t going there. Wasn’t playing that pathetic game any more.

‘Can I help you?’ The words emerged huskily, more like an intimate invitation than a cool query.

Silently she cursed the way he’d thrown her off balance just by reminding her of a time, and a man, best forgotten.

‘I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.’ She rushed into speech again, needing to rein in wayward thoughts. Her words were clipped, though she was careful not to reveal her annoyance. If she could extricate herself without a fuss, she would.

Carys tugged her hand but his grip firmed and he drew her forward. She stumbled, surprised by his implacable hold.

Tilting her head up, she looked him in the eye. She expected him to comment on the food or the music, or demand assistance in some way.

Instead his silence unnerved her.

Her skin grew tight as the illusion grew that they stood alone, cut off from the others.

Around them conversation buzzed, music swirled, and a tinkle of feminine laughter sounded. But the man in the perfectly cut dinner jacket, with the perfectly cut jaw, said nothing. Just held her.

Heat flared under her skin as again instinct shouted a warning to beware.

His hold shifted and his thumb slid over the sensitive place between her thumb and forefinger. A spike of heat transfixed her. Her eyes widened as a tremor echoed through the secret recesses of her body.

‘You need to let me go.’ She lifted her chin higher, wishing she could see his eyes properly.

He inclined his head, and the breath she hadn’t known she held whooshed out. See? He probably just wanted something mundane like another bottle of wine for his table.

She opened her mouth to enquire when someone bumped her, propelling her towards the hard male torso before her.

Carys heard a muffled apology but barely noticed.

Large hands grasped her upper arms. In front of her stretched an expanse of exquisitely tailored elegance, that ultra-masculine chin with just the hint of a cleft and a pair of shoulders to make any woman sit up and take notice.

Shoulders just like…

Carys bit her lip. This had to end.

This was a stranger. So he had shoulders to die for and a jaw that seemed achingly familiar. The gold signet ring on his finger was one she’d never seen. And, despite the similar height, he was leaner than the man she’d known.

Another couple buffeted her, talking volubly as they passed. Suddenly she found herself plastered against a hard body that seemed all heat and raw strength. Her senses whirled in a giddy riot.

She imagined she could feel each muscle of his body against hers. Beneath the expensive cologne an elusive undertone of warm male skin tickled her nostrils and she inhaled sharply. He was too familiar, like a phantom from one of the endless dreams that haunted her.

His odd silence intensified her sense of unreality.

Then his hold shifted. A hand slid down her back, poised almost possessively just above her bottom, long fingers spread. Heat roared in the pit of her belly. The heat of desire. A sensation she hadn’t felt, it seemed, in a lifetime.

Her body responded to the ultra-masculine allure of his, softening, trembling—

‘I need to go.’ Carys jerked her head back from the muscled chest that drew her like a magnet. ‘Please!’

Her mouth trembled in a wobbly grimace, and to her dismay hot tears prickled her eyes. Part of her yearned crazily to succumb to his potent maleness.

Because he reminded her of the one man who had taught her the dangers of instant physical attraction.

She had to get out of here.

With a strength born of desperation, she wrenched herself free and stumbled back, off balance when he released her instantly.

Carys took a shaky step away, then another.

The man in the dark mask watched her, eyes unreadable, his body as still as a predator about to pounce.

Her throat squeezed tight in inexplicable panic. She opened her mouth but no sound came. Then she spun and blindly forced her way through the crowd.

Wearily Carys tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. The last of the guests had finally gone and the vast ballroom was empty but for the staff tidying up and moving furniture.

The chirrup of a house phone snagged her attention. She found herself crossing her fingers that there were no more problems. Not tonight, correction, this morning. She was running on empty.

She was still unsettled by the memory of the stranger. The man who’d seemed so familiar yet couldn’t be.

‘Hello?’

‘Carys? Glad I caught you.’ She recognised the new guy on night duty at reception. ‘You’ve got an urgent call. I’ll connect you.’

Instantly all weariness vanished at the sound of those dreaded words ‘urgent call’. Carys’ stomach dropped and fear filled the void. Was it Leo? An illness? An accident?

She twisted a button on her jacket, waiting breathlessly for bad news as her nerves stretched taut.

It would be tonight of all nights that something went wrong. She should have found a way to get home earlier.

The click of the new connection was loud in her ears. As was the silence that followed, a waiting silence.

‘Sarah? What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

There was a pause in which she heard the echo of her own breathing.

Then a voice like black velvet emerged.

‘Carys.’

Just one word and every hair on her body rose. It was the voice that haunted her dreams. A voice that, despite everything, still had the power to thicken her blood, turning it to warm treacle.

Her knees buckled and she found herself sitting on the edge of a table that had been moved up against the wall.

Her fingers splayed over her throat in a desperate gesture of vulnerability.

It couldn’t be!

Her mouth opened and her throat worked, but no sound emerged.

‘We need to meet,’ said the voice of her past. ‘Now.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHO is this?’ Carys’ voice emerged as a raw croak.

It couldn’t be.

Not here. Not now.

Not after she’d finally convinced herself she never wanted to see him again. Fate couldn’t be so cruel.

Yet some wayward self-destructive impulse sent a buzz of excitement skimming along her nerves. Once she’d longed for him to make contact, to come after her, tell her he’d been wrong. Tell her…no, she wasn’t so credulous as to believe in such fantasies any more.

What did he want? Her hand tightened like a claw at her throat. A premonition of danger filled her, icing her blood.

‘You know who it is, Carys.’ Just the way he pronounced her name with that sexy Italian accent turned the word into a caress that melted her insides.

He’d always threatened her self-control. Carys remembered murmured enticements in that dark coffee voice and how he’d persuaded her to give up everything she’d worked for just for the privilege of being with him.

Fool!

She shivered and sat up straighter, berating herself.

‘Please identify yourself,’ she said tersely.

It couldn’t be him. He’d never follow her to Australia. He’d made that clear when she’d left with her tail between her legs.

But the memory of the stranger tonight at the ball, the masked man who’d made her think of him, battered at her disbelief. Wildly she shook her head, trying to clear a brain overloaded by exhaustion and stress.

Was she going mad? Seeing him, even hearing him, when she knew perfectly well he was ensconced in his oh-so-exclusive world of rich, elegant, aristocratic friends. Of high-flying business deals and blue blood and glamour.

Where people like her only provided brief amusement.

‘Don’t pretend not to know me, Carys. I have no time for puerile games.’ He paused as if waiting for her to rush into speech. ‘It’s Alessandro Mattani.’

Silence throbbed as she clutched the receiver. Her heart crashed against her ribs. She would have slid to the floor if she hadn’t already been sitting.

‘Alessandro…’

‘Mattani. I’m sure you recognise the name.’ His voice was sharp as a razor.

Recognise the name! Once she’d even hoped to share it with him.

A bubble of hysterical laughter threatened to explode from her stiff lips. Carys slapped her palm across her mouth, concentrating on deep breaths. She needed oxygen.

The room spun crazily and dark spots whirled in her vision.

A clatter jerked her back to full awareness, and she looked down as if from an enormous distance to see the phone had slipped from her nerveless fingers onto the table.

Alessandro Mattani.

The man she’d loved.

The man who’d broken her heart.

A sound caught her attention and Carys looked up, suddenly aware again of her surroundings. The last of the staff were leaving and waving goodnight.

Belatedly she lifted a hand in acknowledgement.

Dazedly she looked around. The stage was set for tomorrow’s fashion show. Enormous jardinières with arrangements of exotic orchids and jungle greenery had been strategically positioned as she’d instructed. The lights were dimmed and she was alone.

But for the voice on the other end of the line. The voice of her dreams.

Tentatively, as if reaching out to touch an untamed animal, Carys stretched her fingers to the phone. She lifted it, and a deep voice barked in her ear.

‘Carys?’

‘I’m here.’

Silence, but for the impatient hiss of indrawn breath.

‘No more games. I want to see you.’

Well, bully for him. She was past the stage of worrying what Alessandro Mattani wanted.

Besides, she wasn’t foolish enough to go near him again. Even now she didn’t trust her hard-won defences against the man who’d only had to smile and crook his finger to get what he wanted from her. She’d surrendered her job, all her plans, even her self-respect to be with him.

Carys stiffened her spine and braced her palm on the table beside her.

‘That’s not possible.’

‘Of course it’s possible,’ he bit out. ‘I’m just twelve floors away.’

Twelve floors? Her heart galloped faster. Here, in Melbourne? At the Landford?

Her gaze swerved to the edge of the dance floor, instinct and disbelief warring.

‘That was you tonight? At the ball?’ If she’d been less stunned, she might have cared about how much her strained voice revealed. But she was battling shock. She had no thought to spare for pride.

He didn’t answer.

Heat sparked low in her abdomen and washed through her like a flood tide. It had been him. He’d held her in his arms.

How often had she yearned for his embrace? Despite what she’d told herself about forgetting the past.

He’d held her and she hadn’t known him?

But she had, hadn’t she? Despite the new cologne, the paleness of his once-golden skin, the scar.

Fear jolted through her, stealing her breath.

He’d been hurt! How badly? Urgent questions clamoured on her tongue.

Shakily Carys gathered the tattered remnants of control. She ignored the unspoken questions, opting for the most important one.

‘What do you want?’ Her voice sounded stretched too thin, like beaten metal about to snap under pressure.

‘I’ve already told you.’ Impatience threaded his words. ‘To see you.’

She couldn’t prevent a snort of disbelief at his words. How times had changed.

Finally pride came to her rescue.

‘It’s late. I’ve had a long day and I’m going home. There’s nothing more to say between us.’ Tentatively she slipped her feet to the floor, waiting to see if her legs would collapse under her.

‘Are you sure?’ His words, soft and deep like the alpine eiderdowns they’d once shared, brushed across her senses. His voice was alive with erotic undercurrents.

She jerked upright.

Flame licked that secret needy place deep inside her, the place that had been cold and empty ever since she’d left him. The realisation drew her anger.

No, she wasn’t sure. That was the hell of it.

‘I’m in the presidential suite,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll expect you in ten minutes.’

‘You have no right to give me orders.’ Belatedly she found her voice.

‘You don’t wish to meet me?’ Incredulity coloured his tone.

Had he never had a knock-back from a woman?

Certainly not from her. She’d been putty in his elegant, powerful hands from the instant she’d fallen head over heels for him.

‘The past is the past.’ At the last moment she prevented herself saying his name. She didn’t want the sound of it on her lips. It was too intimate, evoked too many memories.

‘Perhaps so. But I wish to meet you.’ His tone made it clear that he wasn’t about to go down on bended knee and beg her forgiveness.

Carys rubbed her forehead. The very thought of Alessandro, darling of the jet set, commercial power-broker and hundred percent red-hot macho Italian male on his knees before any woman was ludicrous.

‘You have ten minutes,’ he reiterated.

‘And if I don’t come?’

He took his time responding. ‘That’s your choice, Ms Wells.’ His formality in that silky smooth voice held more threat than any bluster. Or was that her imagination?

‘I have personal matters to discuss. I thought you’d prefer to do that in the privacy of my suite. Of course, I can see you instead during business hours tomorrow.’ He paused. ‘I understand you share an office with colleagues? Presumably they won’t be inconvenienced by our conversation.’

He left the sentence dangling and Carys bit her lip, imagining how her workmates would react to Alessandro and his personal matters.

‘No doubt your manager won’t mind you taking time off to deal with a private matter,’ he purred in that outrageously delicious accent. ‘Even though I understand you’re only here on an extended probation?’

Carys’ jaw dropped. He’d had her records investigated! How else could he know about her long probation period since she’d been employed without completing her qualifications?

Those employment details were supposed to be confidential.

Her defensive hackles rose as the old sense of inadequacy surfaced. Of not being good enough. Not making the grade. And more, of being cornered, facing an implacable, unstoppable force that threatened to overpower her.

Defeat tasted bitter on her tongue.

Or was that fear? Fear that, despite his initial rejection, Alessandro had come to take Leo from her.

Her shoulders tightened.

‘Ten minutes,’ she confirmed.

Alessandro stood at the full-length window, staring across the Yarra River to the lights of Melbourne’s cityscape.

He didn’t see them. Instead his brain conjured an image of blue-grey eyes, wide and apparently guileless.

He shifted as heat shot through his body straight from his groin at the memory of her soft body nestled against him.

From the moment he’d sighted her across the ballroom, he’d known. The awareness he’d experienced looking at her photo was nothing compared with tonight’s instant gut-deep certainty.

This woman was his.

Alessandro tossed back the espresso his butler had brewed, feeling the shot of caffeine in his blood.

His earlier flash of memory told him they hadn’t parted amicably. Hell, she’d walked out on him! No other lover had ever done that.

Yet he knew with absolute certainty there was still something between them. Something that accounted for the nagging dissatisfaction that had plagued him since the accident.

Why had they separated?

He intended to discover everything about the yawning blankness that was his memory of the months preceding his accident.

He refused to let her escape till he had answers.

From the moment he’d held her, the sense of unfinished business between them had been overwhelming. Even now he felt the low-grade hum of awareness, waiting for her.

There was more too. Not just the immediate sense of connection and possessiveness. There was an inner turmoil that surely must be long-dormant emotions.

He’d watched her, listened to her, and been dumbstruck by the intensity of his conflicting feelings.

Alessandro had harnessed all his willpower to drive himself to recover from his injuries and turn around the faltering family business. He’d blocked out everything but the need to haul the company from the brink of disaster. Everything else had been a pallid blur.

Until now no one had come close to breaking through his guarded self-possession. Not his step-mother, not the many women angling for his attention. Not his friends.

Despite his wide social circle, he was a loner like his father. The old man had isolated himself, focusing only on business after his first wife’s betrayal and desertion.

As a result Alessandro had learned the Mattani way early, concealing his boyish grief and bewilderment behind a façade. Over the years that façade of calm had become reality. He’d developed the knack of repressing strong emotions, distancing himself from personal vulnerability.

Until tonight. When he’d come face to face with Carys Wells. And he’d…felt things. A stirring of discontent, desire, loss.

He frowned. He had no time for emotions.

Lust, yes. He was no stranger to physical desire. That was easily assuaged. But the disturbing sensations churning in his belly were unfamiliar, caused by something more complex.

A knock sounded on the door. Grateful for the interruption to his unpalatable thoughts, Alessandro put down his cup and turned as the butler crossed the foyer.

Alessandro was surprised to register his shoulders stiffening, locking as tension hardened his stance.

Since when had he, Alessandro Mattani, experienced nerves? Even when the specialists had shaken their heads over his injuries, referring to complications and a long convalescence, all he’d felt was impatience to get out of hospital. Especially when he’d learned the impact his accident, so soon after his father’s death, had caused.

The commercial vultures had begun circling, ready to take advantage of the mistakes his father had made in those last months and of Alessandro’s incapacity.

‘Ms Wells, sir.’ The butler ushered her into the sitting room.

She stood as if poised for flight, just inside the door. Once more that shock of connection smacked him square in the chest. He rocked back on his feet.

Jerkily she lifted a hand to smooth her hair, then dropped it as she caught his scrutiny.

Tension, palpable and vibrating, strung out between their locked gazes.

Carys Wells looked out of place in the opulence of Melbourne’s most exclusive hotel suite. Unless, of course, she was here to provide a personal service to the occupant. Delivering a message or bringing room service.

Alessandro’s thoughts jagged on the sort of personal service he’d like her to provide.

It didn’t matter that he knew any number of more beautiful women. Clever, high achievers who combined chic style, business savvy and an eagerness to share his bed.

Something about Carys set her apart.

Her curves would horrify the perpetually dieting women he knew in Milano. Her dark hair was severely styled, if you could call scraping it back into a bun a style. Her make-up was discreet, and she wore a sensible navy suit that no woman of his acquaintance would be seen dead in.

Yet the way her face had lit with emotion earlier hinted at a more subtle attractiveness. And those legs…The sight of her shapely calves and trim ankles in high heels and dark stockings tugged at his long-dormant libido.

Alessandro’s hands flexed. He wanted to explore further, to discover if her legs were as sexy all the way up.

Instinct—or was it memory?—told him her legs were superb. Just as he knew he’d found pleasure in her neatly curved figure and her deliciously full lips.

Belatedly he dragged his gaze from the woman who’d lured him halfway around the world.

The way she sidetracked him was unprecedented. One way or another he had to get her out of his system.

‘Grazie, Robson. That’s all for tonight.’

The butler inclined his head. ‘There are refreshments on the sideboard should you require them, sir, madam.’ Not by so much as a flicker did he indicate he knew the woman before him to be a co-worker. Then he moved silently away towards the kitchen and the staff entrance.

‘Please—’ Alessandro gestured to the nearby lounge ‘—take a seat.’

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to accept. Finally she walked across the antique carpet to sit in a cavernous wing chair. The glow of lamps lit her face, revealing a tension around her pursed lips he hadn’t noticed before. She looked tired.

Alessandro flicked a look at his watch. It was very late. He’d become accustomed to working long into the night, fuelled by caffeine and his own formidable drive.

Conscience niggled. He should have left this till tomorrow. But he’d been unable to ignore the edgy frustration that drove him relentlessly. He was so close he couldn’t rest till he had answers from her.

He’d already been stymied once. Alessandro had confronted her at the ball only to find he’d been robbed of composure and even the power of speech by a shocking blast of recognition. He’d frozen, the one thought in his atrophying mind to hold her and not let her go.

The completeness of that instant of vulnerability had stunned and shamed him. Never had he felt at such a loss. Not in business. Definitely not in his dealings with women.

Now he was himself once more. It would not happen again.

Alessandro Mattani did not do vulnerable.

He thrust aside the momentary doubt at his tactics and strode across to the sideboard.

‘Tea, coffee?’ he offered. ‘Wine?’

‘I don’t want anything.’ She sat straighter, her chin hitched high in unspoken defiance. That spark of rebellion brought colour to her cheeks and made her eyes sparkle.

Alessandro paused, watching fascinated as she transformed from drab to intriguing in an instant. Then he turned, poured himself a small measure of cognac, and took a seat opposite her.

All the while she watched him with those luminous eyes that had captivated him the moment he saw her.

What did she see? Was she cataloguing the differences in him? It surprised him to discover how much he wanted to read her thoughts. Know what she felt. Did she too experience this gnawing tension, like an ache between the ribs?

‘I see you’ve noticed my scar.’

The wash of colour along her cheekbones intensified, but she didn’t look away. Nor did she respond.

Alessandro wasn’t vain enough to worry about his marred face. Besides, it was his wealth and position as much as his looks to which women responded. They might say they wanted a man of charm or kindness, but he knew how fickle they were. Neither marriage vows nor ties of blood between mother and child could hold them when they found someone who offered more wealth and prestige.

That didn’t bother Alessandro. He had both in abundance. If ever he wanted a woman permanently he’d have his pick. Some time in the future. Not now.

He swirled the fine brandy in its glass, inhaling its mellow scent.

‘Am I so repulsive, then?’ He shot her a look that dared her to prevaricate.

Repulsive? Carys wished he were. Then maybe she could tear her gaze away. Her heart hammered. She struggled to hide her shortened breathing as she felt the tug of his potent masculine aura.

It had always been the same. But she’d prayed time and common sense would cure her of the fatal weakness.

She met his intense moss-green gaze, recognised the way his thick dark lashes shadowed his eyes. His eyelids dropped as if to hide his thoughts. The familiarity of that expression, as much as its banked heat, made her insides squirm in mixed delight and distress.

‘You got me here to talk about your looks?’ Carys had more sense than to answer his question.

To her horror she found him more attractive than ever. Even the scar leading from just beneath one straight black eyebrow up to his temple failed to detract from the beautiful spare lines of his leanly sculpted face.

She gripped her hands tight in her lap, alarmed to discover that, when it came to pure animal attraction, Alessandro still exerted a power she couldn’t deny.

Just as well she had more sense than to succumb to it. She was cured. Surely she was.

‘You keep staring at it.’ He lifted the brandy to his lips. Carys watched the movement of his throat as he swallowed and her pulse tripped crazily. She’d rarely seen him in formal clothes, but they only enhanced his magnetism.

Alessandro had been an enigma, suave and sophisticated, impossibly elegant even in the most casual clothes, even without clothes. But at the same time there’d been something earthy and all-male about him. Something innately stronger than the varnish of wealth and centuries of good breeding.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

Heat flared in her cheeks as Carys realised she was imagining him naked, long-limbed and strong. She tore her gaze away.

She might despise him, but she was still woman enough to respond to his sheer sex appeal.

‘Nothing. I was just thinking about how you’ve changed.’ It was only half a lie.

‘Have I altered so much?’ She sensed movement and turned her head to find him leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

She shrugged. ‘It’s been…’ Just in time she stopped herself. He didn’t need to know she recalled to the day how long it had been. ‘A while. People change.’

‘How have I changed?’

Carys wondered at the intensity of his stare. She felt it like the caress of a jade blade across her skin, smooth but potentially lethal.

‘Well, there’s the scar for a start.’

She closed her lips before she could blurt out questions about his health. Had he been in an accident? Or, her thudding heartbeat faltered, had it been surgery?

Sternly she told herself she didn’t care.

‘I’m in excellent health now.’ The murmured words surprised her. How had he read her mind?

‘Of course you are,’ she said too quickly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.’ If he was ill he’d be in Italy, under the care of the country’s top doctors, not summoning her to his room in the early hours to talk about…what did he want?

Carys’ nerves spasmed in denial. There could only be one reason for his presence. Only one thing he wanted.

Her son.

Surely Alessandro’s presence here meant he’d decided belatedly that he wanted Leo after all.

Alessandro didn’t do things by halves. If he wanted something he’d take it all. And surely any normal Italian male would want his own son?

Fear wrapped icy fingers around her heart. If she was right, what chance did she have of stopping him?

‘How else have I changed?’

Carys frowned at this fixation with his looks. The man she’d known had been careless about that, though he’d dressed with the instinctive panache of one who’d grown up amongst a chic, fashion-conscious set.

‘You’re paler than before. And thinner.’

When they’d met, he’d been on a skiing holiday, his olive skin burnished dark golden-brown by the alpine sun. His body was all hard-packed muscle and rangy height. Carys had looked into his dancing green eyes and sensuous smile that made her feel she was the only other person on the planet. Without a second thought she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks.

Now he seemed pared down, but that only emphasised his spectacular bone structure. The way he moved made it clear he hadn’t lost his whipcord strength and abundant energy.

He lifted the brandy to his lips again, but not before she read a wry grimace. ‘I’ve been working long hours.’

Such long hours he’d stopped eating?

Carys looked away, silently berating herself for caring.

‘Some things don’t change, then.’

Those last weeks, Alessandro had used work as an excuse not to be with her. At first she’d thought there was a problem with the business, or with Alessandro assuming its control after his father’s death, but her tentative questions, her attempts to understand and offer support, had been firmly rebuffed.

The company was fine. He was fine. She worried too much. He just had responsibilities to fulfil. She remembered the litany.

Methodically Alessandro had shut her out of his life, day by day and hour by hour. Till their only communication was during the brief pre-dawn hours when he’d take her with a blistering-hot passion that had threatened to consume them both.

Until she’d discovered it wasn’t just business taking him away. That he’d had time for other things, other…people. How gullible she’d been, believing he’d be content with the naïve, unsophisticated woman who shared his bed…

‘Being the CEO of a multi-national enterprise requires commitment.’

‘I know that.’ She’d given up worrying about the ridiculous hours he’d begun working. Given up trying to understand what had happened to the charming, attentive man with whom she’d fallen in love. That man had worked hard too, but he’d known how to switch off. How to enjoy being with her.

Her stomach churned. Whatever they’d once shared was over. He’d left her in no doubt she’d never live up to his exacting standards.

What was she doing here?

Her throat closed as the futility of their conversation swamped her. This could lead nowhere, achieve nothing but the reopening of painful wounds.

Carys shot to her feet. ‘It’s been…interesting seeing you again. But I have to go. It’s late.’

The words were barely out of her mouth when he was before her, looming so close she had to tilt her head to meet his eyes. His gaze licked like flame across her skin.

Instinctively she stepped back, only to find her way blocked. Heat engulfed her as her brain processed frantic messages. Of surprise. Of anger. Of excitement.

‘You can’t leave yet.’

‘I can and will.’ She refused to play the fool for him again. ‘We’re finished.’

‘Finished?’ One straight brow quirked up, and his mouth curved in a tight, unamused smile. ‘Then what about this?’

He snagged her close with one long arm so she landed hard against him. Then he lowered his head.

CHAPTER THREE

‘ALESSANDRO!’

Her voice was scratchy with surprise as she said his name for the first time, making him pause. Yet the sound was familiar. He felt it deep in his bones.

She was familiar, the way her body melded to his, all feminine enticement as he pinioned her to him.

He’d tried to hold back. Go slow. Behave sensibly.

But from the moment she’d walked in everything had changed. His caution, his adherence to the niceties of social behaviour had melted away. Now he operated on raw, primal instinct that overrode logic and convention.

He held her satisfyingly close. With her breasts cushioned against his torso, her hips pressed against him. He felt anticipation surge.

When she’d arrived, looking weary yet defiant, he’d questioned his need to confront her tonight. But those doubts disintegrated as her body softened against his and he heard the tell-tale hitch in her breathing.

There might be fire in her eyes, but the way she fitted against him belied her indignation.

This was mutual.

He had no conscious recollection of her but his body remembered her. The stirring in his loins told its own tale of familiarity and desire.

He looked down into grey-blue eyes, darkening with sparks of azure and indigo, and felt he was falling through mist, towards a bright sunny place.

He inhaled her spicy soft cinnamon fragrance and his brain cried Yes! This is the one!

‘Alessandro!’ Her voice was more determined now, like her hands pushing at his chest. Yet that underpinning note of hesitancy betrayed her.

He lifted one hand to palm her face. Her cheek was soft and pale as milk. Her eyelids fluttered and drooped then snapped wide open.

‘You have no right to do this. Let me go.’ Yet she’d stopped struggling, merely stood straighter and unyielding in his embrace.

‘No right?’ He swiped his thumb across her mouth, tugging at her lower lip, feeling its luscious pad and the moist heat of her breath against his skin.

Her mouth opened and those eyelids flickered betrayingly.

Tendrils of fire twisted and coiled through his body, unfurling and spreading as he watched her response to that simple caress.

He widened his stance, surrounding her with his thighs and pulling her closer to his pelvis.

The promise of bliss was a primitive tattoo in his blood, pounding heavier, faster, demanding action. Yet Alessandro reined in the impulse to demand more. He had to know, to understand, as well as feel.

‘You give me the right when you respond to me that way.’ Again he slid his thumb along her mouth, this time pressing deeper till he felt her tongue slick against his finger.

He stiffened, every muscle clamped tight at the roiling surge of need that engulfed him.

Madonna mia! How potent was this woman, that the mere touch of her tongue could splinter his control?

Surprise darkened her eyes. She felt it too.

‘I’m not…doing anything,’ she protested in a hoarse voice that told its own story. Suddenly she was pushing at him again, trying to lever herself away.

‘Carys.’ He loved the sound of her name on his tongue. Just as he anticipated, he was addicted to the taste of her lips. ‘Would you deny me? Deny this?’

Deftly he slid his hand round to cup her head, feeling the silky weight of her hair against his palm. Then he drew her close, bending to meet her lips.

She turned her head, refusing access to her mouth. His senses filled with the velvet softness of her skin, the sweet temptation of her body’s perfume, as he brushed his lips below her ear.

Her restless movements stopped instantly. Arrested by the same sensations that bombarded him? Desire and heady bliss?

He slid his mouth over her neck, then up to her ear, circling the delicate lobe with his tongue.

She started in his arms as if zapped by the same jolt of energy that skewered him to the spot. Through the pounding in his ears he half heard, half felt her sigh.

‘You can’t deny this,’ he murmured.

Her skin tasted clean and sweet, like spring flowers made of flesh. Hungrily he nuzzled the corner of her jaw, the edge of her chin, the beauty spot beside her mouth.

Bracing to pull back just a fraction, he looked down into her face.

His lips curved in a tight, satisfied smile when he saw closed eyes, lips parted invitingly, as if urging him to claim her.

Her hair had started to come down as she tried to avoid his grip. Now, looking at the long strands of wavy silk falling across his wrist, he realised it wasn’t black as he’d thought in the ballroom. It was darkest brown, tinged with sparks of russet fire.

An image filled his brain, of rich dark hair spread over plump white pillows. Of his hands threading through its satiny splendour, splaying it out like a radiant sunburst.

Not just an image.

A memory!

Of Carys, lying sleepily in bed with him. Of her lazy smile, so dazzling it rivalled the brilliance of the snow-lit scene visible through the window above the bed.

The impact of that sudden recollection rocked him off balance, his arms tightening automatically around her.

For the second time in one night he’d remembered!

He’d known coming here was right.

With this woman he could unlock the closed door to the past. Restore all that was lost. Once he remembered he’d be free of this lurking awareness of something missing, of something incomplete in his life.

Then he could move on, content with his life again.

‘Alessandro.’ Her eyes were open now and aware. He read shock there and chagrin in the way she gnawed at her lip. ‘Let me go. Please.’

He’d been taught to respect a woman’s wishes. The Mattani code of honour was deeply ingrained, and he would never force himself on a woman. But it was too late to dissemble. Carys wanted this as much as he, despite her words.

Surely one kiss couldn’t hurt.

‘After this,’ he murmured. ‘I promise you’ll enjoy it.’ Almost as much as he intended to.

He captured her head, turned her face up to his, and slanted his mouth over hers.

Carys strained to shove him away. Desperation lent power to her tired limbs, yet she made no impact on him. If anything his wide shoulders loomed closer. He was stronger than her by far.

The knowledge should have frightened her. Yet part of her exulted. The unreformed hedonist inside her that she’d only discovered when she’d met Alessandro. The lover who’d been enraptured by his masculinity and athletic power. The heartbroken woman who’d loved and lost and secretly hoped to have her love returned.

Her struggle was as much within herself as against him.

Warm lips covered her mouth, and a judder of shocking need raked her from head to toe. It was instant, all-consuming and undeniable.

But she refused to give in to it. She pressed her palms against his shoulders and leant back as far as his encompassing arm allowed. Frantic to escape, she remembered too well how she’d always responded to him.

His kiss was unexpectedly tender, a gentle caress of firm lips along the closed line of her mouth.

His unfamiliar cologne, subtle yet masculine, tinged the air. The heat of his body warmed hers. His arms held her as if he’d never let her go.

Another illusion.

Carys tried to whip up her resolve, her scorn. But her mind fought a losing battle when her body was already capitulating.

‘No!’ She had to get away. Had to stand firm against him. ‘I don’t—’

It was too late. With the unerring instinct of a born predator, Alessandro took advantage of her momentary lapse and plunged his tongue into her open mouth.

Her breath stopped as reality splintered into fragments around her. He caressed her tongue, the inside of her cheeks. The dark world behind her closed eyelids came alive with flashes of fire. He grasped the back of her head, then tilted his own so he could delve deeper with a slow thoroughness that made her shudder in response.

Her hands on his shoulders curved, holding tight. Her panic faded. Tentatively her mouth moved with his, following the dance of desire they’d created together time and again. Carys mimicked his movements and slowly, like a sleeper waking from hibernation, felt the life force surge in her blood. Hunger gnawed her belly.

Soon she answered his demands with her own.

This felt so right.

His arms curved close, tugging her intimately against him. His kiss lured, delighted and provoked her into a response that escalated from tentative to eager and unashamed.

Now Carys’ hands slipped from his shoulders to his neck, then up to furrow through his short, crisp hair and mould his head with desperate fingers. He was real, solid and wonderful, not the ephemeral phantom of her dreams. She needed him close, closer, to satisfy the burgeoning craving for more.

Heady, half-formed memories bombarded her. Of Alessandro pleasuring her. Of him holding her tight in his arms as if he’d never let her go. Of the instant spark of recognition and understanding that had passed between them the moment they’d met.

But these were tiny flickers, mere shadows of thought. She was absorbed in relearning the feel of Alessandro. His hair, his lips and tongue, the hot steel of his arms around her, the muscle and bone strength of his long body. His taste and scent.

Carys leaned in, glorying in the slide of achingly full breasts against his hard torso. She rose on tiptoe, seeking more, trying to get closer, to absorb herself into the wonderful luxury, the effervescent excitement of his kiss.

With a muffled groan, Alessandro lashed his other arm around her, lower, wrapping round her buttocks and lifting her off the ground.

Yes! Carys gave herself up to each exquisite sensation: of their mouths meshing, of his formidable strength enveloping her, of burning hot skin beneath her fingers as she moulded his jaw and cheeks.

Alessandro moved. She felt his thighs shift around her as he walked, and then there was something solid behind her while Alessandro pressed close. A wall? A couch? She’d lost all sense of perspective.

He tilted his hips in a slow grinding movement and desire blasted through her. His pelvis and hers were in perfect alignment, the heavy bulge in his trousers a portent of pleasure to come.

Instinctively she curved her body up to meet him. A throb began deep between her legs, an edgy neediness that strung her tight with anticipation.

‘Temptress. Siren.’ His muttered words were hoarse, as if squeezed out under duress.

Carys let her head loll against a hard surface and gulped oxygen into her air-starved lungs. Alessandro ravished her face and throat with burning kisses that ignited tiny explosions of pleasure through her taut body. And all the while he pushed close as if he could melt the barrier of their clothes and bring them both the bliss they craved.

One large hand slid down her hip and over her thigh, igniting tremors of fresh awareness. When his palm climbed back, her skirt bunched beneath it, riding higher and higher.

Carys opened her mouth, vaguely aware of the need to protest, but his mouth slammed into hers again, robbing her of breath and the beginnings of thought.

Once more Alessandro pleasured her, this time with a kiss so sweet yet so demanding it devoured the last of her resistance. She lolled back as he drew forth every last shred of hidden longing.

Willingly Carys complied as he lifted her leg up around his hip, and then the other. The bittersweet ache between her legs, and deeper, inside her womb, became a steady throb. Encircling him with her legs, she squeezed tight.

As if he understood, Alessandro pressed close again, pushing his erection just…there.

Yes! That was what she wanted. To have him warm the empty places in her body and her soul that had been chilled for so long.

Large hands slid under the tight, rumpled fabric of her skirt, up her thighs till they reached bare, quivering flesh.

‘Stockings,’ he breathed against her mouth. ‘You dress to drive a man insane.’

She wasn’t listening. Carys heard the low burr of his voice, felt his breath against her lips, but the words made no sense. Only the approval in his tone was real.

Haphazardly she ripped at his bow tie, desperate for his hot skin bare beneath her palms.

Long fingers slid around her thighs, stroking and teasing her sensitive skin. She jerked and squirmed, tugging at his shirt till, with a rip, it tore open.

A torrent of slurred Italian signalled his approval. But she barely noticed for heaven was in the touch of wiry hair and steamy satiny flesh under her hands. In the rapid pulse of his heart pounding against her touch.

His hands moved, and a knuckle brushed against the damp cotton of her panties.

‘Cara,’ he growled deep in his throat. ‘I knew you wanted this as much as I do.’ He insinuated probing fingers beneath the elastic of her underwear while, with his other hand, he fumbled at his belt.

Reality, hard and relentless, broke upon her in an instant of icy clarity. The heady, exquisite arousal faded as her mind kicked into gear.

Was it the greedy touch of his fingers in that most intimate of places? The practised way he undid his belt and ripped open the fastening of his trousers? The smug satisfaction in his voice?

He didn’t even want her, an outraged voice cried in her head. He wanted ‘this’. Sex. Physical satisfaction.

Presumably any woman would do. Carys was just conveniently available.

More than available. Willing. Desperate for him.

Aghast, Carys stiffened.

What had she done? She’d let her loneliness, memories of the bliss they’d once shared, lead her into self-destructive temptation.

‘No! Stop.’ Mortified, she shoved with all her might, wriggling to dislodge his questing fingers and unwrap her legs. ‘Let me go!’

She moved so unexpectedly he didn’t prevent her and even moved back a precious few centimetres, allowing her to slide her legs free. That was when she registered it was a wall behind her, as her stockinged feet hit the floor. She had to brace herself against the weakness in her knees so she didn’t collapse.

He’d almost had her, up against the wall of his suite! Fully clothed!

The glorious heat they’d shared bled away as mortification and disbelief welled. After all that had happened how could she have been so weak?

‘Carys…’

She batted his hands away, stumbling to escape and tripping over a discarded shoe.

Her self respect was in shreds. Her chest heaved with distress as she fumbled with shaky fingers to push her straight skirt down her hips. Her eyes blurred.

‘Let me.’

‘No!’ Carys whirled to face him, arms outstretched to keep him at bay.

Even with lipstick on his jaw, and his jacket and dress shirt torn open to reveal a dusky, hair-dusted chest, he looked in command, powerful and controlled.

Sexier than any man had a right to be.

Then she saw the way his chest rose and fell, as if from exertion. The tendons in his neck stood out and his facial muscles were drawn too tight. A flush of colour slanted across his cheeks and his nostrils flared as if he fought for oxygen.

The evidence of simple animal lust. That was all Alessandro had ever felt for her.

When would she learn? Self-disgust filled her.

Her poor tortured heart compressed as a weight as big as Flinders Street Station pushed down on her chest. Breathing was agony.

But the realisation of what she’d almost done was worse. One kiss…one kiss and she’d been scrabbling at his shirt, desperate to feel his body against hers, urging him on to take her.

Her chin crumpled and she bit her lip. She’d invited her own degradation.

Once again Alessandro had proved himself a consummate seducer. But that was no excuse. She should be able to resist him. She had to. Where was her self-respect?

‘Don’t touch me,’ she whispered as she wriggled her hips, tugging the skirt down. She kept her eyes above his waist, not wanting to see what she’d felt pressing intimately against her, inviting her to mindless pleasure.

Involuntarily her internal muscles clenched. Her betraying body was still ready for his possession. The knowledge flattened the last remnant of her pride.

‘Va bene. As you wish.’ The feral gleam in Alessandro’s eyes warned her he wouldn’t be thwarted for long. ‘Instead we will talk. For now.’

Fire scorched her throat and she looked away, unable to meet his dark scrutiny any longer.

Slowly Carys backed across the floor, feet sinking into the plush depth of carpet. He didn’t follow her but stood, arms akimbo, as if waiting for her to come to her senses.

‘We have to talk, Carys.’

Like hell they did. They’d done enough talking for one night. The brush of cool air on her heated skin made her frown and reach for her throat, only to discover her blouse hung open to reveal her white cotton bra.

How had that happened? Carys clutched the edges of her blouse together with numb fingers. She shot an accusing glare across the room, but Alessandro said nothing, merely raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest as if waiting for her to come to her senses.

For all his immobility she couldn’t rid herself of the notion he merely waited to pounce.

Would she have the resolve to stop him next time?

‘I’m not staying here to be attacked again.’

‘Attacked!’ He drew himself up to his full height and stared down his long aristocratic nose at her. ‘Hardly that. You were panting for my touch.’

His arrogant claim was the final straw because it was true. Her resolution had failed. She was weak and nothing could protect her from him. Nothing but bluff.

She shrugged, the movement more stiff than insouciant.

‘I was curious, that’s all. And,’ she hurried on as he opened his mouth to reject her explanation, ‘and besides, it’s been a while since I…’

‘You’ve been saving yourself, cara? Is that it?’ His smoky voice urged her to assent and blurt out that there’d been no one since him. Wouldn’t he just love that!

Fury sizzled along her veins. Glorious wrath at the man who’d taken her innocence, her love and her trust and thought he could have her again at the click of his fingers.

‘No,’ Carys lied. It would just feed his ego to know there’d been no one since him. She shifted her gaze.

He held her in thrall. What would it take to make him relinquish his pursuit? Desperation drove her to blurt out the first thing she could think of to stop him.

‘My boyfriend and I had a disagreement and—’

‘Boyfriend?’ His voice thundered through the suite. ‘You were missing your boyfriend? You can’t tell me you were thinking of him just now?’

‘Can’t I?’ Carys swung her head round and felt his dark green stare like frozen shards of crystal grazing her skin.

‘I don’t believe you.’ But she’d sown the seed of doubt. That was obvious from his sudden pallor.

A tiny fillip of triumph rose. Maybe she could make herself safe from him after all.

‘Believe what you like, Conte Mattani.’

‘Don’t use that title with me,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not some stranger.’

She said nothing, merely backed a few more steps towards the foyer.

‘You don’t intend to leave looking like that,’ he announced in a cold, disapproving tone.

Carys felt the weight of her hair tumbling round her shoulders and knew she looked as if she’d been ravaged to within an inch of her life. She was barefoot, half undressed, her lips bruised and swollen from the intensity of their passion, and her nipples thrust shamelessly against the cotton of her bra. Anyone looking at her would know precisely what she’d been doing.

She had a choice: an ignominious flight from the presidential suite looking like a complete wanton or a cosy tête a tête with Alessandro Mattani.

She was across the room before he could move a step.

‘Just watch me.’

Alessandro stood on the private terrace of his suite, watching the dark-clad workers scurry across the bridge and swarm the streets. Morning peak hour and he’d already been at work for several hours.

Habitually he started early and finished late. But this morning…he raked a hand through his hair as frustration filled him.

He’d slept even less than usual, bedevilled by tantalising dreams of luscious pale limbs entwined with his, of generous feminine curves and silky smooth skin, of smoky blue-grey eyes enticing him to the brink of sexual fulfilment. Each time he’d woken, sweating, gasping for breath and formidably aroused, to the realisation Carys Wells had fled rather than allow them the release they both craved.

He rubbed a hand over his freshly shaved jaw, as if to dispel the tension there.

Even in sleep she denied him.

He could barely believe she’d run. Especially after he’d felt the hunger in her, a hunger as ravening as his own. It was a wonder their clothes hadn’t disintegrated around them, their passion had been so combustible.

He grasped the iron balustrade savagely. Could it have been a tactic to tease him into wanting more then leave him aching with need? What could she hope to gain?

He shook his head. No woman was that good an actress. Besides, he knew every trick in the book when it came to conniving women, and Carys hadn’t played the tease. He remembered the scent of her arousal, sharp and musky.

Oh, no, Carys Wells had wanted him all right.

Why had she denied them both?

A stiff breeze blew up from the river and chilled his skin. He should have taken things slower, scoped out the situation rather than allowing his driving need free rein.

One of the first things he’d learned when he entered the commercial world was to plan carefully and unemotionally and only strike at the most opportune moment.

Last night it hadn’t been his brain doing the thinking.

He’d frightened her off. Her wide eyes had been desperate as she backed to the door. For an instant he’d even suspected they shone overbright.

A ripple of regret passed through him and he frowned.

His security team assured him she’d got home safely, unaware of their surveillance or their orders to keep her safe. Yet still Alessandro felt the weight of guilt. It was his fault she’d fled.

He should have controlled himself and conquered his animal instincts. Yet he’d been unable to comprehend anything but the need to possess her.

Alessandro scrubbed his palm over his face again, grimacing. He couldn’t remember ever acting with less forethought. He’d been like a starving man set before a banquet, unable to summon even a shred of restraint.

Was he always like that with her?

The question tantalised him. The frustration of not knowing ate like acid into his gut.

He was so close, and still the answers eluded him.

A discreet ringtone interrupted his thoughts and he drew his cellphone from his pocket.

It was Bruno, head of his security team, reporting on Carys’ movements this morning. Alessandro froze into immobility at the report, delivered in a carefully uninflected tone.

Eventually he roused himself enough to issue a few more orders. Then he took the phone from his ear and waited for the image Bruno was sending.

There it was. A little blurry with movement, but unmistakeable. Carys Wells, in a familiar dark suit and not a hair out of place. But what held Alessandro’s attention wasn’t his erstwhile lover. It was the burden she carried in her arms.

Small, rounded, riveting his attention.

A baby.

Carys had a child.

The air purged from Alessandro’s lungs in a hiss of disbelief. His jaw tightened so hard his head began to throb as he stared at the image before him.

Whose child? The boyfriend from whom she’d been separated? Some other man? A long-term lover or a passing stranger?

Pain roused him from his turbulent thoughts. Alessandro looked down to discover he’d grasped the railing so hard the decorative ironwork had drawn blood on the fleshy part of his palm.

Dispassionately he stared at the welling redness, then back at the picture of Carys and her child.

Only then did Alessandro recognise the emotion surging so high it threatened to choke him. Fury. Raw sizzling wrath that she’d been with another man.

It didn’t matter how or why they’d separated. Every instinct screamed that Carys belonged to him. Could it be any clearer after the way they’d been together? The intensity of their passion made every other liaison pale into insignificance.

He’d come seeking answers. Last night he’d discovered answers weren’t enough. He wanted Carys too, for as long as the attraction between them held.

Looking at her holding another man’s child in her arms sent spears of flame through his chest and gut.

The sight should have cured him of his lust.

Instead he felt a burning desire to discover the identity of the man who’d fathered Carys’ baby and mash him into a pulp with his bare hands.

CHAPTER FOUR

CARYS pulled her long, flapping coat tight around herself as she left the staff entrance. A cheap second-hand purchase, it helped combat Melbourne’s cold, but it was a size too large, billowing out in the wind and allowing chill draughts to tease her.

A glance at the louring sky made her pick up her pace, scurrying to avoid the blur of rain already washing over the city. With luck her train would be on time and she’d get home at a reasonable hour. Two of her colleagues had returned to work today, so she didn’t have to stay back.

Carys looked forward to the luxury of some quiet time with Leo then a long luxurious soak and a good night’s sleep.

Resolutely she avoided the knowledge that she’d probably spend another sleepless night tossing and turning.

She’d made it through the day in a state of numb shock, working like an automaton, except when the sight of a tall darkhaired man, or an unexpected call, froze the blood in her veins.

She’d expected him to come after her. If not last night when she’d left him high and dry, then today.

He knew where she worked. He knew far too much. Why had he left her alone?

Foreboding crept through her. He was biding his time.

It could only be Leo he wanted. Her precious boy. What else would drag Alessandro here from Italy?

The realisation was like a knife at her neck. A man with Alessandro’s resources could get anything he wanted.

If he wanted Leo…

Carys had no illusions that he was here for anything else. For Alessandro, last night had simply been about the chance for hot sex.

Absence from his wife must be wearing on him.

Bile rose in Carys’ throat, a savage, scouring bitterness. Shame flooded her and she ducked her head.

She hadn’t even remembered he was tied to another woman! The overwhelming reality of his presence had blasted Carys back to a time when she’d been his, body and soul. When she’d believed he was hers. Before he had married his blue-blooded heiress.

Carys tasted salt on her tongue as she bit her lip.

Distress filled her at how close she’d come to compounding her stupidity in an act that would shatter her principles.

She hadn’t been able to meet her eyes in the mirror this morning, recalling her uninhibited response to him.

Fury, disbelief and disappointment filled her. At him for using her as a convenience to assuage his physical needs. For not being the honourable man she’d once thought him. At herself for abandoning her pride and principles in letting him sweep her into his tempestuous embrace.

Carys squared her shoulders. She’d played the fool for the last time. Besides, he’d relinquished all rights when he—

A pair of massive mirror-polished black shoes blocked the pavement before her. Carys side-stepped to skirt the man, but with one long stride he moved too, forcing her to stop.

Her gaze climbed a pair of bulky legs in pin-striped trousers so beautifully tailored they almost tamed the rampantly muscled solidity of the man. Neat shirt, dark tie, perfectly fitting jacket and a swarthy face topped by pepper and salt hair. Gold winked in the man’s earlobe as he turned his head and Carys stared, sure she’d seen him before.

‘Scusa, signorina. This way, please.’

He extended one arm, gesturing towards the kerb.

Carys turned to see a limousine with tinted windows drawn up beside her, its back door open.

Her pulse sped up to thunder in her ears. A sprawl of long masculine limbs filled her vision of the interior and her heart rate spiked. The last thing she wanted was to share such an intimate space with Alessandro Mattani.

‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she muttered, automatically stepping back from the road.

The large Italian moved closer, shepherding her towards the vehicle. Resolutely she planted her feet on the pavement, refusing to budge.

She looked around, hoping to find the street filled with people, but the few she saw were racing for cover as big fat drops of rain spattered the pavement. There was no one to interfere if Alessandro’s goon tried to manhandle her into the car.

‘Why don’t you get in before you both get soaked?’ asked a cool voice from the back of the limo.

Outraged dignity came to her rescue. ‘And if I’d prefer to get drenched than share a car with you?’

‘I’d say it was very selfish of you to force Bruno to suffer the same fate just for the sake of your pride.’

Her eyes rounded. Pride? Alessandro thought this was simply about pride?

The man beside her moved, closing in beside her, and Carys darted a glance at him, wondering if she had any hope of getting away. He was built like a rugby player, all dense-packed muscle. Right now he had that grim, blank-eyed set to his face that she’d seen on the super-tough minders of the rich and famous.

‘Per favore, signorina.’

Drops splattered his jacket as the rain fell faster. He didn’t bat an eyelid, just watched her with the stony countenance of a man ready to deal with anything.

She’d bet five feet six of female, hampered by heels and a skirt, would be the work of a moment to overpower.

‘Don’t let his looks fool you, Carys,’ came a laconic voice from the limo’s interior. ‘Bruno has a weak chest. He’s just got over a bout of bronchitis. I wouldn’t like him to have a relapse. And you wouldn’t want that on your conscience.’

Carys blinked, catching the merest flicker of expression on the security man’s face. A smile? Surely not.

Movement to one side caught her eye, and she turned to find Alessandro had slid to the edge of the seat and was regarding her with a peculiarly unreadable expression.

‘His wife would flay me alive if I brought him home with pneumonia.’

Despite her anger, Carys felt her lips twitch. Once, long ago, Alessandro’s dry wit had been one of the things that had drawn her to him. She’d almost forgotten that, her memories skewed by those final, unhappy days when banter and teasing had been absent between them.

‘I would have thought blackmail was more your style,’ she jeered. ‘Or threats, rather than an appeal to my conscience.’

Rain trickled into her collar, but she stood ramrod straight. This man was dangerous.

A shrug of those lean shoulders and he said something in Italian that made Bruno move away to give them space. Carys barely had time to register the chance for escape when Alessandro’s voice curled around her, silkily smooth. ‘I regret last night, Carys. It wasn’t planned.’

He paused, awaiting a response that she steadfastly refused to give. If that was his idea of an apology he had a lot to learn.

Alessandro’s eyes narrowed as she stood rigid under his scrutiny. Something glittered in that forest-dark gaze that sent shivers of trepidation running through her. Despite his earlier light-hearted words, his stare sizzled. She guessed his deadpan expression disguised an anger almost as great as her own. Now she looked more closely, she read tension in his shoulders and grim mouth.

Too bad. She tilted her chin up, wishing she had a long aristocratic nose like his so she could look down it.

‘But if that’s the way you’d prefer to do this,’ he purred, ‘then I can oblige.’

She’d opened her mouth to say she preferred to have nothing to do with him, when his next words forestalled her.

‘I’m sure the hotel management would be interested in the security camera footage of the lobby outside the presidential suite last night, and in the lift. If they cared to check the recording they’d find it…illuminating.’

‘You wouldn’t!’ Shock hammered her like a physical blow, sucking out her breath. That tape would show her emerging from his suite in the early hours looking like…like…

‘Wouldn’t I?’ His stare was unnervingly blank. ‘I’m sure they frown on staff providing personal services to guests.’ His tongue dripped with hateful innuendo and Carys burned with frustration and fury. Her hands clenched around the shoulder strap of her bag.

‘I wasn’t providing a service, you—’

‘It doesn’t matter what you were doing, Carys. All that matters is how the evidence appears.’ He leaned back with a smug glimmer in his eyes.

Evidence. It sounded so formal.

It would be formal if anyone decided to check the recording. Formal enough to get her the sack.

Her heart dived and she shivered, but not from the rain’s chill. She needed this job. How else could she support Leo? Good positions were hard to find for someone with limited qualifications.

Would Alessandro make good on his threat?

Once she’d thought she’d known this man. Had trusted him. Had even believed he was falling in love with her.

What a naïve innocent she’d been.

She’d learned the hard way not to trust her judgement with him. Better to assume him capable of anything to get his own way. He’d already made a fool of her once.

He was her enemy, threatening the life she’d begun to build, her independence, even, she feared, her child.

‘What do you want?’ She didn’t care that her voice was scratchy with distress, despite her attempt to appear calm.

‘To talk. We have unfinished business.’

He didn’t wait for her to assent but slid back across the wide leather seat, making space for her.

Unfinished business.

That was how he described one little boy?

Her throat closed convulsively as the fight bled out of her. She couldn’t ignore Alessandro. She had to face him and hope against hope she could retain some control of the situation.

She tottered forward on numb legs and entered the limousine, her wet coat sliding along a leather seat that looked and smelled fresh from the factory.

Only the best for the Conte Mattani.

Under no circumstances would she, an ordinary single mum with not an ounce of glamour, be classed as the best. Alessandro had made that abundantly clear in Italy.

Her heart bumped against her ribs. Had Alessandro decided her little boy was a different matter?

The limo door shut with a quiet click and she sagged back, shutting her eyes. She was cold to the bone.

There was no escape now.

Moments later the front door closed and the vehicle accelerated. Belatedly she remembered to do up her seatbelt. A swift sideways glance told her Alessandro wasn’t happy, despite having got her where he wanted her.

The proud, spare lines of his face seemed austere and forbidding silhouetted against the city streets. He looked as approachable as some ancient king, brooding over judgement.

The flicker of unease inside her magnified into a hundred fluttering wings. She was at a disadvantage to him in so many ways.

His silence reinforced that she was here at his pleasure.

Carys flicked her gaze away, not deigning to ask where they were going. Two could play the silent game. It would give her time to marshal her resources.

As she stared straight ahead, trying to control her frantic, jumbled thoughts, she found herself looking through a smoky glass privacy-screen at the back of Bruno’s head.

Recognition smote her.

‘He was on my street. Last night!’ Carys leaned forward to make sure. There was no mistaking the bunched-muscle silhouette of the minder’s neck and shoulders, or the shape of his head.

As she’d walked up the ill-lit street to her block of flats in the early hours, she’d faltered, her heart skipping as she noticed a brawny man in jeans and a leather jacket just ahead. He looked to be waiting for someone. But as she’d hesitated he’d turned to stroll away in the opposite direction.

Nevertheless, she’d scurried inside as fast as possible. Her street was peaceful by day, but the shopping strip a few blocks away had been attracting unsavoury characters at night.

‘Bruno, your bodyguard. He was outside my home.’

She swung round to find Alessandro watching her steadily. His lack of response infuriated her.

‘You’re not even bothering to deny it!’

‘Why would I?’ His brow furrowed in a hint of a frown that, annoyingly, didn’t detract from his handsome looks.

‘You had him follow me?’ Already Alessandro had pried into her personnel records. Now his stooge had been scoping out her home. He had no qualms about invading her privacy.

‘Of course.’ He stared coolly as if wondering what the fuss was about. ‘It was late. I had to make sure you got back all right.’

His explanation took the wind out of her sails and she slumped in her seat, her mind whirling.

‘You were trying to protect me?’

Something indefinable flickered in his eyes. ‘You were out alone at an hour when you should have been safely home.’

At least he didn’t mention her state of disarray. Even in a pair of shoes borrowed from the staffroom, and with her shirt buttoned again, she’d felt as if the few people she’d met on her journey took one look and knew exactly what she’d been up to in the presidential suite.

Alessandro made her sound like a teenager in need of parental guidance. Not a twenty-five-year-old woman supporting herself and her son.

Yet it wasn’t indignation Carys felt rise like a tide inside her. It was warmth, a furtive spark of pleasure, that he’d cared enough to worry about her safety.

In the old days she’d been thrilled by the way he’d looked after her, showing what she’d thought was a strongly protective nature.

Until she’d discovered her mistake. What she’d seen as caring had been his way of keeping her isolated, separate from the rest of his life. It had been a deliberate tactic to ensure she didn’t know how he used her.

The lush melting warmth inside her dissipated as a chill blast of reality struck right to the bone.

‘I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself! I was doing it long before you turned up.’ Carys wrapped her arms around the faux-leather bag on her lap and turned away.

She was proud of what she’d achieved. When she’d arrived in Australia she’d been a mess, her heart in tatters, her confidence shattered. Even her destination of Melbourne was unplanned. She’d been too distraught to do more than turn up at the airport and board the first available flight home.

Now she’d built a new life for herself and Leo. She was working hard to achieve the financial security they needed.

‘Is that so?’ Scepticism dripped from each syllable as he held her with a glacial green stare. ‘You really think that the best neighbourhood to bring up a child?’

Her fingers, busy fiddling with the zipper on her bag, froze. Every muscle tensed.

Now they’d come to the crux of the matter.

She waited for him to accuse her of being a bad mother, to demand his rights and push his case. Yet he remained silent, only his lowered brows hinting at displeasure.

‘The flat is sunny and comfortable. And affordable.’ It went against the grain to hint at her lack of funds, but no doubt he knew about her precarious finances.

Despite working right up till she went into labour, Carys had used all her meagre savings in the months after Leo’s birth. If it hadn’t been for the money her father had sent long-distance, she wouldn’t have been able to support them. When the going had got really tough, she’d even thought of moving to be with her dad. Till she imagined his horror at the idea.

Only now, with her job at the Landford, could she make ends meet, though most of her wages went on childcare and rent and there was precious little for other necessities.

‘And the location? Your neighbourhood is becoming a hub for drug dealing and prostitution.’

He didn’t bother to hide his disapproval. If she hadn’t been wearing a thick coat, his coruscating glare would have scraped off layers of skin.

‘The reports are exaggerated,’ she bluffed, refusing to admit he’d tapped into her own fear. That the cosy nest she’d created for her son grew less desirable by the week.

Only days ago there’d been more syringes found in the park and another bashing in the street. Carys had decided that, despite the friends she’d made locally, she’d look for somewhere else to bring up Leo.

‘If you say so.’ His tone implied boredom.

Carys was puzzled. This was his opportunity to weigh in with comments about her inability to care for Leo. To make a case that she shouldn’t have sole custody.

Yet Alessandro seemed totally uninterested. Had she got it wrong? Hope rose shakily in her breast.

But if he wasn’t here for her little boy, what did he want from her?

Alessandro tamped down the fury he’d felt ever since receiving this morning’s report. Fury that Carys should live in such a neighbourhood. That she’d hooked up with a man who obviously refused to take care of her and her child.

That he, Alessandro, had let her get under his skin enough to be concerned for her!

He cursed himself for a fool. She’d walked out on him, moved on from whatever relationship they’d had. He should do the same. Dignity and pride demanded it.

He would, he vowed, once he knew all he needed to about those blank months.

Yet that sense of intimate connection still hammered at him. It was stronger even than the cool logic around which he built his life.

Despite her antipathy and her child by another man, Alessandro couldn’t banish the possessiveness that swamped him when he was with her. It consumed him.

Never had he experienced such feelings.

His fists tightened as his temples throbbed. Flickers of images taunted him. Whether remnants of last night’s erotic dreams or snippets of memory, he didn’t know.

He wanted to hate her for the unaccustomed weakness she wrought in him. Yet the bruised violet smudges under her eyes snagged his attention. It had taken more than one sleepless night to put them there.

His belly clenched as he took in her pallor and the way her worn coat dwarfed her. Last night he’d seen she was tired, but he’d been too overwhelmed by his own cataclysmic response to register what looked now like utter exhaustion.

He’d been impatient to solve the riddle that had haunted him so long. Too busy losing himself in her lush curves and feminine promise to admit the extent of her vulnerability.

That vulnerability clawed at his conscience. He should never have unleashed the beast of sexual hunger that roared into life when she was near.

‘Where’s this boyfriend of yours? Why doesn’t he help you?’ He snapped the words out, surprising himself. It wasn’t his way to blurt his thoughts.

Wary eyes met his. They darkened like storm clouds and instinctively he knew she concealed something.

Carys blinked and looked away. ‘I’m fine by myself. I don’t need anyone to—’

‘Of course you do. You shouldn’t be living in this area. Not with a baby.’ He spared the run-down neighbourhood the briefest of glances. It was seedy, an area of urban decline. ‘He should help you.’

Her mouth remained mutinously closed.

Alessandro knew a wholly uncharacteristic desire for hotblooded argument. He, who never let anything ruffle his equanimity! Who was a master at sublimating useless emotions and pursuing his goals with single-minded purpose.

How this woman unsettled him. The last twenty-four hours had been a roller coaster of unfamiliar feelings that made a mockery of his habitual control.

He resented that more than anything.

‘Who is he, Carys? Why do you protect him?’

Because she loved him? Alessandro’s mouth flattened. This should be none of his business, yet he couldn’t let go.

‘I’m not protecting anyone!’ she muttered. ‘There’s no one. What I told you—’

‘You said you’d argued. That’s no excuse for him walking out on his child and its mother.’

Alessandro’s nostrils filled with pungent distaste. His reaction to the idea of any man getting Carys pregnant was bone-deep rage. His belly cramped as he strove to master his feelings.

Who was this woman that she made him react so?

She stared silently, an arrested expression on her face.

‘Is he someone you work with?’ The words shot out through gritted teeth.

She shook her head. ‘Don’t be absurd.’

There was nothing absurd about it. Working side by side led too easily to intimacy. He’d had to move his PA elsewhere after she’d mistaken their working relationship for something else. He’d lost count of the female employees and business associates who’d thought work the perfect way into his bed.

Silently he cursed himself for needing to know.

‘He’s married? Is that it?’

Carys stared into his glowering face and struggled against a sense of unreality. He looked genuinely perplexed. Deep grooves bracketed a mouth that morphed from sensual perfection into a wrathful line.

She shook her head as if to clear it. She mustn’t have heard right.

‘There is no man in my life.’ She hesitated, knowing a craven urge to avoid the truth. ‘I made that up so you’d leave me alone.’

Alessandro’s brow furrowed, his eyebrows disapproving black slashes that tilted down in the centre. And still he looked better than any man she knew.

‘Don’t deny it. Of course there’s a man.’

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ His refusal to accept her word reopened a wound that had never healed. He hadn’t believed her before. Why should things be different now? Her word wasn’t good enough.

Pain mixed with Carys’ fury. Her distress was all the more potent for having been suppressed so long.

‘Spare me the show of innocence,’ he sneered. ‘You didn’t get pregnant all by yourself. Or are you trying to tell me it was an immaculate conception?’

‘You bastard!’ Her arm shot out faster than thought. An instant later her hand snapped across his cheek as her fury finally boiled over.

Her palm tingled. Her whole arm trembled with the force of the slap. Her breath came in hard, shallow pants. She barely noticed the dangerous glint in his narrowing eyes or the way he loomed closer.

Then, out of the blue, the implication of his words sank in. Relief swamped her, making her shake as she sagged back in her seat.

He wasn’t here to take Leo away.

Hysterical laughter swelled inside at her stupidity. Alessandro didn’t want to take her boy. Of course he didn’t! He’d made his disinterest and disapproval clear from the start. He’d left her in no doubt both she and her baby weren’t good enough for him and his rarefied circle of moneyed friends.

Why had she thought he’d changed? Because part of her still foolishly ached to believe he was the fantasy man she’d fallen in love with?

Pain welled.

It felt as if Alessandro had taken her last precious fragment of hope and callously ground it underfoot, shattering a fragile part of her.

‘You really are some piece of work, Alessandro Mattani.’ Her voice was hoarse with distress, her throat raw with pain as if she’d swallowed broken glass. ‘I should have known you hadn’t changed.’

‘Me, change?’ Astonishment coloured his voice, at odds with his look of rigid control.

‘Yes, you. You coward.’ Carys pressed a palm to her stomach, trying to prevent the churn of nausea. ‘Even after all this time you refuse to acknowledge your own son.’

CHAPTER FIVE

THE woman was mad.

Or conniving.

Alessandro met her glittering eyes, dark now as a thunder storm, and saw lightning flash.

Did she even notice that he’d grabbed her wrist and yanked it from his face? That he still held it in an implacable grip?

She didn’t seem to notice anything except her own fury.

His cheek burned from her slap and pride demanded instant retribution. No one, man or woman, insulted Alessandro Mattani.

Yet he held himself in check. He would not resort to violence against a woman.

More importantly, he needed to know what she was up to, this mad woman with the wild accusations and glorious eyes.

‘Don’t be absurd. I don’t have a child.’ That was one thing he’d never forget, no matter how severe his injuries.

Besides, he’d always taken care not to lay himself open to paternity claims. He enjoyed short-term liaisons, but that didn’t mean he took risks with his health or his family honour.

‘Spare me the act, Alessandro,’ she hissed. ‘Others might be impressed, but I’m not. I gave up being impressed the day I left you.’

He frowned as he felt tremors rack her body and her pulse catapult into overdrive.

‘You’re angry because our relationship ended?’

Women never liked knowing they held a temporary place in his life. Too often they set their sights on becoming the Contessa Mattani. But he had no illusions about matrimony. For him it would be a duty, to carry on the family name. A duty he was happy to postpone.

Her mouth opened in a short, humourless laugh. ‘I wouldn’t have stayed if you’d paid me,’ she spat out. ‘Not once I knew what you were really like.’

Such vehemence, such hatred, was new to Alessandro. The shock of it ran through him like a jolt of electricity. It felt as if he held a jumping live wire in his hand, liable to twist unpredictably at any moment and burn him to cinders.

She was unlike anything or anyone in his well-ordered life.

She fascinated him.

‘What’s this about a child?’ That sort of claim was one he would never take lightly.

Her mouth twisted in a grimace. ‘Forget it,’ she muttered, turning her head away. Her dismissive tone would anger a less controlled man.

Carys tried to tug her hand free, but he held her easily. He had no intention of letting her take another swipe at him. Swiftly he captured her other hand, holding both effortlessly till she gave up trying to escape and subsided, chest heaving, against the back of the seat.

‘I can hardly forget it.’ He pulled her hands, making her turn. Studiously he ignored the way her rapid breathing emphasised the swell of her breasts. ‘Tell me.’

Thick dark lashes rose to reveal silvery-blue eyes that flashed with repressed emotion. Her pulse pounded beneath his fingers and she swiped the tip of her tongue over her lips as if to moisten them.

Instantly desire flared in his belly.

Just like that.

The immediacy of his response would have stunned him if he hadn’t experienced it last night. Whatever the secret of her feminine allure, he responded to it with every particle of testosterone in his body.

He watched her hesitate and kept his expression unreadable. All the while he was aware of the way her moist pink lips unconsciously invited him to plunder her mouth. His fingers tightened on her hands, as if ready to tug her close.

‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Her look was pure belligerence. ‘You have a child. But you already know that.’ She paused; for the first time the heat in her expression disappeared and her eyes turned glacial, stabbing him with invisible icy shards. ‘Why make me repeat what you know?’

‘I want the truth. Is that too much to ask?’ Finally anger exploded behind Alessandro’s façade of calm. A roaring flame of wrath at this woman who turned his life inside out. He strove to resist shaking the truth out of her.

He couldn’t remember ever being so irate.

But then no woman had ever dared make such accusations. Plus the frustration of not knowing his own past would drive any man wild. Alessandro abhorred that sneaking sense of powerlessness, not remembering.

Her chin lifted. ‘Is it too much to ask that you stop crushing my hands?’

Instantly he released her, flexing fingers rigid with tension. He hadn’t intended to hurt her. Another disturbing sign that his control was close to shattering.

‘Thank you.’ She paused, her gaze skating sideways. ‘I promise not to slap you again. That was…unintentional.’ She turned. ‘We’re here.’ She spoke quickly, relief evident in every syllable.

Already Bruno was opening the door to the pavement. The driver stood at Alessandro’s door, waiting for him to alight.

‘We’ll finish this discussion inside.’

‘I’m not sure I want you in my home,’ she countered.

‘You think I want to be there?’ Being with Carys opened a Pandora’s Box of conflicting feelings he could do without.

But he needed to fill the gaps and banish once and for all the nagging sense of something missing in his life. Besides, he had to end this nonsense about fathering a child. He would not countenance such allegations.

Alessandro unfolded his legs from the car and stood up. He felt stiff, as if his muscles had cramped during the drive. He pushed his shoulders back and looked around the street. Graffiti marred the building opposite and a couple of ground-floor windows were boarded up further down the block.

Carys scurried ahead into an ugly square building, not looking back. Her shoulders were hunched and her head bent.

But she couldn’t avoid him. He stepped forward.

‘Signor Conte.’ Bruno waited on the pavement for him.

‘Yes?’ Alessandro paused, his eyes on Carys.

‘On the way here I received answers to the enquiries I made this morning. I didn’t like to interrupt your discussion with la signorina.’

Bruno’s careful tone snared Alessandro’s attention, dragging it from his furious thoughts. He turned to meet his security chief’s blank stare, sensing he wouldn’t like this.

‘And?’

‘There’s no record of a marriage. Signorina Wells is single.’

So, she hadn’t bothered to marry the baby’s father.

Alessandro shoved his hands deep into his pockets, refusing to examine the emotions stirring at that news.

‘There’s more?’

Bruno nodded. ‘The birth was just over a year ago here in Melbourne.’ There wasn’t a hint of expression in his voice and a tickle of premonition feathered Alessandro’s spine.

‘What other details did you get?’

‘The mother is given as Carys Antoinette Wells, receptionist, of this address.’ Bruno gestured to the tired red-brick block of flats.

Alessandro waited, instinct making his skin crawl. ‘And the rest?’

Bruno’s eyes flickered away. He drew himself up straighter. ‘The father is listed as Alessandro Leonardo Daniele Mattani of Como, Italy.’

Despite the fact that by now he’d half expected it, each word slammed into Alessandro’s gut with the force of a sledgehammer.

His name. His identity.

His honour.

Damn her for using him in this way! She’d taken his name and dragged it in the mud with her petty manipulations.

What did she hope to achieve? Money? Position? A hint of respectability even though her child was born out of wedlock?

But why hadn’t she come forward if she’d wanted to try screwing cash from him? Was she waiting for the most auspicious time to approach him?

As if there would ever be a good time for such a plan!

He felt his lips stretch in a grimace of distaste that bared his teeth. His nostrils flared and the blood pounded loud and fast in his ears.

‘Wait here,’ he barked. Without waiting for a response, he strode up the cement pavement to the eyesore of a building. A red mist hazed his vision. The need for justice, for retribution, spurred him on.

This was about far more now than curiosity. More even than the stirring of a libido that had been dormant since he’d woken in hospital twenty-two months ago.

Carys Wells had gone too far. She’d sullied his honour.

For that she would pay.

Carys had only just collected Leo from next door and put him down, still sleeping.

The rap on her door came too soon. She looked at Leo’s peaceful form and felt a tug of intense protectiveness. There’d been no time to decide how to deal with Alessandro.

Who was she kidding? She’d always been putty in his hands. Even now when she almost hated him, she had no illusions about that.

She’d never be rid of him until they had this out.

Reluctantly she walked through the miniscule flat, wiping her damp hands on her skirt. Her legs shook as another tattoo of raps sounded.

The glorious surge of anger had seeped away, leaving her prey to nerves and bone-melting exhaustion.

Fumbling, she unlatched the door and swung it wide.

Alessandro stood there, vibrating with a dangerous energy that wrapped right round her, squeezing her lungs. His eyes sizzled with a fury she’d seen only once before. The day he’d told her, with arctic composure, she’d outstayed her welcome.

Yet even now his potent charisma tugged at her. She bit down hard on her lip, desperate for the strength to face him.

Wordlessly he strode past her into the small sitting room-cumkitchen. For such a big man he still managed to avoid brushing against her which, given the size of the entry, was a feat in itself.

Her lips turned up in a grimace as she pushed the door shut. He couldn’t bear to touch her now she’d called him on his behaviour. How different from last night when his hands had been all over her, marking her with his own special brand of sensual possession.

Hot shame suffused her.

‘You used my name for your bastard child.’

She spun round to find him towering over her, the image of disdain. But his anger was no match for hers.

‘Don’t ever talk about him like that!’ She ignored the blast of his disapproval and jabbed an accusing finger.

‘What? You’re telling me you married after all?’

‘No! Why would I go looking for a husband after my child’s father had already rejected us?’

Alessandro leaned forward, using his superior height to intimidate her. ‘For the same reason you perjured yourself, listing me as the father on the birth certificate. To try to claim some measure of respectability. Or financial support.’

The irony of his accusation hit her full force. If she’d expected support of any kind from Alessandro she’d been grossly mistaken.

She might have harboured a fatal weakness for this overbearing, arrogant, gorgeous man, but, where her son was concerned, she refused to be bullied. She stuck her hands on her hips and stared back, glare for glare.

‘It was for Leo. He has a right to know who his father is.’

‘Have you no shame?’ Alessandro’s dark green eyes sliced right through her self-possession.

‘Only about the fact that I was once foolish enough to…’ She stopped herself in time. She would not lay herself open to derision by admitting the feelings she’d once held for him. ‘To believe in you.’

But she sensed he wasn’t listening. He was absorbed in his own thoughts.

‘Leo? You called him—’

‘Leonardo. After your father.’ She hesitated, aware now of her sentimental folly in choosing a family name for her son. She’d wanted to give him a link to his paternal family, even though that family had roundly rejected him.

Had she secretly thought one day Alessandro might be pleased to have the baby named after the father he’d lost? How misguided she’d been. He looked as she imagined some aristocrat of old must have when confronted with a troublesome serf.

‘You dared to—’

‘I’m not ashamed of what I did,’ she bit out between clenched teeth. ‘Live with it, Alessandro!’

A muffled wail sounded. Immediately Carys spun round and hurried to the bedroom she shared with Leo. She refused to stay and be reviled by Alessandro Mattani of all men.

Moments later Leo was in her arms, a warm cuddly bundle smelling of baby powder and sunshine and little boy. Carys held him against her and shut her eyes, feeling the serenity and joy she always experienced holding him.

‘Mumum!’ He reached up and patted her face.

Carys nuzzled his soft cheek then held him away. ‘Hello, sweetie. Did you have a good day?’

His face split in a broad smile. ‘Mum!’ Then something over her shoulder caught his attention and he stared, his grin fading.

The skin on her neck prickled as she sensed Alessandro’s presence in the room. She didn’t have to turn to know he stood behind her.

She froze.

For so long she’d daydreamed about him coming to find her and Leo. He’d admit he’d been wrong and be devastated by the pain he’d caused. Carys would even find it in her heart to forgive him once he realised his true feelings for her and changed his ways. He’d take one look at Leo and his heart would melt like hers had when she’d first seen her son.

But that would never be.

There was no warmth in his heart for either of them.

Apprehension trickled like hot ice down her backbone. She couldn’t bear it if he took out his anger on Leo. She cuddled her son tighter, but he leaned sideways, craning to keep Alessandro in view.

‘Mumum!’

‘No, darling. Not mummy.’ For a split second she knew a hysterical urge to tell him it was daddy. But she wouldn’t invite Alessandro’s wrath.

She turned, shoulders braced and chin up, holding her baby close. If Alessandro dared make one more disparaging remark—

But she needn’t have worried. All trace of arrogance and anger had vanished. Instead her tormentor stood curiously still, arms loose at his sides. His brows were knitted and he stared at Leo as if he’d never seen a baby before.

Instinctively Carys cuddled her son nearer. She smoothed back his glossy dark hair, almost long enough to be cut. But Leo paid her no heed. He was busy gazing up at the man who refused to be called his father.

She remembered how Alessandro’s collar-length hair had once been like sable under her hands, just like Leo’s. Their eyes were the same too. Though Leo’s reminded her of a cheeky pixie’s, with their twinkle, and Alessandro’s showed no warmth at all. They might have been made of rock crystal.

She watched Alessandro’s hands clench. The tendons in his neck stretched taut.

And still he stared at Leo.

A shiver raced down her spine.

‘How old is he?’ Alessandro’s voice was curiously husky.

‘He had his first birthday six weeks ago.’

‘He was born early?’

‘No. He went to full term.’ Why all the questions?

Leo’s sudden movement took her by surprise. He wriggled in her arms and lunged forward with all his weight as if trying to swim across the gap between himself and Alessandro.

‘Mumum!’ His hands opened and closed as if trying to grasp the big man before him. But Alessandro didn’t move.

Carys felt her heart spasm at the sight of her little boy reaching for his father. He was doomed to disappointment.

Alessandro would never acknowledge him.

Would never love him. Or her.

Finally, after all this time, she shrugged off the last tarnished remnants of hope. The ache in her throat nearly choked her, but she felt freer than she had in almost two years. Surely, in time, the wounds would heal.

Meanwhile she had to protect Leo from the pain of knowing his dad didn’t want him. She’d make up for the lack of a father, she decided fiercely. Leo would never want for love or encouragement or kindness. Not like she had.

Her arms tightened and he wailed, turning accusing eyes on her. ‘Mum!’

‘Yes, sweetheart. I’m sorry. Are you hungry? Are you ready for something to eat?’ She took a step towards the door, studiously ignoring the tall man, standing as if riveted to the spot. ‘Let’s get you some food, shall we?’

It seemed a lifetime before Alessandro moved. Finally he stepped aside. ‘After you.’

Carys didn’t deign to respond.

She’d made it to the kitchen, Leo clamped safely on her hip, when a deep voice halted her in her tracks.

‘Tell me how you came to be pregnant.’

He had to be kidding!

She whirled round to find him only a metre away, his eyes glued to her son. The intensity of his gaze unnerved her and she stroked her palm protectively over Leo’s cheek.

‘Oh, come on, Alessandro!’ Her lips were stiff with fury. ‘I don’t know what sort of game you’re playing, but I’ve had enough. This stops now.’

Dark green eyes lifted to pinion hers. Banked heat flared in that hooded gaze. Instantly a coil of reaction twisted in the pit of her stomach. Fear and something else she refused to name.

‘No, Carys.’ His words fell like blows, slow and heavy. ‘It’s just starting.’

Abruptly he turned to pace the room, but not before she read the bleak emptiness in his eyes.

‘Because as far as I know for certain, we met for the first time last night.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘SO THAT’S it? We met in the Alps, where you had a job in a ski resort. We had an affair and I invited you back to my home.’ Alessandro kept his voice neutral, as emotionless as if he were reading a company report rather than repeating the most astonishing thing he’d heard in years.

The whole idea was absurd.

He’d never invited any woman to share his home. The only woman he could imagine living there was the woman he’d one day make his wife. A woman he hadn’t yet met.

He’d spent his adult years ensuring the women he dated understood he wasn’t interested in deep, meaningful relationships. That was just female-speak for snaring a rich man gullible enough to believe she wanted him for his character and personality!

‘We lived together, but it didn’t work out, and you came back to Australia,’ he continued, watching her avoid his gaze. ‘You discovered you were pregnant and you called my home repeatedly, eventually spoke to my stepmother and as a result, believed I wanted nothing further to do with you?’

‘That’s about the size of it.’

Her offhand response fuelled the remnants of his earlier temper. Didn’t she realise how vital this was?

Alessandro’s fists clenched tight. He abhorred the need to share the fact of his memory loss with a stranger. Even a stranger with whom he’d once been intimate.

He’d been brought up never to show vulnerability, never to feel it. No wonder his discomfort now was marrow deep. His certainties, his sense of order, his grasp of the situation were far too shaky for a man accustomed to taking charge.

Still Carys didn’t look at him but busied herself feeding the tot in the high chair. Was it his imagination or was she taking far too long fussing with cloths and dishes?

Alessandro kept his eyes on her, rather than her son. Meeting those big green eyes so like his own made him uneasy. And the way the boy kept staring at him, surely that wasn’t normal.

The child wasn’t his. He’d know if he had a son.

He’d always been careful about contraception. He would have children at the appropriate time, when he’d found a suitable bride. She’d be clever, chic, at home in his world, sexy. She wouldn’t bore him after two weeks as most females did.

The harsh overhead light caught rich colour as Carys bent her head and the child tugged a lock of burnished hair loose from her prim bun.

Something snagged in Alessandro’s chest, looking at her. And her son.

No!

He refused to feel anything except annoyance that her story didn’t trigger any memories. It was all still an infuriating blank.

She turned and lifted the baby high in her arms, her prim white blouse dragging taut with the movement.

Something plunged in the pit of Alessandro’s belly and heat spread in his lower body.

At least one thing was explained: his sense of possessiveness when he looked at Carys. She’d been his and, if her story was true, they’d shared a relationship unlike his usual liaisons. He’d desired her enough, trusted her enough, to install her in his own home.

Incredible! Yet it would be easy to check.

Had he planned to keep her as a long-term mistress? The idea fascinated him.

Watching the tight material of her skirt mould her thighs, the thin cotton of her blouse stretch over her breasts, the idea didn’t seem quite as absurd as it should.

If it weren’t for the baby, he’d be tempted to take up right now where they’d left off last night.

Sudden pain slashed behind his eyes and through his temple as he struggled to remember. The headache he’d fought in the car hovered. He was well now. Recovered. Only occasionally did the pain recur, a reminder of the past.

‘Are you all right?’ Smoky eyes held his. He dropped his hand from his temple and stretched his legs in front of him, shifting his weight on the lumpy sofa.

‘Perfectly.’ He paused, following the movement of a chubby little starfish hand that patted her breast then tugged at one of her buttons. A moment later she caught the baby’s hand in hers.

Alessandro raised his eyes. Her cheeks were delicately flushed, her lips barely parted.

‘You haven’t told me why we split up.’

The colour in her cheeks intensified. But not, he’d swear, with sexual awareness. Her nostrils pinched, and her lips firmed.

‘I don’t want to talk about this. There’s no point.’

‘Humour me,’ he murmured, leaning forward.

He wanted his pound of flesh. But what choice did she have? He looked as immovable as Uluru. Instinctively she knew he wouldn’t leave till his curiosity was satisfied.

Carys believed him about his missing memory. He looked so uncomfortable she knew it was a truth he didn’t want to share. She’d heard of such amnesia from her medico eldest brother. And it explained so much that had puzzled her. Like why Alessandro had come round the globe to find her.

What other reason could he have for going to such lengths? Especially since he’d dumped her so unceremoniously.

She bit her lip, glad she was the only one to remember every ignominious detail of that scene.

‘You don’t remember anything?’ Pointless to ask, given his patent lack of knowledge about her, about them. Yet it seemed impossible she’d been wiped totally from his memory.

Once they’d been close. Not just physically intimate, but close as soulmates, or so it had seemed.

How could all that just disappear completely?

Because what they’d shared was far less important to Alessandro than it had been to her?

‘My memory stops several months before my father’s death.’ His words were terse. She guessed he viewed amnesia as a weakness he should be able to master. ‘I don’t remember meeting you.’ His tone implied he still doubted what she’d told him. ‘Those months are blank. I don’t even remember driving before the accident. Just waking up in hospital.’

Slowly Carys lowered herself into the rocking chair. She let Leo stand on her thighs while she held his hands. It was a game he loved, marching on the spot.

Besides, it gave her a chance to rest her shaky legs. The shock of Alessandro’s revelations was a stunning blow. She still felt faintly nauseous and her limbs trembled, thinking of him injured seriously enough to cause amnesia.

‘You didn’t tell me how the accident happened.’ She paused, wondering if her concern was too obvious. But she had to know. She avoided staring at the scar reaching up to his temple. Instead she fixed her attention on a spot over his shoulder.

His shrug was fluid and easy.

‘I was driving to Milan. The car skidded in the wet when I swerved to avoid a driver on the wrong side of the road.’

On the way to the office, then. Of course. He preferred to drive himself, claiming it helped him sort out his priorities for the day’s business. From the rough timeline he’d mentioned, it must have happened soon after she left.

Had she thought, even for an instant, that her departure would disrupt his precious business schedule?

Her ridiculous naivety still stunned her.

‘And you’re all right?’ Her heart pounded, imagining the scene. Carys swallowed hard on a jagged splinter of regret and fear. ‘No other after-effects? No pain?’

No matter what she told herself, she hadn’t completely severed her feelings for this man. She should despise him for the way he’d treated her, yet her conflicting emotions weren’t so straightforward.

Carys refused to meet his intent gaze, choosing instead to watch Leo as he babbled to her.

‘I’m perfectly healthy.’

Alessandro paused so long she looked up. He stared straight into her eyes as if reading her hunger for every detail. Her need for reassurance. Eventually he continued, his clipped words indicating how little he cared to dwell on his injuries.

‘I was lucky. I had lacerations and a couple of fractures.’

At her hissed indrawn breath he shrugged. ‘I mended quickly. I was only in hospital a few weeks. The main concern was my memory loss.’ Darkening eyes bored into hers. ‘But the specialists say there’s nothing I can do about that except let nature take its course. There’s no other brain damage.’

Carys slumped back, only now acknowledging the full depth of her fears. Relief warred with a sense of unreality.

‘I see.’ This strange, constrained conversation didn’t seem real given the past they shared. But it gave Carys a little time to work through the implications of his news.

He mightn’t remember her, but last night in his suite he’d seduced her with a combustible passion that had sheared straight through every defence she’d painstakingly erected in the last two years.

How had he done that if he couldn’t even recall her?

Was he such an awesome lover he could make any woman feel the heady, mind-blowing certainty that she wanted nothing more than Alessandro Mattani, unbridled and consummately masculine? Were the intimacies she’d shared with him and always thought so special, the wondrous sensations, something he shared with countless women?

Her weakness mortified her.

‘And your wife?’ Carys failed to keep the bitterness from her voice as she choked out the word. ‘I assume she’s not with you?’

‘Wife?’ The single syllable slashed through the heavy atmosphere in the room. ‘You’re not saying I have a wife?’

Did she imagine it or had he paled? His lazy sprawl morphed into stark rigidity as he sat up, staring.

Carys hesitated. ‘You were single when I left, but you were seeing someone else, planning to marry her. Principessa Carlotta.’ She couldn’t prevent distaste colouring her voice.

Of course Alessandro would only marry one of his own, a rich, privileged aristocrat.

Carys swallowed bile as memories surged. Of how she’d obstinately disregarded his stepmother’s warnings about Alessandro’s intentions. And about her true, temporary place in his world. Of how she’d foolishly pinned her belief and hopes on the tender passionate words he whispered in her ear. On the rapture of being with him, being loved by him.

No! Having sex with him. The love had been all on her side.

‘You seem to imply I did more than just see her.’ His tone was outraged; his eyes flashed a furious warning. ‘And that I did so while you and I were…together.’

If the cap fits, buddy. ‘So you did.’ Deliberately she turned away to focus on Leo, happily jouncing on her knees.

‘You’re mistaken.’ Alessandro didn’t raise his voice, but his whisper was lethally quiet, an unmistakeable warning. ‘I would never stoop to such despicable behaviour.’ Green eyes clashed with hers. They were so vibrant with indignation she expected to see sparks shoot from their depths.

‘I was there, remember.’ Carys took a slow breath, forcing down the rabid, useless jealousy that even now clawed to the surface. She concentrated on keeping her voice even. ‘And unlike you I have perfect recall.’

Silence. His stare would have stripped paint at twenty paces. It scoured her mercilessly.

Yet Carys refused to back down. He might believe he was incapable of such behaviour, but if his memory ever returned he was doomed to disillusionment.

‘I don’t need to remember to know the truth, Carys.’ He leaned forward, all semblance of relaxation gone. His voice echoed an unshakeable certainty. ‘No matter what you think you understand about that time, I would never betray one lover with another. Never have two lovers at the same time. It wouldn’t be honourable.’

Not honourable!

Carys suppressed an anguished laugh.

Was it honourable to have a lover share his bed but exclude her from the rest of his life because she wasn’t good enough for his aristocratic friends? To use her for temporary sex while he courted another woman?

Whatever had gone wrong between Alessandro and the principessa to prevent the marriage, that was exactly what he’d been up to.

Carys had simply been convenient, gullible, expendable.

She swung her head away, refusing to look at him. Even now the pain was too raw. A cold, leaden lump rose in her throat, but she refused to reveal her vulnerability.

She drew a slow breath. ‘When I tried to contact you about the pregnancy, your stepmother said you were preparing for your wedding. She made it clear you had no time to spare for an ex-mistress.’

‘Livia said that?’ His astonished tone drew her unwilling gaze. His eyebrows jammed together in a V of puzzlement. ‘I can’t believe it.’

No. That was the problem. He hadn’t believed her before either. Her word meant nothing against his suspicions. The reminder stiffened her backbone.

‘Frankly, Alessandro, I don’t care what you believe.’

‘It’s true Livia is fond of Carlotta,’ he murmured as if to himself. ‘And that she wants me to marry. But arranging a wedding? It never went that far.’

How convenient his loss of memory was.

Carys had confirmation of the betrothal from another source too. But most convincing of all had been the sight of Alessandro with the glamorous, blue-blooded Carlotta. Even now the recollection stabbed, sharp as a twisting stiletto in her abdomen, making her hunch involuntarily.

The princess had stared up at him with exactly the same besotted expression Carys knew she herself had worn since the day he’d swept her off her feet and into his bed. Alessandro had kept the other woman close, his arm protectively around her as if she were made of delicate porcelain. He’d gazed into her eyes, utterly absorbed in their intimate conversation as if she were the only woman in the world.

As if he didn’t have a convenient lover waiting obediently at home for him.

Carys blinked to banish the heat glazing the back of her eyes. Resolutely she focused instead on Livia’s dismissive words when Carys had rung to tell Alessandro about her pregnancy.

Alessandro will do what is necessary to provide for the child if it’s his. But don’t expect him to contact you in person. Her tone had made it clear Carys was too socially inferior to warrant anything more than a settlement engineered by his formidable legal team. The past is the past. And questions about your, shall we say…extra-curricular activities raise suspicions about the identity of the child’s father.

That slur, above all, had been hard to swallow.

How furious Alessandro’s stepmother would have been if she’d known Carys hadn’t accepted her word. Instead she’d left numerous messages on Alessandro’s private phone and sent emails, even a hand-written letter. She’d been so desperate for personal contact.

Only after months of deliberate, deafening silence had she finally accepted he wanted nothing to do with either her or her unborn child. Then she’d determined to turn her back on the past and start afresh, not even considering a legal bid to win child support. Leo was better off without a father like that.

Yet now it seemed Alessandro hadn’t known about her pregnancy.

Her breath jammed in her throat. All this time he hadn’t known!

He hadn’t rejected Leo at all.

Nor was he married.

Her head spun, trying to take in the implications, her emotions a whirling jumble. Once she might have believed that would change everything.

Now she knew better.

One glance at Alessandro confirmed it. He was absorbed in his thoughts, totally oblivious to the little boy perched on her lap, twisting around time and again to try catching the attention of the big man who so effortlessly dominated their flat.

Alessandro had no interest in her either. She was nothing but a source of information.

Or an easy lay.

A shudder passed through her as memories of last night’s passion stirred. Carys stiffened her resolve.

She looked into her baby’s excited green gaze. He twinkled back at her mischievously as he nattered away in a language all his own. He was the important thing in her life. Not ancient dreams of happily ever after with the wrong man.

Whether Alessandro had known about the pregnancy or not didn’t matter. What mattered was that the grand passion they’d shared had been a cheap affair, not a love on which to build a future. And he couldn’t have made it clearer he had no interest in Leo.

Bridges burned. End of story.

Carys ignored the ache welling deep inside at the finality of it all and summoned a wobbly smile for Leo.

‘Time for a bath, young man.’ She gathered him close and stood on creaky legs. Suddenly she felt old beyond her years. Old with grief for what her son would never have, and with a stupid, obstinate hurt at being rejected again. After a lifetime of not measuring up, not being quite good enough, it was stupid to feel so wounded, but there it was.

‘Why did I tell you to leave my home? You still haven’t told me.’

She looked across to see Alessandro on his feet, hands jammed deep in his trouser pockets. He stood as far from her as he could while remaining in the same room.

Didn’t that say it all?

‘I’d decided to go anyway.’ She lifted her chin. After learning about Alessandro and Carlotta the scales had fallen from her eyes. Carys knew she had to get as far away from him as she could. ‘But you accused me of having an affair, of betraying your trust.’

The irony should have been laughable. But Carys had never felt less like laughing. She jiggled Leo higher in her weary arms and straightened her back.

‘An affair? With whom?’ His brows furrowed and his features took on a remote, hawk-like cast. Condemnation radiated from him.

‘With Stefano Manzoni. He’s—’

‘I know who he is.’ If anything, Alessandro’s scowl deepened. His jaw set like stone and a pulse worked in his temple.

‘Nice company you keep,’ he said after a moment, his voice coolly disapproving.

Talk about double standards!

Carys jerked her chin higher. ‘I thought he was nice. At first.’ Until he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He was another macho Italian male who couldn’t cope with rejection. Though, to be fair, she’d never felt unsafe with Alessandro. ‘I would have thought that as your Princess Carlotta’s cousin he’d be utterly respectable.’

‘She’s not my Carlotta.’ The words emerged through taut lips.

‘Whatever.’ Carys hunched stiff shoulders. ‘Now, it’s time for me to bathe Leo.’ Her composure was in tatters and her limbs trembled with exhaustion. She felt like a wrung-out dishrag. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d go now.’ She couldn’t take any more.

Alessandro’s appearance had dredged up emotions she thought she’d vanquished. Emotions that threatened to undo her. She needed desperately to be alone.

All she had left was the torn remnants of her pride, and Carys refused to collapse in a heap while he was here.

Head high, she walked on unsteady legs towards the front door, intending to show him out.

Leo’s sudden sideways dive out of her arms took her completely unawares. One minute she was holding him. The next he was plunging headlong towards the floor when his bid to throw himself at Alessandro failed.

‘Leo!’

Belatedly Carys grabbed for him, her weariness banished as adrenaline pumped hard and fast through her bloodstream, but her reactions were too slow.

‘It’s all right. I’ve got him.’ How Alessandro got there so fast she didn’t know, but he scooped Leo up in his arms just before he hit the floor.

Her heart catapulted against her ribs, slowing only when she saw he had the baby safe in his large hands. Relief shook her so hard her legs wobbled.

He held Leo awkwardly, at a distance from himself.

As if he couldn’t bear to touch him? Or as a man would who’d never had experience with babies?

Carys hesitated, trying to decide which. In that moment Leo latched onto Alessandro’s suit-clad arm, plucking at the fabric as if trying to climb closer. Green eyes met green, and Leo frowned, his chubby face puckering as he regarded the unsmiling man before him.

Finally, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, Leo smiled. His whole face lit up. His hands thumped on Alessandro’s arm and he crowed with delight.

Terrific! Her son had developed a soft spot for a man who never wanted to see him.

Obstinately Carys shied from dwelling on the sight of her son in his father’s arms. It would be the only time. It was foolish to feel even a jot of sentimentality over the image of the tall, strong man holding her precious baby so ineptly yet so securely.

Carys hurried forward, arms outstretched.

‘I’ll take him.’

Alessandro didn’t even turn his head. He was busy regarding Leo, not even flinching when the child’s rhythmic thumps against his arm became real whacks as he grew impatient with the adult’s lack of response.

‘Alessandro?’ Her voice was husky. The intensity of his stare as he looked down at his son made something flip over in her stomach. Anxiety walked its fingers down her spine.

‘I’ll arrange for the necessary tests to be done as soon as possible. Someone will ring you tomorrow with the details.’

‘Tests?’

He didn’t even turn at the sound of her voice, but he did lift Leo a little closer, winning himself a gurgle of approval and a spate of excited Leo-speak.

Carys watched Leo lean up, patting both hands over Alessandro’s square, scrupulously shaved jaw. A squiggle of emotion unsettled her, seeing her little boy with the man she’d once loved.

If only circumstances had been different.

No! It was better she knew what sort of man Alessandro was and that in his eyes she could never measure up.

‘DNA tests, of course.’ He flashed an assessing look from slitted eyes. ‘You can’t expect me to take your word this is my son.’

Her stomach went into freefall.

She’d fought so hard to have Alessandro acknowledge his son before giving up in despair. Yet now she felt fear at his sudden interest. Fear at what this might mean.

Leo was hers. But if Alessandro decided he wanted him…

She found refuge in stormy anger. ‘Distrust must be your middle name, Alessandro.’

The idea of him seeking independent scientific proof was a slap in the face.

Especially as he’d been her only lover.

His distrust tainted what they’d shared, reducing it to something tawdry. Her skin crawled as she met his glittering gaze and felt the weight of his doubt.

His fiery green stare scorched her. ‘Better distrustful than gullible.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

THREE days later Carys received a summons to the presidential suite. David, her manager, relayed the news with a quizzical look that made the blood rise hot in her cheeks.

‘Moving in exalted circles, Carys,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t hurry back.’

She was aware of the other staff, watching surreptitiously as she pushed her chair back and stood up.

Carys had been a bundle of nerves for the past few days, ever since Alessandro had pulled strings to have the DNA tests taken in the privacy of her flat. Another reminder, if she’d needed it, of his enormous wealth. His ability to get what he wanted.

The technician had been friendly, talkative despite the marked silence between Carys and Alessandro. She’d seemed oblivious to the atmosphere laden with unspoken challenges and questions. Or maybe the woman was used to the high-octane emotions such circumstances engendered. After all, there’d be no need for mouth swabs and scientific proof if there was trust between a couple.

If a man believed his lover.

Sucking in her breath, Carys straightened her shoulders and took her time walking to the lift.

Alessandro must have received advice from the pathology company. Surely that was why she’d been summoned. No doubt he’d paid for the privilege of getting an ultra-fast turnaround on the lab results.

Her stomach cramped in anxiety.

What would he do now that he knew Leo was his?

The question had haunted her for days so that even when she finally slept, stress dreams plagued her. She woke feeling even more tired than when she went to bed.

The butler was waiting at the door for her, his smile friendly but impersonal.

Had he seen her desperate flight from the suite several days ago? Carys kept her chin high as she forced an answering smile to her lips and walked in.

The lush quiet of the suite engulfed her. Its understated opulence showcased fine furnishings and every modern convenience provided just for one man. It had been designed for the mega-wealthy, the vastly important.

No wonder she felt wretchedly small and nervous as she approached the silent man who dominated the room.

He might fit in here, but she didn’t. Carys was completely, unalterably ordinary. Not by any stretch of the imagination could she be considered special. She’d faced that long ago, before Alessandro had tempted her for a brief, crazy time to believe in miracles.

‘Carys.’ The sound of his deep, slightly husky voice rippled like a sensual caress across her skin. Her reaction, her physical weakness for him, made her hackles rise.

‘Alessandro.’ She nodded. ‘You demanded my presence?’

His head tilted slightly as he watched her, his look assessing but his face unreadable.

‘I requested your presence.’

‘Ah, but when the request comes from the presidential suite we staff tend to jump.’ For some reason she found safety in emphasising the huge gulf between them. As if she could magically erase the memory of the madness that had gripped them last time she was here.

Her gaze flickered to the plump lounges, the wall where he’d held her and caressed her and almost…

‘Please, take a seat.’

To her surprise, he gestured to an upright chair in front of an antique desk. Carys shot him a startled glance but complied. Better this than the intimacy of the sofas.

It was only as she sat that she noticed the papers spread across the desk. ‘You’ve had the test results, then.’

‘I have.’

Carys could read nothing in his voice or in his face. Was he disappointed, angry, excited to discover he had a son? Or, she thought with a sinking sensation, didn’t he feel anything at all?

‘Coffee, Robson. Or—’ Alessandro paused to catch her eye ‘—would you prefer tea?’

‘Nothing, thank you.’ The idea of swallowing anything made her stomach curdle.

‘That will be all, Robson.’ Alessandro waited till the butler left before he turned to her again.

Instead of taking a chair, he lounged, arms crossed, against the desk. He was near enough for her to register his cologne. Her nerves reacted with a shimmy of excitement that made her grit her teeth in annoyance. She wished he’d move away. Far enough that she wasn’t plagued by remnants of the physical attraction that had been so strong between them.

‘What is it you want, Alessandro?’ After days of silence from him, now he expected her jump to do his bidding. It infuriated her.

‘We have arrangements to make. And you need to sign this.’ He waved a hand towards the paper on the desk then reached into his jacket pocket, eyes still holding hers. ‘You can use this when you’ve read it.’

Casually he laid a gold fountain pen on the desk beside a wad of papers.

Carys turned to face the desk. Not lab results after all. A quick look showed her long numbered paragraphs. Dense typescript. Pages and pages of legalese.

Her heart sank. Just the sort of document she hated. She couldn’t deal with this while Alessandro stood so close.

A flutter of panic flared in her breast and she reached out one clammy hand to flick through the wad. The last page had space for her signature and Alessandro’s.

As the pages settled again, she tried to concentrate on the first paragraph, but one of the lines kept jumping sideways so she lost her place.

Damn. Had she brought her glasses? She fumbled in her jacket pocket, aware of Alessandro’s silent scrutiny.

‘What is it you want me to sign?’

His eyes blazed green fire as he watched her from his superior height. Did she imagine a hint of tension around his mouth? A faint tightness between his brows?

‘A prenuptial agreement.’

‘A what?’ Carys’ reading glasses slid from numb fingers as she swung round to face him.

The sober light in his eyes told her she wasn’t hearing things.

‘An agreement setting out both parties’ entitlements—’

‘I know what a prenuptial agreement is.’ She dragged in a deep breath to fill her suddenly constricted lungs, her pulse racing jaggedly. ‘We don’t need one. It’s for people who plan to marry.’

He smiled then. Not a grin. Not even a real smile. Just a brief quirk of the lips that might have signalled amusement or impatience or even annoyance.

And still his eyes bored into her like lasers.

‘We need it, Carys.’ His words were crisp, clear and unmistakeable. ‘Because we’re getting married.’

He reached out and stroked a finger down her cheek. Fire streaked across her skin and blasted through her hard won calm. ‘It’s the only possible course of action. You must have known we’d marry once I discovered the child is mine.’

For an eternity the words hung between them. She stared up at him, lush mouth sagging, bright eyes stunned. Then, like the flick of a switch, animation returned.

‘The child has a name, damn you!’

Carys jerked from his touch, catapulting from the chair and almost knocking it over in her haste. She stood defiant and furious, feet planted squarely and chest heaving.

‘Don’t you ever talk about Leo again as if he were some…some commodity!’

Madonna mia! With her eyes flashing and high colour in her softly-rounded cheeks, energy radiating from her in angry waves, she was stunning. More than pretty. Or beautiful. Something far more profound.

Enough almost to distract him from the important business of securing his child.

Alessandro felt the drag of attraction in his belly, his limbs, his mind. It was the possessive hunger he’d felt for days but mixed with another sensation so deep-seated it rocked him where he stood.

In that moment the careful logic that dictated his decision to marry faded. This was no longer about simple logic. The force that drove him was purely visceral.

She would be his. He would accept no other alternative.

He would have Carys and his son. A wave of hot pleasure suffused him.

‘Of course he’s not a commodity. He’s Leonardo.’ Alessandro inclined his head, savouring the name. ‘Leo Mattani.’

An image of intelligent jade eyes, handsome dark hair and a small determined chin surfaced. His son.

His son!

Satisfaction and pride welled in his chest and—

‘No! Leo Wells, not Leo Mattani. And that won’t change. Marriage is a preposterous idea, so you can forget it.’ Carys took a step closer, her chin rising.

Once more a blast of white-hot hunger shot through him.

What a woman she was! So fiercely protective and proud.

And as a lover…? Alessandro inhaled sharply, breathing in her skin’s warm cinnamon scent. He looked forward to rediscovering the passion they’d shared. It must have been spectacular for him to take the unprecedented step of inviting her to live with him.

But first, most important, he would secure his son.

A twist of deep-seated memory skewered Alessandro, ripping a familiar hole through his belly. Of the feckless way his own mother had abandoned her ‘caro Sandro’ without a backward glance. How selfish greed had triumphed over the supposedly unbreakable bonds of maternal love. She’d put her own salacious desires and hunger for wealth above her son.

Despite Carys’ fiery attitude and her protectiveness, Alessandro knew the frailty of maternal love. The fickleness of women.

He would safeguard his son. Shield him and ensure he never wanted for anything.

The terms of the prenuptial agreement, with its hefty allowance for Carys while she stayed with him and his son, would ensure stability in Leo’s life.

Alessandro’s legal team had worked night and day to make it watertight. The obscene amount of money Alessandro had allocated to buy his wife would keep her just where he wanted her. Where Leo needed her.

With Alessandro.

‘My son will grow up as Leo Mattani. That is not open to debate.’ Alessandro waved his hand dismissively, his expression remote. ‘Any other alternative is unthinkable.’

‘Unthinkable?’ Carys planted her hands on her hips as she stared into the proud, arrogant face of the man she’d once loved. ‘He’s been Leo Wells since he was born and he’s been just fine, thank you very much.’

‘Just fine?’ Alessandro shook his head abruptly, voice deepening and nostrils flaring with disapproval, the epitome of masculine scorn. ‘You think it fine that my son is born illegitimate?’

For a moment Carys stared helplessly into his dark, heated gaze, reading indignation and outrage.

In a perfect world Leo would have been born into a loving family with parents who were permanently committed to each other. But that hadn’t been an option.

‘There are worse things in the world,’ she said quietly, wrapping her arms round her torso as old pain tore through her. The pain of lacerated dreams.

She’d done everything she could to ensure Alessandro had known about her pregnancy. But even if he’d known, even if he’d proposed marriage, nothing could change the fact that he wasn’t a man she could trust with her heart. Or that she’d never fit into his world.

Silence hung between them as he stared down at her.

‘And you think my son will continue to be just fine growing up in a run-down tenement among thieves and pimps?’ One haughty eyebrow rose to a lofty height and Carys felt the weight of his disapproval push down on her.

‘You’re exaggerating,’ she countered, ignoring a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t been able to find somewhere better. ‘It’s not that bad. Besides, I’m planning to move.’

‘Really? And how will you find better premises on your wage?’

His supercilious tone made Carys bite her lip in frustration. It didn’t matter that her salary was the best she could get with her qualifications or that she worked hard for the money she earned. In the long term her prospects were good for promotion. But in the meantime…

‘I will provide for Leo. I always have.’

For a moment Alessandro’s gaze seemed to soften. ‘It must have been difficult, managing on your own.’

Carys shrugged. She didn’t dwell on that. On the fact that her siblings and father, scattered as they were around the globe, hadn’t found time to visit when Leo was born, or afterwards. They’d sent gifts instead. A money box from her advertising executive sister in Perth. A set of children’s books Leo couldn’t read for years from her physicist brother in New Zealand. An oversized fluffy rabbit from her brother at a medical outpost in New Guinea. And from her dad in Canada money to secure the bond on her flat.

They meant well and they cared in their distant, uninvolved way. But how she’d longed for one of them to make the effort to be with her when she’d felt so alone. When depression had vied with excitement and determination as she struggled on her own.

Defiantly Carys met the eyes of the one person who’d had the right to be at her side when Leo came into the world.

But that time was past.

‘I’m used to managing alone.’ Years younger than her siblings, the late child of parents engrossed in demanding careers, she’d virtually brought herself up. ‘Leo and I are OK.’

‘OK isn’t enough for my son. He deserves more.’

Carys compressed her lips, fighting the urge to agree. The doting mother in her wanted Leo to have the best opportunities. The sort of opportunities a working single mum couldn’t provide.

‘What Leo needs is love and a secure, nurturing environment. I give him that.’ She defied him to disagree.

‘Of course he does. And we’ll provide it. Together.’

Had Alessandro stepped closer? His eyes mesmerised and his persuasive dark coffee tone made the impossible sound almost sensible.

Carys gave herself a mental shake.

‘There’s no question of together. What we had is over.’

It died two years ago, when you betrayed me with another woman then accused me of being unfaithful. She didn’t say it out loud. There was no point in revisiting the past. Carys had to focus on the future, on what was best for Leo.

‘It will never be over, Carys.’ His voice dropped to a caress, like the stroke of velvet on bare, shivery skin. ‘We have a child together.’

She clasped her hands before her, horrified to find them shaking. His words conjured images that were too vivid, too enticing, of what it had been like when they’d been lovers.

‘But that’s no reason for marriage! You’ll have access to him, see him as he grows.’ It was a father’s right. Besides, despite the emotional turmoil it would cause her to see Alessandro regularly, it was a relief that Leo would grow up knowing his father. Every boy deserved—

‘Access?’ The word shot out like bullet. ‘You think that’s what I want? What my son needs?’

This time it wasn’t her imagination. Alessandro obliterated the space between them with a single stride. He loomed above her like an impregnable mountain citadel. Unmoving and unforgiving. Utterly forbidding.

She trembled at the impact of his powerful presence. Energy radiated from him. A dangerous undercurrent of power.

‘You have strange ideas about fatherhood. I’ve already missed the first year of my son’s life. I don’t intend to miss any more.’ His clipped words revealed gleaming white teeth as they bit out each word. Involuntarily Carys shrank a little.

‘I just meant—’

‘I know what you meant.’ He paused, scrutinising her as if she came from another planet. ‘Leo is my son. My flesh, my blood. I refuse to be a part-time visitor in his life while he grows up on the other side of the world.’

‘But marriage!’ Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth on the word. ‘The idea is absurd.’

Alessandro’s eyes darkened. His face stiffened and his lips thinned. ‘I assumed you’d prefer that to the alternative.’

‘Alternative?’ Carys’ voice was a cracked whisper as foreboding slammed into her. That look in his eyes…

‘A legal battle for custody.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

CARYS’ fingers twisted into knots as he said the words she’d been dreading. She swallowed convulsively, forcing down fear. ‘I’m his mother. Any court would give me custody.’

‘You’re sure, Carys?’ An infinitesimal shake of his dark head accompanied the words, as if he pitied her naivety. ‘You have a good lawyer? As good as my legal team?’

Plus the Mattani millions to back them up. The words were unspoken, but Carys heard them nonetheless.

‘You wouldn’t…’ Her voice petered out as she met his unblinking stare. He would. He’d do what it took to get Leo.

Jerkily she swung away, frantic for breathing space. For time to marshal her jumbled thoughts. Her chest cramped so she could barely breathe and her head pounded as tension crawled up her spine and wrapped clammy fingers around her temples.

He was wrong. He must be! No court would take a child from his mother.

And yet…Carys stumbled to a stop in front of a massive window commanding a view of the city. Alessandro’s wealth and power were far beyond anything she or her family, if they were so inclined, could gather. He lived in a world of stratospherically rich, privileged and well-connected families. The normal rules didn’t apply to them.

Did she dare take Alessandro on? She should have nothing to worry about. She was a good mother. Leo was thriving.

Yet the poisonous seed of doubt grew.

The thought of their cramped flat in a run-down neighbourhood, the best she could provide on her meagre wage, haunted her. Would that be held against her? Contrasted to the vast resources of the Mattani family?

There were so many ways Alessandro could get what he wanted, even without gaining sole custody. What if he refused to return Leo after a visit? If he kept him in Italy?

Carys didn’t have the resources to go there and demand her son back. She didn’t have the power to force Alessandro’s hand. She’d be at his mercy. Who knew what delays Alessandro could throw up to stop her seeing Leo while their lawyers slogged it out?

A shiver rippled through her and she lifted a hand to her throbbing temple. This was the stuff of nightmares.

The man she’d loved wouldn’t have threatened her like this, no matter how they’d parted. He’d never have robbed her of her baby.

But that man was gone. The realisation felt like someone had carved a part out of her heart. Alessandro had no memory of the happiness they’d once shared. To him she was merely a stranger who had what he wanted.

She longed to hold Leo, safe and warm in her arms. Hide away from Alessandro and his demands.

But there was no hiding.

‘My preference is to keep this between us, Carys.’ His deep voice came from just behind her, making her jump. ‘I wouldn’t choose a court battle. That would be a last resort.’

He expected her to be grateful for that? Hurt and fear coalesced in a surge of desperate anger till her body hummed with the effort of containing it.

‘Well, that’s a comfort! I feel so much better now.’

Long fingers grasped her shoulder, their heat branding through her clothes. She resisted but his grip firmed and she turned.

Was that compassion in his gaze?

She blinked and the illusion disappeared. Alessandro’s face was angular, hard, powerful. He would never back down.

‘You come swanning into our lives and think you can run roughshod over everyone.’ Her words tumbled out so fast they slurred. ‘As if only you know best.’ Carys drew herself up to her full height. ‘Your demands are outrageous. You’ve got no right—’

‘I have the right of a father.’ His cool words stopped her tirade. ‘Remember that, Carys. You are no longer the only one with a say in how our son is brought up.’

Our son. The words were a douche of cold water dousing her indignation. Reminding her how vulnerable she was.

‘I offer you marriage, Carys. Position, wealth, a life of ease. And—’ he paused ‘—a home for our son. He will grow up with both parents. In a secure, stable home. What objection can you have to that?’

‘But we don’t care for each other. How can we—?’

‘We have the best possible reason to marry. To bring up our child. That’s something worthwhile and enduring.’ The words sank into the silence between them as his touch warmed her shoulder. She wanted to pull away, but his intense gaze pinioned her. ‘There is no better reason to wed.’

Except love. The futile little voice rang in her ears.

Carys ignored it. She’d given up believing in seductive fantasies of romance two years ago.

Yet she couldn’t douse her dismay at the matter-of-fact way Alessandro spoke of marriage for the sake of their child. Perhaps the aristocracy were accustomed to convenient marriages, brokered for family or business reasons.

How could she marry a man she didn’t love? A man who’d betrayed her trust?

Her lips twisted ruefully. Look where her fantasies of love had got her!

‘Unless…’ His fingers tightened then dropped away. His head jerked up and he regarded her down the length of his aristocratic nose, his look coldly accusing. ‘Unless you’ve become attached to someone here?’

Carys hesitated, tempted to grab at the excuse. But she couldn’t lie. Once already she’d tried to deflect Alessandro’s interest by pretending to have a boyfriend, but she hadn’t been able to maintain the pretence.

She shook her head, shifting back a pace and turning her head away. He was too close for comfort.

Did he know how distracting he was, standing in her personal space, radiating energy like a human generator? The hairs on her arms prickled just being so near him.

‘Good, then there’s no reason to refuse.’

‘But what if…?’ Carys bit her tongue, furious that she’d begun to blurt out her wayward thoughts. Furious she was even listening to his bizarre reasoning. She must be mad.

‘What if…?’ His whisper made her shiver and stiffen as the warmth of his breath caressed her cheek.

For three heartbeats, for four, Carys remained silent. Then unwillingly she continued. ‘What if one day you meet someone you…care for? Someone you want to marry?’

Even now, cured of the love she’d felt for Alessandro, the thought of him with someone else squeezed her insides into a tortured knot of distress.

‘That won’t happen.’ Certainty throbbed in his words and she turned, curiosity stirring at his instantaneous response.

‘You can’t know that.’

Alessandro’s beautiful, sensuous mouth kicked up at the corner in a mirthless smile that made a mockery of the heat she’d imagined in his eyes moments before.

‘I know it absolutely.’ His gaze held hers till her chest tightened and she remembered to breathe. And still his expression of weary cynicism didn’t change. ‘Romantic love is a fallacy invented for the gullible. Only a fool would consider himself in love, much less marry for it.’

Carys felt her eyes widen, staring up at the man she’d once believed she’d known. He’d been considerate, witty, urbane and, above all, passionate. The sort of lover a woman dreamed about. A lover who tempted a woman to believe in the most outrageously wonderful happily ever afters.

She’d always understood he kept something of himself back. She’d sensed his deep-seated reserve despite the intimacies they shared. A sense of aloneness she’d never quite breached. An aloneness that intensified after his father died and Alessandro withdrew, devoting himself to business. Yet it shocked her to discover the hardened kernel of scepticism behind his charming exterior.

It made him seem so empty.

Had he always been like that? Or was this the result of the trauma he’d been through?

Distress and unwilling compassion burgeoned for this man who seemed to have so much, yet apparently felt so little.

Absurdly she wanted to reach out to him.

And what? Comfort him? Show him compassion? Love?

No! She reeled back, stunned at the depth of feelings he engendered even now.

Her hand, half raised as if to reach out to him, dropped noiselessly to her side.

‘Marriage is a duty,’ he continued, oblivious to her reaction. ‘There was never any question of me marrying for love.’ His scornful tone almost made her wince, recalling how blithely she’d believed he was falling in love with her as she’d fallen for him.

Acidly she wondered how he’d class his interest in other women. Even if he were married, there would be other women. Alessandro was a man who enjoyed sex. He wouldn’t stay celibate just because he’d married a woman he didn’t love. He’d have no qualms about pursuing someone who took his fancy. After all, she’d been his bit on the side, hadn’t she?

‘I believe in marriage for life.’ His words cut through her stark thoughts. ‘Once married there would be no divorce.’

‘A life sentence, in fact.’

‘You would not find it so hard, believe me, Carys.’ A hint of mellow honey edged his words and Carys shut her eyes, fighting the insidious weakness in her bones. He was talking about money, luxury, position, that was all. Not anything important, like the emotions he so despised.

‘You’re not worried I might fall for someone else and want a divorce?’ The words tumbled out in self-defence.

Taut silence reigned as his displeasure vibrated on the air between them.

‘There will be no divorce.’ His words were adamant, his tone rough-edged. ‘As for believing yourself in love…’

Abruptly he stepped in front of her and lifted her chin with his hand. She felt herself fall into the shaded depths of his green gaze. Heat sparked in her abdomen as he leaned closer. A thrill of excitement skimmed down her backbone.

No! She wasn’t making a fool of herself like that again. If he thought he could seduce her into falling for him all over again, he had another thing coming.

Furiously she jerked out of his hold. ‘Don’t worry,’ her voice was icy with disdain. ‘There’s no danger of me falling in love with anyone.’

Once bitten, now cured for life!

His eyes blazed with curiosity. Then those heavy lids dropped, hiding his expression.

‘Good. Then we have an understanding.’

‘Now, just a minute! I didn’t say I—’

‘I’ll leave you to read the agreement.’ He gestured to the papers on the desk as he turned away, obviously eager to go. ‘There are arrangements to be made.’ He paused, spearing her with a look. ‘Consider well what I’ve said, Carys. I’ll be back soon for your answer.’

She hadn’t meant to, but finally Carys was drawn to the elegant regency desk with its fateful document. The thickly worded pages taunted her, evidence of Alessandro’s superior position, of his lawyers and his precious money.

She wasn’t really considering marriage. Was she? Fear swooped through her stomach and her damp hands clenched.

Alessandro couldn’t force her to marry.

He was gambling that a judge would give him custody. More, he was probably bluffing about court action. He wouldn’t…

The memory of eyes flashing like jade daggers in the sun pulled her up short.

He would. To get his son, of course he would.

How had she ever imagined Alessandro would settle for part-time fatherhood?

Stiffly she raised a hand and drew the papers towards her. She settled her glasses on her nose and began reading.

By the third page panic welled. It had taken twenty minutes of desperate concentration and still some of the text eluded her.

She was exhausted after so many sleepless nights and emotionally drained. Even at the best of times her dyslexia made reading solid text like this a challenge. But now…she bit her lip, fighting down angry tears of frustration.

Leo’s future was at stake and she didn’t have the skills to ensure he was protected! What sort of mother was she?

The old, jeering voice in her head told her she was a failure, and for a moment she was tempted to believe it.

She slammed her palms on the table and pushed her chair away. It wasn’t a matter of skills or intelligence. It was simply a disability, exacerbated by tiredness and stress.

Besides—it suddenly hit her—the prenup wasn’t about Leo. It was about her rights and Alessandro’s.

She flicked to the end and found a section, mercifully short, that declared she would get nothing, either in cash or interest in Alessandro’s fortune, in the case of divorce. Relief filled her. That was the heart of it. All the rest was legal bumph of conditions and counter-conditions.

Still, caution warned she should have a lawyer read this before she signed.

Hell! Caution warned her to run a mile rather than consider marrying Alessandro Mattani! Even in a convenient marriage where they’d be virtual strangers, he had the power to turn her world on its head.

But this wasn’t about her. This was about Leo. Leo who had the right to both his parents. Who didn’t deserve to be fought over in a tug-of-love battle. Whom she loved so much she couldn’t bear the risk of Alessandro taking him from her.

Carys blinked glazing hot eyes and straightened her spine.

She didn’t have a lawyer to check the document, but that didn’t matter. She didn’t have a choice.

Heart heavy, fingers tense, she picked up Alessandro’s custom-made pen and turned to the final page.

Carys Antoinette Wells. Such a pompous document deserved her full name. But instead of writing with a flourish, her hand shook so much it looked like the signature of an inexperienced teenager, pretending to be someone else.

The pen clattered to the desk. Carys got slowly to her feet, stiff like an old woman, her heart leaden.

A muffled sound drew Alessandro’s attention. He lifted his head, all too ready for a distraction from paperwork.

These last days Alessandro had found it extraordinarily difficult to give business his full attention. To be expected since he’d just discovered he had a son and was in the process of acquiring a wife.

A renegade spurt of pleasure shot through him. At the thought of Leo. And, more surprisingly, at the idea of Carys, soon to be his wife.

His lips twisted in self-mockery. Two years of celibacy had honed his libido to a razor-sharp edge. That explained the anticipation surging in his blood. Even the freshly recovered memory, visited again and again, of her lying in his bed, dark russet hair spread in sensual abandon, seized his muscles in potent sexual excitement.

Since the accident his sex drive had been dormant. At first he hadn’t given it a thought. All his physical and mental strength had been directed to recovery. Then there were the gruelling hours he’d put in day after day, month after month, to turn around the family company that had careened towards disaster.

Yet as the months passed, he’d realised something fundamental had altered. Despite the temptations around him, he barely found the energy to take out a pretty girl, much less summon the enthusiasm to have one in his bed.

He’d always been a discriminating but active lover. Twenty-two months of celibacy was unheard of.

Was it any wonder he fretted over those lost months, as if something in that time had reduced his drive? Somehow weakened his very masculinity?

Not even to himself had he admitted anxiety that the change in him might be permanent.

Now though, there was no doubt everything was in working order. There was a permanent ache in his groin as he fought to stifle the lustful desires Carys provoked.

His lips stretched taut in a smile of hungry anticipation.

The sound came again. A whimper, drawing Alessandro’s attention. He turned to find Leo stirring in his mother’s arms. She’d refused to let the cabin crew take the boy but had stretched out on her bed with the tot in her arms. They’d looked so comfortable together Alessandro saw no reason to object.

Now the little one was fidgeting and twisting in his mother’s loose embrace.

Alessandro watched his son’s vigorous movements and felt again the cataclysmic surge of wonder that had overcome him when he’d held the boy in his arms. The idea that he had a child still stunned him.

Green eyes caught green and Leo stopped his restless jigging.

‘Ba,’ Leo said solemnly. ‘Ba, ba, ba.’

Alessandro put his laptop aside. ‘No. It’s papa.’

‘Baba!’ One small arm stretched towards him and pride flared. His son was intelligent, that was obvious.

Alessandro stood, scooped the boy off the bed and held him carefully in both arms. An only child himself, Alessandro had virtually no experience with young children. But he’d learn fast, for his son’s sake.

He’d been brought up by nannies and tutors, following a strict regimen designed to ensure he grew early into self-reliance and emotional independence. Alessandro didn’t intend to spoil his son, but he’d ensure Leo spent time with his father—a luxury Alessandro had rarely enjoyed.

He lifted his son higher, registering the elusive scent he’d noticed before, of baby, sunshine and talc. He inhaled deeply and found himself staring into a small bright face.

‘I’m Papa,’ he murmured, brushing dark hair back from his son’s forehead. It was silky and warm under his palm.

‘Baba!’ Leo’s grin was infectious and Alessandro’s lips tilted in an answering curve.

‘Come. It’s time to get better acquainted.’ He turned towards his seat but paused as he caught sight of Carys. She lay on her side, arms outstretched invitingly.

In sleep she looked serene, gentle, tempting.

What was it about her that tempted him when so many beauties hadn’t? That turned him on so that just standing looking down at her, he was hard as granite with wanting. Desire was a slow unmistakeable throb in his blood.

She was the mother of his child, and that was a definite turn on. The thought of her body swelling and ripening with his baby was intensely erotic and satisfying.

But he’d lusted after her before he knew about Leo. When she was a stranger in a photograph.

Why was she different?

Because she challenged him and provoked him and got under his skin till he wanted to kiss her into submission?

Or because of something they’d shared?

Something about Carys Wells made him hanker to believe she was different.

Different! Ha!

She’d admitted she had left him because he’d found out about her with another man. Stefano Manzoni. The very shark who’d been circling, aiming to take a fatal bite out of Alessandro’s company after Leonardo Mattani’s death. That added insult to injury.

The idea of Carys with Stefano made Alessandro sick to the stomach. Had the affair been consummated? Fury pounded through him at the images his mind conjured.

He’d make absolutely sure from now on that Carys had no time to think of looking at another man.

Then there was the way she’d pored over the prenup in Melbourne. Proof, if he’d needed any, that she was just like the rest. She’d been so absorbed, she hadn’t heard him enter then leave again.

Of course she’d signed without any further demur. As soon as she’d read the size of the outrageously large allowance he’d grant her while she lived with him and Leo, she’d been hooked. Just as he’d intended.

The generosity of that allowance had caused a stir with his advisers, but Alessandro knew what he was doing. He’d make sure Leo had the stability of a mother who stayed. Alessandro’s son wouldn’t be left, abandoned, as he had been.

No. Despite her strange allure, Carys wasn’t different.

And yet…there would be compensations.

He looked from her abandoned sprawl and enticingly sensual lips to the chubby face of the son in his arms.

He’d made the right decision.

Carys didn’t know whether to be relieved or astonished that Alessandro didn’t take them to his home in the hills above Lake Como. She’d loved the spare elegance of his modern architect-designed house, built to catch every view with spectacular windows and an innovative design.

Now though, he drove his snarling, low-slung car to the massive family villa. The villa to which she’d never been invited during her months living with him.

She hadn’t been good enough for his family.

The knowledge stuck like a jagged block of ice in her chest as he turned into a wide gravel drive. Her breathing slowed as trepidation filled her.

They passed lawns and garden beds, artfully planted shrubberies, and emerged before a spectacular view of the lake. To the left the villa rose serenely, like a sugar-encrusted period fantasy. To the right stretched Lake Como: indigo water rimmed by small towns and sunlit slopes.

Beside her sat Alessandro in silent magnificence. Six feet two of brooding Italian male. His straight brows and thinned lips made it clear how he felt about bringing her to the family mansion. Clearly she wasn’t the sort of bride he’d have chosen in other circumstances.

The knowledge ate at her like acid. She hadn’t been good enough before. Now only Leo’s presence in the back seat elevated her enough to enter the Mattani inner sanctum.

Carys sensed old doubts circling, the belief that she really was second best, not able to live up to her family’s exacting standards, let alone Alessandro’s.

The sight of the villa, redolent with generations of power and wealth, only reinforced the sinking sense of inadequacy she’d striven all her life to overcome.

‘Your home is very imposing,’ she murmured as she shoved the traitorous thoughts away. She would not go down that track. Only tiredness made her think that way.

Plus nerves about what lay ahead.

‘You think so?’ Alessandro shrugged. ‘I’ve always thought it overdone, as if trying too hard to impress.’ He waved towards one end of the villa, thickly encrusted with pillars, balconies, decorative arched windows and even what looked from this angle like a turret.

‘I hadn’t thought about it like that.’ She scanned the pale silvery-pink façade, taking in every quaint architectural device, every ostentatious finish. Alessandro was right. Yet with its mellow stone bathed in morning sun it was beautiful. ‘Now you mention it, it’s rather like an ageing showgirl, a little overdone, a little too obvious. But appealing anyway.’

A shout of laughter made her turn. Alessandro leaned back in his seat. He grinned as he met her startled gaze. That grin brought back crazy, wonderful memories. Her heart jumped then began pounding against her ribcage as heat sizzled, a long slow burn, right to her heart.

‘You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’d never have described it that way, but you’re absolutely right.’ His gaze met hers and a shock wave hit her at the glint of approval and pleasure in his eyes. ‘Just don’t let Livia hear you say that. It’s her pride and joy.’

‘Livia?’ The surge of jubilation Carys had felt in the unexpected shared moment ebbed. ‘Is your stepmother here?’

‘She no longer lives here. She spends her time in Milan or Rome. But you’ll see her. She’ll give you advice on what’s expected of you. Fill you in on the social background you need to know.’

And you can’t? The thought remained unspoken.

Of course he couldn’t. Alessandro would be too busy with business or with other interests to spare time for his new fiancée. Swiftly Carys thrust aside the idea of his ‘other interests’ and schooled her face into a calm façade.

‘Is that necessary?’ She met his steady look then turned away to fumble with her seat belt. ‘I’m sure she’s busy.’

And she never liked me anyway.

Spending time teaching the ropes to a gauche plebeian whose sense of style began and ended with chain-store bargains would be hell for Livia. And worse for Carys.

‘Not too busy to assist my bride.’ His cool tone reinforced what Carys already knew, that this would be a duty for the older woman, not a pleasure.

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Carys said through gritted teeth and turned away, only to find her door already open. A man in a butler’s uniform bowed, waiting for her to step out.

‘Grazie,’ she murmured, dredging up her rusty Italian.

He smiled and bowed deeper. ‘Welcome, madam. It’s a pleasure to have you here.’

Delight warmed her as she realised she could understand his clear, precise Italian. It had been almost two years since she’d spoken it, but she had an ear for languages. Perhaps because she’d spent so many years honing her memory and learning by heart at school. She’d discovered that was the best way to avoid revising with reams of written notes.

Hesitantly she tried out a little more Italian as she got out of the car. She was gratified when Paulo, the butler, encouraged her faltering attempts. Soon he was telling her about the comforts of the villa awaiting her, including a lavish morning tea, and she was responding.

Carys let him usher her from the car, only to pull up short at the sight of Alessandro waiting for her.

He held Leo, still slumbering, in his arms. For a moment the sight of her son, flushed with sleep and hair tousled, snuggled up against the wide shoulder of his magnificent, handsome father, made her heart falter in its rhythm.

Then Alessandro spoke, fortunately in a voice pitched only for her ears. ‘If you’ve finished practising your charm on my staff we can go in.’

Confused, Carys met his searing dark scrutiny.

‘Now we’re marrying, you need to forget about winning other men’s smiles.’ His grim tone made it clear he wasn’t joking. ‘My wife needs to be above reproach.’

‘You think I was flirting?’ Amazement coloured her voice. She could scarcely credit it. Alessandro sounded almost…jealous.

The idea was preposterous. But the glitter of disapproval in his eyes intrigued her.

She imagined things. Alessandro had wanted her sexually in Melbourne only because she was convenient and shamingly willing. But that was past. Now he saw her solely as Leo’s mother. He hadn’t touched her since he’d discovered his son. Clearly he wanted her for Leo not himself.

Carys thanked her lucky stars for that. It gave her distance. Safety. For if he ever decided to seduce her again, she wasn’t sure she had the strength to resist.

‘I think it’s time we went in and settled our son,’ he said, ignoring her blurted question. He breached the distance between them, consuming her personal space till she found it almost impossible to draw a steady breath. ‘You’ll be tired after the journey and you need rest before this afternoon.’

‘This afternoon?’ Bemused, Carys shook her head.

‘Livia has arranged a designer to fit you for your wedding dress.’ His lips curved up in a tight smile that could have signalled either pleasure or stoic acceptance. ‘We marry at the end of the week.’

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